Summary: I did not die, just to be reborn as a pink little menace whose job is to fangirl over some emo what's-his-name unable pull himself together.

Tag(s): OC, OC-reincarnates-as-Sakura, gender dysphoria

3. beginning with small steps

Haruno Mebuki, as I have experienced in the past five years I have been living as Sakura, was a no-nonsense, stern woman who meant well. When I learned I was Sakura, I was surprised that both of her parents were actually ninja under Konoha, because I was under the impression that they were cannon fodder civilians. I mean, if you think about it, a ninja is supposed to be serious and disciplined about their profession because it was a dangerous path to follow, right? So, logically speaking, if two parents were ninjas, then original Sakura should've acted more professionally after deciding to become a ninja, whether around peers or the teachers because her parents know firsthand what it's like being ninjas. I guess it could be chalked up to the fact that the comic book artist and writer didn't plan beforehand, but it still bothered me, like an itch on a patch of skin you couldn't reach.

I was a firm believer that parents should teach their children well. My previous parents were a little backwater and hardcore oldies who didn't own 'alien phones' of the future, but hey, I think they did a good job raising me from drooling brat to reliable adult.

My mother taught me how to do my own laundry, how to cook for myself – simple dishes only, because anything beyond that would turn into charcoal –, fix any rips in my clothes, handling my money, paying bills, paying tax and manners. My father, on the other hand, taught me how to fix a lightbulb, basic plumbing, ways to fight back for self-defense and respecting others.

Sure, I complained about being grounded and sighed during lectures like any normal, irritated teenager, but I have to admit that they were good at parenting.

Now as Sakura and knowing what the original Sakura was like as a child, or more specifically, when she first chose a profession that pretty much meant danger and death… Well. It made me a little angry that her parents didn't teach her how to conduct herself properly and how rude she was to her teammates.

I don't have knowledge of the entire Naruto universe at the back of my hand as if I owned a Naruto Wikipedia in my brain, but I did watch Naruto when I was growing up, specifically from the graduation until the exams-turned-invasion part. I was a bored elementary school kid, watching television when I had nothing better to do outside and Naruto just happened to be airing.

I remember seeing how idiotic Naruto was, how unappreciative the emo what's-his-name was and how moody Sakura was. If my memory serves me right, I remember feeling annoyed that, in the words of my twelve year old self, how the cartoon was so stupid, because even my class team-building exercises weren't that bad. Naruto didn't think through things and didn't consult with his team, the emo duck didn't even bother to consider the opinions and actions of his team while Sakura changed moods faster than you could breathe depending on who she was speaking to.

Of course, at the age of twelve, I wasn't exactly the most mature person. I was a brat through and through, but I learned a couple of things at school too, you know. My class had a few team-building exercises, otherwise known as the dreaded group projects and members were picked randomly to form a group. There was always that one kid I didn't like, but that didn't mean I went out my way to antagonize them or ignored them when they tried to contribute. It was through sheer willpower that I was able to tolerate them and not strangle them.

"We either work together to swim to land or everyone drowns together", is what my class teacher said and it was true. It was the one phrase that stuck with me throughout my life.

So, in conclusion, Sakura wasn't taught well, their teamwork sucked and frankly speaking, it annoyed me very much because it clashed with my own upbringing and beliefs.

Thankfully, I was self-reliant and my previous mother drilled into me to always do my best.

"Kaa-san?" I called out to her as I came to the living room from the stairs. Mebuki was chopping fruits in the kitchen.

Today, I was wearing a red t-shirt with a pair of black shorts and a pair of slippers. My hair was exactly a copy of original younger Sakura's haircut, but I wore a plain brown hairband to keep the stray bangs out of my eyes. I could've clipped them, but I'm too stubborn to do it. Screw having a complex over a large forehead, because I don't care if the whole world sees it. Males were less self-conscious about these sort of things.

"Yes, Saku-chan?" she asked over the noise of her kitchen knife slamming against the chopping board.

The nickname was also another initiative I took. I told her and my father to call me 'Saku', reasoning that 'Sakura' had an extra syllable that was too bothersome to say. It was yet another half-truth, half-lie because the last part of my name reminded me that I was actually a girl and I wanted the original Sakura and me to be distinct from each other. Sadly, I couldn't convince her enough to get rid of the girly honorific, but hey, I tried.

"I'm gonna go out and play!" I said and you have no idea how glad I am that my Japanese is coming along smoothly. I guess it was true that children learned faster than adults because of their brains were still developing. My worst nightmare since becoming Sakura was being an illiterate ninja. "Be back later!"

"Okay!" she shouted back at me as the noise gradually increased. I never understood why she liked to chop her food so loudly. Maybe it was a ninja quirk and she was trying to channel her violence, who knows. "Come back by evening!"

"Yeah, 'kay, kaa-san!"

Again, I lied, because I wasn't going to go out and play.

. . .

I walked to the playground and was glad that the adults and children alike ignored my presence. It was strange that they would let a five year old walk around unsupervised, but I guess it was because they had ninjas everywhere, so no one was worried about possible kidnapping. The Uchiha Clan was still alive, so that means the police force they had were still up and running. I've seen more Uchihas than I should in my lifetime while walking to the playground. One of them even offered to help me to get to where I am because I was actually lost before finally reaching the playground.

It was actually very easy to get lost in Konoha. There were roads and paths that winded and led to god knows where and some areas were separated like mismatched puzzle parts. It was most likely due to the fact that there was a 'safe' area, which is where most of the people are and an 'adult' area, where the bars and love hotels were. I wasn't stunned that they had such entertainments, because this was a military village and people who are part of the military… well, my oldest brother had joined the military and he would sometimes tell me what they're like. Needless to say, I accepted it calmly, because these sort of establishments were something I had seen many times living in the city and I knew they were essential for the military as it was part of their downtime. End of the story. I wasn't going to go further into the topic.

I also found out that the normal inhabitants will have the routes fully memorized by the time they reach adulthood. It seemed strange, but I quickly understood why. There were no things such as maps (unless they were the map of all the lands) or a notice board that had the entire layout of Konoha on it. It was probably one of the security measures, because Konoha was a military village and any sort of organization that dealt with killing always had enemies. In fact, there were probably spies here and there, in and out in Konoha right now. Maps and notice boards passed information that would allow them to get around enemy territory easily, which was counterproductive. It was interesting to see how different it was compared to the world I used to live in, where information was passed around so easily and none of us did anything like world domination while in this world, people killed for the tiniest of rumors.

I scanned the area, searching for a secluded spot. I found one soon enough and made a beeline for it. It was isolated from the noise and other people, as it was blocked by many tall trees. It was also a good thing that no one liked being alone in such a place, so it was perfect for me.

If I wanted to be a ninja, it didn't hurt to start early. I tried to ask my mother to teach me a little, but apparently, her fighting style, which was her taijutsu, didn't suit me. Her taijutsu consisted of long, strong kicks and a shit ton of proper balance, which were factors that would endanger me. I was still a growing child, which meant that my bones would be too brittle and weak to consider learning this style because the kicks had to be powerful enough to smash boulders. She also told me that my balance would change as I grow older, because my body would change from androgynous to that of a real girl's, which meant that my hips would widen, so I would have to go through the trouble of relearning it if I learned before the time was right.

I could tell that she was happy to show it to me when I asked and that she was disappointed that she couldn't teach it to me yet, because my age was also a problem. I had to wait until I enrolled in the Academy to learn taijutsu.

But there were still other aspects to consider, like ninjutsu, genjutsu and chakra. Ninjutsu was something I knew would wait until I started my education, so that was out. I had an idea of how to form a genjutsu, but I needed chakra to do it.

From what my mother has explained to me, chakra is physical energy and spiritual energy found in the body molded together. She said that she couldn't teach me any ninjutsu because she was more of a taijutsu-ninja, but she promised to teach me basic chakra control exercises after I told her I was interested in genjutsu. Genjutsu was the one ninja art that appealed to me the most because it seemed so versatile, but first, I must master those chakra exercises to be able to form one. I feel lucky that I could control chakra easily, just like the original Sakura who didn't have a hard time doing the tree-climbing exercise.

That didn't mean I couldn't get creative with the basics of the basics. The first chakra control exercise to do, is to balance a leaf on your forehead. Since I've already mastered that, I decided to up the difficulty of the exercise with whatever I could think of.

The first was balancing the leaf while spinning it at the same time. If chakra could make a lead float above your forehead, I'm sure you could manipulate it to make the leaf move to your will as well. Once I was done with that, I decided to stick my hands out and balance one leaf on one hand while spinning them.

After managing to do that, I changed from spinning all of them, to only one of them. From my perspective, spinning them all at the same time was easier than spinning one while keeping the other two stationary. Basically, you need to control what to move and what to not move, which I think is the hardest to accomplish, because the actions are clashing against each other. It's like trying to draw a circle with your hand and making a square with your foot. Humans aren't good at multi-tasking, so it's a little stupid for me to do this when I can move on to the tree-climbing exercise, but I was already halfway doing it, so I wasn't going to quit.

Like I said, I was a little stubborn, even if it was about the most useless things.

"Hey, kid, what are you doing?" I hear a voice from my right.

Oh yeah, I didn't mention that I was doing this while lying down on the ground. I didn't mind, because the ground was actually clear of insects and was pretty clean. Besides, it was going to be tiring to stand up all day to do this exercise. Lazy, but I promise I would get more physical later when the time for me to do the tree-climbing and water-walking exercises came.

My nose itched a bit and I held back the urge to sneeze, because it would be a very violent sneeze, which might scare off the voice. My arms had been laying by my side for a very long time and since I was using my hands to do the exercise, I couldn't do anything else to prevent the sneeze other than pretending the itch didn't exist. Actually, I think I lost track of time when I was too engrossed in trying to challenge myself. I was the type of person who got sidetracked very easily.

"Balancing leaves." I deadpanned, thinking that it was obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes. The voice belonged to a man judging by the low tone but I couldn't see how he looked like because I had to stay still to continue the exercise.

"Yeah, I can see that." He told me with amusement. I held back an urge to snort. No shit, Sherlock. "But the Leaf Concentration exercise is placing a leaf over your forehead and directing all of your chakra onto the leaf. You've been balancing three leaves, spinning all of them and then spinning one. Why?"

"Challenging myself." I replied truthfully. He did imply he had been watching me, most likely since the beginning, so might as well come clean. It wasn't going to change anything if I lied either, because why would I even lie about something as pointless as this? "Wanna be a ninja, but I can't learn taijutsu or ninjutsu yet, so I thought I should start with chakra control."

"You a civilian?" he pressed onwards. I didn't know who he was, but he sure was being nosy. I tried not to let my exasperation show, because he was only curious. He wasn't interrupting my exercise on purpose and it helped me practice on multi-tasking.

"Ninja parents, no clan." I answered as I struggled to maintain my hold over the leaves. I almost spun the leaves at my hands. Never in my life had I thought multi-tasking to be so hard.

He chuckled. I didn't know if it was because he found my struggles funny or because of what I said.

"I wish my boy was that hardworking." He remarked offhandedly. I wanted to tell him that real five year olds weren't like me, because I'm an anomaly as I had an adult mindset. I was the cheat code of the Naruto universe.

"I believe in starting early." I struggled a bit more before I finally spun the leaves at my hands. I sighed wearily as I stopped using my chakra and let the leaves land on my forehead and hands. It was about time to go back anyways and I had to stop before I passed out from exhaustion. The Uchiha might think they stumbled upon a dead body if they saw me. I rather save everyone, including myself, from the trouble. "The early bird gets the worm and all that jazz."

"Never heard that before." He said and I could feel his intense gaze directed at me. If looks could burn, I'd be a charred corpse right now.

Oh right, what I said was an English proverb.

"Made it up." I replied glibly. There was no copyright police to sue me anyways. "Well, I gotta go, or else kaa-san is gonna kill me." I grimaced at the thought of facing an angry, frying pan-wielding demon if I was slightly tardy in any way.

"Then I shouldn't hold you back." He said and I finally got up from the ground and took a good look at him.

He had long tied up spiky hair, two scars at one side of his face and a goatee. From the vest he was wearing, I knew that he was a jounin, but there was just something about him that made me somewhat recognize him. Maybe he was a character I forgot?

"Mothers are very troublesome." he laughed and it sounded like I was missing a joke. I just squinted my eyes at him, wondering why he looked so familiar. "Before you go, what's your name?"

I gave up trying to know, because it was making my brain hurt.

"Haruno Saku." I used the name that I identified myself with. If my mother or father was here now, they would have a fit. Good thing that mother was still at home while father went off on a border patrol. "You?"

He smiled and I couldn't help but feel that it was kind of mischievous, in the way that made you want to run for the hills and never look back.

"I'm Nara Shikaku." he responded and he looked like he expected to react in some way. I was confused. "See you at the Academy next year then."

"Err, okay. Bye." I said back awkwardly before walking out of the shady area.

Unfortunately, I only realized that I talked to one of the major clan heads by the time I reached home.

Whoops.

A/N: So, OC/SI!Sakura will be using Saku as their name and also male pronouns. If I ever write a chapter or a part where it is not in his point of view, there will be some who refer to him with his preferred pronouns while there will be some who will refer to him as a girl with female pronouns.

Btw, if you have noticed, the summary has been changed. Apparently, the previous summary was violating one of the general rules, because summaries are supposed to be written with a K-rating, no exceptions. Thanks to Qoheleth for informing me!

Thanks to general zargon, Suzululu4moe, Enbi and LeechPrincess for reviewing the previous chapter!