Sakuragachamon!

Pt1: Reborn somewhere I should probably remember!

"Hmmm." The white-eyed ninja said as he scrutinized my 'chakra pathways' with his 'all-seeing eyes'. "I see."

He saw. He saw... "What? What's wrong with my chakra?"

The ninja didn't move a single inch, his eyes unmoving, as he spoke to the ninja doctor and the ninja teacher that were accompanying me in the hospital. I wasn't hurt. However, somebody had finally realized that my failure to do the simplest of chakra exercises right might mean there was an underlying problem with my body. Not that I was being lazy or slow.

I very much doubted I was slow or lazy, because secretly, I was a twenty-something person who'd been reborn in another world!

It'd all started a lifetime ago. Well, when that life ended abruptly and painfully. I remembered I was on vacations with my recently obtained money from my first job. I went somewhere and then... then the building collapsed. My guess was that an earthquake must have hit us and then, logically, a lot of people had died because the buildings weren't up to code.

I wasn't fond of remembering this part of the story. But it should have ended there.

Eight years ago, the Kyuubi no Youko attacked Konohagakure no Sato... a nine-tailed demon fox attacked the leaf village. Many people died trying to stop the fox, until the Fourth Hokage managed to banish it. And... many people died, ninjas and villagers alike. In the aftermath, they managed to retrieve a baby from a collapsed building, bleeding from a single wound on her forehead. Her mother had protected her six-month old daughter with her body and life, and her father was later identified amidst those lost in the attack.

She was called Haruno Sakura.

And whatever future she had, it was co-opted by my incomplete memories. Now if only I could figure out why there was such a nagging sense of familiarity about my story...

"The chakra pathways are... out of place." Back in the present, the Hyuuga described my problem. His clan, apparently, were the only ones with these special eyes that could see the chakra pathways. "I've never seen anything like this. Her tenketsu are not where they should be, and the pathways themselves are misaligned."

"That's not possible." The medic-nin beside me was bewildered. "Everybody has a natural variance in their pathways, are you sure...?"

"Yes, I am sure." The white-eyed ninja released his doujutsu and turned to the doctor. "This is no mere variance. Even the Eight Gates are not where they should be! The classical map of chakra pathways they teach you medics is entirely useless."

"Hm." I raised my hand. The adults quieted down and looked at me. "Is that bad for my body and doctors? It sounds bad for my body and doctors."

He shook his head. "No, most healing... well, medical ninjutsu doesn't need your chakra pathways to be in a specific place, that shouldn't be a problem." Even as he said that, I noticed that the doctor was writing down notes on my files. "However, this is why you cannot use normal jutsu, Haruno-kun. Normal jutsu and handseals are made for chakra pathways that follow a certain... type of map. Your pathways follow a completely different type of map, so you can't do what the teachers tell you to because their explanations don't work for you."

The doctor muttered something too low for me to hear, but I had the distinct feeling that it was something like 'probably'.

It was best not to dwell on that. "Does that mean I can't be a ninja?" Because that would suck.

The adults exchanged looks among themselves. "Well... no?" The white-eyed man sounded uncertain. "Her chakra is there, she just can't mold it the way we can."

"I have a boy in the year above her that can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu." The teacher that had come with me spoke up. This was new information to me.

My head swiveled back and forth as the adults discussed my situation. I was an orphan, daughter of ninjas, therefore I had been enrolled at the Academy. To their credit, they'd asked a five year old child if she'd like to be a ninja like her parents had been. I'd said yes after only a moment of thought.

I hadn't been reborn, or gained memories of my past, or whatever sorcery had put me in Konoha, without being blessed with strange and unknowable powers. It would be counterintuitive to not pursue a career path that would let me use them. Also, magical ninjas mercenaries.

My consultation ended with me more or less where I'd been before. I was still going to go to school at the Academy. Now they were just expecting me to work extra hard, and the teachers were left with vague instructions to 'let me figure out jutsu my own way'.

On the way home, following next to my tired teacher, I looked up at the four faces carved into the mountain that overlooked the village. The Hokage was the strongest ninja in Konoha, and much like a president, they got their faces sculpted so everybody could look up at them. They said the Hokages looked out for us like this. Every now and then, a ninja bounded over the rooftops, moving at incredible speeds to and fro. I couldn't lie, I yearned for that. Being able to be that free, and to be that strong.

I'd tried their way. My power had obviously interfered in some way. It was time to try it my way.