My Name Is Sakura Haruno!

[Please leave reviews, recommendations, follows, anything! Please don't leave me playing the single-player version!]

"Hah!"

A fist wreathed in blue light struck the other person in the face. His terrified expression twisted under the force of the blow, and his body flew several meters before crashing to the ground.

"Hmph!" I withdrew my fist, folded my arms, and strutted over to the fatty, looking down at him from above.

Water transformed with Chakra enveloped my fist, so no matter how hard I hit, I wouldn't hurt it. This really was a good method. As for the fatty in front of me, he was so arrogant at his age, going around bullying my friends. How could I not teach him a lesson? Don't worry, I held back a little, and when he fell, I cushioned him with water transformed with Chakra. It hurt a lot, but he should be fine.

"Aah!!" After taking my punch, the fatty actually started crying and screaming from the pain. He had looked so overbearing and arrogant before, but he was quite delicate inside. It was all for show; he was a coward beneath that fierce exterior. When he saw me approach, he hurriedly covered his head and face with his hands, as if he'd figured out how to take a beating all on his own. Seeing that I had no intention of hitting him again, he scrambled to his feet and tried to run.

As for his companions, they were all scared pissless when they saw their boss sent flying with one punch. Before the fatty had even run, they were already hurrying to make a break for it.

"Stop!" I shouted expressionlessly, pinning the ones who had turned to run in place. "Anyone who runs gets a beating!"

Those bastards relied on having developed a few years early and having numbers on their side to bully my friends everywhere. Didn't they know this was my turf? They needed a beating! Once you mastered Chakra, it could completely make up for a disadvantage in size, or even turn it around!

"You lot, listen up! If I catch you playing here again, or see you bullying anyone, I'll beat you every single time!"

I thought my lines were unbelievably cool. Weren't those gangster movies I'd watched in my previous life pretty much like this? I finally got to cosplay for once!

"Did you hear me? What are you standing around for? Get lost!"

The fatty and his companions scrambled away. I watched them leave coldly, my arms folded and my back straight. A breeze blew past, and my hair fluttered in the wind.

Wasn't I unbelievably cool?! Say it louder!

"Yay! You sent that guy flying with one punch! You're amazing, boss!" That was my lackey, Extra Number One.

"Sister Sakura, you're so cool and strong!" That was my lackey, Extra Number Two.

Smack! I gave him a knock on the head. "Don't call me Sister Sakura. Call me boss! Got it?"

"Got it, Sister Sakura!"

...I'd given up trying to cure him.

Ignoring my two silly, cutesy little lackeys, I turned to the child who had just been bullied, then paused in surprise.

It was him.

A filthy jacket, orange hair dulled gray with dirt, and the distinctive whiskers on his face. No, marks that looked like whiskers. His eyes didn't yet have the passion and confidence they would later. Instead, he seemed a little timid, a little afraid.

Naruto Uzumaki. The protagonist of this world, a hot-blooded youth who fought his way through everyone with Shadow Clones and spinning balls, a symbol of calamity with the Nine-Tails sealed inside him. The first part was my impression of him; the second was how the village ninja who knew a little of the truth saw him.

I hadn't expected to meet him here. In fact, I didn't think there was any benefit to getting involved with him so early. The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was bound to be the focus of the village's attention, and I had plenty of secrets. I didn't want the Anbu monitoring me along with him, so it was best not to meet him outside a reasonable setting. Because of that, I usually made a point of avoiding the area around his home.

I fell silent for a moment, then immediately realized that a child my age probably shouldn't know who he was, so I should just act normal.

"Hey, orange hair," I said arrogantly, "this is our turf. If you want to play here, you have to recognize me as your boss. Got it?"

Wait, how was that acting normal?! Who made the original protagonist their lackey in the first chapter?! I silently mocked myself, but I couldn't help it. That was how I'd acquired my two lackeys, and I didn't know whether there were Anbu watching Naruto nearby. I figured there were. To be safe, I had to act more like a little brat.

"-No way!" A flat refusal. As expected of this world's protagonist, he already dared to stand up to authority at his age! Impulsive enough, and gutsy enough!

"Hey, orange hair! I just saved you! Isn't it heartless of you not to recognize me as your boss? Besides, I'm so strong that if I protect you from now on, no one will dare bully you!"

I walked up to him and fixed him with a very dangerous look. My gaze was vicious, and what I meant was, If you don't agree, I'm going to beat you up!

Naruto looked back at me just as resolutely. What he meant was, Even if you beat me, I absolutely won't become your lackey!

A cold wind swept past, carrying a fallen leaf down to our feet. The scene was somewhat bleak, somewhat ominous.

All right, I admit I imagined all of that. What really happened was that Naruto, who had been crouching on the ground, suddenly leaped to his feet, turned, and ran!

"No, I absolutely-won't be a woman's lackey!" After getting a safe distance away, Naruto stopped, made a face, and taunted me.

He actually rejected me, and even put the emphasis on the wrong thing! Did he think he was safe just because he'd gotten ten meters away? How naive. There was a world of difference between him and me, someone who could use Chakra!

Forward! I channeled Chakra into my leg muscles, going from a standstill to top speed and stopping again in an instant. In the blink of an eye, I was standing in front of Naruto, bringing a vicious knife-hand strike down on him!

"That hurts!" Naruto yelled, clutching his head.

"Hmph, you little brat, you don't know what's good for you! You're such a stupid idiot that I wouldn't want you as my lackey anyway!" I gave myself a way out. Actually, I'd never intended to make him my lackey.

"Then why did you hit me?!"

"Because you dared to reject me!" Actually, I just wanted to bully him a little while he still wasn't all that powerful.

Naruto could only look at me resentfully with his blue eyes.

Just then, I faintly heard someone calling "Sakura, Sakura" in the distance. Oh no, I'd been so caught up playing that I'd forgotten to go home for dinner.

"Let's go. I think my mom's calling me home for dinner. It's already late," I told Extras Number One and Two. They lived near my house, so they were neighbors of mine. I didn't seem to have seen them in the original story, so they probably weren't important characters. That was why I couldn't be bothered to mention their names.

When I reached the path out of the clearing, I stopped and turned back to Naruto, who was crouching on the ground and rubbing his forehead hard. "Hey, orange-haired kid, if anyone tries to bully you in the future, just tell them my name and say you're under my protection!"

I pointed a thumb at myself and raised my voice:

"Remember it! My name is-Sakura Haruno!"

It had been over five years, almost six, since I transmigrated to this world and became Sakura Haruno. In my last life, my name was Ye Ying. I was Chinese, male, and unmarried. I'd just graduated from university and found a good job, and I'd been full of ambition to start my career and my life. Then, for no apparent reason, I transmigrated—I woke up to find that I'd become a baby, and a baby girl at that. I'll leave my complaints about that aside for now. Then I discovered that this was the world of Naruto, and that I'd actually become the heroine, Sakura Haruno! Mom, Dad, far away in another world, your child has failed you and can no longer fulfill his filial duty. I hope you're healthy and happy. At least my younger brother is still there.

Also, whoever or whatever god threw me into this world, come out here. I promise I won't beat you to death.

Of course I'd watched Naruto, one of the big three shonen anime. But the problem was that I'd still been a chuunibyou high schooler when I watched it. After I got to university, I spent my time playing Dota and LoL, and I always felt there was too much to complain about in Shippuden, so I stopped following it. In short, I'd only watched the earlier part, and I'd forgotten most of that. I hadn't watched the later part at all, so I didn't know what new bosses there were. I'd only heard my roommate mention things like Sasuke's perfect Mangekyō, Pain destroying the whole village of Konoha single-handedly, and Madara Uchiha coming back to life. That information looked useful, but the problem was that I only knew the broad strokes. I didn't have any details whatsoever, and I didn't even know the order in which things happened. How the hell was I supposed to work with that?!

One thing I did know very clearly, though: this ninja world was extremely unsafe! If the plot followed its normal course, according to what I vaguely remembered, I'd first have to fight the Akatsuki, then the village would be destroyed by Pain and a lot of people would die, and later Madara would try to destroy the world—I had a question: how did Sakura, who was practically just decoration early on, survive to the end? In any case, no matter how I looked at it, I didn't seem likely to live past thirty! Unless, before then, I gained enough power to protect myself, or even enough power to change my fate.

Otherwise, if I counted on escaping every danger and surviving to the end like in the original story, I didn't think my luck was quite that good!

So I started training as a ninja—or rather, training my Chakra-very early.

In the original story, although Sakura was mostly decoration early on, she was actually talented. Most obviously, she had exceptional Chakra control, which was also why Tsunade chose her as a disciple. Second was her talent for Genjutsu, though unfortunately she never developed it further. Finally, there was her Monstrous Strength. Although Tsunade taught her that skill, Sakura had already shown hints of potential for Monstrous Strength in the first part. The real bottlenecks limiting her growth were, first, her small amount of Chakra and, second, her lack of a desire to grow stronger.

As for me, having transmigrated into Sakura Haruno, I came from a peaceful country, and my temperament might not be suited to a ninja's decisive killing, but it was certainly better than the original Sakura Haruno's. As for the amount of Chakra, it was limited by the body and soul. Physical quality was innate and hard to change, so I could only make up for it through training. But the soul-speaking of the soul, I felt a little smug. After transmigrating into Sakura Haruno, absorbing the original owner's soul, and undergoing a second period of development in a young body, my mental strength was several times that of an ordinary person! If a young child was 0 and an adult was 1, then the undeveloped Sakura Haruno with her dual personality might have been around 0.4. After Sakura Haruno and I merged, I might have been around 1.4, and once my second development was complete, I estimated I could reach around 7! In that case, my Chakra should be stronger than in the original story!

Although, since transmigrating, I hadn't gotten a grandpa or a creator god to give me unlimited Chakra and make me the Ten-Tails' Jinchūriki, nor had I gotten a leveling system that activated with a ding, I was already quite satisfied feeling my body's potential. I didn't know what would have happened if the original Sakura Haruno had started training her Chakra at four, but she couldn't possibly have done better than me. After all, on top of inheriting the original body's sensitivity, I had a spirit several grades stronger than in the original to control my Chakra! The original couldn't have caught up with my potential and rate of progress even on horseback!

Children weren't suited to overly intense physical training, or it would affect their later development. Trying to force growth would do more harm than good. Take Chakra training, for example: extracting too much Chakra was extremely dangerous even for adults, and for children, a single mistake could damage their foundation and leave them unable to grow later. So generally, children waited until they were six, when they had a sufficiently clear understanding, before learning to refine Chakra under the constant supervision of a teacher or ninja.

However, my father in this life couldn't withstand my persistent begging, and I'd always behaved obediently and sensibly. After I made countless promises and agreements, he finally taught me how to train my Chakra, and also tested my Chakra nature while he was at it-water.

Water Release didn't seem very powerful in the original story. Water Clones were trash: Zabuza was such a strong Jonin, yet Sasuke could instantly take out three of the Water Clones he created. The Great Waterfall Technique relied entirely on a huge volume of water to strike the opponent, so it was obviously a massive Chakra drain. Kakashi was exhausted after using it once, let alone me. So for the past two years, I hadn't trained in nature transformation techniques. Instead, I'd been thinking about how to train my Water Release to make it effective in combat. I didn't know much about the workings of the Naruto world, so I was relying on things from the real world. Apart from Chakra, the laws of physics in the two worlds should be the same, so they should apply here. If my ideas could really be realized, I figured I'd be very, very strong.