Disclaimer: You know the drill. This is a nonprofit work of fiction made for fun. I own nothing!

AN: I've had this concept in mind for a while now and figured I should get it out there while my inspiration is still running relatively warm.

SI into Naruto, but not canon. No no. "Bad fanfic" canon. If that fills you with dread, you're on the right track. Not sure how many and which tropes exactly I will be altering this world with, but to say the least... I'm making a list. I want to come at the idea of a world warped by these tropes in a... different light. So, don't think of this as a story about mocking these sorts of tropes as much as taking many of them more seriously in a rational sense, focusing on the consequences in not a "funny hah hah power fantasy" sense but rather a "holy shit this is actually serious for everyone else" sense.

The idea is to explore a world imperiled by a narrative that exists to worship and gratify a single individual while shaping them into exactly the sort of person to abuse their power. And the SIOC that replaced what would have been the "Banshee Sakura(TM)" is a wrench in the works, who sabotages the glorious NINO's OP fate just by existing... and therefore is a threat the narrative must eliminate.

What to expect?

I will say, before anything else, this is not a "bashing" (ie, making a good or normal character into a bad one out of personal preference) fic, not in a traditional sense. What may appear like "bashing" in some cases is actively Sakura being an unreliable and biased narrator due to being a highly critical and pessimistic person at times, which in this case would be a fairly okay stance, given that she can't really predict whether the people around her are going to even be canon at heart, merely assuming the worst and hoping for the best. However, ask her opinion on a purely canon character, and she'd generally be inclined to admit their redeeming qualities outweigh their flaws, like Kakashi for example.

Which, that being said, doesn't always apply when this fic's premise is as something of a reimagining on the idea of bad fanfics. So, don't expect characters to be flawed based on my personal preference as much as what is considered a very common "bad fanfic" bash or flandarization. Obviously, Naruto gets the worst of the brunt of this warping, but by proxy, whatever "tropes" are used to trigger his "ascension" into that state also mean other characters get the short end of the stick. By contrast however, I specifically want to explore the idea of canon, non-bashed or flandarized characters responding to/having to deal with the victims of such warping, both the direct consequences and those implied by proxy. I don't know if I'd quite call it "deconstructing bashing" as much as treating it as an unnatural and tangible force/threat.

On that note, I am genuinely unsure what direction to go with Sasuke specifically. He's one of the more infamous recipients of trope warping/flandarizing in the fandom, and I actually want to avoid doing my boy dirty like that, just for the contrast (and perhaps irony). Problem being, of course, even canon Sasuke is a rather traumatized and warped, and the symptoms of such are not easy to preemptively solve in a lot of respects. He is, to say the least, extremely vulnerable to the "bash/flanderize" force of this world's Narrative. Though, that also being said, Sakura's "role" in all this is that she has the ability to disturb and rewrite that Fate/Narrative in a way no local could. She can, in essence, "correct" characters in a sense if she pursues the process of deconstructing their trope-warped irrationality and bringing it to their attention... success dependent, of course, on just how deep into the "trope kool aid" her target already is before she gets to them (an outright warped history can make her job radically harder, for example). As an anomaly, she is a beacon of normalization and rationality, which is part of what catalyzes this fic's overarching conflict.

Chapter 1: Anomaly

Honestly, after being reborn in this backwards place, it took her far too long to realize just how screwed she was. At least some part of that, admittedly, was that she simply didn't want to believe it; she had steadfastly ignored the idea that she could be this unlucky. As long as it wasn't in her face, she could pretend things were better. But once the truth hit… It hit hard.

"HOW DARE THAT LITTLE DEMON PRETEND LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED?! WANDERING AROUND IN BROAD DAYLIGHT WITH T-THOSE M-MARKS ON ITS FACE!"

Strike one.

Six-year-old Sakura Haruno could practically hear the capital letters suffusing her mother's grating screech, grimacing as she flopped back on her painfully pink bedsheets and wrapped her pillow around her ears… It didn't help much.

"Now, now, hun, calm down, that thing's not here right now," her father placated to the practically audible grinding of his wife's teeth. This was just embarrassing. Sakura couldn't help her cheeks flushing in mortification at the idea of someone overhearing this. "Besides, you should keep the neighbors and the Hokage's decree in mind." Did they seriously think she couldn't hear them, that she was somehow sleeping with this racket? Frankly, she wondered if everyone and their grandma were this bad or if her glorified 'parental units' were just especially maliciously incompetent. "You need to watch your blood pressure before the Council meets. Look, I'll make your favorite tea."

The Civilian fucking Council.

Strike two.

"I still can't believe the Hokage, himself, is siding with the demon," Mebuki groused, barely mollified but volume doused. There was the sound of sliding chairs, as she presumably found a place at the kitchen table. "I don't understand why we aren't allowed to finish it off."

Why "they" aren't allowed to kill a fucking child? Land sakes, woman. Grimacing, Sakura released her pillow and sighed quietly, her gaze panning over to her bedside desk's contents. Pursing her lips, she finally snagged a pencil from atop it and began fiddling with it while continuing to eavesdrop.

Honestly though, she could answer that question well enough in theory… not that she'd actually do it, because there'd be no way to explain how a child her age had any proper conception of such things. It had been far too long, but if she remembered correctly, the seal on Naruto was… supposed to kill the Kyuubi if he died? Maybe? Actually, wasn't that all the more reason to do it? Regardless, the other possibility was that Naruto's death would unleash the beast on the world like the other Tailed Beast hosts were prone to. Given that the latter was probably the more widely held belief, Naruto's death was naturally unacceptable, even outside his use as a potential weapon of the village.

"Well, look on the bright side," her father commented all too cheerfully. "At least you got your licks in before they got around to making the damn thing stronger."

"There is that." She could practically sense the vindictive, sadistic glee in Mabuki's response.

Sakura blinked, the fiddling with her pencil stalling. Did… she just hear that right? Glancing at the clock sitting atop her bedside table, the time 12:47 AM stood out starkly. She'd always been something of a night-owl. Even in this new life, those habits were distilled in her blood. Staying up past 12 was a trivial -even accidental- thing unless she actively put in effort to do otherwise. Which is to say that she'd been wide awake when her mother came storming back in from wherever the hell she'd been this late.

…No actual way.

There was no way she was actually dealing with that sort of cliche opening scene from an outside perspective. Those ridiculous scenes where Konoha villagers would form literal mobs to hunt down and torment a singular actual child. Those mobs that -so long as they don't kill him (and sometimes, not even then)- somehow are allowed to go untouched by the shinobi (clearly committing treasonous actions in their disobedience) that any sane Hiruzen would have set to keeping watch over Naruto. Those mind-boggling shows of malice that Naruto could often only survive through magically having stronger Kyuubi healing and/or getting to meet the damn thing in his mindscape?

Padding her right-hand fingers on her thigh rhythmically, Sakura considered the odds. Honestly? 25% chance, she'd bet, that it was any scenario among: Naruto's guards being non-Itachi-or-Shisui Uchiha, Naruto having a flanderized Kakashi bodyguard that blames Minato's death on him and is only interested in training Sasuke down the line, or Naruto just not having any guards at all for some gods-forsaken reason. The other 25% covered the other minute possibilities, given the direction the evidence was pointing, including the vague possibility that Naruto actually had decent guards who had simply been disabled or waylaid for some reason.

And honestly, after hearing all that, Sakura was tempted to call that Strike Three, but no. All that was sort of integrated among the first two strikes. Sighing, she sat up and kicked off her bed, her feet landing atop hovering, spiritual manifestations bare millimeters from the floor… the result being she made not a single sound as she landed or moved. Well, not footsteps anyway, but the ruffle of her clothing was borderline nothing regardless.

Stepping towards her room's door, she reached for the han-

-reached the top of the stairs. Her parents' conversation was still ongoing, but she'd mostly tuned out by this point. This time, she allowed her feet to make contact with the stairs properly, deliberately applying pressure to a squeaky part of one stair. The creak instantly silenced her parents' discussion, as she padded down into the living area.

She didn't have to fake much tiredness at this time of night, night owl or not, as she rubbed her drooping green eyes with one hand and blinked "blearily" at her parents. "Noisey…"

"Oh! Sakura, sorry to wake you! " Mebuki startled, grinning in a kindly manner that Sakura decided was completely unsuited for the bile she knew was brewing under the surface. By this point, she was used to it, but on this day of all days, she couldn't help but grimace internally at her mother's pink hair and her father's ash-blonde hair. Yet another fundamental inconsistency.

"Why are you complaining about a demon?" Sakura inquired with all the childish innocence and lack of tact that she could manage. Admittedly, it wasn't much, but it was something. She frankly hadn't had the patience from day one to pretend she didn't have an above average head on her shoulders. She couldn't relate with kids, much less tolerate acting like them wholesale.

Her parents briefly exchanged unreadable looks, and Sakura couldn't help but wonder if they were actually stupid enough to answer her question honestly. Her father eventually shrugged, and Mebuki smiled, standing up and stepping up to Sakura. Her smile was all teeth, a mixture of reassurance, excitement and glee. "It's all right, dear. While you'll unfortunately encounter it at the Academy, your sensei will keep it in line and keep you safe."

Mixing a spot of trepidation into her voice -though not for the reasons she was sure her mother thought, Sakura twirled a lock of her annoyingly inherited pink locks, plastered concern on and asked, "W-well, what if I don't want to go to the A-Academy? B-Being a ninja is dangerous, right? Ninja d-die all the time." Not that this was a new state of affairs. Sakura had no inclination to be a shinobi or ride the rails of canon in the first place. Being a hired killer at the beck and call of a military dictatorship? Spending day and night training her ass off for the slightest edge? No thanks. And in spite of that, her mother had signed her up for the Shinobi Academy anyway.

There was a glint in her mother's eyes that she wasn't sure she liked. "Oh, don't be silly, honey~!" It was all Sakura could do not to curl her expression in disgust at the patronizingly sweet tone, like she was being stupid ignorant child that knew nothing. "The Uchiha Clan head's son is going to be in your class, and Sasuke's a handsome little thing~! Make sure to make good friends with him, alright?" Sakura couldn't help being stunned by the utter selfishness of that statement, of the frank absurdity of Mebuki's response as a whole.

Strike fucking three.

Sakura's expression fell flat, as she brushed her mother's hands off her shoulders, unable to help a curdle of disgust at the contact. She felt filthy even being near this flanderized wretch. Looking up into green eyes that shouldn't have been shared between them, Sakura frowned at the oddly perturbed look she received in response.

"Honestly, what are you even thinking?" It took Sakura a moment to realize her childish voice had been the one to voice those words, laced with an unfiltered disapproval and irritation. She pursed her lips and bit her tongue to stop herself from losing control of her temper, as she backed away.

"Sakura?" Kizashi asked.

"I don't want to hear any more about demons or clan shinobi. The things I heard coming out of your mouths? Disgusting," Sakura grit out, before turning around. She dodged her mother's questioning reach and reached the stares, favoring a final glance back at her sperm donors in this world she now was certain was going to go to shit in the most annoying way possible. There was more she'd have liked to say, many versions of the 'reason you suck' speech she'd have been simply elated to level against these… caricatures, but she instead settled for, "Goodnight."

Sakura continued on her way, trying to ignore the absurdity of Mebuki's stricken expression. She'd never really felt any connection to these people in her new life; a baffled detachment slowly turning to annoyance and spite as clues she didn't want to acknowledge piled up. She didn't want to feel sorry for saying what she did. She didn't want to understand her egg donor's position. And she definitely didn't want to understand why the greatest emotion her parents had shown was -more than any hurt- raw confusion…

…like something had just gone entirely off script.

Halfway across Konoha, destiny played its cards.

Inside an open-topped dumpster in an otherwise empty alley, a brutalized young boy was bleeding out. A myriad of broken bones and internal injuries was slowly but inexorably sealing his fate. Truly, the image of a child left to die in the garbage was a pitiable one to behold, unreasonable and cruel. Surely, if anyone were to happen upon this sight, they would find themselves compelled by a heart and personal investment they'd never known they could have.

That "anyone", in this case, was a cat-masked shinobi by the name of Yugao Uzuki, or "Cat" while on job as an ANBU. And she was.

Frustration wracked her with nerves, as she paused to ping the sensory technique again, a ripple of awareness filling the world around her with a plethora of flames, clustered about within the buildings and streets of a world cast in moonlight. Most of the streets were empty, save for the occasional straggler, and several of those few had been grabbed by other ANBU in the area for questioning.

Word of a mob forming near where the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki lived had quickly rallied the ANBU into action, but by the time they got to the area, the event seemed to have passed… and the demon host was missing.

Another ping. More mounting frustration, as the bonfire of chakra Yugao was expecting to find again failed to give a return in her search. That was bad. Even this young, the boy was a chakra monster with more than enough power to have been a full-fledged genin if he simply had the training. Finding him should have been child's play, his presence a mighty titan in an otherwise civilian-dominated area. To not be able to sense him… would have to mean he wasn't here at all… or that he was completely drained of chakra somehow, despite not being trained to use it. And if anything had happened to him, that latter scenario was far more dangerous indeed. Gritting her teeth, she leaped away to the next roof, returning to relying on her mundane senses, as she glanced down into an alley-

-that was empty, aside from some litter and the skittering form of a few rats.

The patter of feet nearby jerked her head up, as her masked face met a similar mask decorated with a far more canine in nature. For some reason she couldn't quite fathom, her hackles rose at the presence of her fellow Team Ro member, like she was a cat with hair standing on end, which, she thought, in a sort of humorously ironic way, was appropriate given their masks.

"Dog," she said simply, hoping her voice didn't sound as snappish as she felt. "Any luck."

The silver-haired ANBU shrugged in a lackadaisical manner that Yugao could only scowl at behind her mask. "I should be asking you that," he drawled.

"No," Yugao definitely couldn't hide all of her irritation that time, given the gravity of the situation. "Nothing is showing up in my search." And it felt like a personal failure. Wasn't she supposed to be a sensor? Wasn't this what her uncommon talent was supposed to be great for? To have this happened in a moment where it was most needed…

"Ah~ well." Her attention snapped back to Dog, as he arched his back and gave a lazy stretch. "I suppose if even our kitty can find nothing, we've done all we can."

"What?" Yugao's brow furrowed at that, as her gaze bored into the dark sockets of Dog's own mask. "Oh course we haven't," she protested. "With the perimeter we formed, there should have been no way for the boy to get through, accidentally or otherwise. With that chakra of his, we should have found him easily, especially…" Her teeth grit. "Especially if he's in as bad shape as those interrogated claim."

"Even ANBU aren't perfect," Dog said almost airily, a strange… smile in his voice? Dog casually put his hands in his pockets and strode towards the edge of the roof, overlooking the alley Yugao had… just passed?

"Kai," Yugao muttered under breath habitually, fluxing her chakra, but no film seemed to lift from her mind, as she scanned the area again, pulsing her sensory jutsu once more. Odd… She could have sworn… Why did she have this gut instinct that she had just missed something incredibly important?

"You say something?" Dog cheerily inquired, glancing back over his shoulder at her, his posture still light and easy.

"No," Yugao replied simply, despite the alarm bells that were blaring in her head with no discernable source.

With something weirdly approaching a pep in his step, Dog swiveled around and walked back towards her, still maintaining a polite -for shinobi- distance. Everyone in ANBU was tense tonight, after all… except him?

No. That couldn't be right.

Shaking her head, Yugao spared a glance back down in the alley she had last checked. Empty, as before. Sighing, she turned to leave with Dog. He was right, she realized. This was Hatake she was talking about here, the man that had copied a thousand jutsu. As if he hadn't already combed this area twice as hard as her and better to boot. She could see why he was calm now; he was simply not allowing himself to be consumed with stress over a lost cause.

That said, a final intrusive thought occurred to her.

"Dog."

"Hrmm?"

Yugao's brow furrowed. "What if this wasn't entirely a civilian incident?"

"Hoh?" Dog's interest seemed to be piqued. "What makes you consider that?"

Even though she was sure a shinobi as brilliant as him had already considered the possibility, Yugao at least wanted to bounce the theory off him. "Because everything T-&-I are getting out of the civilians should have led us to the Jinchuuriki by now. Assuming their testimonies are correct, then the only reason we'd be missing something is due to shinobi interference."

Dog's head tilted, as he mulled over that thought, before nodding. "I suppose that could be."

Yugao nodded back, encouraged to continue. "This Jinchuuriki's chakra is already massive for his age, enough to be a shinobi. There's no way even a poor sensor could miss him as long as they have even a basic ANBU-worthy competence." She put emphasis on her words. "We should have found him." Sighing, she shook her head. "That fact that we didn't tells me something else is at play other than an untrained brat somehow slipping a professional and organized search net woven by the Hokage's elite."

Humming in his throat, Dog shrugged. "Well, assuming you're on to something, isn't that all the more reason we can be sure there's nothing left to find? In the hypothetical case that this theory of yours panned out, of course."

Yugao frowned at the return of his almost patronizing, dismissive tone. "I'd like to think that even a skilled shinobi would have trouble going unseen from our perimeter, especially burdened with a kid." She began lightly pacing the roof, her feet drifting aimlessly, as her mind worked. "But that brings up another question… If a shinobi was involved, then was it an intruder? Unlikely, the village sealing barrier should have detected them, and if they knew how to get past it?" Her voice became grim. "No matter which case it is, it'd have to be an inside job. Either due to inside collaboration, or due to an entirely internal element acting in pursuit of their own traitorous interests."

She was standing on the edge of the roof again, having traversed back the way she came, as she shook her head and glanced back at Dog.

Dog shook his head with a sigh. "You seem to be making a mountain out of molehill here."

"Am I?" Yugao wondered aloud. Her heart was pounding in her chest, she suddenly realized. She was worked up, and she couldn't quite understand why she'd become so riled. It wasn't like something on the tip of her tongue, like something she was trying hard to remember. No, it was like her body instinctively understood something her mind couldn't.

In ANBU, trusting your instincts was an important skill. Of course, presuming you had first honed those instincts to respond a certain way, but… Well, it wasn't paranoia…

Something caught her attention in the corner of her eye.

… if they really were out to get you.

A dumpster.

"Or what if…?" Yugao's mind continued to whirl with possibilities. "What if the shinobi conspirator never intended to move the Jinchuuriki away…"

She couldn't quite see inside the dumpster at this angle. It was at the far end of the alley from where she was standing, but… Now that she was over here, she was picking up something else, something her chakra sensing hadn't. A scent.

The stench of blood.

"What if," she mused in half a daze, her attention paradoxically hyper-fixating on her conclusion. "What if the goal was… simply as petty as the civilians? To make him suffer for falsely perceived offenses… even die in the worst case." She took a step forward. "They didn't try to move him, because they knew they'd be caught. Instead, they just tried to hide him, to make sure the search failed and he suffered more. But in order to do that, they'd need to be able to hide his chakra and hide him from the sight of Lord Third's scrying jutsu." Another step. It felt like the smell of blood got stronger with even this much additional distance eliminated between her and it. "And the only way to do that would be sealing techniques. If it were an inside job, there's only so many people that could be capable of this, but also… Dog, don't you smell that?"

Dog's silence eventually dragged her attention back to him, where he stood at the other end of the roof, completely unmoved throughout her monologue. Tilting his head, he asked with an unbefitting ignorance, "Smell what?"

Yugao didn't answer, suddenly struck with a cold sort of dread. A chill rippled up her spine, as she suddenly felt the powerful impulse to flare her chakra as long and loud as she could, to perform the most destructive jutsu she could manage right here and now, to do anything to draw the attention of the rest of the search part to this location.

And why was she certain she would die if she tried.

In the corner of one half of her vision was the dumpster, one she was certain the stench was coming from, and in the other, Dog stood, terrifyingly casual as always. Now that she thought about it… Now that she considered it… Hadn't he been assigned to the Jinchuuriki's watch team tonight? And she knew for a fact that none in the team had a stronger nose than him. If she could smell this, what other reason could he possibly have to blow her concerns off than-?!

"Hey…"

"Mah mah~," Dog shook his head almost disappointedly at the rooftop. "You really should have just reported all that to the Hokage privately, you know?"

Yugao tensed, as her mind worked. She dredged up her memories of the most recent moments of her search and came to a single cold conclusion: she didn't remember passing that alley with the dumpster. She was certain she hadn't simple "glazed over it", which meant she had been made to forget, and one of the few ways someone could do so with ease was-!

Dog's gaze rose to meet hers again, and she realized with a sudden paralytic chill that one eye socket almost seemed to glow crimson with the wheel of the Sharingan. She tried to shut her eyes, but control of her body deserted her. Her vision was blurring, thoughts becoming muddled, as a film seemed to gum up her senses with what some distant part of her would have recognized as countless Genjutsu. Another part of her wondered if she hadn't been under a Genjutsu from the moment she saw him…

"You really are too smart for your own good, but I truly do commend you, from one ANBU-worthy shinobi to another. Don't worry; I'll make sure this doesn't affect our working relationship going forward. Neh, Yugao-san?"

Awakening several buildings away to the unfortunate surety that the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki was long-gone, ANBU Cat continued her fruitless vigil long into the morning, never recalling speaking to Dog at all that night.

And the boy remained unfound, as he...

Shouldn't ... have been?

How vexing. Not according to plan.

The boy, having awakened a secret bloodline, should have been found, healed and trained, but...

It could work with this.

The state of the Haruno household became fairly room-temperature after their disagreement. Sakura didn't even try to pretend she'd forgotten their conversation the next morning… nor the morning after, nor for the week after that. Her interactions with her parents became distant. Detached. Whatever illusion she had labored under that this was somehow a bad dream, that she hadn't gotten the short end of the stick, was dispelled, and Sakura couldn't find it in her to pretend otherwise. Her isekai adventure was looking unluckier by the second, and she… was going to have to stop procrastinating and tucking her head in the sand, huh.

Reluctantly, Sakura began physical conditioning. Privately, of course, as she didn't want to encourage her parents' delusions, but start, she did. It wasn't a lot as a start, just running a little more at the park and doing morning stretches and minor strength exercises, but she knew chakra would let her recover faster than she should, so she wasn't worried about overdoing it… too much. She wanted to believe this was ridiculous, that she could escape this and go to a normal civilian school, but disregarding the chance to be even a little prepared in the case she couldn't? That would be pure foolishness.

But as the weeks passed into a month, however, Mebuki still hadn't once relented on the idea that Sakura was going to the shinobi Academy, no matter how much disinterest the girl showed. The woman didn't even seem to consider the possibility that this wasn't a thing that was happening, like she somehow could not conceive that any other eventuality would come to pass. It was weird in a way Sakura couldn't quite fully describe, but the result was clear enough: resistance was futile. And so, given that she wasn't really in a position economically to put her foot down -nor stubbornly motivated enough to run away or some nonsense, Sakura resigned herself to the inevitable.

Today was an experiment, Sakura had decided, as she loitered on the outskirts by the treeline of one of Konoha's public playgrounds. The morning was cool and overcast, enough to provoke many -including Sakura- to wear a scarf and bundle their hands in their pockets. The chattering and screams of brats throwing dirt at each-other and playing "ninja" was quickly resigned to background noise. Pursing her lips, Sakura spared a glance at Mebuki, who was -perhaps not unexpectedly- shamelessly chatting up another mother, quite possibly some minor clan member or another. Sakura didn't know, and she really couldn't possibly have given a shit. The only thing that mattered was that her mother was occupied.

Sakura disappeared into the bushes, casua-

-into the clearing she'd "scouted" prior in a sense.

It wasn't too far away from the park proper. She could still hear the nattering of other kids, after all, but at this distance, she could more easily tune them out.

So, distraction aside, today was an experiment.

Sakura now had confirmation. Through her parents, she could now be certain this world was even more unreasonable than she had originally assumed. The hair color switches. The garbage attitude. The fact that it wasn't Sakura but her mother who was responsible for pushing the chase of Sasuke and her becoming a shinobi at all? All these things were but scratches upon the surface of what must have been a deluge of filth.

So, the world was unreasonable.

Fact.

The original world of Naruto had already been unreasonable.

Also fact.

It was a world of loose rules that got even looser every time you turned your back, and that world twisted even a little by fanon bullshit? Well, that just made things catastrophically more dangerous. For all Sakura knew, the Bijuu were somehow actual demon lords. Hell, the kyuubi had an unnervingly high chance of being female. And technically a shotacon. Eugh. And don't even get her started on all the ways Naruto could have been warped by even the smallest change, never mind a world that was actually bad enough for fucking mobs to get away with assaulting him.

But she was getting distracted again.

The point was, chakra was bullshit. This world's power system was bullshit even going by purely canonical means. Chakra was basically magic. There were no two ways about it. It was giving your imagination life and fueling it (ostensibly) through energies produced naturally, physical and mental. And, more importantly, it wasn't nearly as hard to learn as people probably thought. Evidence? Kakashi. Full stop. Genius or not, the brat graduated the ninja academy at age 5 or some bullshit like that. Sakura honestly couldn't remember the specifics. All she knew for sure was that chakra had no age limiter. Anyone could use it, provided they had the will and talent. A fucking 5-year-old could be Genin-tier. Sakura was six, and she was already behind where she needed to be to survive this world. Was it arrogant to compare herself to the creme of the crop in the setting? Maybe. But no-one in this unreasonable world ever got anywhere by lacking ambition.

Staring at her hands, Sakura frowned, trying to imagine a flow of energy underneath her skin. Brow pinching, she found herself a good spot in the clearing and plopped down in the grass against a tree, crossing her legs, and she stayed that way… for a while.

"Uuuuueeeghhh," Sakura whined after what had probably been a solid thirty minutes (judging by the way the shadows had notably moved a bit) fruitlessly trying to 'manifest the power within' or 'feel her center' or whatever the shit. Honestly, she wasn't sure what she had expected. Even as an infant, she hadn't had much luck doing this as a way to combat her raw, unceasing boredom. Sure, she'd spent most of that time sleeping or messing with her quickly discovered Stand and much of the time beyond that being harassed by the over-doting Mebuki, but still.

Scrunching her brow, Sakura tried to find a solution.

Obviously, this wasn't some ridiculous matter like her needing someone else to awaken her chakra for her. Bullshit. Any concept that was a thing was pure fanon nonsense. Chakra coils were a preexisting organ, one that grew naturally with no outside input. Forcing the Eight Gates open wider was one thing, but the body already naturally possessed free-flowing chakra flow. In this world, chakra was a necessity for life. Even Rock Lee had it and could use it for simple, non-transformative things like surface walking and using scrolls.

So, Sakura already had the chakra in her. The only thing she was missing was the awareness. If she had to make a comparison, it was like trying to find an invisible limb, like trying to identify a specific smell her nose had grown to naturally tune out. It was a natural body process, a subconscious flow that she'd had even before she was conscious in the womb. It had existed long before she could even be called sentient, and taking manual hold of it would presumably be like becoming aware of and manually controlling her breathing. She simply had no frame of reference for what chakra was supposed to feel like, either physically or mentally.

So, how was she supposed to overcome that?

Leaning back, Sakura closed her eyes and reconsidered her approach. Clearly, trying to force the issue through "believing it was there harder" wasn't the answer. She already knew it was there. She was simply blind to it. So… what? Alright, take this back to basics. What was chakra?

A naturally-produced energy composed of both physical and spiritual energies, yin and yang mixed, balanced and expelled.

Alright? So, what was mental energy?

The culmination of age, experience, intellect and will. It was the driving force of existence, the proof of sentience. With mental chakra alone, presumably, one could be no less effective than any shinobi that also pursued the physical. That was why the monk sects in this world could meditate more than they physically trained by far, right? Never mind the fact that jutsu existed of purely yin or yang alignment. So, yeah, she got that.

Then, what was physical energy?

Admittedly, she had a harder time describing it, but… It was… health? Presence? It was the anchor of sentience, the "vessel" through which a will acted. It was the… foundation? It was hard work, sweat and tears, muscle and sinew, blood and bone. Where mental energy was an ethereal thing, physical was tangible, present. Where mental energy was the force of existence, physical was the proof. It was part of the world and the world part of it, cultivated by interaction over introspection.

Alright, yeah. That sounded legit. A real philosopher she was turning out to be.

Chakra was a mixture, a balancing act. So how could she actually make use of that knowledge? How could she begin to mix?

Sakura blinked, as a thought occurred.

Was she… skipping a step here?

Of course. She couldn't manipulate chakra unless he could identify and mix the physical and spiritual independently! Or… was that really necessary? She knew Naruto canonically didn't know shit about how chakra actually worked academically, and yet, he somehow managed to make it work with brute force. To him it was step one: make hand seal? Step two; profit?

Were hand seals the key?

No. Ridiculous. Hand seals were a crutch, and Sakura intended to treat them as such. You didn't need hand seals to climb a tree or walk on water. And in her opinion, any shinobi worth their while should be able to do the Replacement technique on a dime without wasting time on getting their hands in position when its whole point was to presumably avoid a surprise hit.

Alright, she was overthinking this.

Return to basics. Think. How could she cheat the system without needing a teacher? How could she get access to chakra before the Academy? What assets at her disposal, other than her presumably monstrously unbalanced mental chakra, could she use to find… it?

Sakura's eyes snapped open. It couldn't be that simple… right?

A hazy pink aura began to drift from her back, as a spectral figure congealed into existence beneath her skin. Closing her eyes again, she focused on that sensation, on the way it felt to access that energy. She followed it as best she was able, slowly tracing back towards its source, until… until…

There?

The sensation ended in a sort of… bubbling core? Not core? Nest? Congealment? Whatever it was, as soon as she found it, she had trouble understanding how she had missed it. The flow of energy within her body, the composition of the aura and figure, she understood now. This was her ticket. She could feel it now, the way that energy practically permeated every fiber of her being. She didn't exactly have a reference, but it felt like there was… a lot of it. Well, part of it, anyway.

This answered some questions, opened up some others and… also put her in a more precarious position.

"I'll need to be careful." Voicing the concern aloud somehow made it more real. Her unique ability, her "isekai cheat", had been tied into the local power system. Whether or not that was incongruous with its origin system? She honestly couldn't say, but it made at least half-way sense. So, here she was. And while that was convenient for her in the immediate sense, it was going to be bad for her long term.

Because if her Stand was made of chakra… that meant it was probably vulnerable to all things chakra. That was already bad enough, but that also meant her Stand was at risk of being sussed out by doujutsu. Hell, for that matter, it might be that literally fucking everyone in this world could see it, since they all had chakra. There were no two ways about it: that was a massive downgrade in her eyes. One of the greatest strengths of Stands was their ability to remain exclusively counterable and perceptible by their own kind, and she most likely didn't have that advantage.

Honestly, it was a miracle she hadn't outed herself already, given the paranoid and observant freaks that infested this world. Probably only due to the nature of her Stand's ability. Actually… who was to say she hadn't? For all she knew, she was already on someone's radar, even-

No, bad thoughts. Manage what you can now.

Sucking in a calming breath, Sakura released her draw on her ability, as the aura faded. But even as it did, she couldn't help but smile wryly in victory. She could still feel the bubbling in her gut, the creeping flow of warmth infusing her entire being, like becoming suddenly, consciously aware of her own body temperature. Chakra. She had it, and she'd found it, all on her own. Ultimately, this was her win today. There were much worse ways she could have had that revelation about her Stand, ones far more dangerous to her interests and life expectancy. She would take that silver lining and move on. There was no use dwelling on spilled milk. What was was, and what wasn't wasn't.

Now then…

Her focus returned inward.

Time to get to work.

Getting into exercise, Sakura had now been quite passionately reminded, sucked.

Gulping air, the pinkette lay in a puddle of sweat and misery in the Haruno household's backyard. She'd long since given up on hiding what she was doing from her parents, as the inevitable crawled closer. Preparing a foundation was going to be essential, and she didn't have the luxury of beating around the bush here.

Grimacing at the feel of dirt getting into places she'd rather it not be in her hair, Sakura eventually peeled herself from the ground, arms feeling like jelly from the latest round of pushups. Her gut ached from situp and legs burned from crunches and laps. Against her better judgment, she had put into practice a simple philosophy: If she still had the breath to complain and curse about her circumstances while she worked, then she wasn't working hard enough.

"Fuck me running."

Well, that's what she meant to say. Instead, it tumbled out in a garbled fumble of consonants and vowels. Huffing, Sakura wobbled her way to her feet and began to perform cooldown stretches, limbering up and pushing the muscles she'd just finished pushing as far as she felt she safely could. For all the insanity that freaks of nature like Rock Lee proved ninja training could comprise of, Sakura wasn't quite arrogant enough to believe her feeble stick figure could handle that sort of thing yet.

Yet?

Sweet Sage above, she was getting infected by the local insanity. When exactly had she become a hard worker? Grimacing, Sakura tried to put those thoughts out of her mind, but honestly, there wasn't much left to distract her with only stretches and a hot bath left on the evening docket. In only the three months since acknowledging that shit was fucked and the only sane thing to do was to train to avoid getting fucked in a personal sense -both metaphorically and perhaps unfortunately literally, Sakura had rediscovered a part of herself that she'd thought had died long ago in her past life.

She'd long since lost that spark, that passion, for martial arts. Life had been too busy, and her mental state insufficient to motivate her to push that little bit harder to continue. She'd drifted and then… just stopped going to lessons, stopped exercising at all. Sure, she was lucky enough to have a body type that didn't degrade in a "balloon"-esce way with a lack of exercise, but she definitely lost something that she could never reclaim back then.

But here and now? In this world, even with the acknowledgement that there was no other choice if she wanted to make something of herself… There was just something… fundamentally satisfying about working out again. Even if it sucked to high heavens, even if it was provoked by her being railroaded by unreasonable sperm donors, the sense of accomplishment couldn't be denied.

Finishing her stretches and shuffling her way back to the porch, Sakura lazily fumbled until she snagged her water bottle and had downed the rest of the contents in a couple long, glorious pulls of the cool nectar. Gasping, as she caught her breath and wiped a trickle from the corner of her mouth, Sakura padded inside, already feeling a small pep reentering her step, even if perhaps only subconsciously.

She returned Mebuki's adulations with bland acknowledgement and plodded upstairs. A trip to her room and a change of clothes acquired later, she was shucking her sweaty rags and slipping into a tub of warmth that healed her soul in ways that would perhaps be too lurid to describe, melting into a puddle of relaxation where she had once been the avatar of exhaustion.

Once the bathing essentials were done, Sakura found herself loitering in the tub, hardly the most eager to go down for the latest of many stilted family dinners, where her parents would try and fail to include her in conversation. No, she didn't have anything she would be proud to show them. Yes, her hobbies were her business. Training was fine, and no, she didn't think there was any way for them to help except making bigger meals. Didn't she say not to mention the fucking Uchiha again?

Okay, so maybe not those exact words, but they certainly got the gist.

Humming and holding up one hand from beneath the water, Sakura's brow pinched, and after a moment of focus, the now familiar blue haze of chakra began to creep out. Zoning out a little, Sakura began to feel out and manipulate the mass of energy, playing it across her skin and trying to feel out how it interacted with both the water droplets dribbling down her skin and the surface of the water proper. After two months of self-experimentation, she wouldn't have called herself a prodigy or anything but… well, knowing approximately what she was supposed to be doing helped. A little.

Pressing her hand down against the surface of the water, she pushed her chakra into it, causing little ripples to quickly begin filling the tub. Concentrating, she made her best attempt to congeal her chakra, to spread it out within the water and solidify it. Water walking, after all, was in concept merely the act of increasing the strength of the water tension. It was more than a little different to regular surface walking, which just amounted to sticking yourself to a surface and having amazing core strength.

By contrast, water walking was more like "baby's first enhancement technique", and it was all the more difficult for it. Well, okay, to be fair, surface walking did seem to come with a little bit of that enhancement inherent as well. Otherwise, you couldn't walk up a tree without ripping the bark off and falling on the first step. You had to push your chakra in and "hook" it in a way, at least if you wanted to do more than take a quick step mid-run.

So…

Sakura spluttered, as a geyser of water smacked her in the face and splattered on the floor outside the tub with a deep whump of displaced liquid. Snorting, Sakura wiped the water from her face and shook her head. Too much chakra. Again. Because well, what do you know? Her spiritual chakra was already hilariously unbalanced, and her physical chakra was only going to make things worse as time went on. Somehow, she had the feeling that the closer her body got to catching up with her mind, the more careful she was going to have to be to keep refining her control… unless she wanted to end up in Naruto's shoes.

Sakura shuddered at the thought, beginning to climb out of the tub.

While two months had been enough to get some basic surface sticking action going without blowing up whatever she tried it on, by no means did she consider that more than the bare minimum. Never mind that she had been having far more of the Naruto-style mishaps in the training than what Sasuke got.

Congratulations, you now approximately have Naruto's level of chakra control.

The thought was bitter, but it couldn't be helped. While she didn't have the monstrous physical energy imbalance of half a bijuu in her, this was still not a great showing. Maybe she was overestimating herself -or underestimating the difficulty of this endeavor, but she couldn't help but be disappointed. The original Sakura Haruno with her surgical control, she was most certainly not without a lot of effort, for better or worse.

Also, I'm fucking 6. Get over yourself, she reminded herself frankly, as she dried and dressed. She was no Kakashi either, not some fundamental genius. She wasn't a prodigy; she was a cheater, relying on the cheat-code that was her meta-knowledge to barely passably carry the day. She was a lazy, deluded little shit that decided denying reality until it was slapping her right in the face was the thing to do instead of training for the incoming end of the world from day one.

Aaaannd, there went her mood again.

Honestly, how was she supposed to react to that? Less than a decade, approximately 7-8 years from now, and the Akatsuki were going to buttfuck the planet with the Infinite Tsukiyomi. Personally, Sakura didn't like her chances. She didn't have any of the few abilities that would protect her from that, like the speshul Uchiha eyes, so unless her Stand was going to be a lot more effective in that matter than she was predicting… Well, it was probably a good thing the Akatuski's bijuu collection time frame was so far away… provided the butterflies of this AU didn't make them escalate long before then.

Yikes, now she was even more worried.

Sucking in a calming breath, as she set about taming her shoulder-length hair, Sakura considered her position. In two months, she had accessed chakra all on her own, finished the leaf-sticking exercise, acquired bare-bones competency in solid surface walking and was on her way to making liquid walking happen. Her physical training was going… okay? And her Stand training was... happening on the side at least. It existed, but that was the sort of thing she'd already focused on training even before her epiphany. So, she was hardly sitting idle on her trump card. It was just lower priority than shoring up her weaknesses. Was that good progress?

All things considered? Objectively?

Yeah. Yeah, it really was.

For a shinobi in Sarutobi's era of "peace", that was pretty damn fine for a no-clan civilian-born. Honestly, if her parents had been the canonical shinobi they were probably supposed to be (honestly, she couldn't recall), maybe they'd have been the sort of people she'd be willing and able to ask for help. But life wasn't convenient that way, and she was managing just fine without that advantage.

Exhaling long and low, as she secured her hair, Sakura smiled mildly at her reflection, forcing herself to acknowledge how far she'd come with literally no support structure. With nothing going for her, the fact that she'd made progress at all was worthy of merit, and she should always remember that. As long as she was getting somewhere, it would be better than nothing. Impatience was unbecoming of her. Besides, once she entered the Shinobi Academy, she should gain access to their expertise, and things would… hopefully go much smoother from there. All she needed to be concerned about was setting the foundation.

Simple.

Okay, so maybe she hadn't had as much time as she'd hoped.

This was the prevailing thought, as she ran alongside several other prospective students, lungs burning and breath clouding, as she struggled to keep herself at the middle of the pack. A simple obstacle course was set in an area beside the academy, around which was a track that was currently occupied by a pack of adolescents.

It was the morning after, three months since she'd had her bombshell revelation, and now, she was going through the Academy placement tests. Somehow, it had escaped her that the Academy was already upon her. Honestly, she hadn't even considered that the Academy would have a placement test, but she supposed it made sense, weeding out the true bottom of the barrel. They only had so many seats in the classrooms after all.

To be frank though, she almost boggled to imagine how a Sakura that hadn't trained at all would have passed, before realizing the little fangirl must have either put her whole heart and soul into the physical portion… and/or passed purely on the merits of her intellect implying to the graders that she had potential that would never ultimately be realized in the Academy. A true paper ninja.

A small part of her… (okay, a fairly outsized part of her) considered deliberately failing the test, performing badly enough in all respects that she couldn't be admitted. Problem solved. Except not, because she wasn't sure how that might get past the testers, and she knew for a fact that she'd displayed too much academic excellence prior to this to get a failure past Mebuki. Provided the grown banshee showcased even a modicum of intellect in that respect. And given that calling Sakura out would be the most annoying thing she could do, Sakura was inclined to believe that's somehow where the cookie would crumble.

Gritting her teeth in frustration at the seemingly inescapable railroad of her life, her exhales hissed out in sequence of labored but overall steady breathing. Among the pack of prospective students, she had chosen not to mimic some of the quicker starters, blasting off as fast as they could go. Instead, she focused on her breathing, on keeping a steady pace and spreading herself out, and the longer the run went on, the closer to the front she got. As a sweaty, huffing mess, granted, but the progress was there.

Oh, and did she forget to mention?

It was fucking freezing.

First day of the Ninja Academy, and the world was completely caked in white. The temperature had been dropping for a while now, and the snowfall had ultimately decided this was the time of year to sweep in.

Did Sakura mention she absolutely despised the cold with every fiber of her being?

No?

Well.

The pinkette barely had the energy to glare at the distant forms of Sasuke and Kiba. Honestly, say what you will about them, they had it. Both were so far above the rest of the pack in terms of balanced endurance and speed, that the two 7-year-old freaks of nature in training had already passed the entire group up.

Twice.

Sakura rolled her eyes at the distant shouting of Kiba and barks of Akamaru, along with Sasuke's playfully confident jeers, envying them their lung capacity and having the energy to taunt. Honestly, those hot-blooded nuts were killing it compared to even the majority of the other Clan kids. It seemed like the two had struck up a rivalry from the word go, and as much as they were both running on fumes now, credit where it was due. You couldn't argue with the results of drive, talent and clan-based training.

Although…

Her brows pinched, as Sakura chanced a glance behind her, making a conscious effort to not have her run turn into a tumble through her feet slipping on the trail that had been churned to mud by now by the adolescent hoard. Frown growing, she glanced back in front of her, eyes scanning the crowd.

Where was Naruto?

The thought persisted damningly, as one of the teachers finally blew a whistle and brought what remained of the group to a halt, nearly one and all sucking wind and filling parched throats with quickly retrieved water bottles, a couple fumbled by cold-numbed fingers. Personally, Sakura had deigned to bring gloves, but even so, the thankfully light breeze bit into her rosy cheeks unpleasantly.

Taking a more measured series of sips with brief pauses between them and slow, deep breaths to allow her throat to gradually moisten again, Sakura panned her gaze over the crowd of students, as her worry intensified. It was… a little different seeing these people in person instead of through a screen, but Sakura was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the would-be ninja in her memories were readily identifiable with little to no issue. If not physically, then through their fairly distinctive personal traits.

And it was for that reason that she was unfortunately certain Naruto was not among them, which was… wrong?

Divergent.

Yeah. That.

Naruto was supposed to be here, the first day of the Academy. Or.. err… She supposed, technically, this wasn't the first day, right? But Naruto wouldn't miss this for the world. He should have been here, leading the pack with Sasuke and Kiba, establishing the rivalry that would define an age. And then after, wasn't he supposed to do something else? Instead…

Sakura shook her head, tearing her glazing gaze away from Hinata Hyuuga, the bundled up little thing looking to be in quite a bit better shape than the majority of her peers. Certainly, she hadn't been as far ahead as Sasuke and Kiba, hadn't outright lapped everyone else, but she was a fit girl and had maintained a solid lead over most of the others, her back the thing they were stuck chasing most immediately. Say what you will about her clan training, it showed results when she wasn't in an emotionally compromised position. When she wasn't stuck in her head and just acted, Hinata was a beast, and Sakura quite suspected she would be receiving many sound taijutsu defeats in their inevitable future sparring.

What was she thinking about?

Oh, right, Naruto. Or rather, the lack thereof.

"Not good," Sakura murmured under her breath, as she shuffled along with the rest of the students. The proctors were explaining they had fifteen minutes to rest up, and then they'd be going through the previously neglected obstacle course, which elicited a low chorus of tired groans from several kids. One proctor looked inordinately amused by that.

Sakura shook her head, trying to put thoughts of the Jinchuuriki out of mind for the time being. At this point, whatever had butterflied this change could hardly be undone, and there was nothing she could do about it. Better to focus on the now and deal with that issue later. Personally, she didn't have any investment in helping Naruto, nor did she particularly have emotional investment in solving his misfortunes. Other than how it might concern her own interests, she couldn't give a shit, but the fact that things were already diverging critically this early?

She could already think of several ways that was especially bad juju.

No, she was getting distracted again.

Shaking her head more firmly, Sakura put those thoughts on the backburner and refocused her attention on the proctor, who seemed like they'd probably be one of the Academy teachers. Dragging herself back to the present, Sakura put all thoughts of Naruto out of mind and focused on passing this test.

AN: So, yet another plot bunny that I simply had to put to words. This concept has been eating me up for a while, so here we are.

As can be fairly easily seen, SI-kura has a Stand, and it's one that, I think, is particularly appropriate to the overall central theme of this story's conflict. That clash between a narrative and an anomaly. Fate/Narrative is a big thing in Jojo, so this premise is essentially introducing it to the Naruto world as an invasive and antagonistic force, which Sakura can act as a "troubleshooter" against.

As for the Yugao and Kakashi scene, in case it wasn't clear, Yugao initially missed the alley with the dumpster because of Sakura's actions back home, not Kakashi. According to the "Narrative", she should have discovered Naruto right then and there and triggered a specific branch of tropes as a timeline. Instead, Sakura inadvertently snips out the moment of notice. As a consequence, this makes the original NINO narrative just that little bit worse, due to forcing it to compensate to ensure Naruto lives.