It was certainly fascinating how odd this world was.
Meeting Garp (as she had come to know him) was the equivalent of chewing glass with a dry mouth. Sakura had absolutely no clue how to read the man mostly because he went completely against anything she expected. The closest thing she managed to compare the damn guy to was a mix between the goofiness of Maito Guy and the weirdness of Kakashi-sensei, which was as horrifying as it sounded.
After Sakura had given her definitive answer to the man's question (a deadpanned "Hell no"), the crazy marine had delivered a devastating smack over her head that for a brief moment the girl feared brain damage. She couldn't complain at all though, since she still remembers doing that often when Naruto or anyone on the team tried to get out of the hospital before being fully checked and healed.
Karma seemed particularly creative with her now.
The marines, while something that she could have enjoyed doing considering her background, were too stuffy when it came to rules (if the context of the books she read gave any clue of it) and it wasn't like Team 7 had been the best example in that territory. Kakashi-sensei's teachings had made sure where her priorities lay and that was something Sakura will never dare to disrespect by going back to those old dusty lessons that the Academy never updated just to tread it for something just as similar within the lines of the marines.
Could she try and make the change by enlisting herself? Sure, but the pinkette wasn't deluded at the notion that by doing that it would be the equivalent of an ant trying to fight an elephant. Too much of a drag.
Hmmm, maybe Shikamaru rubbed a bit too much on her too.
With the whole ordeal put aside, the little girl wasn't sure what would happen to her anymore. Garp had been straightforward and nonchalance when he delivered the news of what had happened to Lupa Island and why she was there in the first place.
"The place was completely destroyed" he had said, not a single expression that could give away any emotion to indicate a lie. "You were the only one we could find in that disaster zone"
The old man could have been more sensitive at how he practically told an orphan that the place where she grew up was destroyed by pirates, not a single soul recovered besides herself, but the marine already gave the worst kind of impression and Sakura could already imagine that this was him trying to be tactful.
By doing some introspection, Sakura knew what to do in these situations to deal with mourning. It had been part of all the teachings that came with being a medic-nin… considering how your patients could easily die in any moment by out-of-control factors. It was just how things worked sometimes.
But that had been a roughed up and older Sakura during war times. The current Sakura was a simple little girl, alone and with no other place to call home, with a still developing brain that felt too much and experienced too much.
So, as much as the pinkette clenched her jaw, the sniffing was still loud enough. Even when she avoided looking at the old man, the tears fell down from her eyes.
Sakura doesn't even remember letting the loudest wail of her life.
Her injuries healed unnaturally faster than normal (just a few weeks instead of months) and that had been her first clue to know that her chakra was finally flowing steadily through her body; whatever cork had been blocking the flow, it had finally come undone and Sakura wondered if the supposed pirates she fought back at Lupa Island had been the catalyst.
It would make some sense.
But since it had been a really violent and abrupt affair, the pinkette could guess that part of her injuries had been done too by overexertion and not only the fight. It would take time before her chakra could circulate in the same manner that it did when she had been only a genin and that was still wishful thinking on her part. The physical training she endured will be useful for this very goal, storing as much chakra as she could while simultaneously practicing her strength enhancement.
And as sadly as it made her, her medical ninjutsu will have to wait until she could properly go back to her seamless control.
"How's our favorite stubborn brat doing?!"
Oh, yeah. That was another problem she had to deal with.
For as much as Sakura was grateful to Garp, already aware that the man lent his shoulder to her when she couldn't stop crying, he was still incredibly unbearable. There wasn't a single day of her stay at the infirmary that Garp didn't decide to visit in an attempt to convince her to become a marine under his wing, at which each time she got a nasty bump in the head with those hellish smacks of his after she gave him the same answer each time.
The single time he stopped doing it was thanks to the half-assed scolding the doctor gave to the vice-admiral (clear tiredness in the poor man's voice) with the warning that he could easily give her a concussion or worse.
After that… he just kept smacking her in the head with less force than before.
Small wins, she supposed.
The green eyed girl simply huffed in annoyance at Garp's big strides, the old man already sitting at the side of her bed while eating some rice balls and leaving a cloth over her small legs under the blanket. By the smell alone she could guess it was a serving of rice balls for her too, which wasn't surprising… unlike the hideous flower patterned shirt that the old man has decided to wear that day.
The thing had so many colors like some child-abomination between Naruto's and Lee's clothing and it only got worse with those brown plastic flip flops he had on.
Sakura's aghast expression should have been very clear, but if Garp saw it, he didn't comment anything about it and only waited for her to start eating.
Ignoring it will be her best action, since the eye-strain was just too much.
Eating was almost an unconscious action at that point. She needed the strength after all and starving wouldn't do any good to her as much as the old marine annoyed her with his constant nagging of recruitment.
"Bwahahaha! Good to see you looking better, Pinky"
"It's Sakura, you old goat"
Another smack to the catalog. This damn brute will kill all her brain cells before she can even reach fifteen.
How much she wished to apologize to Naruto if this was what he had to deal with when her temperament got the better of her.
"You'll have to start respecting your grandpa, little girl!"
"What?!"
"Anyway… " The bastard had the gall to ignore her; zero explanations given in the grandpa part. What was wrong with this guy?! "We'll be arriving soon to my home island. You'll stay with some friends of mine until you are old enough to be recruited by the marines. Isn't it great?!"
Oh hell no, this guy was being serious.
"First of all, I'm not joining the marines!" she pulled one finger up to make the count up. "Second, I want to be a doctor!" another finger added. "And third, What's with the grandpa thing?!"
"Oh! A doctor? That's fine by me" Is this guy serious?! "As long you aren't a pirate, I'm happy to support my little granddaughter"
It's like the guy only listens a third of what he's being told for her comfortable convenience and at this point the pink-haired kid was sure that any more exposure to Garp will only give her a premature ulcer. How this guy could command this whole-ass ship was beyond her.
The 'arriving soon' that the vice-admiral referred to had been actually 3 months. A hellish amount of waiting when it came to sharing the same dry space as Garp did.
It wasn't any surprise for the marines in the ship to see her sneaking around the hallways to try and avoid her self-appointed "grandpa" once she had the full green light from the doctor, allowing her to freely walk with the condition to avoid too much strain for the next few days.
Fine by her, honestly.
Sakura only needed a moment of peace to finally meditate and help train the flow of her chakra but she couldn't do it if the old goat was breathing over her neck almost 24/7.
What was odd to her, and she hadn't fully thought about it until recently, was that she seemed to be the only one to wield chakra the usual way she did in her past life. Most of the people around possessed it but it was so watered down, almost wilted, that it made it nearly impossible to detect them. She had never been a good sensor, but even the girl could tell right away.
Only Garp had been the one she could detect with ease, thanks mostly to that unknown energy that rested at his core where chakra usually resided. The pinkette recognized immediately as the 'plug' that rested over her very chakra and didn't allow her access to it until she forced it to relent.
Naturally curious about it, she asked the only person she had seen with common sense, only getting an intense stare from Bogard and not a single answer.
At the end, she decided to bite the bullet and ask for books from the one person she wanted to see the least.
"Books?" Garp seemed skeptical at her simple request, his mouth stuffed with the meat of what she assumed was pork by the smell alone. "Hmmm, which type of books do you want, squirt?"
The fact that he gave in that easily made her now the skeptical one and Garp's damn blank expression just made things harder to guess.
'Well, he did say that as long as I don't want to be a pirate…' she thought with some hopeful attitude. If the guy wanted to fill the guardianship spot in her life, then she could take some advantage from it.
"Encyclopedias! I wanna be a doctor but for that I gotta learn all I can from the world" she tried to pull the 'big shiny eyes' stunt to convince him better, not sure if it could work on this crazy marine.
"Fine! Once we arrive to Mt. Colubo I'll give you some books to entertain yourself" he gave a particularly big bite to the last piece of pork, still talking while munching. "But I expect you to at least take some training from your old grandpa, alright? You're potential waiting just to grow even more"
Well, that was fair. She could accept that deal.
"Alright! I accept that condition…" she paused briefly, unsure if she should say the next word that could very much be her doom. "Grandpa"
At the shocked and funny look Garp gave her, Sakura realized too late her mistake.
That same evening, the pinkette was taken to the doctor by a panicked vice-admiral who hadn't been able to contain his own strength when giving a crushing hug to his new granddaughter.
Curly Dadan was an interesting woman. She clearly feared Garp (with good reason), but the young girl didn't expect that his approach for these bandits to care for her was plain out blackmail.
She was starting to like the old goat a little bit.
"Another brat?! You have to be joking!" she hollered, ignoring the pink-haired girl for the sake of not trembling in front of the marine. "Ace is already a nightmare to deal with! We are bandits! This isn't a damn orphanage home!"
"What was that?"
That had the impressive reaction of shutting everyone up, now the three bandits at the door of their small cottage sweating profusely at the hardened stare the older man gave to them. Sakura, as petty as may sound, let herself stick her tongue out at the three adults while still hiding behind Garps legs.
"Anyway, Sakura is a well behaved young lady. She'll not cause any trouble" the green-eyed girl looked at the old man in surprise. That was the first time he said her name. "Is Ace around here? He needs to come and meet his new big sister"
Huh? Brother?! This bastard never said anything about a sibling!
"Hey, what the hell are you doing here?!"
"Bwahaha! There you are, brat!"
Ace, as Garp had called him, was a dark-haired freckled kid with what seemed a stapled frown and, guessing by that unusual greeting, he was very aloof and prickly.
'Great, another angry twelve-year-old Sasuke to deal with' was Sakura's thought, already acquiring a sour expression at the prospect of dealing with another emotionally constipated child. Fate truly sucked if it found this to be a funny joke.
What a drag (damn it, Shikamaru!).
Sakura was so irritated about how their first meeting was going that she ignored the huge boar the younger kid was dragging, dirt and leaves sticking out of his clothing and hair as the only signs that this child had fought the animal with his fists and the pipe he was holding.
"Alright, Sakura-chan! This is your younger brother, Ace" the dark-haired boy let out a loud 'Hah?!' when hearing that. "He's seven years old this year, so you'll have to keep an eye on him like a good big sister"
"I don't need some pink girl with a big forehead to babysit me!"
Sakura hadn't even hesitated when she threw one of her many (and heavy) encyclopedias to the boy's head, a painful smack resonating around them once it made contact with his face and managing to throw him off from the corpse of the boar.
The angry cry of Ace was loud enough to make them know that the hit had done more than just hurt him.
"Look at them! They are already getting along!"
Dadan, Dogra and Magra could only give a long and deadpanned stare at the vice-admiral, already aware that this was a long lost battle.
The pinkette had made it her sole and single mission to ignore Ace's presence for the sake of some mental peace, putting most of her attention in the pile of encyclopedias she brought alongside an ugly looking rag doll that she got from Garp as 'grandpa's goodbye gift'. The only reasoning she kept the thing was because it resembled a little bit of a fox and that alone triggered her nostalgic memories of Naruto.
It was her only comfort in this new place.
The dark-haired brat seemed to have taken the same idea and avoided her too, making this stalemate easier on anyone, Dadan and the bandits mainly.
It lasted for weeks, but instead of the tension dissipating, it grew to the point all the inhabitants of the small cottage sweated nervously at an impending fight to break soon.
Because of this, the green-eyed girl had decided to take the initiative and ask for a task to distract herself around the house of the bandits.
"Tasks?" was the bewildered question Dadan gave to her, like she couldn't believe a child would actually want to do chores. She supposed that, had she been a normal kid, that would have been the case, but getting stuck inside the cottage was starting to bore her to the bones and she needed an excuse to find a place to start more training. "Hmm, you are a weird little twerp, but I suppose I will not look a gift horse in the mouth" The tall woman took a big basket with a pile of clothes, pointing to a smaller one for her to take too. Sakura carried it with little to no ease, practically weighing nothing in her arms. "Come with me, brat"
The pink-haired kid understood immediately what was this about, a bit offended that she was given this chore like she was some maid or just because she was a girl, but she needed to remind herself that she was still a nine-year-old and life had never been fair with anyone. Gender unfairness aside, she had asked for any task so it was more on her own fault too.
"I'll take care of half the clothes while you do the other half. If you finish faster than me, you'll take an extra serving in the dinner, pinky"
"It's Sakura"
She had been hoping that the ginger woman would have left her alone, but she supposed that was still too much to ask for. It wasn't so bad at the end when they finished way faster than expected considering all the pilled clothes behind them.
But the instant the woman was giving her the second serving she promised her, that seemed to be the excuse Ace was waiting for to pounce at her.
"Hey, she didn't even hunt this animal today! Why is she getting seconds?!" the freckled boy pointing an accusing finger her way, anger clear on his face at which the girl only decided to ignore with a less than amusing look.
"Because the brat at least helped me clean your disgusting rags, kid!"
"That's not fair!"
"Life isn't fair, suck it up!"
That last reply seemed to shut him up, but unlike the other times the pinkette had seen the boy throw a tantrum, this one felt different. Like some heavy weight taking place over his soul while his eyes acquired a dark tone in his anger.
Something else bothered him greatly and it didn't have anything to do with Sakura's second serving. So when the kid stormed out of the bandits house, the young girl followed him without thinking.
Back in the past, when she still had been Haruno Sakura, the pink-haired girl sometimes wondered how things would have gone if someone had extended a helping hand and understanding kindness to Sasuke when he had lost his family. If they have decided to guide him instead of letting that hatred and anger fester and grow to the disaster that had been in their teens.
It was always the 'what if's that ached the most.
But now she was conscious enough to understand that certain temperaments or reactions had deeper meanings than what they may seem, and this time Sakura saw something different in the ever present build walls of Ace this particular night.
The boy kept walking for what seemed like hours until Sakura saw an entire town made of pure trash and scraps in the distance, more specifically a shitty bar with no name which the kid entered like he owned it.
'What the hell is he up to?' she thought, a bad feeling settling in her gut.
This idiot must have a death wish.
It took a few minutes of waiting outside and at a distance until Sakura could hear a loud crashing sound, grunts and curses flying around inside the bar that the dark-haired kid had entered, only to see him flying out through the crappy doors all bloodied and bruised; the pipe he always carried with him now slightly twisted.
"Damn fucking brat! You want to die that much?!"
The huge man, bald by the age and ugly as sin, was followed by other patrons of the shitty bar who sported a few bruises too (probably a gift from Ace himself), all scowling at the younger child like he was worse than dirt under their shoes.
Whatever plan this dumbass was trying to pull, it was obvious that he was horribly outnumbered.
And Sakura was having none of it.
With the already practiced speed she had, the pinkette ran until she got close enough to jump and deliver a side-kick at the head of the gang's leader of drunktards, catching a glimpse of the astonished expression of the freckled kid with the display of agility she showed off.
Not even a minute passed until she had already the rest of the men trying to jump at her only to receive either a kick in their legs or a punch in their faces, most falling unconscious at the unexpected strength of such petite girl while the others simply whimpered and ran away in fear, shouts of "monster!" and "Pink demon!" ringing around the junkyard until all the thugs were off their sight.
Now it was only her and Ace there.
The kid immediately scowled, all traces of wonder and surprise vanishing only to replace them with frustration and anger.
"I didn't need your damn help" the slight flinching he did when putting too much weight over one of his legs told a different story. "Just go away and die in some hole or something! I don't care what the old fart says, you're not my sister!"
Sakura made sure to not react to his insufferable yells. Her eyes not letting anything show until Ace tired himself with all the insults he could throw at her, which only made him even more frustrated at the lack of reaction.
The green-eyed girl was starting to understand a little bit more what was happening with this boy.
She got closer, stopping the weak attempt to push her away, and forced him to sit carefully.
"You're hurt" was her simple statement, pulling the pipe out of the boy's hand and twisting it correctly back together with her inhuman strength. "Come on, let's go"
The girl didn't even wait for a response, carrying Ace over her back in a piggy ride since she was at least a few inches taller than him, but not forgetting to give the kid his favorite weapon.
The silence stretched long a tense between them, the dark-haired boy finally deciding to stop fighting and simply letting his body rest from the many aches that assaulted his body.
"Go over there" pointed the dark-eyed kid to the left, his voice now coarse from all the yelling he had been doing the whole night.
Soon, they reached a half-build tree house, a wall missing but some wood resting to the side as the only indication that it was still an on-going project. With a bit of a struggle, the pinkette girl managed to pull them both inside comfortably and let the silence once again rule over.
Not as suffocating as before but not fully comfortable yet.
Sakura knew instantly which injury needed her priority, moving efficiently around the leg of the boy along some prodding to check if she was missing anything. From within a fold of the ribbon of her dress, the young girl pulled a small cap and a roll of bandages and got to work. The cap had inside of it a healing salve of her own making, experimenting a little bit with some plants that she had studied from the many books she read and some more from the marine's infirmary that she managed to smuggle out.
The relaxed expression of Ace was enough to make her know that it was taking an instant effect over his skin, so she kept applying to all the bruises she could see and simply covered with the bandages the wounded leg to stop it from moving too much.
"I was mean to you…" was the quiet and shy start that the freckled boy gave to her, never looking up at her face and hiding his own saddened frown. "Why did you help me? I'm a monster"
The pinkette only stayed silent at his words, looking at him intensely in an attempt to take a peek beyond what he conveyed in that simple sentence. Sakura knew she couldn't push too much with hurt kids, being either emotionally or physically, and even less with someone like Ace, who already had plenty of walls built with anger and loneliness, but baby steps were at least something to start with.
She will not have another Sasuke in her hands here.
"I'm your big sister, Ace" she answered with all the seriousness she could pull in her high-pitched voice, a hand resting over the bandaged leg of the kid. "I will help you even if you don't ask me to"
Her words not only worked to make a silent promise, it was a statement of a responsibility she decided to finally embrace just like when she had called Garp 'grandpa' for the first time.
This dark-haired boy who had kept insulting her since her arrival, annoying her at any chance over nothing, was just lonely.
But that was fine, because she was lonely too.
Thank you for reading!