We've seen all kinds of Naruto SI by now, so I'm once again trying to frame everything in a different manner. It will be hard as hell to hold myself back from making our MC instantly overpowered, mostly to avoid having a Chunin Exam Crush that blossoms into fights that the MC does not win without any reason for it, or a canon that keeps happening despite the clear changes brought to the causes of the later events.

This fic's idea starts in the wake of 'With the Eyes of God', meaning that I've begun 'Temari's path', a 'Turle's race', 'Breaking the Cycle' and I've taken back in hand 'Empire of Sand' just to see what I can do with those without making every story a different copy of one of the others.

So, I'll be derailing canon as I always do, in a way that tries to make sense, as I always do.

The first chapter is the first step up, as I always write: it'll be interesting to see where this story brings me. I also don't want the MC to be a copy of the character they get put in the place of. I mean, what's the point of writing an SI in a character well described in canon, if he's going to be just another copy?

Frankly, I don't expect someone new to the world of Naruto to read this story, so I'll be very light on the aspects that anyone familiar with this fandom would otherwise find boring.

As always, review and tell me what you think.

Headstart

The sky was of a cloudless, sharp blue that instinctively summoned happiness, which coupled with the sun merrily shining above Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, made the day a perfect one to play outside. The leaves of the many trees rustled in the wind as the thinner branches swayed about, while the wider parts of the plants rarely gave a deep groan: none of those sounds disturbed the children mucking about.

All of that was part of the white noise they had grown up with. Raised within the village since birth, they were used to the distant but present visage of the Kage's head sculpted into the inner cliff of their home, they were reassured by the countless dancing leaves that always fluttered about, the swaying grass and the dirt roads that let them rise small clouds of dust as they ran with all of their power.

Of the many parks of the Village, which held within its high walls an extraordinary number of people, the one not too far from the Academy was bar none Yamanaka Ino's favorite.

There was a nice set of swings, a wide stretch of flowery grassland surrounding the park in its entirety, some slides, a few trees for the more unruly or older children to climb up and down from, and a net-like wooden structure that allowed even the younger ones to quickly rise taller than most adults! There was also a sandbox, and laughter echoed constantly amidst the shifting of feet and the tumbling of those who already pretended to be ninja and loudly shouted the most absurdly fantastic techniques as their hands moved wildly at the end of their shaking arms.

In all of that, Yamanaka Ino squared back her shoulders and raised her chin, because she was there on a mission: she wanted a friend. And not any random friend would do: she already was kind of friends with Shikamaru and Choji, but it didn't really count, as they were the children of her father's own teammates, and more importantly, they were boys.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. Ino nodded to herself as she stomped into the playing ground, her teal eyes scanning about as she steeled her resolve. She wanted a female friend that she could do everything with, and not someone who would only enjoy sleeping or eating. Simply picking someone from the crowd wouldn't do: she wanted a best friend, and not anyone would do. No, I'll get myself the bestest of them all!

Her eyes skipped beyond the thicker gaggles of children, as she didn't want to find a friend only to have to share. I mean, we'll play with other children too, but I want to be her bestest friend too!

And as she looked about, her eyes landed on something that immediately set her off.

A small group of girls were all around a pink-haired one, who was hunched on herself, too afraid to look them in the eyes as the jeers and mocking faces were pointed like kunai at her throat. The ringleader let out a particularly high-pitched laughter as she poked the smaller girl on the forehead, and while she was still trying to fully analyze what she was seeing, Ino's feet were already carrying her off.

So, Ino was already approaching when she saw the sudden, almost impossible, shift.

The frightened, unsure, pink-haired girl blinked, and as her eyes opened, the crystal-clear glass-green of her irises seemed a tad bit darker, deeper, if not murky. And with the instinctive understanding the young Yamanaka had of body language, the kind of thing she fuzzily understood was a point of pride for her family, something that her father had gloated about, she too blinked, suddenly unsure.

The hunched posture of the other girl's shoulders had turned into a squared one, the half-bowing of her spine had straightened out, and fists that had been tugging uselessly, calling in distress as they mauled the hem of her shirt, were instead clenched, ready just as her feet widened and her posture became rock solid.

If she hadn't seen every second of it, Ino would have thought that the pink-haired girl had been replaced with a look-alike.

"My forehead isn't that big, look closer:" the choked requests to be left in peace were abandoned entirely for a voice that only mimicked the fear, for something that could be heard from a mile away as the trap it was, "I bet it's smaller than the palm of your hand!"

The bully however, was not put on edge by the hidden changes in her last victim, she was riding high the glory of her success, and she already tasted the new victory that would fill her once she slammed her hand on the admittedly big forehead of the girl. The invitation was just too good to pass up, the occasion clearly only the first of a long series of head-smacks, and the ignorant little fly eagerly flew into the spider's web.

The hand raised in front of the pink-haired girl's face, just about to smack her, and it was grabbed.

Negligently, joyfully, cleanly as only a simple planned action could be, the pink-haired girl's left hand clamped on the right wrist of the bully, and a shift of the first's torso saw the latter pulled in. At the same time, the pink locks swayed, lagging behind the movement of her head as it crashed violently on her quarry's nose, which let up a somewhat wet squelch along with a crack as it broke, immediately followed by a fountain of blood.

Ino walked away before she fully understood that the same instinct that had pushed her to help the helpless girl was now dictating her retreat from the truly violent one that now stood in her place.

I blinked through the dull throbbing of my forehead and the few drops of blood that the chocked scream of broken-nose bully let out as the painfully invested her, my hand opening and letting go of her arm while my eyes darted around and I felt an odd grin set on my face.

Of all the dreams to have, being in a position to do something tangible against Sakura's bullying, something that helped let out the buried frustrations of when I had been the one being bullied back in high-school, in an extraordinarily cathartic way that combined the instinctive appreciation that any animal could feel for a successful act of self-defense with the knowledge that I hadn't hurt anyone.

There are worse dreams to have. I turned around as the gaggle of girls that had been busy bullying Sakura, instead of charging me as I hoped in order to let me pour some more of my inner vitriol on them, were already inching backward and thinking of running away.

One among the girls tried to fight back only to be kicked in the shin hard enough to make tears swell in my eyes. Stupid open-toe sandals!

Quickly as I could in this incredibly odd dream that saw me piloting Sakura at the exact moment in which many fics had depicted as the full separation of her personality into 'outer' and 'inner', I launched myself forward, awkward, child-sized fists pelting harmlessly the panicking gaggle of bullies as I pushed through the incredibly realistic pain that hit me every time I landed a hit.

But knowing that I would be soon waking up, I kept hounding my unwilling and frightened opponents. At least I have somewhat of a headstart on these fuckers!