Epistles to the Departed

A breath of wind and scatter of leaves brushed Sakura's bangs away from shadowed eyes, revealing her mismatched pupils, now glowing in a similar yellow shade the moonlight. The moon- which was broken and powdered, yet appeared so much larger than it had been in the night sky ever before- it was drawing nearer the earth every passing second.

The weight of the earth rests on her shoulders, the fate of each living being on this planet she calls home is reliant on her. Obito had taught her moments ago- and now it had become her millstone to complete her mission.

Dragon- hare- tiger- bird- ox- horse! The hand signs came in and out, the fluid motion of her fingers too fast for her own right eye to see.

It was all because of his dampening presence- Toneri- drawing closer and closer, his signal bursting in volume as he neared the clearing. His footsteps were grinding the brittle rock underneath, the crunching audible from even where Sakura was standing. Time was running out.

Suddenly, a stream of light blinds her- much like an explosion. The nearby flora is immediately charred with a cobalt blaze, and Sakura doesn't even have as much time as to blink before those footsteps turn into cries.

Fire was spreading rapidly across the scenery- a wisp of azure flame caught in her vivid locks, but she battered it off with haste. The cacophony of Toneri's breathless vociferation- "Where is Naruto?!" blends to the orchestra of the crackling fire. Through the bushes, his ebbing and flowing cloak descends into the clearing, the hate in his flowered eyes turning the peaceful lilac into a treacherous storm.

"You! You're Kakashi, aren't you? You know where he is!" As Toneri's vexation suddenly turns to her sensei's- the tantalizing plumes of the rapid oxidization dances up her legs- but she doesn't care, the adrenaline pumping in her veins going on overdrive to mask out the unbearable sensation.

Toneri's ire manifests itself into his fists- charing towards Kakashi at an unpredictable speed- but as the danger comes into close quarters, Sakura intervenes. "Amaterasu!" she yells, the all-encompassing flames beginning to devour its sapphire brethren. 'It's only a temporary measure- it's only temporary- everything will be over, soon-'

Unable to control the hellish power without the presence of the second Sharingan, Sakura just murmurs a silent prayer to the gods. As Toneri falls back in awe of the blackened attack, he flinches, opening up just the right amount of time for her to finally perform the jutsu.

"Sakura, now!" screams Obito, grabbing onto the pinkette's shoulder. His head is turned to Kakashi in their final adieu- his blue spirit flickers and shimmers like a dying supernova and his form scatters back into Sakura's body- re-absorbing his chakra. Every part counted.

The Rokudaime looks at his final student now, black pools softening before she annunciates the decisive words-

"One's Life Genesis Jutsu!"

As soon as the '-u' is finally pronounced, Sakura feels the ground swept beneath her. She's floating- she's flying- she's moving in such a rate her mortal senses cannot keep up at all- everything she sees is a shadow of the past- she sees a rainbow ring in the center of her vision, which slowly lessens in size, until the bright blue dot in the center of her sight is the last trace of worldly light in view. Pain unlike anything she's ever endured comes from all corners of her limbs, into her chest, her head, the wholeness of a united agony so strange to experience. Not even the cloying fire running up her thighs, born of Toneri's resurgence, has compared to half of this pain.

She is everything and she is nothing. All begins and ceases to exist. Rolled out into the thinness of a noodle- smushed back into a pea all at the same time. Her power drains away, yet it is still as bountiful as when she had first cast the jutsu. Sakura's head rings in an endless echo, a back-and-forth, repetitive noise that will not go away. An annoying buzz, a constant gong being crashed and cymbal-ed over and over and over- it's all in her head- she blocks her ears through the warping, but it only sounds to a louder volume. She wants to scream, but no noise leaves her throat. Or, perhaps it did, but it had been left behind miles ago like a man jumping off a racing train.

For the third time this week, Sakura is having a near-death experience; she's a little number to the shock. After all, Sakura's that type of person: self-sacrificial, try-hard. Death doesn't scare her anymore, she noticed, after losing everyone- she only realized Kakashi had declared her his 'only living student' just then and knew they had perished as well.

Much as if that solemn realization had been the key all along, the echoing stops, the pain ceases, and there is nothing. Crisp sensations dull into a lousy slumber, and everything goes to a desensitized flatline. She is left with only her thoughts.

________________________________

Following a routine checkup at the gynecologists', Mebuki Haruno finds herself sat down by the doctor. "Congratulations, Mrs. Haruno!" When the woman blanks as a response, the doctor is quick to affirm her; showing the results himself, a paper laden with happy news befit a new mother. "You're pregnant- the due date is April the 3rd- you're three months in, already!" her face is stilled by the declaration, but it's not before the stiffness is replaced by an ear-to-ear grin.

A son or a daughter, which one would it be? She dreamt of having a bouncing baby boy or girl to sit in her lap and tell him/her stories. After her whirlwind romance with Kizashi Haruno and her timely marriage to him, she was always sure they would have a child. A first-time mom, Mebuki was unsure what to think of it- perhaps she would ask around.

Walking down the street, she sees Mikoto Uchiha and her young son talking to Kushina Uzumaki- or, we could now say, Namikaze, chatting. "Oh! Mebuki?" the Uchiha matriarch notices her slinking by, even without the keenness of a Sharingan. "Hello, what are you doing here?"

"I'm... uh, I came back from the hospital," Mebuki said with a strained voice. Wasn't it more customary to tell her husband first than her friends? Oh, well, she didn't like lying, and since Mikoto was an experienced mother maybe she'd give her some sound advice...

"You're not hurt-dattebane?" Kushina yelped, looking quite distressed at Mebuki's slouched position and what looked like a limp from her perspective.

"No, no. It was for something else," she admits, regaining a straightened posture and a beaming smile. "Kushina, you should have one too!" she says before skipping away.

'Daww, Mikoto's son was looking at her weird but, at least the war had been done and over with.

There was always a resurgence of babies after a period of war, so maybe Kushina would heed her advice and have one herself. Even despite her overtly ambiguous hinting at such a thing.

Anyways, Kushina would have it good when she had a child. The Yondaime Hokage was a marvelous husband- and more decisively, he made an amazing househusband. At least every time she went over to Kushina's, he was the one cooking, he was the one doing the chores, and boy, were the dishes sparkling and the food delicious. Or maybe its because they had guests over.

"...A checkup?" The redhead mumbled with a look of consideration on her face. "I guess it doesn't hurt."

..

"Kizashi-sweetie! Are you home?" she calls out, sparkling with happiness. She spots the locks of carefully gelled hair peeking through a blanket, snoozing off in the living room. "Guess who's going to be a dad?" she loudly proclaims, making sure to scream this in his ears.

Kizashi groaned as he woke up from the couch, obviously taking a nap on his one day off. He wasn't a lazy man, but he was tired out from work. "...You?" he says, groggily, drugged under the haze of sleep.

"Me." Mebuki repeats sarcastically, rolling her eyes deeply as to roll them back into her head. "Really, Kizashi?" disappointedly the woman sits right down next to the man and pouts. "You are going to be a father, so sit up-"

The pink-haired man suddenly sat up straight and squawked like a duck. "Whhaaaaaaaat." he inhaled sharply first, pitching his voice high before it slowly raised down to a low rumble in his chest. "Mebuki, y-you're-"

"Yep, I'm due on April the 3rd," she beams, and Kizashi hugs her tightly. The couple embraces happily, erupting into a fit of giggles and laughter. "Names?" she says, snorting at the thought.

"Isn't it too early?" Kizashi sniffles, but still begins rubbing the very slightly swollen belly of his wife like she was a round and full nine months. He then jokingly pulls out quite the expected sentence- "You were just pregnant, but I thought you were getting fa-"

Mebuki gave a hard slam to the top of his head- thank goodness for his unbelievably dense and cushiony hair he didn't get a concussion. "Kizashi..." she warns through clenched teeth. "Don't finish that sentence or you won't have a mouth to talk out of."

"No, really, but what kind of name?" Mebuki continues, playing quite the innocent role. Kizashi groans at her innocuous ploy, dragging his hand down the length of his face, brushing against rough stubble.

Eventually, they decide on 'Hana'- 初夏 - if it's a girl- a flower, a budding blossom that blooms past winter. 春野はな; her name will mean a new growth during summer, a new phase in both the Harunos' and Konoha's lives. If it's a boy, they will name him 'Chikashi'- 親 - for just like the female counterpart it stood for a blossom of hope and a will for the future. A child is their hopes and dreams, and she feels excitement whenever the thought crosses her mind.

________________________________

Six months fly by. The Haruno household is now filled with child-proofed buffers, stairgates, a crib with an interactive mobile, bottles with formula stockpiled in the back, clothes for neonatal children. As she had thought, Minato and Kushina Namikaze announced their new status in parenthood and even the Uchiha welcomed a second unborn child. Many others such as the Hyūgas or Naras, even the Aburames, and Inuzukas announce the birth of new children.

She wonders if her child will get along with them, will they become friends? Will perhaps one of them become more. Oh, my? How presumptuous. Hana or Chikashi wouldn't dare dream to be a shinobi, no, no. It was only normal not to. Nonetheless...

Even as an expecting mother she daydreams of the day her grandchildren would look back with large, watery eyes, murmuring whisps of 'grandma' and 'grandpa' [of course, referring to Kizashi] while she hovered over them (like the helicopter-grandparent/parent she was/is).

Then she'd be seasoned and elderly... kami forbid the onset of wrinkles, the loose skin, the sagging, the white hair and loss of sense. She didn't want to be senile but that is the price to pay for grandbabies. Where would she get retired?

She always liked Sunagakure, despite it being a desolate desert without as much as an oasis to provide cool in the blazing sun. That's why she's had her honeymoon there, despite Kizashi's constant complaining about the oncoming heat stroke (and equally common cases of dehydration). Perhaps when their daughter- as the doctor had pointed out after a routine ultrasound would enjoy it too. Maybe a vacation was overdue. The retirement thing was too much commitment to a distant future, byway of around thirty or so years, so she dismissed the thought. Being an old Suna native versus an elderly couple who lived in the temperate Konoha conditions before moving there was begging for an early release.

Vacation-planning was arduous... so maybe not today, but next week. Next week sounds nice.

Or.. maybe next month? Next-next month. Next year.

Nonetheless, Mebuki eventually forgot- keeping it only on the back of her mind, just but a lingering thought.

The days were getting longer and longer as December passed, bringing soft snow and incrementally further moonlit 6 o'clocks. March rolls around to Hanami season, which was well considered in alignment with her expected arrival; she, as they'd found out, was due early April or late March. The season of bloom.

"My Hana," Mebuki pats her growing stomach. The tender life within, what would she look like? Where would they go? Each of her hopes and dreams implanted them firmly on this unborn child, a wistful, hopeful-yet-I'd-love-you-always kind of thought pooled in fragments.

Each passing day, throughout the sickness and happiness grows more and laborious in wait. It wasn't hard to become impatient.

Eventually, the day does come. The buildup of nine rigorous months of daily sickness and odd cravings, the release had come to the rescue, but it was a pyrrhic victory.

..

"KIZASHI HARUNO, YOU WILL PAY FOR DOING THIS TO ME! I'M NEVER HAVING KIDS AGAIN!" ...is what the hospital halls were filled with, echoing down each corridor and every room.

..

Relief is washing over Mebuki- the pain that straddled her body has now relaxed, and she is calm.

The doctor hands her the newborn with gloved gentleness, and finally, the Harunos are a family of three. When Mebuki notices the pink hair growing like a patchy grassland on her head, she wants to say the name out loud- Hana- finally- she'd waited nine months for her arrival- "Ha-"

But then again, as he hadn't spoken in a while, agape in awe of his newborn daughter, Kizashi dawns upon his delayed reaction and interrupts her.

"Her hair- it's so pink." he muses, eliciting a glare from the glowering mother before him. Sheepishly, he continues his thought, if with a lot less enthusiasm:

"Mebuki, you know, why don't we name her... Sakura?"

Mebuki stares weirdly at her husband as if months of planning had been thrown out the window- which in fact it did. "Wait, what? We decided on Hana, re-mem-ber?" she says, weakly, but surely. Absently, Kizashi takes his baby in his arms, coddling the child happily, chuckling as he rocked her.

"Sakura!" he says, and the child, somehow not bawling, seems to smile or twitch in response. "See? She likes the name, let's go with Sakura. For her hair."

The man knows the rest of the year will be just as joyous.

Only it wouldn't.

________________________________

One tranquil, soundless night is disrupted by a sudden roar. It reverberates through the house, shaking the furniture and fine china stocked on the shelves. Mebuki jolts awake and tugs Kizashi into a state of awareness as well, though it takes a few seconds of loud screaming and violent coaxing. Looking out the window is a terrifying beast- orange pelt, red eyes as thick and ghastly as blood, with long, threatening claws. Nine furry tails twisting and turning in tandem, and the sight of a raging fire and destroyed nearby buildings leaves the two of them utterly speechless.

Her mouth gapes open uselessly as she scurries to her precious daughter Sakura- who seems almost distraught by the fiasco, before evacuating their home as quickly as possible. The streets are chaos, people are screaming senselessly and thrashing about in shock. The discord does not calm down even with the introduction of protective shinobi, who are plucking the crazed civilians into safety. Soon enough, they were rescued as well.

While Kizashi never dabbled too far into shinobi business without his wife's utmost consent(perhaps they deemed it too dangerous to even mention), but he recognizes the beast- not by its riveting orange fur or monstrous fangs but the nine swirling tails on its back. Frozen in shock; it takes a little more than a dozen moments of analyzing and reanalyzing for the Harunos to click that their only viable path was to escape.

They didn't know who had been its Jinchūriki; Kushina's status had been well-guarded, at least from the general population, her entire life.

He doesn't get to see that Kushina has died. He doesn't get to see Minato performing the Reaper Death seal on half of the Nine-tails then sealing the rest of it into his son. He doesn't even hear about until a few weeks later.

The two of them only come back to the city the very next day, in ruins.

..

Kizashi looks away bittersweetly. Their lives had been spared from this tragic time, only a year after the last Shinobi War had ended- conflict was a never-ending cycle in this world, it seemed. But not without the cost of another.

"No.." she can only whisper as Kushina and Minato Namikaze's names are among the deceased. She cannot say anything even when she's present at their funeral. She doesn't cry- they weren't that close, and the baby boy that they had was a demon- the Nine-tailed monster that murdered his own parents.

Come to think of it, the same thing had happened to the Kazekage's son and mother. Maybe Kizashi was right in loathing Suna.

At least he was a baby boy until he had the beast sealed inside him. Then the line was a thin one; just plain awful, that a parent could do this to their own child. Subjugating then to life without future, only to be judged by the beast within.

She knew, and hypocritically yet she still judged the infant- cuddled up in a caretaker's arms, eyes closed and unidentifiable, only to be recognized by the saffron shade of his spiky hair. It reminded her exactly of Kushina's husband. She never would have believed the two would do something so devious, but, perhaps it was for the best in the long run; and the other choice, may it be born or aforementioned cowardice or love, to flee would be a demeaning and selfish option.

Some questions didn't have perfect solutions, after all.

The Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi took his role back from retirement and declared that nobody ever mentions this incident ever again.

She can't blame him for the condemnation, maybe he wants to be able to look over Konoha again- his wife has died that day; so had his apprentice's prodigy and both Hiruzen's own would-be (and short-lived) successor.

Perhaps listening to her friend- once-friend chatter about her childhood had its downsides, too. If there was one thing worse than knowing too little it was knowing too much.

Mebuki isn't a shinobi. She's not someone who has had to suffer being a broken child who fought through war. But that doesn't mean she doesn't empathize. Everyone she meets- even the little girl in her crib seemed to wail slightly in shared sorrow; never too loudly, like it was but a disregarded secret. Kizashi shakes his head, holding their child up to his chest while rocking her to sleep.

Mebuki holds Sakura in her arms, sniffling as she observes the chaos being molded back into order- reconstruction, rehabilitation. So many lives were lost, and...

This is why she never became a ninja. They live fast, die young, and there's no predictability in your life. Minato and Kushina were perfect examples of a happy couple- and now a percentile in a research paper for death among shinobi-kind. They didn't deserve it- Minato especially- he was Hokage for far less than a year before he died, so his face stood barren on the mountainside without as much as a single achievement (as Konoha's Kage) next to his name.

She didn't want a friend to become a decimal point in a percentage or to be forced away from society because of a misconception. But it happened regardless of what she wanted- or what the other mothers wanted.

Only the Sharingan could control a Tailed Beast- the council is highly suspicious. They place an order upon the Uchiha Clan to be moved into a singular complex to be monitored constantly. "'The Uchiha will now live in a compound'," Mikoto sighs, sorrow folding over her eyes, repeating the order of law in one hand, as if she couldn't believe what she was reading. Although the elders had just said this was for their own safety, she knew better. Everyone believed an Uchiha, one capable of controlling the beasts with the Sharingan, was the perpetrator. As ridiculous and counterproductive that action of harming their very base of operation sounded there was no other scientific explanation. Her youngest son is in her arms, wailing as if he knew what was happening, and the mourning has dulled her lachrymose eyes to a sullen, dry, parchment-gray.

They bid the cheery- well, as blitheful one could be in her shoes, farewell, not knowing what to do. "I'll see you around, Uchiha-san," she mutters, giving Mikoto a clandestine stare.

________________________________

Three years pass.

She's three years old, Sakura Haruno.

She's nothing like her past self- she'd not a meek child- at least, internally. It's the earliest, fully cognitive thought she can remember- everything from her birth to her infancy remained in obscurity, most likely due to her body suppressing the trauma of new life. So when she becomes two and a half and says the first lengthy sentence, her parents are overjoyed.

She chooses these words without much thought, but they seem to have a significant resonance within her parents. It's a hot summer day, and it's when her mom offers her a popsicle. "Thank you," she said, mostly on reflex. The next phrase is something like "for the food," but the insignificance of the saying makes it immemorable.

The first time she distinctly notices that she is looking into a mirror, Sakura comes to the conclusion that both her eyes were her usual emerald-green. Her Rinnegan didn't stay- and if it did, her parents would've been freaking out and people would stare. She wasn't bullied as a three-year-old, children that age were too innocent to go picking on others. At first, it was weird not having her abilities anymore, but she never used them in the first place- (but having the option to resort to them was always reassuring)- but she got used to it.

Mebuki loves singing songs to her- a quality her mother lacked the first time around. It's odd- Sakura has never cried as a tot, earning her the moniker of an angel. While she doesn't recall why her mother enjoyed singing her lullabies, she assumes it was because of her baby's odd sleep schedule. Weirdly enough, her psyche had remained intact and thus she followed a semi-regulated sleeping pattern, as fuel to her parent's constant (passive) boasting. There's already differences-which worries Sakura, but she concludes that her personal family life has had no grand ripple effect in the community.

She's often taken out to visit other mothers (and their children) of the village; heck, she's even met people much too reserved and therefore largely unlikely to be out-and-about like Neji Hyūga, the icicle contending only to Sasuke post-death-of-his-entire-family. (But much like Sasuke, Sakura ended up declaring Neji not the same man as he was when he was three as she concluded he was not always a silent type.) Not that three-year-olds had interesting conversations, but Mebuki's role as a member of the Konoha Mothers Alliance makes her a socialite of sorts.

One day, she meets Hinata Hyūga and Kō, the pair walking down the street. The short-haired Hinata looks away shyly, not returning Sakura's intent stare. Mebuki turns to face Sakura as she freezes to a stiff statue in the middle of the street, eyes glued onto her former friend. A frivolous fire the strangest cyan shade comes to her mind, a bitter pain dulled by years of time spanning over her body, before a sharp yank breaks her concentration.

A desolate feeling reminds her of a past event. The tug of her heart begging her to cry. Sakura doesn't understand why this memory makes her so woeful.

..

Flower-viewing festival is at its fullest during mid-April. Sakura and her mother attend the town square meetup to watch the languid falling of cherry blossoms and to eat dango at the vendors. As her mother hands the money over to saleswoman, giving her daughter a stick of the sugary ricecakes. Sakura sucks away at the dulce, enjoying the taste. While she is distracted, she doesn't notice another family come walking over to the stand.

It's been a while, hasn't it? She hasn't met with any Uchiha in three years.

Sakura had last met Obito as she departed with her sensei while Mebuki hadn't seen Mikoto since the Kyubi incident. Mother and daughter both had elation fill their hearts as they turned to familiar- yet fresh faces of those whom they'd known in the past(or the future?)

"Oh! Mikoto. I haven't properly seen you in so long! Did you bring your sons? Look how much Itachi has grown. So has Sasuke! He's the same age as Sakura?" her mother says.

"Mebuki! Yes, it's been a while. Your daughter is looking adorable as ever. She's three, right? Sasuke's around that." an unidentifiable voice flaunts back. "Itachi, have you met Mrs. Haruno's daughter yet? Go say hi."

Sakura is snapped out of her reverie by Mebuki tapping her on the shoulder, and the dango almost falls out her hands. She glances to the side- and it was... it was... the face on the bingo book, the red Catherine spinning-wheels turned onyx- the nightmarish scowl now a childish grin- it was Sasuke's brother!

"My name is Itachi." says the eight-year-old boy in front of her with kindness she didn't expect. And, oh, look at that, he's already a ninja. There's a nicely polished forehead protector is right on his head to testify to this fact. "Hello, what's your name?"

She then sees a young Sasuke cooped up behind Itachi, tugging on his sleeve defensively, glancing at her and then at his brother, switching back and forth. Actually, he's holding on for dear life on his older sibling's robes, the cautious distrust written all over his chubby cheeks. So they were really that close before... that happened.

It's hanami season and the smells of spring that flowed through her window as a nineteen-year-old comes back with a feeling of strong nostalgia.

This is.. two years too early. She was initiated in the Academy the year she met Sasuke and that was when she was five.

"MynameisSakura!" she blurts, the phrase blending into a catastrophic tangle of words- which was understandable because she only just realized that she had been standing there, staring into the void, saying nothing. Great first impression for your possibly-now-not-future-best-friend.

Somehow, he understands. "Hello, Sakura-chan," The elder Uchiha smiles but turns to his little brother, who is practically fluffing up with discomfort. He starts to mumble in a motherly tone to his younger brother, trying to push him to interact with someone else besides him.

"Come-on, Sasuke. Introduce yourself. Do it for your aniki, it's time you made friends..." (Which was kinda brutally honest on Itachi's part, actively insulting yet- only looking out for his brother at the same time.)

After thirty inelegant seconds of convincing- which most three-year-olds would've probably lost interest by now and fled the scene, but Sakura had stayed, being the mental adult- he relented. "S-sasuke. I'm Uchiha Sasuke."

She hopes when Sakura offers Sasuke her hand, that he will not push her away. She doesn't want to give him unwanted attention like before- she doesn't want to become just one of his fangirls.. even if her feelings go further than that- she wants to be his friend, not his clingy lover. Even so, without thinking, she smiles widely and draws near- quite an aggressive gesture- "Okay! Let's be fwriends, Sasuke-kun!"

Surprisingly, through held breath, Sasuke takes her hand and shakes it, reciprocating the deed. "Y-yeah." And 'twas the start of a beautiful friendship.

________________________________

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura says, gently, side-glancing the young boy. "Why don't you play with the other kids?"

The park is busy and people are flooding in in this tranquil Saturday evening. Itachi has a day off after a mission well completed and is looking over the two children, as per Mikoto's request. "They... they annoy me," he answers with a grunt. "The girls, more than the guys. They won't stop bothering me, I hate it."

"Bothering you with what?" Sakura asked, knowing plainly what that 'what' was. But a maiden shall play coy.

"Stuff." Sasuke regresses into his emotional shell, avoiding the question with a half-hearted reply. Sakura peers at his sneer before turning away from him. "...nii-san has to deal with it, too," saying it more with an asking, unsure tone, Sasuke darts over to his elder brother, who wasn't really paying attention to the small duo's awkward conversation.

While Itachi wasn't paying attention, this did not mean the omnipresent Uchiha was in any way startled by the sudden bearings of his brother's throwing himself at him. "Oh? What's wrong, ototou-kun?"

He puffs his cheeks up annoyedly as if expecting his sibling to perfectly understand every non-legible mumble he had blabbed onto to Sakura. "Nii-san! You weren't paying attention!" he says angrily, kicking the dirt below him childishly. The dust cloud dissipates, settling some dirt on Itachi's snowy white bandages, but Sasuke pays no mind to the slightly dejected expression his brother is giving.

"Sorry," he apologizes softly. "But, Sakura-chan is willing to listen," he says with a brotherly intuition. In his mind, getting him to rely on others besides himself(Itachi) makes Sasuke evolve in the terms of his already limited social skills.

"Yeah? I am." Sakura cheers, swirling a strand of her pink locks between her fingers, twining it with a loose curled-over knot before releasing the thing, letting it splay on her shoulder. "Sasuke-kun, I'm sure I'll be able to help you out!"

The smaller Uchiha squints accusingly at his brother, before taking a hint of a look at Sakura. Then back to Itachi-niisan. "But she doesn't know-" Itachi puts a finger on his brother's lips, silencing him.

"Sure she doesn't right now, but she'll understand, right?"

"But she might say-"

"Might," Itachi clarifies.

"Ugh," Sasuke moans.

Sakura is almost impressed at Itachi's quick subjugation of his aggravated sibling. She appreciates the support that he's giving her, she could say. Friendship with Sasuke came in many different steps, as she experienced first-hand on two separate occasions, so she figured that it would be a fact to accept he wasn't going to be responsive or open about himself. Unless it came down to his brother or the rest of his precious family coaxing him out of the dilemma.

"Sakura." Sasuke groans this time, with a very noticeable 'I'm only talking to you because I'm seriously obligated to say this, not because I wanted to,' vibe emanating from his every being before he turns sharply to her. "Annoying girls chase me around, I don't like it."

Pause. Sakura appears to think for a second.

"Have you.. ever told them out loud that you don't like it?"

From experience, Sasuke's lack of response to a child Sakura had given her a sort of hope- it's only when Sasuke actually responded negatively that she was disheartened. The smallest of gestures were turned into hints of romance in her overthinking, semi-hormonal preteen brain and she assumed the aloof Uchiha was no more than bluffing every time he had coldly pushed her away. So maybe, as an ex-fangirl, could understand their mentality.

"...I... no, I didn't." Sasuke murmurs with seceded bewilderment.

"Well, you know, you could give it a try," Sakura states, elongating the 'could' to add a hint of persuasion.

"I don't want to talk... I.. fine," having no other choice, Sasuke pouts again and whips his head away from Sakura's direction. The pinkette grins.

________________________________

Setting aside the fact that Sakura had found Itachi scary, he wasn't a bad guy. The stereotype of him being a bloodthirsty, completely psychotic man who would kill her on a whim was quickly overtaken.

Moreover, she noticed that he was a more interesting person that thought of previously. He wasn't a bloodthirsty precursor of a future ANBU, he wasn't a problem child who showed obvious signs of a mental issue, and instead, he was a surreptitious 8-year-old who somehow had the wisdom of a council of old sages, sprinkled in with some childish innocence and curiosity. Of the Uchiha she frequently interacted with, he was the more lean and accepting fellow.

"Ita-niisan, what's that?" asks Sakura, quite wondrously (she knows clearly what that is, but she shouldn't). Itachi is holding a little paper box in his hands. On the front is a generic brand of cough suppressant, and Itachi slips a pellet onto his hand by popping the packaging.

"Allergy medicine," Itachi says, glugging a sip of water before swallowing the pills.

"What are you allergic to, Ita-niisan?"

He doesn't answer. Rather, he stiffens and sets it aside, hand gliding down the side of his sat posture.

Why in the world this boy felt the need to hide his allergy like it was some kind of detrimental weakness- to a toddler, no less, Sakura did not even begin to ponder. (Her first thought is to ponder the ruthlessness of a Clan's head branch; perhaps even minimal deficiencies were shunned) But she knows, from the few moments she's had with Chibitachi, that he isn't going to bend like hot iron, even under her vaporous cuteness. "Okay, nevermind, then."

Kind and alluring, yet secretive and powerful. No wonder Itachi had a fan club all on his own. Sasuke's likability came from his aloofness and cool behavior, paired with (current) adorability.

People tended to cling onto figureheads that were unachievable- whoops, not to brag, but there had been a Sakura Fanclub too, just only after the 4th War had it been properly founded, however. It largely consisted of newer generation shinobi who previously would have looked up to Tsunade, but as Team 7's era's Sannin's last surviving member she was sculpted as one of the three shinobi gods of the war and thus rose in visibility. Like a new Madara-Hashirama-Mito trio.

"Itachi-kun." At first she thought she heard the wind wrong.

"Itachi-kun!" Then she assumed a friend of his had come along.

"Itachi-kun!!" Perhaps something happened? It sounded like multiple voices screaming in unison.

"ITACHI-KUN!" Owowowow my ears ow—

Speaking of fans, there were quite a few of them storming by- all girls of ages through six and twelve, featuring a nice mix of genin and academy students(some who previously had Itachi as a classmate, and the genin who had him now) suddenly swarming the boy, who had barely gulped down the small cup of water, like a hive-minded gang of wasps. And like their namesake, the girls cried out in unison- "ITACHI-KUN!!"

Sakura's little kid ears could not take the intense Hertz of the ravenous scream, and she blocked the sides of her head with her small palms, face scrunching up in dismay. Her first encounter with the fangirls, who already seemed insufferable enough as a first impression, wasn't going too well. "Ah.. yes. I'm currently occupied on watching some children," Itachi says. "I'm busy. I'd greatly appreciate it if you left me alone,"

He was talented in the art of excuse-making, as he was talented at kunai-throwing and flame-blasting. It was no surprise mental deceit was part of his evolving arsenal.

It may seem plain at first, but there were a few signs of ingenuity; if he had said 'Watching Sasuke' or 'Sakura' or both, one, Sasuke would be in danger of being prowled on by the elder, more ferocious fangirls and two, Sakura in the risk of being accused of 'stealing their man' and therefore presented with some real danger. 'I greatly appreciate it,' isn't sugar coated, it is plainly his words; and to think that Itachi would enjoy being treated with kindness by them- oh, what a joyous day?

There is no "come back later," or "next time," to suggest he wants to see them ever again, only the hint of a suggestion that leaving him alone is the main point. If they were smart they would understand; no, if they hadn't been blinded by infatuation, moreover, then they would have picked up the animosity and moved away. Unless they were Naruto in girl form and refused to relent.

Or... maybe Sakura was just thinking about Itachi's random statement with too many expectations in mind.

________________________________

"Do you want to learn about Naṟ̸̓u̷̖̮̱̖̮̟̫͉̺̖̼͒̅̍͛͂̾̊͒̉́̈͜͠ʇ̴̧̧̧̡̧̠͔͎͓̟̪̳̫̱̳̱̙̟̗͓̰̣̠͈̝̹͕̫̻̜͍̗͍͙͇͎̱̞̝͉͉̮̜̭̩̖͚̭̰̳̪͓͗̓̿̓͗́̍̆̅̿̂̾͂̇̊̔͐̏̍͒̔̿̎͌͂̊̉̇̒̇̔͒̔̐͑̇̒̎̑̕̕͜͜͜͝͝͠͠ͅ0—"

After a moment of thought, Sakura comes to understand the sullen heartbreak that comes with the young Hyūga heiress's appearance. A memory- which made no sense,- of the world's end. Her expression of gladness was screwed into devastation before another wave of guilt crashed upon her at the sight of an empty bed.

They had known each other once before, it seemed, and whatever event had occurred had severed their relationship. Quite afraid of a negative reaction, Sakura refrained from acting on pursuing a friendship with her.

Sasuke's older brother- usually free during the weekends as a genin, would leave time to oversee his young sibling as well as supervise Sakura- would notice her humbled drawback. "You seem troubled, Sakura-chan," he says calmly.

Again a flash of a memory- one of shrouded pain and suffering comes to light as malice on Sakura's face, but another voice in her head tells her that she has long forgiven the boy in front of her.

Whatever that meant.

"No, Itachi-niisan, I'm fwine!" She responds on autopilot, but her mind is elsewhere, beneath the clouds.

"Sakura. Pass me the shovel," demands a young Uchiha, looking at her with a plain stink-eye. He's making a sandcastle- featuring tapered pillars made with cookie-cutter buckets and drip-towers made with slightly wet sand drizzled on top of an existing structure. Sakura hadn't paying attention to the artistic integrity of the piece just yet but she passed the red utensil without reply.

Hinata was walking by again on her designated morning stroll, as a precluding act to her training- which like in the case of heirs or heiresses would begin at around the age of four or five. (She was out practicing her Byakugan, as calm focus had been foreseen as yielding better results. She 'still' could not toggle her Byakugan, to Hizashi's chagrin) She was currently two, so that meant she wasn't overstepping her boundaries of she had requested a moment of her time...

Despite herself Sakura doesn't go immediately to Hinata. The memory of a black fire intermingled with blue flames, the one she had before, became a little clearer as more figures and imagery revealed itself- a man with a flaring coat of an ivory-diluted-turquoise, her 'sensei''s final promise to her... some kind of emotional barricade is divesting her ability to interact with Hinata.

"Sasuke-kun, don't be rude." Sakura remarks in such a detached way even she found herself surprised. "I'm not your nii-chan, (who'll do facile tasks like that for your sorry tush) I'm your fwiend."

..

A full week goes by before Sakura finally musters the courage to interact with Hinata. "Hinata-chan! Hello!" joyously, she approaches the elusive heiress, currently shielded by the protective Kō.

Hinata backs away, not defensively but timidly. "H-h-h-hello?" she clearly phrases it as a question, in disbelief that she had just come over on a whim.

"Hinata-chan, ne, do you want to play with me?" she extends a hand while Kō looks mostly disapprovingly at the interaction.

Surprisingly the bodyguard doesn't interfere, leaving Hinata to almost hesitantly accept the offer. "..S-s-s-s-ss-sure..." she fumbles with her words as she warily looks at her caretaker for guidance, but as she receives none, decides that there weren't enough cons to decline.

..

"My other fwiends?" Sakura asks, swinging on the swings while standing, holding onto the rails before using her body to give the swing a little more of momentum. "Oh, there's Sasuke-kun and Itachi-niisan and I also have.."

You,

And yet now I don't. "Well, actually, I don't really have any good fwiends-"(an over exaggeration)"-besides them," she clarifies.

"Oh, um. Could y-y-you tell me about them?"

Why was this so familiar? Deja vu kept coming and going and she was baffled by the inexplicable nostalgia. "O—h. Alright. Sasuke-kun's... a Clan leader's kid like you, he's Uchiha Sasuke. He's a little on the bickering side-"

"B-b-iggering?" Hinata asks, confusedly.

"Oh, I mean, he fwights a lot." she explains. "Not with fwists but he talks," as Hinata's expression slowly borders terrified, she continues. "But he's nice in the inside, he just doesn't know better."

"O-oh. What about Weasel-san?" Hinata cocks her head, wavering unsureness finessed in her eyes. "Is he your p-p-pet weasel?"

"No, he's Sasuke-kun's aniki."

Hinata sank into her swing, physically shrinking with embarrassment. "O-o-o-h, I'm-m-m sorry," she says, very quietly, her downturned face flushing hard.

"It's 'kay," she assures the timid child, looking at her as the swing began to decelerate before ultimately stopping. Sakura, being too short to hop off on her own, gestures for help to the reluctant Kō.

But he helps her anyway. Chivalry is a good trait for Hinata-hime to possess. "So, Ita-nii is really nice. And strong. He's already a ninja," she says in an almost bragging manner. "I think he's cool."

"Y-y-yeah." Hinata agrees, but almost bursts out into laughter as she is unable to get the mental image of a ferret-like creature playing alongside the blurry image of 'Sasuke' and Sakura. "U-u-u-m, Sakura-ch-san,"

"-chan is fwine."

"Sakura-c-chan." She now whispers, shushed by the pressure put on her- she'd already messed up, didn't she? Sakura was never going to be her friend if she kept this stuttery streak! "W-would you.. like to.. you know.. um.. be.. b-b-be frien..."

"'Course!" The pinkette beams, while simultaneously helping Hinata off her own swing. "Actually, I was waiting fwor that!"

________________________________

A normal day at the playground with her father, the sun yellowing over the clouds, a typical spring afternoon. Sakura was kicking the dirt around with Sasuke, their budding bromance- or, uh, in other words, friendship, still yet to bloom.

Itachi-niisan isn't here today, instead, we get Sasuke's cousin, Shisui.

He's a boy of average height for his age, slightly curly hair and strangely long eyelashes, just like Sasuke's older brother. All Uchiha seem to have wrinkles- with the exception of Sasuke.

That Shisui from the Itachi files, he who has been 'taken care of.' So he was an Uchiha after all. He's a tad older than Itachi, perhaps 11 or so.

Now, at first, Sasuke was still cold and distant as he always was. It took him a while to phase out of that self-centered 'every girl is only out to try and fangirl over me' mindset and for him to accept Sakura as a platonic comrade instead of a lecherous fan, but it did happen. Two grueling weeks of convincing and re-convincing and everyday meetups, courtesy of Kizashi Haruno and Mikoto Uchiha's phenomenal and newfound friendship.

The days of taking a back seat to his wife's friendly ventures no more, Kizashi is now an honorary mother in the alliance's eyes.

It seems the Uchiha woman is a magnet for friends, which isn't surprising due to her all-kind nature and sunny personality. She allows her father to get into- modishly stating it, "in touch with his feminine side".

Sakura has found herself enjoying pranking Sasuke at his expense. Or anyone for that matter- if you're around such an emo and unresponsive boy such as Sasuke as much as she was, you'd find it gets to your head quite quickly.

While she wouldn't have acted outrageously, or a little crazy for that matter otherwise, there was a lot of mental setbacks that came with acting like a child. You can't express your feelings, you can't move or run like you used to, and you can't do anything like go outside by yourself. Privacy is a thing of the past and the only way to cope with it is to salvage any alone time by laughing at Sasuke's sorrowful state.

Since Shisui is a responsible 'adult'- well, he is a chunin, after all, he's allowed to look after Sasuke all by himself, like a big boy. Maybe a chunin that had only become a chunin that very same year and was still practically a genin with exceptional abilities, but at this point in Konoha history, chunin were just about considered mature enough, anyway.

To be honest it was the very same matriarch who kindly asked the young lad to also equally-kindly take care of her youngest son while she was away on a Clan meeting; Shisui (or Sasuke) still being too young to participate and all.

The Clan meeting, however, Sakura felt as she overheard the conversation between cousins, that it had to do something a lot more sinister than a simple family gathering. Why else would the kids be excluded? Even the supposedly 'mature' ones?

"So this is your gal pal, huh, Sasu-kun?" Shisui blabbers about with a grin. The younger Uchiha pouts but gives into 'cousin Shisui's awesomeness' as the older one begins to brag. "Ah? You know, gal-pal, are you a fan of his brother? Sure you are- but you two, remember this: I'm stronger, and cooler, than your nii-chan!" (He was only saying this to discreetly impress Sakura but failed with the fact that the randomness of the leap between topics was quite evident.)

Shisui happened to be the only Uchiha boy of the three she'd heard and known of who genuinely liked having a flock of tweenage fans gush over him. Sakura, of course, only knew this on passing mention.

But Sasuke adamantly denies. "No! Nobody is stronger than Itachi-niisan." he says, almost like a warning. "You're cool, Shisui-nii, but not as much as my older brother." Sakura just stares with her upper lip twitching, jaw hanging low, looking confusedly at the interaction between the young Uchiha and the elder, of which she's never interacted before.

She mindlessly scurries along in the slide, back onto the monkey bars- but she's not expected to be strong enough to climb those, so she just kinda fumbles and attempts to latch on but ultimately chickens out. Shisui has to help Sasuke go down the slide, much to the younger Uchiha's absolute contemn, being outdone by a hyper-eccentric little girl.

"Shisui-nii," Chibisuke complains like the baby he is. "I don't need help. Go help her instead." he flails his arms to ward the older Uchiha off, and he doesn't object. Shisui goes over to Sakura instead, sighing something to the extent of 'chunin shouldn't be taking D-rank missions like babysitting...'

"What's your name, Sasuke's little buddy?" Shisui smiles, his... nondescript mannerisms clicking back on from exasperated to full gear in the milliseconds it took Sakura to turn around again. He cocks his head downward, his curly hair too short to fall on front of his face, leaves her with a plain view of his expression. But he leans towards her, blocking out the sun with his head. It grows dark. He didn't mean it that way, but...

Little.

She's not flat-chested, shannaro!

(She is, being a prepubescent toddler made this one fact clear, yet she thinks this out on impulse.) She punches him in the face, sending him flying backward and into the concrete of the fence.

Shisui gasps loudly in surprise as he blinks, seeing that he wasn't embedded into the wall behind him like he thought. "... Nope. I'm not even asking for your name. You are officially a little devil."

Litt- "Oh? If it isn't Uchiha-san."

Shisui turns to the noise, and Sakura does as well. Sasuke is too busy being a premature emo and crouching down by the sand pit, counting the granules of sand absent-mindedly. It's none other than Hinata and Kō.

Shisui and Kō know each other. They begin to talk, but the Hyūga seems guarded in the way he carries himself- Uchiha are still regarded as potential traitors to Konoha, but outright disrespect is not something Hiashi-sama condones.

"...Sa-sasuke-kun, S-sakura-chan, hello." Hinata bows respectfully, and the boy, having never met the heiress beforehand, shyly looks away. "U-um.. Sakura-chan talked a-about you," she clarifies, trying her best not to look like some creepy stalker- oh, what if they did?

"Hinata-chan, meet 'Suke-kun, Sasuke-kun, meet Hina-chan." the pinkette child proudly proclaims, introducing her two friends to one another. "I hope you get along! You two are both Clan he- I mean, main-branch kids, right?"

Sasuke's interest is suddenly piqued by this additional information. He's never really had friends before Sakura- didn't feel the need to devote any time to anyone- but she's shown him patience and unending affection, and at least proved she wasn't just out to ogle him- so he's never had someone else nearby in a similar situation to him. "You're the Hyūga.. daughter?" he squeaks childishly, his eyes poking through to her beneath thick eyelashes. He would say 'heiress' if he knew the word, but he doesn't so he compromises.

"Y-you're.." mumbles Hinata, trying to point out the obvious to the other Clan member, timidly looking far-off to the side while avoiding his face at all costs. Sakura only sighs internally as the two desperately try to outspeak one another, but they are too silent to really get a conversation raring.

"You know what would be fun?" Sakura interrupts their sad attempt at a real interaction and pulls the two kids into an uncomfortable armlock. "We should practice being ninja in the forest!" and then she basically kidnapped Chibihina and Chibisuke, running off into the wilderness without Shisui's knowledge.

But Kō noticed, and he was flaming mad. As Sakura almost stealthily exited the playground's borders, Kō snagged her by the collar, loosening her grip on her two friends strung to her side. "Excuse me, girl. Didn't I tell you, you were not to rough house with Hinata-hime?"

"...Kō-san, my sincerest apologies. But, Hinata-himesama is only trying to train to prepare on becoming a kunoichi in the future, with me," she states with a bluntness that borders flavorless; earning frowns of confusion from Sasuke and Hinata, who are utterly disillusioned by the sudden glassiness (and punctuality) emanating from their sole- well, one of two, now, friends.

Kō returns the favor. "Take it up with her father, then."

She doesn't hesitate to do exactly that.

________________________________

日向

(Hyūga)

Ding-dong.

Sakura stood at the gateway to the Hyūga household, giving a second glance at the wooden hyousatsu in for verification. Below the surname is the three names of the house's patrons-

Hiashi

Hikari

Hinata

It's the right house, alright- grand, low-roofed architecture, dark furnishes and pillars, a manmade pool in the center plaza of the open-halled home. Hinata had moved out (Clan heiresses didn't simply move out) and gotten her own place after she turned nineteen, but seeing as even genin Hanabi crashed at her older sister's instead of her own home, there had to be something wrong with the main branch's residence. But Hyūga Hisashi's harsh demeanor kind of explained his two daughters' subtle indisposition against him, even from Sakura's point of view.

Hanabi wasn't born yet, considering her half-decade age gap between her elder sister. But there was an empty space towards the bottom of the hyousatsu, like they planned to introduce another family member in the near future. However, she did want to meet Hinata again and secure a friendship with her.

After patiently waiting for the better part of a minute, observing the grand manor with a semi-concentrated fixation, the door unlocked and a kind-faced woman with long, raven hair peered out. "Oh?" she says reflexively, noticing that the mystery guest wasn't a prankster who pressed the bell and left, it was a too-short-to-see child who was around the same age as her daughter. "Ah, hello there. Are you here to see Hinata?"

"Yes, Hyūga-san. May I come in?" Sakura says, bowing respectfully to the woman. It must've been Hikari Hyūga, Hinata's mother, who up until now, she hadn't been formally introduced to.

She looked at her like, 'ah, what a well-mannered child,' as she creaked the door open a little further, allowing Sakura to pass through. "May I speak to Mr. Hyūga, first?" asks Sakura, guiding her tone to sound as if borrowed from a Hyūga noble instead of a commoner's. She isn't a Clanswoman, she's just a civilian, (then again, imagining a 'Haruno Clan' was fun) but espionage missions had taught her to sound more exotic.

"Danna-sama? He is..." she murmured, but it did sound odd that a child was trying to secure a meeting with the Clan Head. Unsure whether or not if this polite child had intentions "worthy of my time!", she turns to ask. "...Currently available, but, may I ask for the reason?"

"I would like to be granted permission to train with Hinata Hyūga, ma'am," Sakura answers, dipping the crook of her neck downwards, not raising it until Hikari makes a noise of confused approval and walks off to a far-off sliding door, closing it behind her, leaving Sakura to stall outside. Even without pressing her ear to the door, she can make out a muffled conversation happening inside its walls.

Hiashi would approve, too, if she could prove her own worth as a kunoichi to him- wait, she's not a kunoichi, she's not even in the academy. She's only a toddler, barely able to muster words like 'permission'. Hikari surely noticed her premature maturity and was bargaining with her options. The sliding door rolls open again, and Sakura walks inside after noting Mrs. Hyūga not fully walk outside, but stand there in wait.

"So this is the child who wants to train with my daughter.." Hiashi scratches his chin, ivory pupils scanning over Sakura's form. "She doesn't bear a Clan crest I can recognize. She's a civilian." Unlike his wife, Hiashi Hyūga is not a questioner- he just states things like it is, apparently. Asking questions would mean being below them or something, according to the middle-aged man's aspirations.

"Yes, sir." Sakura confirms, kneeling now. "But I assure you I am capable of helping Hinata-sama with her training." Essentially, Hinata wasn't training at the tender age of three, but she would begin at four, when she was to go into the Academy the following year. "I am capable of elemental ninjutsu, genjutsus and taijutsus, but I do have other abilities." Hiashi ogled her with disbelief at the statement.

Sakura wasn't going to go crazy with the reveal of her abilities. In fact, not even her mother really knew about her innate power. So she'd stick with basic, slightly-impressive ninjutsus and weak everything-else, making taijutsu her main prowess- that was more acceptable when concerning villagers' children. Besides, Hyūgas were trained in the secret art of the Gentle Fist Technique, making sure Hiashi would be certain that she had value to Hinata.

"Demonstrate," Hiashi commands, clearly suspicious of Sakura's declaration. Sakura nods, expecting this fully. She steps out of the small room, and Hiashi raises his brow. Perhaps he was awaiting her to be capable of summoning water and bending it to her will- she could, but that would be unrealistic for a kid her age.

Stepping towards the pool, Sakura performs some lousy hand signs, calling for the water below her. Sure enough, the water globs up from the body and she swerves it around mid-air. After a spectacle, she drops the water back into the pond, causing a spray of faux rain to come showering down. But a second before the water hits the pond, Hiashi yells a 'kai'. His face is one of bewilderment.

An illusion that showed little to no flaw, that even the Byakugan master had been caught off-guard by her unexpected tactic. He had only noticed due to the small refraction of light hitting the water had been off by a microscopic degree and broken out of his immersion.

Sakura had, even if she admitted to not practicing much, stressed on learning genjutsu after she was given the Rinnegan from Sasuke. It was a lot easier with an ocular crutch by her side but it didnt mean she wasn't capable of a genjutsu without it. If she was immune to genjutsu, why didn't she try to master it as well- it would never work against her in combat, so regardless of what she did it wouldn't be a loss.

"And that was a genjutsu, sir." Sakura says, smiling smugly. She had Shisui to thank for the bit of inspiration to mentally torture some very annoying people. (Oh, wasn't it obvious? That wall-punch was a genjutsu.)

________________________________

It was another full month before Sakura met Ino.

Sakura and Sasuke are playing by the brook. Now, it's not like they were playing conventionally- no, they weren't splashing water and catching minnows, they were training. To take a moment's rest from the daily exposure to childish energy, (which was potentially 'deadly' when taken on nonstop for three years) Mikoto and Mebuki refrained from watching their children too closely.

And it also turns out that Sasuke was not only a lot bubblier and friendly as a child he was also a lil' crap with an older brother/father complex. No wonder he had no friends (except herself, of course. And it's not because she has a bias due to knowing the less-coquettish version of him that everyone admired from afar. This Chibisuke was cool in his own way..! Besides, he was always popular.)

"'Kura-chan." 'Kura'- a nickname the result of his inability to pronounce 'Sakura' quick enough- it was dainty. Sasuke had only ever replied with a slow, passive "Sah..kura," But his snappy "Kura"s were just as enjoyable to hear. Another happy finding is that Chibisuke also has more manners than his older counterpart- he adds honorifics. "My otou-san was teaching me how to do a katon, but I just can't do it properly..."

She holds her latent power a still a secret to avoid being questioned about them- Haruno aren't known for prodigies unlike the Hyūga or Uchiha, they're a civilian family with no value to her surname. It's rare moments like these where nobody's looking that she can show her potential- and Sasuke is trustworthy, at least in the spoken department. He most definitely won't go around town saying- 'Sakura-chan can uproot trees 'ttebayo!' like Naruto. Not even as a bright and charming child, in contrast to the, 'I'm an avenger,' persona.

"Sasuke-kun, I'll show you how to do a katon!" Sakura says, pressing two fingers separate from a fist and blowing a decently sized flame from her mouth. She can perform weak fire jutsus, although nothing significant or effective enough to use in real battle due to her natures being Earth- Water- and Yin (technically Yang, too) releases, sadly. It's a shame she must wait for Kakashi to teach him. "Let's see you doing it now, Sasuke-kun!"

The boy looks stunned at the display and then performs his own fireball. The result is... a success, but it's not as impressive hers(which wasn't that great at all). Sakura frowns, betwixt. "Sasuke-kun, you're trying to use too much strength. You put too much chakra into your attack, really fast, that not all of it has time to get to your mouth."

"Chakra?" he asks.

"Chakra. It's the flow of power in everything's bodies, we use them through jutsus." Sakura explains, trying to sound a little confused herself. "It's a pretty big problem for us kids. Sometimes we try to force things."

He tries again, following her advice, and the flame glows a little blue with added heat. Sakura's heart feels like it sank deep into her chest.

Oh god.

Blue flames, like Toneri- his entire body was made of the same icy fire.

Because of Toneri- everyone was dead. Everyone had died a tragic and horrible death. She wasn't three. All the memories of a past life so far weren't her randomly happening to find herself in this weird circumstance where she was really over twenty but looked like a child- she came here for a reason.

Sakura remembers clearly now, the distraction of her lollygagging antics and perpetual frittering disappearing to reveal her past; Obito had successfully taught her the genesis technique- and she traveled back in order to save Naruto and Sasuke from dying. Or, at the very least, finding someone who could stop the end of the world. Someone needed to stop Toneri.

"Uh, are you okay, 'Kura-chan? You really like staring into space, don't you?" he states, sounding very unimpressed.

"...Oh, sorry, Sasuke-kun. That was just really awesome," she responds cooly, assuming an alibi quite charismatically. "You got the heat down, all you need to do is spread the chakra out a little bit. It works like a field. You know, if you see a lightbulb, the light is the brightest the closer you get?"

"Okay. Lemmie try!" He nods, eyes sparkling. His second attempt glows less blue-ish but spans the width of the entire creek, just a few inches short of the flammable trees. "You think I'll be as good as nii-chan?"

Well, Itachi Uchiha is freaking scary, forgiven/an innocent child or not. Maybe Chibisuke will surpass him someday, but she'd rather have her tiny B.F.F.F.S.W.W.F.T.L.T.(best friends forever since we were friends last time) to be a fragile cherub a little longer. They grow up so fast... "Maybe not your nii-chan, but better than me!"

"But you're..." he can't find the words, so he sucks on the insides of his cheeks, pondering the topic for a minute. Then Chibisuke heralds the worst possible answer- "You,"

Was that an insult? Dammit, Chibisuke, basically making Sakura question her very self-worth, even as a child.

"W-well, Sasuke-kun, I'm actually really good at this. I could beat your nii-san if I wanted to!" she challenges, punching a fist into an open palm repetitively. (Though, theoretically, even kid Itachi could beat Sakura- hasn't she seen what that man was capable of before?) 'It is so on, Sasuke.' she growls to herself. She's not going to hit him, him being the adorable angel-face he is, (and she's against child abuse, being the former children's clinic director) but she could give his mind a good lesson in integrity and peer empathy.

"I doubt it, 'Kura," he giggles.

Unfortunately, their 'beautiful' private time together is interrupted by the insurgence of voices parting the slow whistle of wind phasing through the oaken timberland. Mebuki and Mikoto are nearby, searching for their kids. "Sakura-chan! Time to go home!"

Sakura grabs his forearm to pull him up the steep hill surrounding the creek, but he says something. "'Kura-chan!"

As Sasuke turns, his mouth opening to continue- Sakura waits patiently, grabbing onto the root of a tree to keep their balance. Will he thank her for the expert advice?

No. He just sticks his tongue out like a cheeky bastard, 'nyeh' sound effect included. A tick forms in her eyebrows.

"Bye, Sasuke-kun!" she lets go of his hand and waves with a smile and a cheer, proceeding on abandoning him in the woods. (Sometimes, she wants to just smack him.) Whatever the repercussions, that little crap needs to learn this very valuable moral.

..

After being scolded like a petulant kid (she, sadly, actually is one) for an hour, Sakura is walking home by the sunset. She passes the playground, her mother's hand in tow. Suddenly, Mebuki stops walking, causing Sakura to jolt backward.

In a blizzard of sequences, Sakura is then shoved all the way into the playground by her mother's grasp, then placed in front of a very familiar face.

"Oh! Mrs. Yamanaka, long time no see," Mebuki squeals like a sorority girl. The rococo brunette with un-Ino-like, but equally featureless red eyes also squeals back, losing her regality in 0.2 seconds flat. It's the ever-illustrious and alluring mating- I mean, talking, ritual between Konoha mothers.. Sakura sheds an inner tear at the beauty of nature.

"Sakura-chan! Come on, introduce yourself," her mom cajoles, pushing her towards Ino. Sakura notes that she doesn't remember meeting Ino as a three-year-old; their earliest interaction was probably when she was seven. Guilt pangs in her chest as she remembers that the last time they had talked was when the asteroid had hit the scavenging-grounds and Sai had to rescue the both of them. But she reminds herself that this Ino and that Ino are completely different people, and should be treated as such.

Ever since her first proper phrase, Sakura has tried to keep her vocabulary age-appropriate. She stutters on purpose and slurs her 'f's. The risk of being interrogated for being constantly suspicious later on in life is too great to ignore. "M-my name is Sakura." she says, coyly, offering her hand to the bleach-blonde girl.

"Ino Yamanaka," the other girl says, proudly. "Hi!" Sakura notices that her extroverted personality had always been the case, very quickly. As if repenting for her last life's actions, she forms a budding friendship with her former best friend like it's the mission she came here for.

This is how her mission begins. There are a million thoughts in her head. There's an overarching plan, however, and that is: prevention. Most of Akatsuki's core members had been recruited throughout her lifetime, (unlike members like Nagato or Konan, who had been there from the beginning) originally, so she could accurately predict which ninjas would be targetted. All she needed to do was stop 'Madara'(Obito) from approaching them, then convince them to join her side instead.

She ponders to herself on who exactly had been recruited to the Akatsuki during this time. Someone older than Deidara or Hidan. Deidara had joined the Akatsuki after becoming a missing-nin to Iwa, and Hidan was turned into a Jashinist experiment as a young boy, but only became a member in adulthood. Chronologically, Itachi was a member that had been stationed before either of those two, and he was thirteen. Currently, however, he was eight, (as confirmed by their meeting with Mebuki and Sasuke's mother) buying her five years to stop the coup in place of him. She knew for sure that the second iteration of the Akatsuki only started hiring their mercenaries since the end of the Third Shinobi war, effectively placing the majority of the endgame components of the terroristic group as non-members at this time.

Sure, she could outright visit them and force them to not join last-minute, but it was important to keep in mind that people didn't break just because a masked random came over and tried to kidnap them once. Tobi didn't brainwash them into becoming missing-nin.

She knew for sure there wasn't much she could do for Sasori, as the files stated he was a defector to Suna for as long as... perhaps, almost twenty to fifteen years at this point. His motivation to join was for protection... and Sakura could not reform him by telling him he needed to live on his own or ask for protection from Suna again. Gaara wasn't Kazekage until his father died and thus, there was no inside source that Sakura could rely on in the Hidden Sand to make sure he wasn't executed immediately for his crimes. Besides, he lacked the blind faith in strangers that would make one susceptible to nonconsensual rehabilitation anyway.

Kakuzu wanted money- that was his motivation. She wasn't rich or anything- who would trust a three-year-old child with their life savings? They were civilians, too, making the financial matters worse.

Kisame. He had joined after Madara (Obito) had convinced him somehow. From the Hokage's reports downstairs (that she frequented since the end of the Fourth World War)she gathered intelligence that he had betrayed his mentor after some sort of tragic event when he was nineteen. The details were fuzzy in her mind, and she doubted they were that insightful anyways. Hold on, wasn't Kisame around that age at this point? Old enough to be useful to Obito, but not old enough to find his way in life or be completely jaded and corrupted by the hardships of war to be completely uninterested in his treacheries.

Maybe last time, he was... but the shark-man was not going to join the Akatsuki if she had anything to say about it.

________________________________

So it was a plan. Not a very detailed nor sophisticated plan, but it was a general guideline. Planning too far ahead was like throwing a dart in the shadow not knowing if there even was a target.

On her small notebook, enchanted by a light genjutsu to appear as if the only contents within were scribbles or poorly written sentences pertaining along the lines of 'I like cats. He drinks water. They run fast.', were notes of her future plans. Elementary sentences that may be impressive in the eyes of a three-year-old's parent, but nothing beyond rudimentary.

The blueprints to her aspirations were all written here. A clear timeline should be made now so she could begin executing her mission at last. Kisame would join the Akatsuki shortly after being made a swordsman, but looking at Kiri bingo books- (civilians of the Leaf were allowed brief, undetailed pamphlets just in case they encountered enemy shinobi while traveling outside the ninja villages) his face was nowhere to be seen.

'Good,' she thought. 'I don't want to go all the way to Kiri to find out Kisame already left.'

Thankfully, Sakura realized, her chakra levels had stayed the same due to the transferring of her soul. She was able to leave a shadow clone back home before taking off for Kiri.

She's henge-d herself to take the form of an older woman- based mostly off of her 20-year-old self, same shoulder-length hairstyle, same Byakugou seal, the Rinnegan. But her face was covered by a bear mask- for she assumed posing as an ANBU would let her pass through Konoha's possible intervention and ward off any suspicious passerby. Technically, her physical prowess has diminished since her rebirth, since taijutsu and reflexes weren't mental processes. But her chakra had kept her relatively strong- and she secretly trained in the forests like she did when she was seven (after wanting to impress Sasuke as a child).

As for why she chose the bear as her masked persona? She read from a western spiritual (in her past life) that in the foreign countries to the south considered bears to be a provider of strength in the chaos of a helpless time. There was also quite a few medicinal connotations that came with the bear, so she could continue her legacy in a symbolic way through her new identity.

Sakura was a blank slate in this life, and this new character was an even blanker one. What would she claim? Did this person have a motivation? A backstory? In order for a persuasive alter-ego to function without error, she needed to have answers to their potential questions.

For the time being, as she left the gates of Konoha, she pretended to be just a traveling visitor civilian with no special attributes (her temporary form was that of a plain brunette woman in her teens). She suppressed her chakra the best she could and awkwardly passed through the walls without much issue. She received some strange glares from a few of the guards, as she was strutting through the gate like she was severely constipated. One of them even asked if she needed medical assistance, to which she vehemently denied.

Her mentor had given her tips on forming a convincing, long-lasting transformation- like the one she utilized to keep her youthful appearance, so she wasn't worried that she would be discovered. She'd improved majorly in that department, despite being already decent in her henge jutsu. But being in close quarters with criminals could affect her in drastic ways- imagine if her guise dissipated mid-battle. A three-year-old little girl, traveling the wilderness and hunting potential Akatsuki members? Implausible beyond comprehension! She'd be ruined for life when people found out about her true identity. People would torture her only to find out about the past/future. And there would be full-blown wars if the world knew the truth.

Maybe Obito would act earlier this time or something horrible like that, using his Rinnegan to revive Madara sooner than the world was prepared for. Sasuke could potentially be killed for the actions his future self would commit, and the future criminals would also not be spared from this fate. Meaning, there was no road of redemption for the people she wanted to save if she was caught. Orochimaru might forcefully take Edo Tensei again and prioritize it to go against free will in specific, making those who broke out of the jutsu in the first iteration unable to. The risky thing with revealing information is that there were always a couple of leaks that made it to enemy ears.

What if Naruto was abducted as a child, completely helpless? If the world knew of his heroic deeds in the past, then he would be instantly freed of his mistreatment, but this revering attitude towards him would come with sanctimonious consequences. He was loud, and boisterous- obviously, this is why Minato's last name wasn't the same Naruto's, since knowing he was the son of the fourth Hokage would damage him in ways that either made him susceptible to enemy attacks or unable to progress due to his overconfidence.

Not that Sakura had met him/interacted interpersonally with the Naruto of 'now', but she'd often heard of murmurs of the 'he-who-shall-not-be-mentioned screaming that he wanted to be Hokage, that annoying brat,' in the marketplace every now and then. So it was a childhood passion that carried into later life.

Maybe now's not the time to be happy to be learning things about the younger versions of her future comrades...

Her chakra made it easier to keep the self-impersonation since her 'soul' still remained to dissonate to her old form, even if her body was that of a toddler's. Since she was literally portraying herself, it was efficient as it was accurate. Nobody would suspect a tyke like her to be this new, unknown figure. There were other people with pink hair, not just Sakura! And nobody would see her secondary identifying characteristic- her viridian eyes, through the shadow of her mask unless they possessed the Byakugan and saw through it entirely. And all Hyūgas(the only wielders of the Byakugan, besides the ones stolen- Ao, for example) were Konoha nin, and she was to never meet them in direct combat due to her planned affiliation.

Honestly, (she wasn't lying for an egotistical reason whatsoever) henge wasn't too hard to keep up with. She could probably set up camp somewhere and sleep with it fully on for days, considering her expendable chakra levels were high to begin with.

The first night was lonely, to say the least. Since being placed in her four-man squad, Sakura was used to the team setting. She was sent on solo missions before, but the comfort of having Sai and Naruto (sometimes Kakashi-sensei, too) was something she accidentally began to look forward to, only to remind herself that they were not her teammates. Not now. She took her 'normal' appearance, it was easier. The mask was an actual thing she bought from the local plaza as she'd planned for this specific occasion months in advance. The clone back home would have enough chakra to last a few weeks.

She took most of her week using long-distance teleportation tactics to get herself all the way over to the border between the Land of Hot Water and the Fire Country, passing through all the normal, non-shinobi villages with ease. From there she would have to board a ferry or ship to travel to Kiri.

Funds were hard to come by, but she made some income by hunting wild boar or other creatures in the forest. Being a ninja had its perks, even in the non-shinobi world. By no means was this way of life sustainable for Sakura, but it was not permanent, and maybe that had been enough.

"What lovely hair you have, miss," a middle-aged lady inquired. "Is it natural? If it isn't, the dye-job is fantastic." She was more of an exotic saleswoman- she had an assortment of medicinal herbs and shinobi gear at her stand, so it was not as shocking to Sakura as she might've been, had it been a normal merchant saying this. It was uncommon to make small talk that referred to something other than the items for sale(or a nonspecific positive jab at the buyer's integrity and intelligence/beauty/handsomeness).

"Thank you, and yes, it's natural." evenly, the masked kunoichi fumbled with the wallet in her hand, gathering the ryo hesitantly as she scanned the items on display. "I was thinking of mixing a food pill together. Do you have any of the herbs on this list?" she dropped the money back into the case, and instead slipped a note, her fingers stretching the third slit on the lithe purse. It was new, (and stiff) because Sakura didn't want any item on her being that could connect her back any further than her departure from Konoha. Besides, her weird kiddy coin pouch would make her a subject of ridicule.

The lady politely took the paper in Sakura's offering gesture and skimmed the paper with a smile decorating a deepening laugh line. The lady read the paper out loud- but it was only a half-hearted mumble to herself. "...-uth mushrooms ..hawkweed, a belladon..." Unexpectedly, the merchant woman didn't simply show her the goods she had in stock and pursued the conversation a little longer. "You seem knowledgeable, too. Are you from the Hidden Leaf?" It shouldn't have been an insult to injury as she weirdly took it as, for she was wearing an ANBU mask and a vest that was unmistakably the purple-gray of Konoha's black-ops flak jackets.

As the only(as it was intended to be) Hidden Ninja village of the Land of Fire, they were well-known throughout the country, their elite('s existence) perhaps even more so. The herbs she requested were semi-rare flora that did not grow in the general vicinity. Some were especially difficult to harvest or to prepare/use. This either indicated she was a ninja on a retrieval mission for some herbs (in that case, she could've shopped closer to home and not have pretended to have another purpose for the purchase) or she was talented in medicine and truly meant that she wanted to make the pills.

Sakura paused. Was she going to take that cover? Would it make her suspicious if it was known that she was from Leaf? This was the Fire country, her home turf, but since her persona had no accomplishments under her name as of current, she couldn't plausibly expect gossip to spread just because of her odd outwardly disposition. It could die with this lady if Sakura was lucky to have met someone who didn't mean much when they spoke, and only did so for the pleasure of their customers. "No," she decided. If Kiri caught word, they could shove her off as a spy. The leader was currently... (technically) Obito, so, it was a possibility she couldn't deny. "I'm from a distant land far south," she said, backhandedly referencing to the thought of her bear mask.

"You do seem to be wearing a Konoha mask, though," she whispered, wondrously. "My husband was a shinobi once, and while I don't have a knick for the ninja business," she swatted at the air dismissively as she said that- "He used to go on 'missions' or report to that side of the country."

"There are ANBU in almost every country, ma'am," she responded, stoically, resembling that of a teacher scolding a child. "Yes, I am a shinobi, but I'm not a native nor a local here." she paid for her supplies wordlessly and left to the harbor, making sure to purchase a ticket before boarding. It would be a heinous journey, indeed.

As she walked towards the border guards, (now in a less conspicuous, normal-person disguise that she had while phasing through Konoha's gates) she figured they were not shinobi. Since they[the commissioned ninjas] usually came trudging through towns with a 'letter of consensus' addressed to them by the Hokage himself, (as it was Hiruzen at the moment) and were ushered onto a separate dock reserved for private vehicles or exclusive ferries. Citizens getting caught up in shinobi business was not good news, so they segregated the ninja from the civilians as soon as possible.

Of course, contact between both worlds was not forbidden at all- encouraged, even, but when it came to travel, there were a few cases where innocent lives were endangered due to enemy warships targetting said ninjas(while piracy was the citizen's naval equivalent). 'Normals' were sources of income and shipment, that being augmented tenfold during an economic boom, but nin were ticking time bombs waiting to explode. Espionage and deception were a shinobi's greatest skill, and it was unfair to let these villagers get caught in the crossfire.

Her none-the-wiser appearance didn't suggest to the guards that she was very noteworthy, so they only gave her a quick, scanning look before asking her to state her business in Kiri. Knowing their 'leader' was tyrannical now, it wouldn't help if she suggested something oafish and unimportant like tourism. "Employment," she said. Miraculously, the guards didn't press further and let her through after checking her credentials and ticket(that thing was expensive).

The ride would take a few days, so she might as well. Sakura retired to her assigned cabin- a quaint room illuminated by an orangish light, a bed to the leftmost side and an empty drawer for her belongings. In her satchel, Sakura carried her herbs in a pocket, her wallet in another, and her mask in the biggest pocket. She did carry a scroll containing her clothes- well, in case the henge wore off and she was to resort to her normal body. Another scroll had some extra supplies, like bandages- a toothbrush,

Tired, Sakura locked the door before turning off her transformation, throwing her three-year-old body into the comfort of the bed in the corner. Hopefully, there wasn't such a thing called 'room service' on this ship, because things could get mega awkward.

________________________________

"Thoughts you have lying awake in bed"

The boat rocks to and fro, and Sakura thinks she's going to get sick. The boat has almost reached the harbor- by the way, she's in her civilian disguise -and soon she would be setting foot on the Land of Water. She takes a sip from her cup, which she sets down, taking a bask in the salty air. The boat toots with arrival and it rears towards the dock. A man in a uniform yells out instructions to safely un-board.

Sakura pads her way off the staircase prepare below, and yawns. She'd have to go to a forest to use her teleportation skills- which, in fact, had developed quite a bit, making her probably viable to entirely moving from said forest to Kiri. The Fire Country was a lot larger than the Water Country, so, her practicing those skills again and again back at her homeland made it easier to perform now.

It wasn't nearly as long-distance/ranged like her Rinnegan granted her, but she doubted that eye would ever come back to her. Actually, she wasn't even really 'teleporting', she was moving at a rate so fast the eye could not see. She'd seen A- the Raikage, do this before she left the previous timeline, and she was summoned through that 'Body Flicker' technique multiple times. Most ninjas knew how to perform this to varying degrees, but Sakura was spamming it like the world was going to end (again).

Thus, her competency in the 'Body Flicker' teleportation technique had gone from 'maybe twenty-meters' to 'three miles'... and wherever else it was going now. She pops a food pill into her mouth, but despite the disgusting taste, she remained intrepid. It's been a few years since the last time she ate a food pill- more than five or six, since she didn't bother cooking one up during the peace following the Fourth Shinobi War. But she still had the skillset and impeccable memory to re-create her nutritional biscuits. She really didn't want to go hunting again.

She did have money in her pocket, though, and some more in that bag, enough for a few days, just to settle into the new, much more humid temperatures. Thankfully her real attire underneath the henge didn't require a change since long-term transformations suspended the body from muck and stuff as long as the outer shell remained clean. (I.e. if she cleaned herself up it wouldn't be purely cosmetic, everything that applies to the henge applies to her 'real' body, except in its equivalent position)

It's not like this advanced henge was an illusion that concealed its inner's injuries, or like an exterior shell, or even a trick of the eye- it was more like Tsunade's 'rejuvenation jutsu' than a standard henge-no-jutsu, which would poof when the form/the user's concentration was disrupted. That's why if she was hurt where it showed she couldn't fake not being hurt. That was the downside to this technique, because- for example, if she was cut on the cheek in her non-disguised form and someone had seen her, then three seconds later the fake comes in with the same injury? Wasn't it at least a bit suspicious?

Thankfully, she was a fantastic medic-nin and would probably heal exterior injuries on a whim, without too much focus nor time needed. But in the possibility that there was a real fight with an enemy that- for whatever reason, was trying to link her identities together... that's the thing with being a double agent. Eventually, you're going to have to pick a side.

Back on track, however, Sakura was now heading towards the nearest inn for a place to stay. She wouldn't stay long, but it was best to prepare for the rigorous journey still ahead. Kirigakure stood nigh as the Hidden Shinobi village and depending on the situation she might need a broker to smuggle her in or of the sort.

Annoying.. that's what she thought of having stubby limbs and motor skills that rivaled only that of a cripple. Age was a crippling thing, at least in the shinobi world. Either you're too young or too old to fight because time moved on no matter what you did- unless you were Sakura Haruno, but still, she was still biologically three right now..

Three, three, three. All things come in threes, three genin in a team, three apples for a discount of 20%, three alter egos thus far. Sitting down in the quaint dorm, she turns on the lamp near the bedpost and takes out her notebook.

It's still convenient to stay fully mobile, (at least while she was working, unlike in the ferry when time in private had been reserved for respite) like a functional adult instead of a stubby tyke who slurred her f's. Talking about herself here, if you hadn't noticed.

Yes.. she really took mobility for granted. Take Gai for example, wasn't he completely crippled hip-down? Or was he just unable to strain himself- oh, god, it's been three years since she's even thought of Gai. He.. he was with Kakashi when it happened, so that means...

Anyways, Gai had almost irreversible damage to his chakra systems. The forced opening of the gates already pushed the body past the limits of the limits, making whoever performing the taijutsu endeavor would have a lot more to worry about than chakra exhaustion, like in the case of ninjutsu or genjutsu.

The Eighth Gate of Death- called that for a reason, pushed one past the limits of the limits of the limits- for the lack of a better analogy, and that, like when someone didn't eat enough carbs to satisfy their calorie outtake/didn't have enough fat to sustain themselves, would start burning muscle. Same here, despite his lack of skill with ninjutsu and having lower levels of chakra (he could still do ninjutsu, take his henge for example) meant the disturbance between the balances of his natural chakra and this almost invasive power began attacking his own body. His cardiovascular system pumped so hard and way too fast that it completely oxidized his muscles until the point of his veins scarring over, producing incredible amounts of heat, burning him inside-out.

Now that is when certain death is basically unavoidable- if it hadn't been for the Sage of Six Paths, Gai would of died- after the exhilaration his heart, his lungs, his ligaments, his entire body suffered, it was certain that the technique in question would also be last-resort. And it was the last thing Gai did as a ninja, which is basically like a death in the shinobi world.

So, in turn, for Maito Gai's sake, don't take mobility for granted.

Suddenly remembering that the entire planet's burden rests on her shoulders made her chest feel like they were Tsunade's size. If only.

But, obviously, that is not a possibility.

________________________________

Kirigakure's perimeters were dotted with shinobi guards. It looked like a convention for weaponry, something Tenten might like. Much like The Land of Fire's gatekeepers, the process was similar. "State your name and business."

"Ayaka Kimura." Sakura says, brushing her brown bangs to an upsweep at her ears. "I'm here for employment as a merchant."

One guard queried, "Your goods?"

"Rare herbs, food pills," she says, taking the bag's contents out. "I'm also a doctor," she didn't mention that she was a medic-nin, however, since revealing her ninja status could throw her for a loop. But mentioning that she had a secondary purpose in Kiri would add some kind of strength to her argument.

They made her fill out a form to authenticate her stay in Kiri, as a temporary travel visa. Ayaka Kimura, age 17, proficient in medicine and a herbal saleswoman. They showed her in the gates, and Sakura begins her quest.

The first day is always the hardest. Unlike when she had become a chunin and began integrating with higher-up ninja, faced with minimal hazing and similar adversities, Kirigakure was more "each to their own". By default Sakura was given a small lot on the city plaza to sell goods, which she did for a while, seeing as money was still a necessity until she could find some shinobi income at the official ninja squads of the Hidden Mist. That would require a godsend opportunity, or a straightforward genin application. Which she seriously didn't want to do, just in case she found the Mist took ninja ranking as seriously (Naruto was still a genin at the time of his death and he might've been the strongest man alive) as Konoha had.

Sakura was mostly relaxed for the entire day, even though the occasional alarming flicker of unknown chakra came into range. She assumed it was Kiri ninja off-duty.

Thirteen hours later Sakura returns to her inn and smothers herself in the pillows, ready for a good rest.

..

Day two, Ayaka leaves her room to have lunch. The motel wasn't bad, it was just alright, but Kiri's corrupt government rendered it not very luxurious. She'd rather not cook her own food, and the food pills don't taste very good anyway.

While she looks through the streets worth of food, an unassuming woman comes up to her with a small smile- "Try that one over there, you are looking for places to eat, aren't you?" It was sudden and unexpected but Sakura appreciated the stranger's attentiveness. Looking at the sign she decides her stomach was craving some good old yakisoba after all and she walks toward the store.

She sits down at the bar for something to eat when she notices something suspicious. A group of hooded figures are talking very quietly- Sakura strains her ears to hear, despite her aversion to eavesdropping.

"Now that we've met up, there's something we need to discuss."

"Damn, the Mist has some scary guards. Though I did manage to find an entrance through the cove at the beach."

The female of the group, her face covered by a hood, hisses at him. "Shut up, idiot, people are going to hear you."

"There aren't any ninja here, ya idi- ahmean missus. Civies don't know what they're talking about, nobody'll even listen to 'em. " says the daunting man, laughing with a rasp.

Now Sakura had an urge to just outright attack them, but she didn't know if they were the only ones here or if there was a greater force to deal with.

"But isn't it logical or whatever to think that there is always someone watching?" A lankier, smart-sounding man retorted. "This isn't a game,"

"In this dump? It's the most unassuming place ever, I would be genuinely surprised if any of these people aren't completely drunk to the point of complete incompetency," the woman continued to unwitting (and indirectly) insult Sakura. But it didn't take much to get her red-faced and hot'n'bothered so technically anything goes with her. "It's like keeping a stupid disguise up all day everyday even if you know nobody's watching," yet another unknowing insult. Look, Sakura kept her henge up not because she was afraid to be discovered but because it was more convenient! "Besides, we're only one of what, a dozen troops? They'll never even know it was us."

Sakura fidgeted in her seat. This woman was not being coy at all, (even though a few seconds ago she was extremely silent) she was just putting up the goods in the marketplace for everyone to commemorate by. Wait, wasn't she the one complaining about how they should be quiet? Maybe Sakura wasn't the only fickle one.

"Isn't that right?" she turns over to Sakura, causing her to flinch. She swore inwardly as she had made a reaction even when she had purposefully kept herself steady to look completely innocent. "Little snitches like you should learn to stop listening to other people's conversations."

Oh, sweet mother of Jashin. Sakura stiffened up as she prepared to bolt out of there, but she was sure there was nothing to fear. There was no kunoichi parallel to Tsunade Senju, thus the same would go to her inheritor, which was luckily for herself, Sakura. How did this woman sense that she had been watching? By the looks of it, she didn't look like a combat type. Perhaps it was her specialty to detect enemies while the grunts were the foot-soldiers to her conquest.

"No, I wasn't trying to 'snitch'," Sakura repeats the word with frank nonchalance. "I'm just a merchant-doctor in the city with a travel warrant. So what if I was eavesdropping?" She stated, even as the lady pulled up on her, clashing foreheads with the woman who towered over her sitting frame. Her face was thin and wasted away, but held a feminine charm that reminded her of the several short-term disguises she wore on seduction missions. Being an elite jonin left such missions far and few, but she was still taught how as a part of her kunoichi training. A few seconds later, she regretted that thought, noting that perhaps it was only profiling; maybe this woman wasn't the non-combative, passive type that would rather outwit opponents- it was pretty counterintuitive to reveal themselves so loudly. Unless there was a strategy hidden beneath that she simply didn't catch.

"You think you really... anybody could tell you are a shinobi." the lady hisses through clenched teeth, baring her fangs for Sakura to see. Did she seriously forget to- oh, she had completely forgotten, just like a child who covers her eyes during hide-and-seek that thinks nobody can see her just because she cannot see them. Being idle in her post and switching to her comfy inn every twelve hours for two days while not suppressing chakra was a warning as loud as a scream for help.

"We knew there was a elite ninja in here. You've been trying to take us down," she grinds her teeth. "Well, you're surrounded, and far too late to stop this overtake," she growls again, poking at Sakura, dot on the center of her small(er, as her alter ego has, very purposely, quite the drastic facial dissimilarity to her own) forehead. Sakura then noticed how there were at least sixty jonin-leveled ninja signatures in the 50-meter diameter, suddenly revealing themselves. That was a lot. This was indeed, as the woman had said, an overtake. And Sakura was caught up in the fray whether she liked it or not.

A massive fight had broken out almost immediately, the hooded figures unmasked themselves while the rest of the jonin jumped Sakura. She didn't know how to fight them- like usual? This was the first time in her current form that she had been subjected to combat. She wondered if her body could keep up with her abilities or not.

In the breadth of a moment she was sure she could see a barrage of senbon and kunai fly towards the passerby. She shot a thicker version of the string of chakra used in puppeteering to deflect the projectiles, but still registered a clear miss on a couple of them.

She dodged instead, but these- these- Amegakure ninjas were going to murder the innocent if she didn't capture or... Sakura prayed to the gods the soil would be wet enough, this being Kiri, however, perhaps the 'miracle' she thought happened was simply coincidence. She had an idea. Going out of the building as a riot of fourty nin trailed doggedly after her, she used her seals; Water and Earth, in a simultaneous fashion. "Ayaka of the Mud Release" sounded nice, not to mention, believably exotic. Not the name, of course, it sounded stereotypically Land-of-Fire, but the 'kekkei genkai'.

Nobody could blame or point fingers at lit'l Miss Sakura Haruno born into no Clan to be a possessor of a rare bloodline limit all of a sudden. It was a perfect debut. It all happened within a single second- courtesy of the constant use of teleporatation jutsu had allowed her to feign inhuman speed. 'Ayaka' took the muddle of water and soil, propelling it around the territory where she had sensed the most enemies, before solidifying the barrier. From there she extracted the water rapidly, before scattering it through the air in the form of mist. The ninja inside were locked in there permanently, just as long as she flooded the walls with a steady stream of chakra.

But it seemed she had underestimated them, as a threatening spired lines began to crack the dome's base. From one second the slightly foggy, yet blue sky had turned pitch black, every ninja trapped within had flailed around to destroy it. When that failed they took the only logical option and dug down. Ayaka took more of the mud. She calculated her risks. She had already used a lot of chakra in that split-second decision to use the mud technique, then use the barrier jutsu along with it. After studying her Rinnegan abilities in the last life, while she barely used the dojutsu itself she did, mostly out of boredom and a combination of failed medical experimentation, managed to create ninjutsu capable of being potent in battle. The barrier technique (using a concept of inverse-Chibaku Tensei) was one originally used to be a sort of sustained animation kind of jutsu where Sakura could keep the cells of the patient's body alive (if there were internal injuries she could quarantine an organ while using chakra to make sure nothing depleted on the rest of the body) while she could manipulate anything inside the chakra barrier's contents.

It's also why she could... cave the walls in if she wanted to.

Looking around, she still saw bustling crowds- now yelling for help and too scared to move. Many children were hugged by their parents, and the lower-ranking shinobi that were off-duty had kunai pulled out, ready to counteract if duty called. 'Ayaka' scanned the area for a sign of unwelcome, but it appeared most of them were considering that Ayaka was the one who had trapped most of the enemy bin and automatically registered her as an ally.

There was a couple of choices here. Wait until official shinobi came to the rescue and gamble civilian death and infrastructure destruction. Kill them, be hailed as a hero of the Mist (maybe an exaggeration) for the violence and brutality, save the village some extra fees for repairing the damage caused to be surrounding area. And whomever who owned the business that was ransacked probably was out of town, killed, or on the enemy's side anyway.

But should she really? She disliked killing unless she absolutely had no other choice. It's not like she hasn't killed anybody, even Naruto had killed hundreds of Zetsu (albeit one human being, unless counting Sasuke, then two). But listening to the hapless cries of children (not the Chibisuke kind of babyish bawling) tugged on her heartstrings... letting these ninja die honorably on a field of battle, instead of prisons were...

SMASH

The ground began to rumble as the few Earth users trapped tried to dig their way out. Sakura knew there were going to make it out soon and there were way too many people to protect to just let that happen. Ayaka knew what had to be done, and with a heavy heart accompanied by a noise eerily similar to that of when (sociopathic and young) Gaara's sand prison jutsu had been executed rang out. A bony crack or a bloody squelch quashed by the hardening soil.

The earth dispersed as Ayaka cooly withdrew the muddy mixture while facing away from the violence. Sakura really didn't want to see what she had done, and it wasn't for the sake of charisma that she had been turned back. It was not how Sakura would've handled the situation. But it indeed was what one of the Bloody Mist would do.

..

"This is Ayaka." a Mist jonin began.

So Sakura's grandiose plan to stop Kisame from becoming a missing-nin was to join the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist by pledging full loyalty to the 'Mizukage'. Obito was, yeah, the real Mizukage, but she was supposed to be none-the-wiser. Still using her 'plain-Jane' henge form, she had infiltrated Kiri's base by imprisoning an entire raid of spies... helping out citizens... turning in her mortgage on time. She was going to do literally everything it took to earn the Mizukage's trust within the shortest interval of time possible.

Mist was a lot more lenient than the Leaf when it came to their ranks. If this were Konoha, no matter the power or ability she possessed, she would be placed in the genin rank. But since she showed plenty of potential, she was promoted to jonin straight away.

It took a deal of convincing. The execution of an entire battalion of spies was only the very beginning in her intricate multi-step scheme. Moreover, she presented herself as an orphan from a southern country (just like her pink-haired, less 'common' looking counterpart) who wanted to join a ninja village to prove her worth. Kiri was a little disapproving to her at first, but her valiant acts of heroism set those worries aside.

Since the leader of Kiri was supposedly a callous and bloodthirsty individual, Sakura just did as she was told- and more. It was gut-wrenching to kill for this purpose, but a ninja's life was to do as their clients had wished. Kisame not joining the Akatsuki meant even more lives than the ones she took here and now would be spared later on. The Akatsuki started off as hired mercenaries, so, it was only natural. She reminded herself the people's blood she now had stained her hands with, that those men and women were only trying to destroy the village. If anyone did that to the Hidden Leaf she would surely do the same.

If it were Konoha, she would've probably taken them prisoner instead of killing them, but in the Mist, things worked differently. And even in Konoha those prisoners were executed, (unless offered to a trade of their own or complied without the aid of extreme physical torment) anyway! So she had cut off the extra days/months/weeks/years, even, of torture and information-culling that occurred in-between the capture and... release. From life.

It was actually ethically just. It's a mercy-kill, not a violent slaughter. Kirigakure probably doesn't even have torture regulations, if the tops of the village were maniacs who enjoyed suffering and wracking discord over their own nin.

"Ayaka Kimura at your service." she bows down to the shinobi before her, before the jonin hands her a Kiri headband matching her dark gray flak jacket, instead of the blue one she received in the beginning as a genin.

A rather rude man burst out laughing at the sight. "She's going to be a jonin? This girl?" His teeth were sharp- his breath whistled through his gaping maw as he chuckled loudly. "A widdle orphan brat's becoming a jonin? I knew he looked like a twelve year old himself but I didn't know our Mizukage was this desperate."

The slightly misogynistic remark (the last bit was referring to the Yagura's preferences in women as being the reason for her recruitment) didn't stick to Sakura- after all, even she would label her current outlook as feeble or unremarkable, as well, but never comment on it actively for the sake of etiquette.

To the fanged nin's shock, Sakura smiled in return, meeting his gaze without trouble. "Actually, good sir. Little as I may be it really doesn't describe the rather large influence I will have on you, my designated personnel. Per se, I outrank you," Ayaka (Sakura) stated.

"Call me Kimura-taicho. From today on, I will be your squad captain."

She then continued to unleash her valor- the hidden chakra that she suppressed opened up. (Again, she was actually trying to impress them while looking calm as possible) Every ninja present backed up involuntarily at the surprising pressure. "And here is our first mission- accompanying the Cypher Division as sentries on estate around the continent- we'll also be accompanied by a member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist's very own apprentice."

None other than, you guessed it, Kisame Hoshigaki.