As a medic, Sakura was trained to assess situations as fast as she could to save lives that were just one breath away from death. It was always a combination of place, time, circumstances and the unknowns that could react with each other if she wasn't thoughtful enough when making the final decision.
That's why, when Kaguya had been ready to jump to another dimension and escape the last attempt of Naruto's and Sasuke's sealing, she knew there wouldn't be a different outcome here.
Four shinobis were the last standing against a goddess, only three will go back home.
The stakes had been too high and, at the end, she swallowed the hard decision and took action.
The one thing she had hoped for was to avoid the devastation her death will bring to Naruto. She had made her peace with Sasuke, but that never stopped the ache in her heart when she thought about him.
Sakura's only wish was… that at least these two idiots would finally stop their stupid fighting and go back to being friends.
Her only wish.
'I'm sorry… everyone'
As a last spiteful move, the pink-haired kunoichi took Kaguya by her only remaining horn, and held her right there to stop any more attempts of escape.
The heartbreaking scream of Naruto had been her last goodbye before pain crossed right through her chest.
'I'm sorry'
And everything just turned black
"... Probably a light concussion, but she'll get better"
Dizziness was her less than pleasant welcome only to be followed by a splitting headache. It was blindly painful and for a brief moment, Sakura was sure that her skull was cracked open like an egg instead of suffering a light concussion like the voice seemed to have assumed.
The pink-haired girl was ready to puke her guts out when out of nowhere, hands held her head and she could only hear a constant and fast heartbeat right at her ear. It was a comforting sign but it had yet to have the desired effect of calming the pain down.
Until she felt something warm cascade out of her nose. The taste alone let her know that it was blood but the headache subsided and finally she could see better where the hell she was.
It was an infirmary, very rustic and small, with only 3 beds besides the one Sakura was resting at and right at her side was an older woman, looking at her with immense worry in her eyes. Somehow she had a recollection of her as Granny Ikeda, making her chest bloom in warmth at how easily the girl associated the older woman with safety.
But how? She didn't know her… did she?
"Oh Little Sprout, you gave us a horrible scare there" Granny Ikeda said to her while pulling a green handkerchief to wipe out the blood she still had in her face. Clear gentleness in her hold to avoid hurting her. "How are you feeling? That hit in your head was quite hard"
"U… umm… I'm… I'm better now" Sakura wasn't even sure what to say. One moment she died in the middle of a war and the next thing she knows is waking up at a small infirmary with a granny that she had never seen in her life and yet felt a thigh sense of familiarity.
Something was wrong. Oh so horribly wrong.
"Well, Little Sprout can stay the night only to make sure that she is fully healed, Granny Ikeda. You have nothing to worry about" the voice said and finally Sakura could place a face over it. The doctor of the village (how did she know that?) was looking over them both with warm and kind eyes framed by glasses in… uh… in the form of ducks? What?
"You are so kind, Dr. Kamo." was the old woman's reply, already tucking away her dirty handkerchief in her purse and immediately looking at Sakura's direction with sternness. "Behave with the nice doctor, Little Sprout. The whole village was worried about you and I still have your favorite dessert at my home waiting for you"
The pink-haired kunoichi had never been a stranger to kind gestures, especially growing up with someone like Naruto who had a tendency to bring the best out of people, always ready to mingle himself in things that usually weren't of his concern for the sake of helping others. It was a trait that she had admired from the blond and tried her hardest to assimilate on herself, but this situation kept getting weirder and weirder and if there was something the girl never had was unlimited patience.
She wanted to snap at both adults and demand answers because nothing made sense.
But then Sakura got a glance at her hands, and understood that this shit was even worse than what she had expected, because right in front of the kunoichi were the chubby arms of a toddler.
During her short stay at the infirmary, Sakura catched up fast to all the shitshow that was going on.
First and the most important was that… Somehow… she had reincarnated. Usually, self-awareness came when one hit their five years of life at the peak point of development, but instead of that, what this child version of Sakura got was a nasty bump on her forehead and a concussion that had managed to wring her brain hard enough to make young adult Sakura to emerge from the child's consciousness.
Could it be that dying in a different dimension fucked everything up? Maybe.
There were too many facts to consider that helped in nothing and the small kunoichi needed to sort all this out before…
Before what?
'There's no war anymore… I died… and somehow I got a second chance against my will… What's that supposed to mean for me now?'
This was literally a blank space for her to go and build her life however she wished. There was too much on her plate and this was a situation that she never expected to be confronted with. No affiliations to anyone to pledge and follow or friends to get closer to (if the memories of child Sakura were any indication of it).
Granny Ikeda was the closest thing the pink-haired girl had to a guardian, but it seemed that the whole village had gone on their way to help raise her even when she technically counted as a 'street rat'. Being orphaned was a new one for her, making Sakura think if this was some divine punishment by the way she had treated Naruto in their younger days back at the Academy.
The instant the doctor had left her alone, it was when the young girl had gotten up and searched everywhere for information that could help her get her bearings. Lacking details in these situations was anxiety-inducing and Sakura had never felt comfortable at the notion of not knowing something. She will never stop being a nerd, it seems.
Very few books had at least some explanations that gave context, like the fact that she lived on a small island called Lupa in what was referred to as the Grand Line. Some words made no sense but now she could at least have a point of reference to start searching for more.
Sakura hoped that there was a library in this village.
This should have been expected.
The personality of this child before the kunoichi made her abrupt appearance among the living was that of a sunny but shy little girl, always trying to help others in exchange for food or shelter. Now the villagers seemed unnerved that the kid not only seemed confident in her stride (looking more like a soldier than an infant), but from one night to the next morning she had gained the ability to write and read on the same level as their smart doctor.
So yeah, Sakura understood that this was less than ideal since it was the opposite of discreet, but it was better than keep pretending until she decided what to do with her life from now on.
It took her two months before she had finally gathered all the context of this world, to the bewilderment of Granny Ikeda and Dr. Kamo, who were the last ones to see her after her accident that fateful day; unable to provide any logical explanation at her drastic change of character to the people that asked about her.
From all the dusty books she read, Sakura felt a bit disappointed that even in a whole new world and new life, old people seemed to still be in charge and making a shitty job at it like the council back at Konoha had done.
The World Government did an impressive job at grossly painting themselves as the saviors of society and good guys in most of the history books Sakura had gotten her hands to, omitting a wholeass century between pages with such cynicism that it was ridiculous. At least the kunoichi could get behind the idea of the use that the Marines served. Law enforcers were always needed, but here it seemed more like they were just a bunch of bullies at the beck and call of the old farts in charge.
The lesson of Kakashi-sensei of 'look underneath of the underneath' came in handy here.
After the information gathering, Sakura came with a new goal once she found out how dangerous this world was.
Training was long overdue.
Chakra control was one of the very few talents that Sakura had been able to grow at its fullest potential and that had been mostly thanks to Tsunade-shishou, but the kunoichi didn't start to train with her chakra right after when the Fifth accepted her as an student.
No, her shishou had decided that the first thing in the agenda was to thrash her around like a rag doll and throw huge boulders at her as her first lesson: Don't rely solely on power alone.
As much as the pink-haired girl was itching to find out if she could still pull chakra through this tiny body, she knew that training her stamina and strength needed to be first; she couldn't even be sure if she will ever be able to do any jutsu so at least she would be ready to defend herself in the traditional way.
She had decided to start by running all mornings in a hidden track at the back of the village, each day increasing the distance and only barely pushing herself too hard to avoid serious injury or overexertion. It went like that for two months until Sakura decided that it was time to put some weights in the true Lee style. Having been small in stature all her life, the pinkette knew that her greatest advantage was her speed and agility, so she focused on that as much as possible until she could escalate the bet.
It was actually incredible how fast the villagers got used to this new Sakura (or Little Sprout, as they kept calling her), going back to their usual routine without a hiccup at the odd orphan that they were used to see shyly asking if anyone needed help with their garden or any heavy bags.
Now most of the time, Sakura is only dedicated to help Granny Ikeda without even asking, taking in the comfort that the old woman's presence did to her still-toddler brain while simultaneously helping Dr. Kamo to get herself some first peeks at how medicine worked here.
"Um… Granny Ikeda?" said timidly the pink-haired girl one morning while helping water the peonies and daisies at the front of the older woman's home.
"Yes, my dear?"
"Can… Can I be called Sakura?" there was a small pause, not sure if she should continue. "I want it to be my name" she finished finally with more certainty, determination shining over her green eyes.
Little Sprout had been a cute nickname to be called but it wasn't what she was used to, so Sakura decided that the only thing she wished to keep as a grounding link to her old life (the family she had, the friends she loved) was her name.
Granny Ikeda simply smiled with her beautiful warmness.
"Of course, Sakura"
The child didn't realize that she started to cry by only hearing her name after so long with a tone so full of love.
She should have expected this, honestly.
If her past life during war teached her anything, it was that when things seem to be going good, the universe will throw you a colossal 'fuck you' in the face like it had some personal grudge against you.
And it seemed like this rule still applied to this world too.
From being a six year old toddler since she woke up here, Sakura managed to grow up a few inches after a few years, all her training paying off except in the chakra aspect. No matter how much she meditated, concentrated and practiced, the pinkette wasn't able to get that extra pull within her core.
It felt a lot like unclogging a particularly stubborn dam at a wild river. The very nostalgic sensation that she immediately recognized as her very chakra felt like lead, as if something similar in nature and yet very different rested heavily over that familiar energy that she missed so much to pull at the tip of her finger with the same simplicity as breathing.
She had done as much possible in both physical and spiritual training to see if any of that worked, with not an actual result beyond just barely poking.
The frustration eated her for months.
Now, at 9 years old, the green eyed kid could easily carry triple her size (she couldn't find the logic behind that, but didn't complain either) without breaking a sweat and yet it fell so far to what she used to do with her monstrous strength back at her former prime along her medical ninjutsu. The lessons that Dr. Kamo gave her were ample and useful to its extent, but even Sakura was aware that such practices could be improved and evolved if given more information and time; something that had surprised the older man with how much information she absorbed as a dry sponge.
And it was precisely in one of those days where Sakura tried to pull once again her chakra to close a small wound on her knee that she heard it.
The alarm bells.
Lupa Island was being invaded by pirates.
This was becoming a bad habit of hers; waking up in a strange place with a nasty injury (or injuries in this case) and with little recollection of what the hell happened.
Her entire body hurt like hell, soreness running to every inch of muscle and her mouth still tasting like blood was one of the few indications that maybe she had dreamed those three years of being trapped in the body of a little girl, up until she once again glanced at her hand.
Oh, so she hadn't dreamed that.
She seemed to be alone in this infirmary, but the place looked bigger than Dr Kamo's office and that only made her feel incredibly vulnerable.
Had she been captured? Was she a hostage? A prize? What did they want with her?
If only she could remember that empty space within her memories.
"I see you're awake, brat"
Damn, she still must have been pretty disoriented if she didn't hear this man walking through the door. Sakura stayed silent for the sake of seizing up this newcomer who didn't seem to care about anything beyond the rice cookies he kept munching.
"Not a talker, huh? Fine by me, it's not like you can leave that bed after you properly healed" the guy looked pretty old, graying hair already dusting a great deal of his hair and beard along a big scar adorning the side of his face which hooked close to his eye. Even when there were already clear signals of his aging, the old man was incredibly broad. A physique like that only meant years of rough training; a fighter that has been made taut through many battles.
She needed to be careful with this one.
"Now, pinky… I'm more curious about how a small fry like you managed to defeat more than ten pirates on her own?"
Oh, so that had been what happened?
"You got the spitfire and the mean punches to back it up" he kept talking, the crumbs of the cookie falling over her blanket, making her frown in annoyance at the mess.
"What do you want?" blunt and to the point. She didn't care what this old man had to say beyond what she needed.
"Bwahahaha! Now that's more like it!"
They seemed to hold a silent battle of stares in that instant; his were unmoving like a mountain and absolutely blank. Sakura couldn't get a read on this guy and that only made her even more nervous, but she refused to back down.
But against all logic, whatever the old man was looking for in her own eyes, seemed to satisfy him because he bursted loudly in laughter once again, hand slapping his knee as if she had told him a really good joke.
Sakura found herself completely confused and bewildered. Was this man crazy?
"I like you, kid! Say…" he got closer, to her unnerve, and looked at her in a better angle to be face to face. "Wouldn't you like to be a marine?"
What?