Sakura was sure that she died at the hands of her two teammates. She was persuaded that her suicide killed her. That should have been the case.
Sakura remembered. There had been another world, dimension, family, and face somewhere out there. Some of those things will never be written, spoken, and accounted for—all that happened in that life was gone. Then there are things she would instead not remember if she wanted to, for her peace of mind.
She wasn't sure what to think or how to act—everything had passed like a blur up until this point.
Breathing in a new body becomes easier with time. As does learning to live without chakra. Coming into the world, she remembered drowning in different air and choking on it. The energy was not chakra; she knew that. Something about it was sinister and outright wicked. None of it felt natural to begin with. She eventually learned to breathe the air of a new world after she died, slowly treading through the dark waters.
.
.
.
She stopped drowning at the age of four.
By the age of four, one awakens their curse technique. But Sakura awakened her past life's memories, completely dumbfounded in the middle of her 'lady lessons'— something the Zenin put their female clan members through because, you know, clan typical sexism.
While her caregiver was watching the child perform a tea ceremony, Sakura dropped the expensive tea cup— "Fuck."
"Naoya-sama!"
Blinking a couple of times, she began to look bewildered before realizing just what the fuck was happening. Most would probably start to faint or freak out in her situation, but her mentality has always been a bit off— war does that to you. Sakura looked down at her hands, expecting blood or hands protruding from her chest, but all she got were broken glass shards.
"Naoya-sama, shall I call for the clan doctor?"
Dumbfounded, Sakura's vision blurred between reality and what she thought was reality.
Everything was small and short, and why was there a woman in a kimono starting at her like she was holding Hashirama's nut sack? The woman's hands reached out to touch her forehead, but her hand grabbed the woman's wrist, not feeling her fingers connect. Usually, when she grabbed someone's wrist, she felt her nails as if her entire hand could wrap around it.
Apparently not. She let go of the woman, looking at her hand like she was modeling for a company, twisting and turning it, inspecting the perfectly manicured nails. So, she has the hands of a child, but who the hell manicures a child's nails?
"Naoya-sama—"
Sakura pays no mind to the teacher barking her name every second and decides to stand up, wobbling from the lack of balancer she was used to. She's a child's height, and from what she can tell, she doesn't have chakra either. To be sure, she plops her butt on the engawa and concentrates some on her hands. Nothing. Just what the fuck was happening. Sakura blinks as she runs a hand through her black hair. Black hair? Did she reincarnate as an Uchiha ? Doubtful, with the lack of chakra circulating in every living thing. It's not like there wasn't anything— something swirled around in nature within the garden. Plants, trees, and people had an outline of that something she could see within the depths of her mind. It was like seeing people's chakra signatures without the chakra pathway system. She had it, and so did this random woman calling her name—
"Naoya-sama! Please come back to your lesson—"
Sakura stood up and turned around abruptly. "Naoya."
The name on her tongue felt foreign but not unwelcome as if it had been part of this body since birth.
"Yes, Naoya-sama?"
"That's my name?"
"Yes, Naoya-sama."
Sakura seemed to be nothing more than the name of her first life. The name Naoya is something she could get used to people calling her, but Sakura would still refer to herself as Sakura inside of her mental domain. Sakura bit the fingernail of her thumb, still deep in thought— "Can I take the rest of the day off? I'm not feeling well."
"Shall I call for the doctor?"
"No."
"As you wish, Naoya-sama," the woman bowed in response, watching the child leave her behind, retreating in the opposite direction of Naoya's room. "Naoya-sama, your room is the other way."
Like something clunked her on the side of the head, Sakura spun her body around mechanically.
