What am I even doing, posting a new story while I have others I'm currently working on?! Maybe I've hit my head recently. Oh well. I figured I'd give you a taste of what I'm working on when I've had enough of the darker stuff I'm delving into with Third Time's the Charm. I'm trying something new, possibly fluffy and definitely light-hearted (at least for now).

Tell me what you think?

And once more, I own nothing you may recognize.

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Three-year-old Sakura was a bit of a shy child, which was why she generally preferred to play in her backyard rather than go to the playground. The children there tended to bully her and make fun of her forehead, so her backyard became her own little piece of paradise.

It wasn't that big, but there were a few trees she liked to play under or even climb when her mother wasn't watching, and several bushes and flower patches that she had to be careful not to crush by accident when she played. In her eyes, it was the best garden ever.

On one such day, warm and bright, young Sakura had been left to her own devices, her mother bustling about in the house, when a baby bird fell out of its nest, landing rather poorly on the ground. Sakura, who had been observing the nest for days now, gasped in dismay when the bird started crying out loudly, flapping about desperately but ineffectively. One of its little wings was bent at an unnatural angle, clearly broken.

Sakura left her toys on the ground and ran up to the little bird, cradling it gingerly in her hands.

The bird cried out in pain as it was jostled despite her best efforts, and the little girl winced a bit at the sound, but she was determined to help it.

"Shh, little birdie, I'm gonna help you," she murmured above the loud cries it emitted. It did little little to calm the creature, but she held it firmly if gingerly to stop it from aggravating its wound.

How she would do that, however, was another matter. She tried to straighten the bird's wing, only to have it flap about with even higher-pitched cries, and one thought ran through her head.

A few days ago, she had scraped her knee badly when falling down on the sidewalk, and she had bawled loudly, garnering the attention of a soft-hearted medic-nin who had been heading to the hospital and had stopped to heal her. There had been a glow about the man's hands, and then her wound had closed as if by magic, though the man had explained to her that it was chakra, something that all people had in them, and that he had simply sped up her healing process.

If he could do it, surely she could, too!

Keeping the bird from moving, she concentrated on that well of energy inside of her and let it flow down to her fingertips with the intent to heal the living creature.

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't miraculous. Her chakra nearly cooked the bird at some point when she didn't concentrate hard enough. But when she opened the eyes she had screwed shut in concentration, the bird wasn't trying to get away anymore. It was shivering in the palm of her hand, and it obviously wasn't healed completely yet, but while it clearly favoured its right wing, it could at least set it against its flank while it shuffled from foot to foot.

Her eyes lit up. She had done it! This was amazing!

Her hands were smarting and she felt tired even though she had recently taken a refreshing nap, but that was of no consequence. She had done it!

She let out a whoop of joy that startled her mother into getting out of the kitchen to see what her daughter was doing.

What she found surprised her.

"Sakura-chan? Honey? What are you doing?"

Was that a bird?

"Kaa-chan! Look! Look! This little birdie fell down the tree but I saved it!"

Leaning down over the bird presented to her, the mother frowned minutely, seeing that the bird was still not completely fine.

"That's good, sweetie, but now its mommy won't want to take care of it because you have touched it. You're going to have to take good care of it until it's all healed and can go live off on its own."

Sakura smiled brightly.

"I will!" she promised. And she did take care of that baby bird, getting better at healing it and feeding it most carefully over the next few days.

It surprised her when the bird didn't leave even after it was healed, but since its own mommy didn't look after it anymore, she decided to keep being the bird's mommy. Besides, now that she had a friend, even if it was one who couldn't talk, she wasn't alone anymore!

-:-

By the time the bird had healed, it had started following Sakura around, either perched on her shoulder or flying around behind her when she ran around.

Kotori-chan, as Sakura had dubbed it, was never far from her, and it was the little creature that first sensed an intruder in their little backyard.

With a high-pitched cry, the bird left Sakura's shoulder. Lifting her head, Sakura was just in time to see a dark form crash down from the biggest tree in the garden, landing on the ground with a loud thud.

Her eyes widened, and she rushed forward, heart pounding.

Dark clothing covered the man's body, the only lighter spots being a bone-white armour and mask that hid his face.

There were darker spots on the black clothing that translated into crimson streaks on that white armour, and if a few scrapes on the knees could hurt her enough to make her cry, then how much more should this man hurt?

Her parents were not in the house at the moment, trusting her to take care of herself in the backyard for a little while, and the front door was locked...

Exerting all her strength, straining against the unresponsive mass that was his body, she managed to prop the man up until he sat at the base of the tree, frowning when he didn't even twitch even though it couldn't have been comfortable or even painless to be moved so sloppily. She knew that people dressed like him were the bestest of the bestest of their village, ninja highly trained. He shouldn't have not reacted. Was he even still alive? Had he died?

Afraid of such a thing, Sakura checked for his pulse, sighing in relief when she found it pounding a steady rhythm in his veins under her fingers.

Now came the hard part. Looking at Kotori-chan who was twittering down at her from her spot on a low branch, she took a steadying breath and recalled the feeling of her chakra flowing from her body to someone else's.

There was blood on her hands, warm and sticky, but she ignored it in favour of concentrating on her task, being so very careful not to use too much chakra lest she burn through the man's body like she had done by mistake with her bird at one point.

She closed her eyes, concentrating on what she felt through her chakra, on the tissues knitting themselves together under her guidance, on the blood vessels reattaching to one another, concentrated further...felt the cells move in unison…

And she lost herself in that warmth.

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Just a little introduction of the characters. I don't know how long the chapters will be, since this is just a little project for the fun of it, but I think they will vary in length. Anyway, tell me what you think!