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Chapter Text

Darkness.

That was all which greeted her as she cracked her eyes open in the murkiness. Groggy, she lifted her arms, confusion creeping in as she felt the silky feel of water surrounding her. Where was she? Squinting, she peered through the water, blinking at the three blurry shapes she could see outside of the thick sheet of glass keeping her confined.

Though very soon that wasn’t the case as glass shattered and scratched her in places. Water gushed out, the mask covering her face removed just as swiftly, and then she was being carried out of the strange tube. Her mind worked overtime, memories rushing to the forefront of her mind as she tried to remember how she’d ended up there.

Kaguya. Her sealing. But everyone was already dead. Naruto. Stupid idea. Seal. Flare of light. Then—there. Sakura groaned, blinking the last of the water from her eyes, peering up at the three figures standing over her.

Two heads of red hair. One white. Lips moved, voices sounding murky and far away, but as she regained her senses, she realised exactly what the hell was going on. “Is it Sakura?” the one with silky straight hair asked, big black eyes peering at her curiously, three damning whisker marks on either cheek telling her exactly who it was. “She’s the only living experiment left… and she’s a girl…”

“Really?” the slightly spiky-haired one muttered, rolling his eyes. “I couldn’t tell.”

“We’ll find out soon enough, Naruto-kun,” the white-haired one spoke that time, snorting and shaking his head. “See. She’s coming around.”

Sakura found herself being lifted by the soaking white shift she wore. “Sakura-chan? Is it you? Neh, it is you, right?” Naruto asked, shaking her back and forth as though that would make things better – it made things worse.

She really wanted to throw up.

“Give her some space, idiot!” Sasuke hissed.

It seemed his duck butt had grown out.

There was a pause, a moment of absolute stillness, before the one she assumed to be Kakashi-sensei snorted yet again. “Yep. That’s definitely Sakura-chan.”

“Hn.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Sakura blinked at the raspy voice which escaped her. Was that a lisp? She found her feet, careful of the broken glass and brickwork which seemed to be littered about the large white slabs of tiling. A quick look around the room now the water had been cleared from her eyes showed it to be a lab of some description, with four large glassy tubes stretching across the wall on one side, including the one she had just been freed from. “Sh’eal?”

“Her file is here!” Sasuke called from a filing cabinet across the room, tucking yet another file into his chest. There were four of them in total now. One for each of them.

“Orochimaru probably has spares somewhere else, so there’s likely to be some record of our existence—”

“Hol’ up.” Her tongue felt like sandpaper. Heavy sandpaper. “Wha’s happenin’ here?”

“No time to explain, Sakura-chan!” Naruto declared, just as Kakashi scooped her small sodden form off the ground. She was shorter than all of them, annoyingly enough. “ANBU are infiltrating the place now, and we can’t afford to be caught… otherwise who knows what’ll happen…”

“Danzo got a hold of Yamato from a lab like this one, and I do not want him getting his sticky fingers on any of us. We can bring ROOT down from the outside swiftly enough,” Kakashi said, eyes narrowing on all the various exit points. “Come on you two,” he ordered, sparing a glance at Naruto and Sasuke before he hurried out into a darkened hallway.

His hair, now a stark white rather than a dull silver, fluttered in the wind as he ran towards the exit of the lab. Sakura curled her hands in the white shift he wore, noting how it was only slightly damp. Kakashi must have escaped his containment earlier than the three of them, she mused, shivering as cold air hit her sodden hair and skin.

Rubble and broken light casings were scattered across the floor, and Sakura could only wince when bare feet trampled over it in their hurry. Stains marred the walls, numerous and each as foreboding as the next as Kakashi carried her through a maze of corridors.

Naruto and Sasuke followed on their heels, the sounds of other, larger feet making their way through the compound only encouraging them all to hurry away from the scene. Sakura didn’t particularly want to be caught, especially when she had no idea what was going on. Shivering still, she burrowed into Kakashi’s warmth as best she could as they ascended up a thin ladder.

Grunting, he pushed away the covering, revealing a sky studded full of stars. They were all exactly as she remembered them, but there was no way to tell where she was just by that. She had never been good with any form of navigation, aside from when it came to reading maps.

Blinking slowly, she peeped out from Kakashi’s shoulder, staring at trees… and more trees. The kinds that grew in Konoha’s forests. “Kono’a?” she mumbled feebly, trying to get a sense of where exactly she was. She could barely remember what Naruto’s seal had been supposed to do.

It had to be some sort of time travel, though, or so she realised as Kakashi led them to the very borders of the forest – because there, down the steep hill, lay the bustling very much alive village she had once grown up in.

The streets were darker and far more larger than she remembered, but part of the eeriness might’ve been to do with the fact she was pretty much dripping water left, right, and centre. The shivers running down her spine might have just been water droplets for all she knew. Curling into Kakashi for warmth as much as she could, she flinched whenever she caught sound of people nearby, going about their usual nightly routines – whether it be stumbling home from the bar, or bringing the washing inside and dealing with the menaces that were small children.

Small children… like her, like the ones she’d babysat before on the dreaded D-Ranks. She hated babysitting missions with a passion. A pure, unbridled loathing, which was rather unfitting, considering she looked to near enough be a bitty baby in body. Her toes were so much smaller than she remembered.

Kakashi hummed contemplatively as they reached a flickering streetlight, just as it sputtered and finally blinked out. “This is the place.”

Sakura watched through heavy-lidded eyes as Naruto and Sasuke rounded the corner, arguing quietly between themselves as per usual. “Neh, Kakashi-sensei, where are we?” Naruto asked, peering around the street. It was in the civilian sector of Konoha, a part not frequented by shinobi. “What’s this place for?”

Kakashi raised one white eyebrow. “You really think we can walk around looking like we just came out of one of Orochimaru’s labs?”

Sasuke grunted under his breath, no doubt recognising the clothing store for what it was.

“Naruto-kun,” Kakashi spoke, setting Sakura carefully down on her shaky feet. “Keep an eye on Sakura-chan and keep a look out. Me and Sasuke-kun will go and acquire some better clothing for us.”

Sasuke nodded sharply.

“If a shinobi comes past, though I highly doubt they will, then hoot like a barn owl – there common enough as it is around here,” he instructed, tugging Sasuke around to the alleyway and the back entrance to the store, leaving her there with Naruto on the quiet street.

“Naru,” Sakura slurred, huddling close to him as he sat down, leaning his back against the storefront. “What did that sh’eal do?” she asked, cursing internally as her tongue struggled over the words thanks to its disuse. The only way to cure that though was to speak more, so speak she did. No matter how humiliating the sounds were.

“Oh, I pulled us all back in time,” Naruto said, grinning widely as he scratched the back of his head. “Don’t you remember, Sakura-chan?”

She shook her head. “Fuzzy,” she mumbled, rubbing her forehead. It felt smaller than she remembered. More proof on their space-time jaunt then. Her body was different, both her wide forehead and her pink hair having vanished. At least she wouldn’t get teased about them this time around… Well, that was supposing they didn’t immediately graduate from the academy and go out on missions. Only little children would think to tease her about things like that. Real shinobi had better things to be doing with their time.

“Oh… Maybe it’ll get better over time?” he offered. “Or maybe after you’ve got some rest – you’ve got some wicked eyebags going on there.”

Sakura resisted the overwhelming urge to sock him one right in the face, settling instead for pinching her nose and sighing with vengeance as she waited for their two teammates to return with their stolen goods. Her head ached something fierce, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end the clearer everything became.

An underlying sense that something was wrong.

Frantic, Sakura glanced around, wondering whether anyone was watching them – a possible cause for her unease – but there was no one there, and she had always been rather skilled in finding potential enemies. It was something she’d had to learn, given Team Seven’s penchant for finding trouble.

“No trouble out here then?” Kakashi inquired, and Sakura jolted at the sound of his voice so close behind her. He’d never had much trouble sneaking up on them.

“Nope, Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto chirped.

Sakura looked at his hands, pausing as she took in the scroll in his grasp. “Is that…?”

“A sealing scroll. Drew it myself just now,” Kakashi said, hovering in the shadows of the alleyway beside their shop of choice. “Obviously there wouldn’t be one in a civilian store, but there was this scroll – and while it might not be shinobi-grade sealing paper, it does the job.”

Sasuke materialised next to him, rucksack on his back, and Sakura could see a single corner of the files sticking out from the little blue bag. So that was where those had gotten to. She needed to read through those, if only so she actually understood what exactly was going on with her life nowadays. “So we’ve got our supplies for the most part… which means the next thing on the agenda before morning—”

Naruto tilted his head. “Agenda?”

Sakura sighed. “The next part of the plan, Naruto,” she grumbled. “Which reminds me, when ish someone going to explain our… mission, whatever it is we’re doing next?”

“Once we’ve found somewhere to stay, we can hash out what exactly we’re going to do,” Sasuke said, running a hand through his silky red locks, which, Sakura noted, had been tied back with a pretty black ribbon. “Oh, that reminds me,” he continued, lifting his hand so she could see the matching black ribbon in his hands, face turned away so she could see the red flush to his ears. “I got this for you. Want me to tie your hair up for you?”

Sakura almost squealed. It was like all her childhood fantasies come true. “Sure!”

Naruto cleared his throat as Sasuke pulled her hair back into a low ponytail. “Uh, Sasuke… where’s mine?”

He moved away from her, his task complete. “Hn.”

“Sasuke!”

“Quiet,” Kakashi barked, beckoning them into the alleyway out of sight. “We can’t be found right now, unless you want everything to fall to pieces, so ideally keep your mouths zipped shut until we find some camping grounds.”

Sakura blinked. “Camping?” She tilted her head, mind racing a mile a minute as she tried to be of some use beyond the deadweight she’d been so far. She hated being the one letting the side down. “Would a disused training ground work?”

“My thoughts exactly… looks like you’re still the smartest out of the three of you,” he said, and Sakura felt a part of herself preen in response to his words. She was still the horrible teacher’s pet Ami had once accused her of being. Some things never changed, she mused, glancing at her two teammates’ hairstyles and appearances, other things did.

“Where will we go then?” Naruto bit his lip.

Sasuke looked contemplative. “Wouldn’t an ordinary park work just as well?”

One stark white eyebrow rose. “And have a civilian adult discover us instead?” Kakashi shook his head. “It would be better to go somewhere nosy civilians aren’t allowed.”

“But all the training grounds are pretty much always in use,” Sasuke complained, glaring up at the eldest of them. “The park would be a better option – Naruto even survived there for a time, and we all know how thick he was back then.”

“Hey!”

“There’s one training ground—”

Cold rolled down her spine, and she stood straighter, hiding the shudder as best she could. “I’m feeling an ominous shiver down my spine all of a sudden,” Sakura said, glaring at Kakashi pointedly, praying he wasn’t talking about where she thought he was. “Please don’t tell me it’s—”

“The place usually used for the Chunin Exams.”

Sakura whimpered, remembering the snakes, oversized lizards, and the terrifying tigers which roamed in those trees. “A place usually called ‘The Forest of Death’ for a damned good reason,” she hissed, gesturing to her tiny body. “I barely survived there when I was a twelve-year-old genin – and now I’m some six-year-old child in body…”

“Sakura-chan, don’t flatter yourself, you’re more like three or four-years-old going off your appearance, though we’ll know for sure once we check your file.”

“Pssh. Maybe I’m just short for my age,” she muttered, glaring at the grimy grey walls of the alleyway.

Kakashi’s expression told her exactly how likely he thought that was. “Anyway, you all remember where that place is, don’t you?”

Sakura shuddered. “I don’t think I could forget.”

He clapped his hands together quietly. “We’re splitting up, just in case,” he informed them. “Naruto will be with me, so I can keep him from walking into trouble, and you two will be going as a pair.”

“I’m not that bad,” Naruto grumbled, folding his arms as he pouted.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Are too.”

Sakura stepped between them, sensing the impending fight. “We need to get going,” she said, excited and somewhat horrified at the idea of traveling with Sasuke to the Forest of Death – on one hand, Sasuke, but then again, it was the Forest of Death for a reason, and she had no idea how the jump had messed with her chakra… if it had at all. Personally she prayed it was the latter. She liked being able to punch things and watch them break. It gave her a sense of pride and accomplishment.

She would no longer be staring at their backs.

“Let’s go then,” Sasuke said, throwing a set of shorts and a hoodie her way. It near enough matched what he was already wearing, having changed inside the shop.

She pulled the outfit on, adjusting the now somewhat damp white shift until it was mostly covered by the hoodie. It could pass for a long shirt, she decided, content in the fact she no longer looked like one of Orochimaru’s experiments.

“How good is your chakra control?” Sakura asked, peering between him and the retreating forms of their two teammates.

Sasuke tilted his head, as if weighing up her words. “Rooftops?”

Sakura jumped up, scowling as her little legs only took her three-quarters of the way there. Her face slammed into the brickwork of the nearby building, a quiet huff escaping her lips as the air was knocked out of her. Chakra lashed out, clinging to the bricks, latching her to the wall like a terrible imitation of a starfish.

A quiet snigger sounded, and Sakura glanced up, a bright blush blooming on her cheeks as she spotted Sasuke crouching on the edge of the roof. He peered down at her, eyes spinning from red to black, and Sakura loathed Naruto in that moment. It had been his idea for Sasuke to capture happy moments with that sharingan of his. Back when the war had been going on, there had been no opportunity for him to do that, but now he had started at the worst possible moment – when she was making a fool out of herself. Seemed Sasuke was actually taking up Naruto’s advice, which was good in some ways.

“That was deliberate!” she hissed, rubbing at the grazes she could feel on her face from the harsh impact. “I was just testing my chakra control, and it’s still perfect, thank you very much.”

One eyebrow arched. “Hn.” Which Sakura automatically translated into I do not believe you whatsoever. The urge to strangle Naruto overcame her, and she longingly glanced in the direction he and Kakashi had vanished.

They’d meet up at the Forest of Death soon enough. She could strangle him then, Sakura decided.

“Come on,” Sasuke said, and Sakura accepted the hand offered out to her. “We need to get going, otherwise Kakashi will get worried I’ve… wandered off again.”

“It’s called defecting, Sasuke,” Sakura muttered, thoughts going back to the bench he’d left her on when he’d vanished that first time. “No point in saying it like that… unless you’re actually ashamed of what you did.” Unless he regretted leaving her behind on that bench, and somehow Sakura doubted he did.

Sasuke was silent, and then he was jumping to the next roof with barely a whisper of sound. Sighing quietly, she followed. The bench he’d left her on probably still existed there, thanks to Naruto taking them back before Pein razed the village to the ground. She glanced down at the street, double-checking the street stands, shoulders sinking in relief when she took note of how modern they seemed. People were still bustling about, the lights were on in Ichiraku Ramen, a mother was carrying her sleeping toddler down the street, Senju Tobirama was carrying a brown paper bag of shopping, and—

Sakura paused, grabbing a hold of Sasuke’s arm before he could bound onto the next roof over, rubbing her eyes furiously, peering down at the chalky white head of hair. “Sasuke…”

Black eyes bore into the side of her head, eyebrows arched minutely in question.

“Are my eyes going funny or is that Senju Tobirama walking down there?” she hissed, jerking her head in the direction of the man with three red lines on his face. “Carrying shopping… looking ridic-ridiculoushly domestic?” she questioned, cursing internally at her continued lacking pronunciation. But it was definitely getting better. She only slipped up occasionally now, unlike when she had first started talking after the tube.

His eyes scanned through the crowds, widening when they fell on the man in question, and his head jerked up along with her own – both of their eyes locking on the Hokage Monument.

“Four faces…” Sakura mumbled. “Then we should be in the right…”

Sasuke elbowed her in the ribs with his annoyingly bony elbow. “Second face. Second face!” he muttered, looking seconds away from a panic attack, or a full-on meltdown.

She turned back to the monument, peering at the second face in question, blood freezing as she realised its likeness. “That’s… not the same,” she said, staring at the stone likeness of Uchiha Madara. “Definitely not the same.”

“Naruto screwed up,” Sasuke snarled, lightning sparking around his fingers as he looked ready to chidori their favourite ex-blonde. “That… goddamn idiot. I’m going to kill him when I get my hands on him… Uzumaki Sealing Master, my arse!” He leapt over onto the next roof, spitting curses all the while.

Sakura followed.

At least until he started using his lightning element, leaving her behind in the dust. Like always. A snarl pulled at her lips, temper rearing its ugly head only this time it was directed towards the boy who had never really tasted the full extent of it the way Naruto had. “SASUKE!” she yelled, momentarily forgetting the need for stealth, and the usual honorific she added to his name. “GET BACK HERE YOU BASTARD!”

She popped her hand over her mouth almost instantly, blush rising in her cheeks as she prayed no one had heard. Or at least Sasuke hadn’t. She had grown far too used to Naruto affectionately calling him that when they’d spoken of him. Just the two of them. Though how to affectionately call someone a bastard was something she hadn’t quite managed to do just yet.

Racing over the street tops was far more tiring than she remembered, probably thanks to her tiny body which had been stuck in a tube for who knew how long. And Sasuke hadn’t bothered to slow down for her, too caught up in his rage. Like always. Sakura let out a long sigh for what felt like the thousandth time that day.

So when she finally made it to the Forest of Death, she was panting for breath. It was far too close to the outskirts of the village, with only a mile or two of forest between it and the village wall, located slightly to the north of the training ground of its preceding number.

“Sakura-chan…” Kakashi smiled at her, the usual mask back in place, white hair dancing in the breeze. White hair which suspiciously looked at though it had been cut hurriedly with a kunai. “Glad you could make it.”

“Where are the other two?” she asked, glancing around for the duo.

Kakashi waved a hand, scooping her up in the next second before he jumped over the barbed fencing and into deadliest training ground inside of all of Konoha. Sakura gulped. “Don’t worry. Sasuke-kun just started trying to affectionately stab Naruto-kun for some reason a couple of minutes back.

Sakura blinked. “How do you affectionately stab someone?”

Kakashi continued smiling. “No clue, but Sasuke-kun is certainly doing just that,” he said, just as a hand of lightning speared through the chest of a clone, Sakura realised, as it popped into a cloud of shadows. “Me and Naruto-kun arrived a while ago, and we’ve been setting up camp. I’ll give you your file once Sasuke-kun stops running about with it – and would you look at that,” Kakashi remarked, touching down in the little clearing by the river. “There they are,” he said, glancing between the two panting children with an alarming amount of cheer. “Sasuke-kun, be a dear and give Sakura her file. She’s the only one who hasn’t seen hers.”

Sasuke harrumphed, but took the bag off his back, sifting through the four files until he found the correct one. “Here.”

The thick brown file slammed into her chest – right into the gut – and Sakura found herself gasping for breath, glaring menacing at the boy whose actions were irritating her more than she thought possible. Maybe her new tiny body wasn’t as good at holding in as much rage, she mused, opening the file, scowling in the darkness as she tried to make out the words.

Something hard and plastic slammed into the side of her head, and Sakura whimpered, feeling tears building in her eyes at the impact. Definitely her new body, she decided. Clearly some of her reactions and mentality had drifted more towards her body’s younger age. Sakura glanced down at the object Sasuke had thrown at her. A torch. “That makes things easier,” she muttered, switching it on, wincing at the brightness.

“What’s it say?” Naruto bounced eagerly on his toes. “Who’s your mother and father?”

“Mother and father…?” Sakura echoed dumbly.

Kakashi chuckled. “These bodies didn’t appear randomly. We were shoved into them by Naruto-kun’s seal.” He hummed under his breath. “Try the second page in. That’s where the information was for our files.”

Nodding, she flicked over the page, focusing the torch on the picture and the words around it. “Maternal DNA…” Sakura blinked, staring at the photo of the woman. “Uzumaki Kushina?”

Naruto gasped. “No way… My mum is your mum this time around…”

Sakura stared at him. “Are we actually… siblings… this time around?” she asked, heart thumping as she glanced over at Sasuke. Well there went any chance of a future with him… but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel excited – she’d never had siblings before, never grown up with any, at least until Team Seven had rolled around.

Naruto shook his head, and Sakura felt a part of herself relax. “All the rest of us have Uzumaki Mito listed as ours.”

“Oh,” she mumbled. “Who are your fathers then?”

Kakashi shrugged. “Senju Tobirama,” he said, pointing at his white hair as though that was supposed to explain everything.

Naruto grinned, scratching the back of his head. “Senju Hashirama. Me and Kakashi-sensei are half-brothers and cousins… cool, isn’t it?”

Sakura glanced over at Sasuke, ignoring the exasperatedly fond look Kakashi gave his new little brother-cousin. “Uchiha Izuna,” he offered flatly. “He looks alarmingly similar to my… old self. Seems the idiot’s seal was good for something.”

“And if the theme continues, I’m fairly sure I can guess who your new father is, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said. He chuckled under his mask. “The hair is a bit of a giveaway.”

“It also means we’re cousins,” Sasuke said, staring at her, and Sakura felt the little flame of love in her chest promptly get extinguished. Well the romantic flame that was. The little part of her that loved him like family remained. Because apparently they were related… well, if they were correct in guessing who her paternal DNA came from.

She shifted the torch down, blood running cold as she stared at the picture and the name written next to it.

Uchiha Madara, it read proudly, in bold black lettering.

The torch hit the ground with a dull thud, lighting the grass, the page of damning information cast back into the shadows of the night.

“Well, you did always want to be an Uchiha, didn’t you, Sakura-chan?” Kakashi said, smiling in a way that made her really want to punch him. Once she got over the shock of the fact that Uchiha Madara was now apparently one of her birth parents.

“How the hell did Orochimaru get his hands on the required… DNA of Uchiha Madara?” she all but cried.

Kakashi shrugged, along with Sasuke. “I’m not entirely sure I want to know the answer to that, but we were all seemingly grown in test tubes, so I’m hoping it was some sort of science.”

“Brilliant. Just brilliant,” Sakura mumbled, now carrying the knowledge that she was genetically related to a mass murdering madman who’d wanted to plunge the world into an eternal illusion. And the madness was apparently genetic. “Motherfuck.”

She might get sparkly red eyes, which evolved the more trauma one was exposed to, and one of the evolutions caused blindness unless replaced with the eyes of a brother.

“Motherfucking shit.”

And according to Kakashi it was somewhat obvious who her father was thanks to her… hair? Sakura’s hands went to her head, freezing as they felt a fluffy spike in her hair. She picked up the torch, shining it back on the picture of the wild-haired Uchiha. The untameable locks of her nightmares from her pre-genin days stared back at her. The file and the torch slipped from her hands, and Sakura ran to the river, praying under her breath that her sense of touch was skewed and Kakashi’s eyes were just as bad.

But… alas…

Sakura stared into the river, at her fluffy untameably bed-headed reflection with a sharp cry. “NO!”

Chapter Text

Her hands curled into fists as she pulled herself away from the river, all too aware of the dangers which could be lurking beneath its surface. She didn’t particularly want to meet any hungry alligators with her snack-sized body. Sakura shuddered at the thought, before she remembered exactly whose fault it was she was in an alligator’s snack-sized body with terrible hair. “NARUUUTOOOO!” she snarled, charging back through the underbrush. “This is all your fault, you hear me!”

“Sakura… chan?” Naruto whispered, stumbling backwards as he spotted her enraged expression, before he broke into a run to get away from her.

“Don’t you dare run away from me!” she roared, uncaring of their requirement for stealth. They were in the Forest of Death. The possibility of them being discovered by humans was relatively low, and Sakura didn’t care how many giant tigers she had to wrestle with if it meant she could wrap her hands around Naruto’s throat and squeeze. “Get back here and fight me!”

A chuckle from Kakashi had her freezing on the spot, and her head whipped around so she could glare at him. “Already taking after your father, are we?” he inquired, quirking a brow in amusement at her dumbfounded expression.

“What?” she asked, temporarily delaying her chase of an ex-blonde-haired idiot in favour of glaring at her new cousin’s half-brother. Family relations were going to get so confusing… all because Orochimaru couldn’t be bothered to give them all different mothers. He’d certainly managed with their new fathers, and her own mother.

“Naruto is now Hashirama’s son… and you’re Madara’s daughter,” Kakashi said, that trolling smile still in place on his covered face. “Madara loved shouting the name of his rival, Hashirama, rather a lot like how you just yelled Naruto-kun’s name… Hence the taking after your father…”

Her cheeks bloomed red, ears burning at the thought. “I do not take after that megalomaniac in any way, shape, or form, you hear me!”

That was an insult. One Kakashi deserved to get punched for, her mind decided, and she changed targets from Naruto to Kakashi, charging at him with a cry.

But Kakashi was far more mobile than she was, and he evaded her with a pathetic ease, and Sakura felt her traitorous lower lip start to wobble before the waterworks turned on and then she was bashing her chakra-reinforced fists against every available surface instead of the warm breakable body she wanted to hit. “Stay still and let me hit you, dammit,” she grumbled between the sobs and hiccups of what she realised to be a tantrum. A child’s tantrum. Sakura felt tears prick her eyes, frustration with her childish body and reactions overwhelming her, but a hand on her head made her pause in her squalling.

Sasuke ruffled her messy hair, and Sakura found she didn’t care about her hairstyle for once. There was no saving her mop of Madara hair. But Sasuke’s hand felt nice atop her head, she decided as her cries dried up along with her tear ducts.

“Thanks,” she sniffled.

“Well, it can’t be helped,” Kakashi said, her file in his hands. “According to this, you’re even younger than I thought.”

“What?”

“You’re biologically two-years-old, and a few months if you want to get specific, so I think we can make allowances for tantrums, given how our mentalities seemed to have gravitated towards each of our bodies ages,” he continued, pressing her file shut. “I’m seven, according to my own, and these two are six-years-old.”

“What other information is there in our files?” Sakura asked, quashing the annoyance she felt towards him. She did not want to start crying again. Though Sasuke’s hand mussing her hair in a brotherly manner was oddly soothing to that childish part of her. It was rare enough for Sasuke to actually do something like that, so Sakura was content in letting it happen.

“Let’s see.” He flipped open all four of their files, torch in hand, riffling through all of them for a few quiet, tense minutes in which Naruto crept back into camp. “Our experiment – the one we were all part of, apparently – was to do with creating a new vessel for him. With me and Naruto-kun, it seems he was trying to obtain mokuton and the Uzumaki longevity… he even tried experimenting with the even faster healing of a jinchuuriki via some sort of infusion of biju chakra using Naruto – hence the whisker marks I believe.” Kakashi glanced up at them, dark red eyes gleaming in the streaks of moonlight which shone through the heavy green leaves in the canopy above them. “As for you two, he was working on the sharingan, obviously. According to his notes, he spent a while triggering reactions in the brain to try and work out how to unlock the sharingan in the pair of you.”

Sakura leant into Sasuke’s side, his scent comforting. It smelt like family. “And?” she pressed.

“According to your files, both of you should have an active, fully matured sharingan thanks to his experiments… though he went further with Sasuke-kun, unlocking the mangekyou and using another Izuna-Mito creation’s eyes to create the eternal mangekyou.”

“Well that explains why I ended up in this body,” Sasuke mumbled.

Sakura stared at her hands, a cold chill rushing through her body – and not thanks to wet clothes this time around. “There were others in the same experiment group…” she whispered, shuddering as she thought of their fates.

Kakashi looked grim. “We were the only ones who survived. Or, well, these bodies were. Truth be told, we don’t even know whether they were still alive when we took over them, or whether they had just died and came back to life with us.” He shrugged, and Sakura shivered all the harder. “They’re… probably in a better place now, anyway, and we’re all set to repair the timeline.”

“Repair… the timeline?” Sakura echoed.

Kakashi smiled, a grin somewhat blander than usual. “That’s why we asked Naruto-kun to send us back in time in the first place, Sakura-chan.”

“No,” she stumbled over her words, struggling to figure out how to tell him they were in the complete wrong timeline. It was Kakashi-sensei. He should have already figured it out… but he had probably been a bit busy corralling Naruto into the Forest of Death. “Don’t you already know?”

“Know what?” It was Naruto who spoke up, flinching under the double Uchiha glare sent his way courtesy of Sasuke and Sakura.

“Some blockheaded imbecile—” Sasuke hissed.

“We’re not in our past,” Sakura cut her cousin off, squeezing his hand gently as she pulled it into her lap – the other still busy ruffling her messy hair. “This is a completely different dimension where Uchiha Madara was the Nidaime, and either Senju Tobirama or a very good lookalike is currently still roaming the streets as we speak.”

“What?” Kakashi blinked.

“We’re in the wrong timeline!” she roared, still glaring at Naruto. “The seal messed up, so we have absolutely no idea what we’re dealing with here.”

Kakashi’s gaze flickered over onto Naruto. “The seal,” he began, and Naruto looked confused. “The seal marking on your back – the same one on all of our backs – show it to me.”

“But—”

“Just do as he says, moron,” Sasuke hissed, and Sakura whined softly as his hand left her locks. He strode over to their idiotic teammate, all but tearing the clothes off his back, revealing a five-pointed star mark in a fading black ink tattooed over his tanned skin. Both she and Sasuke had the Uchiha colouring now, aside from their shockingly red manes, and apparently they also had a star-shaped seal on their backs too.

Kakashi peered at it closely. “We must have messed up with the location stamp. The time stamp is perfect – we just forgot to account for the existence of different dimensions. What a stupid mistake… though I guess we were pressed for time.”

“It’s fading,” Sakura mumbled. “Is that natural? I mean… if the mark goes, then the seal comes undone, doesn’t it? What does that mean for us?” She pulled her knees to her chest, fear pulsing through her at the thought of being on a time limit. She hated time limits.

He shook his head. “Seals explode if they come undone or they end up causing some other manner of catastrophe depending on how volatile the components are and what they involve. Seals disappearing in our case, according to everything Minato-sensei taught me – and suddenly I understand more of it for some reason – would mean that our minds are merging with this body. Once the seal disappears, the process is complete, and I think something rather bad would happen if we then tried to rip our minds into a new dimension.”

“In other words, once that seal vanishes, we’re stuck in this world – in these bodies,” Sasuke summed up, and Sakura felt dread sink into the pit of her stomach. “So we should start work on another seal if we want to get back to our timeline.”

Kakashi nodded. “Correct.”

“I’m not trusting any of Naruto’s seals this time,” Sasuke declared, staring pointedly at their sensei.

Kakashi sighed, long and loud. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I understand more about seals now.” He shrugged. “Probably due to me apparently being the progeny of two sealing masters this time around, but, meh.”

“Can I put my shirt back on yet?” Naruto grumbled, shivering as the breeze rustled through the trees yet again.

“In a minute,” Kakashi said. “I need to ask you some questions about this… wonderfully incorrect seal on your back.”

Naruto wrapped his arms around himself. “Then hurry up! It’s freezing!”

“First things first,” he began, using to torch to shine some light on the crux of their predicament. “The points of the… star… what are they for? I can’t work that out.”

“There are four. Surely the meaning behind that should be obvious,” Naruto grumbled, gesturing around at the four of them.

Staring at the five points of the star, Sakura felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Kakashi stiffened next to them. “Four points?”

“Yes! Can’t you count?” Naruto snapped, shivering all the harder.

“Moron!” Sasuke hissed. “There are five points on your stupid star.”

Naruto blinked. “What?”

“There are five points, imbecile. It’s a five pointed star!” Sasuke barked, running a hand through the bangs in front of his face. “You’re the one who can’t count.”

Sakura tilted her head. “Is that the mistake?” she offered, rubbing a soothing hand over Sasuke’s back. “What landed us in the wrong dimension…?”

“No.” Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not the location stamp – that’s inside the star. The number of points of the seal would only be a reflection of the number of people transported through it.”

“You aren’t saying…” Sakura trailed off, gulping audibly.

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed, spinning red as he started to scan the forest. “That’s exactly what they’re saying, Sakura.”

She shivered at the familiar drawl of her name.

“We’ve got a tagalong,” Kakashi finished, closing his eyes, and Sakura felt a brush of chakra against her minute sense for that. “But who…?”

Naruto stiffened then, and Sakura felt the ominous tone in his voice before he even spoke. It was written in his body language. “There was only one other… being still alive when we created that seal. I could sense him when I was still with… Kurama.”

“Oh no,” Sakura mumbled, knowing there was only one being which would have been able to sneak into the sealing array once Naruto had disconnected from Kurama and focused his efforts on the seal. “Fuck. What have we done?”

“Sakura-chan?” Kakashi turned to her.

“Zetsu. Black Zetsu…” she hissed, hands clenching into fists. “That’s our tagalong? Out of everyone… everything we could have dragged along, it just had to be the will of Kaguya?” She buried her face in her hands, freezing only when she realised Zetsu could be anywhere. “He could attack us whenever.” Her feet back-peddled, back slamming into Sasuke’s side in an attempt to protect her rear.

“Relax, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said. “You’re on the verge of panicking, and he’s nowhere near us, OK?”

“How do you know?”

He pointed at his white hair. “You know who my father is in this dimension, don’t you?”

Sakura swallowed her fears, nodding. “Senju Tobir—oh, so you’re a sensor?” she realised with a start. And that was a very good thing to have on their side if they were up against Zetsu. He still counted as a living being, and all living things had chakra – even if it was from his so-called mother.

Kakashi hummed in acknowledgement. “Correct… but still, in light of this new development – we’re sticking in pairs. No going anywhere on your own.”

Sakura nodded fervently, small hand curling in Sasuke’s hoodie as if searching for some form of comfort. Comfort he soon provided in the form of a hand patting her head soothingly.

“Are we going to be making a seal to escape though?” Sasuke asked, staring between the pair of them and Sakura as she tucked herself into his side. “To go back to our original dimension…” he clarified, chewing on his lip as he did so. “We are, aren’t we?”

The grim expression on Kakashi’s face said it all.

“But I need to save my brother… when I’m actually his brother!” Sasuke hissed, glaring down at his hands and the ponytail of silky red hair.

Naruto pulled his shirt and jumper back down, standing tall as he turned to face them in all his six-year-old glory. “But Black Zetsu is in this dimension now… and it’s all our fault,” he said, black eyes narrowed. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want him doing what he did to our dimension in this one.”

“What about our dimension? Our bodies?” Sasuke demanded. “Wouldn’t you rather—”

“Yeah,” Naruto said, a small smile on his lips. “I’d love to be back with Kurama, back in my old body, with my old skills… but then I messed up that seal, and now everyone here is going to pay the consequences of that unless we do something about it.” He closed his eyes. “We’re the only ones who know what we’ve done, and I think it’s up to us to stop it.”

Kakashi plopped himself down on the fallen branch, staring down at the makeshift firepit. “He’s right, Sasuke-kun.” He buried his face in his hands, playing with his bright white locks. “We made this mess, so it’s only right that we clean it up… even if that means we don’t wind up in the place we want to.”

“But—” Sasuke paused midsentence, throwing his hands up. “Fine. Fine,” he muttered, stomping off into the trees, leaving Sakura behind.

“Don’t go too far!” Kakashi called after him, and he was answered only by a cry of rage, and the sounds of fists hitting things. It seemed it was time for Sasuke’s temper tantrum, Sakura mused with a smirk. At least she wasn’t the only one with childish impulses.

“Sorry Sakura-chan,” Naruto said, staring at her as she moved over to sit next to Kakashi. “It’s my fault… You won’t be able to see your Ino again.”

Sakura sighed quietly. “Shut up, Naruto,” she grumbled, snuggling into Kakashi’s side. “Even if we were in the right dimension she wouldn’t be my Ino anymore… She’d have grown up slightly different at least,” Sakura said, heart thumping painfully as she finally admitted it out loud. Her best friend was truly dead in every sense that mattered, and nothing short of Edo Tensei could have brought her back – and that would have only worked when they were in the right dimension at the right time.

Kakashi’s small arm curled around her shoulders in answer, and they fell into silence. A comfortable one, only interrupted occasionally by the sounds of grunts and twigs breaking from where Sasuke was. Eventually, Naruto found himself snuggling into Kakashi’s other side, all of them waiting for Sasuke to come back.

Five minutes turned into ten, and Sakura rose to her feet. They needed to get together and plan their next steps. “I’ll go talk to him,” she said, shrugging off the arm curled protectively around her, taking a shaky step into the darkness of the forest. It was that much scarier when she didn’t have the means to properly defend herself. Kakashi and Sasuke, possibly Naruto too, were a comfort to her there, if only because they were bigger. Stronger. But she would be getting back to her usual skill level soon enough. That she vowed.

“What do you want?” Sasuke’s voice came out of the darkness, sharingan spinning, and Sakura felt something in her own eyes click. His shoulders sunk ever so slightly, the sharpness with which she saw that happen telling her she too had her sharingan activated. A response to his own, now that she knew her chakra had a path to take to her eyes. “Did Kakashi send you to get me?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I came. We need to go back and plan what we’re going to do next…”

“Hn.” He folded his arms, glaring at the dirt.

Sakura edged closer, reaching out for his hand with her smaller ones. “We’re your family here,” she said, taking his larger hand in her own. “You’re not alone.”

“You’re not Itachi.”

“No.” Sakura sighed yet again. “I’m your cousin now. Uchiha Sakura, or Uzumaki Sakura however you want to look at it… and whether you like it or not your Itachi isn’t going to come back. You killed him, and there’s nothing you can do about that—”

“Shut up!”

Sakura stomped her foot. “No! I lost Ino too, and whilst we might not have been blood related, she’s the closest thing I ever had to a sister. Now she’s dead, and she’s never going to come back, just like the Itachi you knew and loved won’t ever come back.” It was her turn for her shoulders to sink. “They’re gone Sasuke, but a version of them still exists – and they exist in this dimension too no doubt. Are you gonna let Zetsu ruin another Sasuke’s life? Kill another Itachi when you could stop him?”

Sasuke kicked the dirt, scuffing it with his sandal. “Shut it. I get it, alright,” he grumbled. “Let’s just go back to the others and see what rubbish Kakashi has to say to us.”

“It’s not rubbish.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Together they strolled back into the clearing, sighs of exasperation escaping them when they caught sight of Naruto snoring next to Kakashi. “Idiot,” Sasuke muttered, storming over to his side, pushing him into the mud.

“Wha—?” Naruto woke with a yelp. “Sasuke! Meanie!”

“So,” Sasuke began. “What next?”

Kakashi smiled. “Well, going by how quickly Naruto’s seal is fading, there’s nothing we can do about changing timelines again if we want to deal with Zetsu – which means we need to find our cover story. We can hardly tell people we’re Orochimaru’s experiments… and that means we’re going to need to break into a few places.” He clapped his hands together. “Which means it’s time for: Dimension Hopping Lesson One. Infiltration.”

“Sounds… exciting,” Sakura deadpanned, swallowing at the weight of what they were going to have to do. “It also sounds as though we’re going to be breaking a lot of Konoha’s Laws.”

Naruto gulped.

Sakura snorted at his expression. If there was one thing Naruto had never been very good at – it was stealth. She sniggered at his expense.

“Right you are, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said, drumming his fingers down on the wood of the giant branch he sat on. “As of this moment on, the Forest of Death is our home base of operations—”

“It can’t be,” Sakura piped up, remembering the white haired, red-marked face she had seen. “If that man we saw in the marketplace is actually Senju Tobirama – or at least some sort of close relation – then they’ll likely be a sensor too, and if they decide they need to use their chakra sense then they’ll be able to sense us even here… depending on their range.”

“That… is a very valid point,” Kakashi mumbled. “But we don’t have any other form of residency which is safe from prying eyes, so we’ll stay here for now. We should work on acquiring some form of employment though… which means going to the academy and graduating as fast as possible – which I won’t be allowing for you, Sakura-chan—”

She leapt to her feet. “But—!”

He held up a hand to stifle her protests. “You’re biologically two. Even I was five when I graduated, so that’s the bare minimum.”

Sakura huffed as she sat back down. She didn’t want to be deadweight ever again. “Fine,” she muttered, pouting furiously.

Naruto snickered at her. “The family resemblance is shining through,” he whispered, and Sakura snarled.

“You’re going down, Naruto!” she yelled, pouncing on him – only to be caught by her new cousin and promptly settled on his lap, amidst Naruto’s pearling laughter. “I am going to gut you like a fish, you hear me, Naruto!”

“You sure do love shouting his name, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi added in, and Sakura turned her suddenly reddening face away, burying it in Sasuke’s chest. Strangely enough, he allowed the contact, and allowed her to mutter into his chest about all the explicit ways she was going to dismember them and dance on their entrails.

“Stop teasing her,” Sasuke said, wrapping his arms around her, and Sakura took that as the go-ahead to snuggle into his chest. “In case you forgot, we have some infiltration to do.”

“And I’ll be needing your sharingan to do just that,” Kakashi continued smoothly, as though he hadn’t just pretty much called her a Mini-Madara. “We have some documents we’ll need to forge. Birth certificates and the like.”

“Make me older than I am,” Sakura demanded, turning to him. “Say that I’m five-years-old according to my birth certificate. Then I’ll go to the academy and graduate slowly.”

“Sakura-chan—”

She huffed into Sasuke’s chest. “Otherwise I won’t have anything to do while you all galivant off to the academy… I’ll… I’ll… I’ll prank really important places if you don’t!”

Sasuke stiffened, nose twitching at the thought of her pulling pranks. No doubt because she was now an Uchiha, and they didn’t pull juvenile pranks. Those were beneath them.

Sakura curled her lips into a smirk, resting her head against Sasuke to hide her glee. Her wonderful new cousin would no doubt see it so she was made to be a horribly small five-year-old rather than the average-sized two-year-old. She could totally pull off a difference of three years. Even if they were a vital three years.

Kakashi sighed. “Very well then,” he said, standing up. “The sooner we get this done, the better. You ready for your lesson on infiltration?” He looked at Sasuke, eyebrow raised in question.

“Yay!” Naruto jumped to his feet.

“Not you, Naruto.” Kakashi waved at him to sit back down. “You two are sticking together, and – for the love of all that’s holy – stay out of trouble while I’m away.”

“How much—”

Sakura pulled herself away from Sasuke’s warmth as he climbed to his feet, running over to kick Naruto in the shin. “Do not finish that sentence! That’s practically inviting trouble to come and find us… and knowing your luck, trouble would happily take that invitation,” she hissed, only able to watch as Kakashi and Sasuke headed off to get their documents in order. Her eyes flickered over onto the four files left behind with them. Their files. It wouldn’t hurt to read through some more, she mused. Kakashi had only read what he thought important out to them.

Naruto pouted, clutching his shin as she wandered over to reclaim the files and the torch with which to read them. “Ow! That hurt!”

“Good.”

Chapter Text

Sakura was pouting. And she was pouting furiously.

Daybreak had come, the chirping and tweeting of birds heralding its arrival. Naruto had wandered off, and Sakura had let him – until so much time elapsed that she went to check he hadn’t been eaten by a giant snake again. The Forest of Death wasn’t as scary as it had been before, perhaps because this time she had her so-called monstrous strength even if her body was ridiculously tiny.

Naruto hadn’t lost any of his friendship-making abilities either. In fact, they had only gotten better, much to her own consternation. Sakura didn’t know how it was possible to befriend giant tigers but Naruto had sure done it.

She blamed Hashirama’s genes.

They had seemingly amplified everything Naruto-ish about him. Sakura was just thankful he hadn’t inherited the moping tendency their esteemed ex-leader had on the battlefield. She likely would have strangled him by then if that had been the case. As it was, she settled for sighing deeply, shaking her head, before she realised that the tigers were fluffy. And she wanted to ruffle their fur and snuggle there in the warmth.

Only the tigers weren’t about to let her do just that. They growled dangerously whenever she edged towards them. “Naruto!” she yelled, glaring at the growling tigers. She was an Uchiha now, and cats were supposed to like them. “Why don’t they like me?” She folded her arms, eye twitching when Naruto only burst out in laughter in response. Kicking at the dirt with her feet, she scowled, irritation making her want to bash her fists against something. Sakura ignored those instincts, telling herself it was just her inner child at work.

She refused to act like a two-year-old. One tantrum had been enough.

“Fine,” she grumbled, glaring at Naruto as a rough tongue lapped at his cheek. “Don’t tell me,” she muttered, so beyond angry that she was upset. She wanted the attention, whether it be Naruto’s or the cats’. “I’ll be fine on my own. I always am.” Tears bit the corners of her eyes, and Sakura reminded herself it was only because her two-year-old body didn’t allow her the same control she’d once had over her emotions. She was only getting upset because of that. It wasn’t like she needed the attention. Obviously those cats didn’t know who was best, otherwise they’d be flocking to her in droves.

Her hand went to her hair, tugging furiously on the messy locks, and she stormed away from the den of cats. It was such a stupid thing to get upset over, she told herself, kicking the nearest tree. It fell over with a loud thump, and Sakura sighed. She really needed to get a handle on her temper. Childish laughter rang out behind her, and Sakura’s expression darkened.

She was terrible at making friends. Her only one to begin with had been Ino… without her she never would have become as close to the rest of the Rookie Nine as she had. Jealous. She was so horribly jealous. Naruto didn’t even have the Kyuubi anymore, nor would he have the entire village hating him this time around. He’d make friends. Lots of them. But he’d deserve them after everything he’d been through, Sakura mused. She was just being childish and bitter in general.

But what if he left them behind? Tears swelled in her eyes yet again. He’d left her behind for two years. No letters. No form of communication of any kind. She had trained so hard so she couldn’t be left behind yet again.

He had already left her for the cats, she huffed, walking through the looming trees. She might as well leave him behind… for trees… Sakura scowled, stomping her feet in annoyance. Petty. She was being so petty.

Her eyes flickered over to the puddle as she walked past it, black orbs staring back at her from the shimmery surface instead of the viridian ones she was so used to. Boys had only really wanted to talk to her occasionally back in the academy. And only because they had thought her pretty. Her hands went to her spiky crimson locks, the volume still impressive despite being tied back with ribbon. She wasn’t so pretty anymore.

Sakura clenched her hands, pulling at the red locks.

She would be all alone. Without Ino. Tears dripped down her face. Sasuke and Kakashi had already left. They were supposed to be back already. It was already well into the day and they weren’t there. Her shoulders slumped. Those thoughts shouldn’t have been bothering her as much as they did. It was probably because of her bitty body. Her lip curled, and then she blinked upon spying the fencing in front of her.

Would they even notice if she left? she mused, thinking of Naruto and all his new cat friends. Probably not. She edged over to the fencing, climbing up and over it with a judicious application of chakra. It felt nice to be the one leaving for once.

Naruto could stare at her back.

If he bothered to come and find her. She stomped on a tuft of grass, huffing loudly. Her temper was flaring with a horrible vengeance. Though she supposed she didn’t have Inner to scream aloud inside her head anymore. Inner was gone. Just like everyone else.

Sakura scowled. She needed a distraction, she mused, glaring at the dirt until there wasn’t anymore dirt. Because she was on a road. In the village. Somewhere she probably shouldn’t be. But everyone else had ditched her. Kakashi hadn’t come back. He was late. Sakura snorted. As per usual.

Laughter met her ears, high and childish, and Sakura glanced over. Dimly, she noted the fact her feet had taken her to a park. One she had played in before. The same one civilian children usually played in. Though Ino had gone there a few times. It was how they’d met in the first place.

Sakura blinked slowly. Oh that was right… Her black eyes flickered over towards where she knew the Yamanaka Compound to be located. Though unlike the Uchiha Compound it was less closed off from the village – a district unto itself – and more of a collection of houses the Yamanaka owned. Sakura closed her eyes, willing back the tears.

She didn’t need the memories of that purple-clothed, broken body. Ino had left her too. Sai had followed soon after, heartbroken. He hadn’t wanted to stay even for her. Everyone left her in the end. Sakura sniffed, rubbing at her traitorous eyes. Naruto had ditched her for cats. Cats! Of all things.

“Neh, look at what we got here, Ami!” a jeering, high-pitched voice sounded. Sakura blinked yet again. The voice stirred something long forgotten. Academy. Ami. Bullies. Forehead. She took in the sight of three larger girls about the same size that Naruto and Sasuke now were. They towered over her itty bitty form. “Another cry baby, just like Forehead!”

Sakura tilted her head, tears of irritation still leaking from her eyes as she tried for the life of her to remember the names of Ami’s two companions. The one with bright orange hair which formed a literal mane around her head, and the cruel, black-eyed girl with short red hair which rose in spikes. It was nothing compared to her Uzumaki red locks though. Hers were a slightly more washed out red. Sakura resisted the urge to sneer, both at the sight of that hair and the memories the three brought to the forefront of her mind.

“She should go and play with Forehead and that flower girl then,” Ami remarked, stepping closer to her all the while. “She’d fit right in.”

Blandly, Sakura looked up into those harsh brown eyes. They were the eyes of an innocent child. They hadn’t seen anyone die just yet. They hadn’t glazed over in death.

A shove jolted her out of those thoughts, and she was utterly reminded of how small and light she was. She should’ve used chakra to anchor herself to the ground… but then that might have hurt her more, given her feet would have been locked in place while the rest of her body moved. A whole-body chakra enhancement was wasted on the three in front of her. “Go away,” she ordered, turning to continue on her walk. She wasn’t even inside the blasted park where they had seemingly decided to play, but she had been too near the entrance to avoid their attention it seemed.

“What you gonna do if we don’t?” Fuki, that was her name, asked, moving to block her path.

Sakura mulled over all the ways she could break her bones – though there was always the slightly less violent option of just bodily picking her up and moving her out of the way. Though Sakura much preferred the violent options. They spoke to her more, for some strange reason.

She had been a shinobi for years now. Violence was ingrained in her very bones, or so she supposed.

“Cry?” Fuki leered, and Sakura felt her fingers curl almost reflexively. She was far too used to punching her way out of problems… especially the kind which couldn’t be solved intelligently.

Sakura sighed, a low, long thing, which should have spoken volumes about how tired she was of everything. The ones in front of her were children though – not capable of grasping things like that. Her eye twitched, and the strong desire to be rid of the pathetic bullies who’d torment and crushed her the last time around overcame her. “Shall I phrase it differently then?” she mumbled, pushing her horrible hair out of her eyes so she could stare up at them coldly. “Fuck off, you shitty little bitches. Your whiny voices are giving me a headache.”

Ami stumbled back at her foul words, Fuki glancing nervously between her and her friends, and Sakura felt a cruel smirk lift her lips.

“What’s the matter? You can dish it but can’t take it, huh?” She leered at them, a cool sort of rage overtaking her. They had bullied her before. They were trying to do it again. But Sakura wasn’t the same as before. “Get out of my way already and get a damned life.”

Satisfaction curled like a contented cat inside her belly when the three of them scattered. Sakura was fairly sure it spoke volumes of how vindictive she had become. War warped personalities with all its blood and death – her sensei was a prime example, and now she had become one too. Naruto was probably the one who’d remained most unaffected, especially with their leap to the past, albeit a wrong timeline. A chance to change things for the better. Only in this place they had no idea what to change – what they could change. Which was why Kakashi and Sasuke had gone to infiltrate and pick up some more information for them to work with.

“You made them run away,” a small voice sounded, and Sakura stiffened. That voice was too familiar. The voice was the same. The same one which had once left her own lips. Back when she was pitifully short and still had her combination of pink hair and green eyes.

Turning slowly, her heart stuttered as she caught sight of two little children, both the same age as Ami and her group. One had pastel pink hair, with eyes of the brightest spring green, and a bright red bow in her hair. The other had pale blonde hair, and sky blue eyes.

The same sky blue eyes which had stared vacantly up at the sky. The same pale blonde hair which had been smattered with dirt and blood. The same skin which had turned white and pallid in death.

Her hands shook, and Sakura concealed them with a clench of her fists. “What do you want?” she demanded, wincing internally at the amount of aggression lining her statement as she stared into those spring green eyes.

Why weren’t you strong enough? She wanted to scream at her past self. Why couldn’t you save her? Why could you only cry over her body? Where were you when she needed you most?

But Haruno Sakura wasn’t her anymore. She could pick either Uchiha or Uzumaki as her new surname thanks to her blood. Thanks to Orochimaru. Faintly, Sakura noted her new situation was a wonderful distraction to Naruto and his cats. What better way to traumatise herself further than by meeting this universe’s versions of herself and Ino?

“Nothing,” Ino declared, stepping in front of Haruno Sakura protectively, and Sakura felt her joy from triumphing over her bullies fade. Nostalgic. That was the word to describe how she felt in that instant. She missed her Ino. This one couldn’t replace her… but she could certainly look after this dimension’s Sakura. “Come on Sakura,” she said, linking arms with the pink-haired girl as she guided the pair of them further into the park – and away from the opening in the fence where Sakura stood frozen.

Her shoulders slumped, an odd sort of relief flooding through her as she waited in the entrance for no good reason. She should really get moving. In fact, she ought to get back to the Forest of Death… see if Naruto had actually noticed her absence, or whether he’d been too occupied with the cats to care about her. Her lip curled, and she scuffed the dirt under her feet as she gently kicked at the fence.

“So this is the girl…”

Sakura felt her shoulders slump, and she yawned as she turned to hurry away from whatever commotion was brewing behind her. At least until she felt a hand land on her shoulder. A large one, with bright purple nail polish.

It wasn’t Itachi.

Instead, she was greeted with the sight of an undoubtedly civilian woman with purple hair and a shivering Ami at her side. Sakura blinked. Why did Ami look like she’d been crying? Sakura wanted to smile happily at the sight of the snotty face. Who was a cry baby now? But she didn’t. Mainly because the woman with icy blue eyes and dark purple hair was undoubtedly Ami’s mother, and she didn’t look particularly happy. “Where are your parents, girl?”

Dead, Sakura wanted to say, because the ones she had called kaa-chan and tou-san were – but she couldn’t. She wasn’t supposed to be out in the village. What a stupid, reckless decision it had been… though it had been Naruto’s fault entirely for playing with those cats instead of her. She didn’t know their cover story. She didn’t know who Kakashi and Sasuke had fabricated for the backstory they were intricately weaving wherever the hell they were at that moment in time.

“It’s none of your business,” she declared, scowling as the grasp on her shoulder slipped to her upper arm. It was tight. Uncomfortable.

Sakura didn’t like it. She wanted her to let go. In fact, she was fighting her instincts to wrench herself away with her chakra-enhanced strength. But she couldn’t cause more of a scene than she already had. Kakashi would be mad at her. Sasuke would be mad at her. She didn’t care what Naruto thought of her. He was too busy playing with cats to worry about her.

“Apparently I need to educate them on what it’s appropriate for a young girl to say,” Ami’s mother sniffed, and Sakura scowled. Of course Ami’s mother would be a nosy civilian who wanted to impress their standards on someone else.

Sakura barely refrained from baring her teeth. She hated people like that the most. Besides, despite her new body, she was technically an adult in mind. She could damn well swear whenever she wanted to. Sasuke probably wouldn’t approve, but Sakura didn’t care for his opinion right then and there. She was angry. Swearing was a good way of expressing her anger… better than punching everything in sight. “You shouldn’t impose your standards on someone else. It’s not your place… Now let me go!”

“I simply wish for a conversation with your parents, child.”

She almost growled, glaring at the hand holding her captive. Adult reasoning hadn’t worked… “If you don’t let go of me in the next ten seconds, lady, I will scream.”

The grip only tightened, disapproval written across the lady’s face, but Sakura had quite frankly had enough.

“Get the fuck off me, bitch!” she snarled, batting at the hand holding her. Without chakra. Breaking her wrist would only involve hospitals and the police force used for dealing with civilian matters. “I don’t like you touching me.”

The grip slackened ever so slightly, and Sakura sucked in a breath – preparing to make good on her promise and scream her lungs out – but Ami’s mother thankfully had some brain cells left and let go of her soon after. “Tch.” Her lips curled in distaste as she stared down at Sakura. Sakura glared right back. “With a mouth and an attitude like that, it’s no wonder you don’t have friends.”

Sakura froze, feeling tears bite at her eyes. She pushed them back. It wasn’t like she didn’t have any friends. She had—oh wait, Naruto had decided cats were better, and Sasuke was now her cousin, and Kakashi was her sensei. Everyone else as she knew them was dead. She felt a tear trail down her cheek. Stupid baby body which couldn’t hold her emotions in as well. The woman had hit the nail right on the head. But even if she was upset… she couldn’t show it. She wouldn’t. “You get off on bullying a child, do you?” she asked, glaring up at the woman. Stupid tears. “I can certainly see where your daughter gets it from. You must be so proud,” she spat, turning and hurrying away. She slammed her shoulder into something hard and vaguely warm and stumbled, but she kept on running. If she ran away everything would be fine. If she ran away, the woman couldn’t retort. Sakura liked having the last word. She was vindictive like that.

Her feet took her to the river which flowed by the market square, and Sakura curled there, pulling her knees to her chest, burying her face in her arms as she sobbed. It was quiet there. What better place to mope about the ridiculousness which was her life?

She was lonely. So lonely.

She shouldn’t have been so confrontational with Ino and Haruno… maybe then she would have made some friends… maybe then she wouldn’t have felt so alone, no matter the trauma which would have come along with it all. But she hadn’t. And she was alone. All alone, with only the gurgle of water over pebbles for company.

Her sleeves were a mix of salt water and snot by the time her sniffles died away.

She couldn’t allow that stupid woman’s words to get to her. Ami’s mother didn’t know a damned thing about her, so her opinions and thoughts didn’t matter.

“Neh, are you alright?”

Sakura froze, stiffening as her head snapped around to lock eyes with cerulean blue ones, on a face with whiskered cheeks topped with a headful of sunshine blonde hair. “I-I’m fine!” she hissed, edging away.

“See? She’s fine, Naruto-kun,” Ami called, and Sakura’s fists clenched as she turned to glare at Ami and her two groupies. It was their fault she’d been crying in the first place. Evidently they’d left the park and wandered off to explore. They’d ended up at the same river as her. “You can leave her alone now!”

Sakura blinked. Once. Twice. Were they being nice to Naruto? Even though—oh wait, it was a different dimension, Sakura reminded herself. It must have been one of the ripples. Naruto wasn’t hated anywhere it seemed. The thought made her angry. Sakura sighed. It was a stupid anger. One formed from jealousy. She was more mature than that though. She had to be. Didn’t she?

“Come on, Naruto-kun,” Fuki said, tone demanding as Ami walked over to where Naruto was crouched. “You shouldn’t hang out with her – she’s mean!”

And you’re not, Sakura wanted to scoff. She climbed to her feet, scowling menacingly at the three of them. Maybe her new face was good for something. She certainly looked horrifically like a chubby-cheeked baby Madara. She’d spent enough time glaring into her reflection in the water there to come to that conclusion. And there was nothing she could do to change that fact.

Madara was, technically, her father after all. Plus he was super scary when he glared at people. The sharingan only helped him there.

Not that she could use her sharingan – not that she really even knew how to. The most she had gleaned was that it would automatically activate upon meeting another. Which meant no looking into the eyes of an Uchiha for her. Not until she had a better handle on things. And not until she learnt what their damned cover story was.

Sakura paused in her thoughts as something soft brushed against her fingers. The sleeves of Naruto’s clothing. It wasn’t orange, oddly enough. Instead it was black with hints of red and gold – so unlike the bright eyesore of an orange jumpsuit she was so used to seeing on him.

She was clinging to Naruto. The thought took a moment to process, and she was already loosening her grasp.

But it was too late.

To stop the fangirl’s jealousy.

A harsh shove took her by surprise, pain stabbing through her hands as she landed harshly on them. Whimpers left her lips, and dimly she registered Naruto saying something, but she couldn’t hear what he said. She was too focused on the rage bubbling up inside her. First they had tried to bully her… then Ami had run off to her mother and tattled on her using swearwords… now she had shoved her down just for trying to cling to the memory of her Naruto – and accidentally grasping a hold of this alternate Naruto’s clothing.

Sakura snarled, climbing back to her feet, hands outstretched as she shoved Ami back. It was the least she deserved for being the reason she’d been crying for the last hour or so.

Only her chakra had moved instinctively in her rage.

And Sakura had been too blinded by it – curse her tiny body – to rein it in.

Ami went flying back, slamming into one of the supports of the little footbridge which ran across the river nearby.

She blinked slowly that time, fear and pride coursing through her as she spotted the terrified looks the other children were giving her. She was satisfied… and yet horrified at the same time. Because she’d injured someone – even if that someone had very much deserved it – and given the apparent severity of the injury – there were cracks in the white brickwork behind her childhood tormentor – there would be authority involvement.

Authority like the—

“What exactly is going on here?”

Sunlight glinted off the forehead protector, and Sakura gulped. The red and white of the Uchiha Clan’s symbol in the middle of a four-pointed blue star stood out starkly on the sleeve of the shirt worn under the green flak jacket.

Oh fuck, was she in trouble now… more so because there wasn’t just one of them. Oh no, her luck had brought an entire patrol down on her head. Because of a violent scuffle between two children would require parents to be called.

Parents Sakura didn’t have.

She might have just messed up everything Kakashi and Sasuke were working on. Her hands wrapped around herself, digging into the skin of her arms as Fuki and the orange-haired girl started trying to explain everything from their perspective.

Which didn’t involve Ami pushing her first.

Sakura stiffened, feeling a lot of stares directed her way as her body started to shake. She was not about to cry. Kakashi and Sasuke’s disappointment would not make her cry. Her absolutely stupid blunder which might have cost them their entire secret mission would not make her cry.

“Eiichi-kun,” the apparent leader of the patrol spoke, and Sakura didn’t dare look over – instead, staring down at the ground in front of her. “See to… Ami-chan,” he ordered.

The air shifted behind her, and Sakura stiffened as a hand came down on her shoulder. It didn’t have purple nail polish. But it still didn’t feel comfortable. Determined, she shook her shoulder, desperate to be rid of the touch.

Evidently the shinobi was better at reading body language than Ami’s mother, because he let her go. Instead crouching in front of her, and Sakura felt a traitorous sniffle escape her. “I didn’t mean to,” she muttered, wincing at the choked, tearful sound. She really sounded like an itty bitty child. Sakura hated it.

“I know,” he said, voice soft. Like he was dealing with a child. Sakura didn’t know whether to hate or like the baby treatment she was experiencing thanks to her external age. “But we’ll need you to come down to the station to answer some questions, and then we’ll contact your parents, understood?”

Sakura nodded dully, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground. A larger, more feminine hand picked up her tiny one, a lady’s voice echoing in her ears as she stumbled along blankly. She was ruining everything. If only she hadn’t run away from Naruto and his stupid cats. If only Kakashi was there. If only she could run and hide her face in her cousin’s chest. Fuki and the other girl walked ahead, guided by another Uchiha. Ami had all but vanished. The cracks in the stone support had been left behind as she was guided along the road.

Until she spotted the little alleyway.

Until she thought… if she could just lose the Uchiha and find her new family… maybe then everything would be alright?

Her hand slipped from the older woman’s, and Sakura sprinted away, ignoring the shouts behind her as she ran. Long, spiky red locks flared out behind her, air brushing against her neck as she heard the sounds of pursuit behind her. Chakra bolstered her own speed, and she charged down the alleyway and into the busy street beyond.

She could lose them in the crowd.

“Somebody stop that child!”

Or not.

Sakura ducked entirely on instinct, narrowly avoiding the hands which snatched at the space above her. A snarl pulled her lips back, and Sakura could only jump down and slide on her back as another pair of arms tried to grab a hold of her. The street was too busy, and there were too many shinobi with nothing better to do milling about. Grabbing hold of some nearby fencing, she all but swung herself around the corner and into another alleyway.

“Got you!” the Uchiha in front of her yelled, darting forward to catch her.

Jumping over him, she kicked herself off his head to gain more height, teeth bared in a mockery of a smile as she made her break for freedom. She could do this. A glance behind her as she exited the alley let know she had at least three pursuers—

Smack.

Sakura blinked as she landed on her rear, rubbing at her aching face. She had run into something warm, hard, and vaguely leg-shaped—

“Fugaku-sama!”

Sakura stared up at the Chief of the Konoha Military Police Force – whose legs she had just run into. “Fuck.”

It came as no surprise to her that she soon found herself tied up securely with a healthy amount of rope while she waited in the lobby of the police station. They had even added a chakra suppression seal for good measure.

The room was fairly open plan as things went, the numerous desks taking up the majority of either side of the pathway to the reception desk. She was seated on the chairs behind the small half-wall segregating the messy workstations of the overworked Uchiha from the walkways. The reception desk was off to her right, and just a little bit in front of her – but Sakura paid it no heed. The floor was more interesting, and less embarrassing to look at.

Sakura pouted, glaring down at the polished tile floor as she wondered what was going to happen next. Now that she had refused to give her parents’ address. Or their names… though she had claimed she didn’t know the name of where she lived… which, she prayed, wasn’t too unusual. “I want Sasuke-nii,” she mumbled – that being one of the few names she could use safely. Tears leaked down her face, earning her a mixture of bland or sympathetic looks thanks to her tiny body.

She had become well acquainted with a child’s art of using tears to get oneself out of trouble. It had been horribly humiliating. Especially in front of strangers and unknown shinobi.

Worse still, it was getting darker and darker – late afternoon having turned to evening. Sakura shivered, blinking as a blanket was soon thrown over her by a passing Uchiha. Where were Kakashi and Sasuke? She wanted to know where they were. Whether Naruto had bothered to notice her missing… but she didn’t want to see him. She was still angry at him. Stupidly, irrationally angry. The same reason which had led to her storming off in the first place.

Swinging her legs back and forward, she sighed yet again…

“What is she still doing tied up?” Fugaku’s voice dragged her out of the miserable daze she’d spiralled into.

Ropes were loosened in an instant, the chakra seal removed, and Sakura pulled the blanket further around her shoulders now that she could.

“Hashirama-sama, Madara-sama, apologies for keeping you waiting,” Fugaku spoke, approaching the reception desk from where his office was off in the hallway on the other side of her.

Her head whipped around, and she finally paid attention to the reception desk, heart thudding as she realised it had definitely been Tobirama she had seen. And now it seemed Hashirama and Madara were there in the flesh too. Probably that Izuna guy who was her uncle now too, if the theme continued, but that was a small concern.

After all, her biological father was now in the same room as her.

His figure was just as she remembered – only now he was sporting a green flak jacket instead of the red armour she was so used to seeing. Hashirama was dressed similarly – and that was as much as she dared to look before the ground became oh so interesting yet again. She couldn’t attract attention. She had Madara’s face, albeit chubbier and squished. She would just sit there unnoticed until they finis—

“Sakura-chan!”

A weight crashed into her from behind. Her eyes widened, centre of balance shifted as she turned so the back of her head cracked against the hard tiling instead of her slightly more breakable face. A sniffle escaped her once more as pain rang out through her body, and her head in particular. All because a certain idiot. Her eyes narrowed into slits as those whiskered cheeks came into view, along with that bright red hair.

“Why did you run off? Kakashi-nii said—”

“Get off me, you blithering idiot!” she yelled, tucking her legs up so she could get good leverage to shove the imbecile off of her.

Naruto got the message, and Sakura rubbed at her head. It hurt… all because of the moron. “Sakura-chan, Kakashi-nii told us to wait—”

Sakura sniffed, looking off towards where she knew Fugaku’s office to be located, well aware of the stares boring into the pair of them. Naruto hadn’t exactly been subtle with his entrance. The imbecile. “It’s all your fault,” she grumbled, turning only to glare at the idiot who’d ditched her.

He blinked, confusion plastered all over his face. “What?”

“YOU DITCHED ME FOR THOSE CATS!” she snarled, waving a finger at his face.

Naruto blinked, slower that time. “Eh?”

“Sakura.”

She spun around, a smile pulling at her lips at the sight of the familiar chest blocking her from the sight of the reception desk. “Sasuke-nii!” She threw herself into his arms. He’d come back. She wasn’t alone.

Naruto pouted. “Why is he the only one who gets that reaction?” he grumbled, folding his arms petulantly.

“Because he didn’t ditch me to cuddle cats,” Sakura muttered bitterly, nuzzling her face into his shoulder.

“Sorry it took so long for us to get here, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi drawled, leaning back against the nearest wall, hands shoved in his pockets, a black beanie cap pulled over his white hair.

Sakura almost snorted when she realised the only thing she could really see were his eyes. He had covered up even more than before.

“Our guardian, Mitsuhide-san, is here to deal with whatever paperwork you made in your mess,” Kakashi said, and she narrowed her eyes at the unfamiliar name – and the unfamiliar figure who was being guided through to some office to deal with the mess she had made.

But it was alright.

Their cover was seemingly still intact, and Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. Mostly because her makeshift family was back.

They hadn’t abandoned her.

Sakura ignored the small voice in the back of her head which whispered they still might.

Chapter Text

Cold sweat dripped down her spine until they were safely outside the station. It was just on the outside of the Uchiha District, and fairly far away from the forest full of cats who’d chosen Naruto instead of her. The Mitsuhide fellow they’d found walked silently behind them until they reached a set point far enough away from the Uchiha police – and then exploded in a puff of smoke, leaving only a hastily-drawn seal tag behind in their place.

Sakura blinked at the sight. “Huh?”

Naruto laughed – a sound which had her clenching her fists. It was just like how he’d laughed when he’d ditched her for cats. “Kashi-nii drew a seal to change the feel of their chakra, and then I henged them into some random guy from the street.” He puffed out his chest. “Pretty awesome, don’t you think?”

Sakura buried her face into Sasuke’s shoulder. “Hn.”

“I agree,” Sasuke mumbled. “If anybody had activated their sharingan you would have been done for.”

“But you said most Uchiha aren’t allowed to use their sharingan while dealing with friendly people in the station, since they’re kinda scary!”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t, idiot!” Sasuke hissed, snapping his teeth at their whiskered friend. “Honestly…”

“It was a rushed job… besides, we wouldn’t have even needed to do that,” Kakashi began, and Sakura flinched, “had a certain somebody not decided to go off on their own – something I told you specifically not to do.”

“Hn,” Sakura grunted once again, still clinging to Sasuke even as he placed her down on the ground. “Naruto ditched me first for cats.”

Kakashi sighed, ushering the three of them into the nearest alleyway. “That’s not an excuse, Sakura-chan… even if we’re inside these bodies, we’re technically adults – and I don’t mind the occasional temper tantrum, given how our mentalities are influenced by these bodies, but charging off on your own isn’t acceptable.”

Sakura glared determinedly at the grey brickwork and chipped plaster, hands curling into fists. “Whatever,” she muttered. He didn’t understand. None of them would. They’d been the ones who left her before. And they’d still had all their other friends. She scuffed the dirt as she kicked her foot out.

Groaning quietly, Kakashi stared at her, eyes boring into the side of her fluffy red mop. They burnt accusingly. “Any number of things could have just gone wrong, and then we wouldn’t have had the freedom to chase after Zetsu. That’s our key asset here – and we can’t afford for any of us to get caught, because that will lead shinobi right onto the trail of the rest of us.”

The urge to punch something rose again. Of course she knew that. She was just tired of being the one left behind. “Yeah, alright. I get it,” she muttered, stomping her foot down, smirking ever so slightly at the tremors shaking the earth around them as she did – at least until she remembered what happened with Ami.

Her mother was no doubt screaming vengeance, but there wouldn’t be anything she could do. It was classed as accidental chakra application, and the kind brought on by extreme emotions. Konoha could hardly charge a minor with that, given the history of children and chakra. Particularly child geniuses, a snide voice reminded her. She was no genius. A genius would have saved Ino. Saved Sai.

“Sakura-chan, no temper tantrums here, please – we’re in the middle of the village,” Kakashi said, and she gritted her teeth. “We can’t have you breaking things here, not with your chakra enhanced strength… We need to approach things as adults whenever and wherever possible.”

“I get it,” Sakura snarled. They certainly didn’t get her.

Kakashi sighed. “I’m not too sure you do.”

Spiderwebs of cracks spread across the ground beneath them, stone cracking as she tried to get rid of the urge to hit something as discretely as she could. She wanted to scream and throw things, yell that she knew she was being stupid and emotional. It wasn’t like she could help it. She had screwed up, and now she was being scolded for it. Though it was Naruto’s fault in the first place. “It’s Naruto’s fault I’m out here. He shouldn’t have been playing with the cats,” she grumbled, folding her arms, as rage ate away at her gut.

She was so angry. Too angry.

“Sakura-chan, you can’t blame Naruto-kun for this – you’re the one who walked away—”

Laughter burst from her lips, a short, hopeless sound, and Sakura felt her lips twist down. “And you’ve all never walked away from me,” she muttered bitterly. “Naruto’s the one who left me alone when he was supposed to be looking after me.” She looked away with a sniff. “It’s all his fault.”

“Sakura-chan,” Naruto mumbled, pouting. “You could have—”

“Shut up!” she snarled. “You abandoned me for those stupid cats!”

“He didn’t leave the forest, unlike—”

Sakura jabbed a finger into his chest, glaring up at him and his stupid white hair – tufts were still visible despite the dark beanie he wore. “You’re just on his side because he’d now your brother, aren’t you?”

“Half-brother, and cousin, technically,” Kakashi corrected. “And no, I’m just trying—”

“Shut it!” she hissed, baring her teeth at him. “You all left me! Again!”

“Would you please stop interrupting?” he asked, pulling at his beanie cap. “Could you please try to behave like an adult and be reasonable for once?”

“For once?” Sakura snarled. “What do you mean behave like an adult? I am an adult!”

“You’re doing a very poor job of showing it,” he said, and something in her finally snapped. Her fist slammed against the nearest wall, blasting a hole through it, revealing the bare room beyond. An abandoned building, or one in the middle of refurbishment.

“I hate you!” she hissed. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” Sakura screeched, dimly aware in the back of her mind that she was behaving exactly like a troublesome two-year-old. But she’d had a bad enough day as it was. She just wanted to punch things now. Kakashi could try and stop her if he dared. She’d just break something of his in retaliation though. Her foot came down on command, shattering paving and earth beneath her, larger, giant cracks spreading. Brickwork crumbled, walls crashing down a little further down the alleyway to them – and then she was scooped up under a familiar arm, Sasuke’s, and she could tolerate Sasuke’s arm lifting her, and promptly carried away by a series of chakra reinforced leaps. She waved her arms, hitting at air in her frustration as she puffed her cheeks out.

Kakashi dropped down next to them, letting Naruto down after their sudden relocation thanks to her actions which had brought at least two buildings down. Sakura looked determinedly away. She wasn’t going to apologise. Her fists and feet needed something to hit. She was angry, so very angry, and she and her tiny body needed an outlet. Otherwise it felt like she would explode.

“Sakura-chan, I’m sorry for playing with the cats,” Naruto wailed, hurrying over to engulf her in a hug. One which suffocated the living daylights out of her. She didn’t like it. She preferred the gentle hugs Sasuke had thus far given to her – or better yet to engage the hug of her own volition.

Something in her snapped again, rage flooding through her. Did he think a simple apology was enough to make up for all the time he’d ditched her for something else? “Get off,” she growled, shoving at him with her hands.

And just like Ami he went sailing backwards, slamming into the side of a bin with a sickening thud. Her heart stuttered, the corners of her eyes stinging as she realised she’d done it again. Only this time it wasn’t her bully lying there – it was Naruto. Her Naruto. Though he hadn’t been hers as of late.

“Sakura-chan.” Dark red eyes bore into her own, the disappointment on his face palpable even with the mask concealing it. “This”—he waved a hand at the scene in front of them, worry written across his expression as Naruto remained slumped on the ground, unmoving—“is why you need to control your temper—”

“Shut up!” Sakura yelled, hands clenched into fists as she fought against the tears threatening to build in the corners of her eyes. She knew. “Shut up!” She knew it was all her fault – Kakashi didn’t need to remind her of that fact. “Shut up!” But of course he was only worried about Naruto. “Shut up!” They were family now – the three of them directly connected as half-brothers. “Shut up!” She only had Sasuke as her family, and even then he was only a cousin, not a brother. “Shut up!” And he’d already left her behind once, unconscious on a bench out in the open. “Shut up!” Was it too much to ask them to care about her for once? “Shut u—”

Sakura blinked, staring at the wall of the new alleyway. An off-white plaster covering the brickwork. She had been staring straight down the alley before, towards the street on the other side. Her cheek stung, and gingerly she raised a hand to it as she turned her head back to face her so-called family.

His hand was raised, eyes narrowed, teeth gritted together judging by the set of his jaw. “You need to calm down,” he said flatly, turning swiftly on his heel, not bothering to watch as tears finally spilled from her eyes. Instead, he headed to Naruto’s side, speaking in soft tones. Loving tones.

Her lower lip wobbled, eyes falling to the floor as she let her hair fall down in front of her face. Her spiky, ugly hair. Cry baby Forehead was back. Only her forehead wasn’t so prominent anymore. What would they call her now? She pulled at her hair. A tomato red. Tomato. She certainly had the chubby cheeks to go with it.

Cry baby Tomato. Her hands curled back into tight fists, her knuckles turning white. She was just as useless then as when she’d been Cry baby Forehead. The only difference was now that she had monstrous strength to boot. But she couldn’t use it properly it seemed. She was deadweight. And deadweight had to be left behind. It didn’t seem to matter about abandoning their teammates or friends anymore. Her shoulders slumped. It seemed she was neither a teammate or a friend in their eyes then – it certainly made sense. She sniffed, hating the snotty sound escaping her, flinching back from Sasuke’s arm as he reached for her.

Her feet were moving before it even registered, quiet sobs escaping her lips as she ran. She was upset. There were no calls for her to come back. Sasuke was silent, as per usual, and Kakashi was too busy with Naruto. She was angry. Her breath came in gasps, feet leading her somewhere she didn’t recognise. Not that anyone would follow. She was just deadweight. Lights were on up ahead, and Sakura blinked as she soon found herself on a busier street.

She wasn’t supposed to get caught. That would just ruin everything for the rest of them and the mission they needed to complete. Sakura wouldn’t get in their way if she could. She didn’t want to be a threat to them. She was only deadweight. Useless deadweight. The kind who couldn’t save anyone – and that was no good on a mission involving saving the entirety of the world. She was better off far away from everything like that.

It was for the best, no matter how much it hurt.

And it hurt so much. She ran on, wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of the crowd and find the little backstreets where it was that much easier to disappear.

Her shoulder slammed into something warm and hard. A leg, she realised, having bumped into one earlier that same day. Only this time it was no Uchiha Fugaku she bumped into. Instead, a teenager glared down at her, can of beer halfway to his lips – some of which was now spilt down on what Sakura recognised to be a nice shiny new chunin flak jacket. She had helped Tsunade get them out of storage when it came time for genin to be promoted. It was why she knew it had to be a new jacket – because there weren’t any questionable stains, and the fabric was stiff, the edges not fraying in the slightest. Celebrating his new chunin promotion no doubt. Sakura scowled. He wasn’t a failure, unlike her.

“Haven’t your parents taught you any manners, brat?” he questioned, glaring down at her. “Usually you apologise when you bump into someone. You made me spill my drink over my new vest.”

“It’s a flak jacket, you imbecile. Use the correct terminology if you don’t want me to take you for a moron,” she grumbled, irritation making her hands curl into fists yet again. Anger only made her that much more petty, and now it was showing. “Besides, it’s busy out here in case you haven’t noticed.”

“You—” he hissed, and Sakura felt a clenching in her gut. Anticipation. Her eyes narrowed, something close to enjoyment rising as she watched the teenager rile himself up. And oh. She was itching for a fight, she realised. She wanted to punch something, and what better way to instigate a fight than to irritate an angry drunk? A hand bunched in the lose material of the oversized hoodie she wore, yanking her up to a better height. For her to punch him from, that was.

“Put me down,” Sakura ordered, silently hoping he wouldn’t. She wouldn’t be able to get the satisfaction of beating him up otherwise. Wouldn’t be able to get the rush of the fight and finally have a proper outlet for all the anger stored up inside her – the kind which had been building all day. “Before I make you.”

“Where are your parents, you little shit?”

Sakura bared her teeth. “Last warning, or do you want to dance?”

He blinked. “Huh?”

Her fist slammed forwards, chakra coating it, protecting her vulnerable, soft skin and knuckles as she rammed it into his face with a satisfying crunch. It felt good. Her teeth bared in a grin, she brought her leg up for a kick as she felt the grip on the fabric of her hoodie slipping. She made contact with his chest, his fingers slipping even further and he let go of her entirely, and her lips slipped shut for a smirk as the baby chunin went flying backwards to land in a heap. Flipping in the air from the force, she righted herself, landing on the ground with barely a sound. Readying her hands for the next round, she stared at her opponent, waiting for him to spring up and attack her. But he didn’t. Her shoulders slumped, her disappointment almost palpable as she glared at her would-be attacker.

Cautiously, she made her way over, gently nudging at his body with her foot. He wasn’t pretending to lure her closer, she found out, pouting furiously at the chunin. Sure, he’d been drunk… but she had expected… more.

“Are you alright?” Sakura blinked at the voice, spinning around on her heels, staring at the sight with which she was met. A pretty purple-haired lady crouched there – and unlike Ami and her mother, she was undoubtedly a shinobi. Seriously though, what was it with her and running into purple-haired women and children today? Purple hair wasn’t all that common of a colour.

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, blinking as she was set upon by a wet handkerchief. Blood was smeared on it when the lady drew it back from her face, and Sakura frowned. Must have been from when she punched his nose, she mused. Glancing down at her knuckles, she saw they had experienced a similar fate – though the nice purple-haired shinobi took care of that with her handkerchief.

“You’re crying,” she said, lifting her hand to reach for her, and Sakura jerked backwards now that her hands and face were clean of blood.

Sakura scowled, hands clenching yet again by her sides. “No I’m not!” she hissed, biting her lip as she felt the tears rolling down her face. She was back to frustration and anger. All because a stupid baby chunin couldn’t take more than a couple of hits from her.

“It must have been scary—”

“Tch,” Sakura muttered, turning on her heel and running away yet again. Don’t attract attention – that was something she should have tried to sustain, a rule she should have kept. But no, she was too busy being brash and reckless. It was no wonder Kakashi had slapped her.

Her feet led her somewhere new this time – a quiet training ground. One with lots of trees she could punch. But she was already tired. Tired of being angry. Tired of wanting to hit things. Tired of being alone. Tired of being left behind. Though as of late she had been running off and leaving the others behind. It made her feel slightly better. But she usually ran off because she was upset, which didn’t always make her feel all that great.

Emotions were so confusing sometimes.

Sakura laughed. She missed Sai at times… even if he insisted on calling her Ugly. She walked through the forest – thankfully cat free that time. The trees were smaller than in the Forest of Death, coloured a slightly brighter green. It felt happier there. Less deadly, that was for sure. Eventually though, the treeline broke away, revealing a large lake and small jetty. The waters were still, looking a pitch black even in the moonlight. Still, that didn’t stop her from sitting on the edge of the jetty, dangling her annoyingly short legs over the water’s edge. She rested her hands on either side, careful to avoid splinters as she swung her feet back and forth. Had she been in her old body, her ankles would have been splashing about int the water – but she was stuck inside the tiny body, filled to the brim with hurt and anger.

Tears soaked her shorts and the bottom of her too big hoodie. She just wanted everything to stop. She wanted time to get used to this confusing new body and all the urges that came with it. It was like her adult mind and memories had merged with a child’s wants, emotional maturity, and needs. She didn’t think Kakashi understood that. After all, she thought bitterly, he’d always been a child genius. Someone forced to grow up quickly.

He didn’t know what it was like to be the one left behind always – to be the weak one. Or so she assumed. He’d never been big on sharing his history, and the only things she knew about him came from rumours around the village and gossip from his jonin friends.

A swish of wind behind her announced the presence. A small one. A familiar one. So when her new cousin sat down quietly beside her, she didn’t startle, instead, she felt part relieved and part angry. But the anger was nothing new. She was glad Sasuke hadn’t abandoned her. Like Kakashi had for Naruto.

His larger hand curled around her own, squeezing it gently, and only then did Sakura turn to look at her cousin. He stared out across the water, like she had been doing only moments before, slightly less spiky red hair tied back by the matching black ribbon to the own in her hair. His face looked similar to what it had in his last life, almost painfully so, and Sakura knew her own was similar enough to his. Only with more Madara added to it, because the universe loved toying with her. “Aren’t you going to ask?” she questioned, pulling her knees up to her chest, hugging them there with her free hand.

“Do you want to answer?” Sasuke asked, turning to gaze down at her.

Sakura sighed. “Did Kakashi send you to get me?” she fired back, avoiding the topic, spitting out his name with venom.

“No.” He shook his head. “I came to get you… I thought you might be feeling… alone… since you’re only directly related to me unlike the rest of us,” he murmured, and Sakura stared at him all the harder. “I don’t think… that white-haired bastard has ever been that good with emotions—”

“And you’re any better?”

Sasuke scowled. “Of course. Just because I don’t show it as much… Besides, aren’t you supposed to be hating Kakashi with me? As far as I’m aware while they were at war both our new fathers hated the man… I though we could indulge in that together – in hating the offspring of one of our fathers worst enemies.”

Sakura let out a breath, blinking up at him. “I think… that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once.”

His scowl only deepened. “If you don’t want me here”—he rose to his feet—“then I can—”

Her hand fisted in his jacket, eyes brimming with tears as she cast them back down to the waters in front of her. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.” Sasuke sat back down then, and Sakura finally indulged herself in diving headfirst into his stomach, wrapping her arms around him as the tears came out in full force. “I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate this stupid body, these stupid urges… I hate it. I hate being angry all the time. I hate not being able to do everything I used to… I feel so so so useless—”

“You’ve had the biggest change out of all of us, thanks to the idiot’s seal, I think,” Sasuke said. “And you’re Uchiha now. We feel things differently, thanks to up here.” He tapped his temple. “You know the sharingan is unlocked when Uchiha lose a great love, and it’s because of a certain kind of chakra… a kind which is only produced in those of Uchiha blood. It’s why people say our… brains are hardwired differently, I think.” Sasuke looked up at the moon, and Sakura nuzzled her face against his chest, basking in the warmth and knowledge that someone else was there. Sasuke hadn’t left her behind. He hadn’t abandoned her. “The other two won’t understand. They’re not Uchiha… even Naruto can’t get his thick head around facts like this. We’re different, and so we have different ways of dealing with things… things like anger and love – of course, there are always exceptions, like idiotically cheerful cousins, weirdly calm brothers, and the like, but those facts remain for the rest. So… with that in mind… want me to show you how father used to deal with the anger and stress of dealing with clan elders?”

Sakura smiled. “Un!”

A hint of red crept into Sasuke’s cheeks, and he stood up, urging her to her feet. “Right, so… how much do you know about fire ninjutsu?”

She tilted her head to the side, unsure of where her cousin was going. “Not much?”

“Well, it’s the easiest nature transformation to learn – for Uchiha at least,” he explained, joy overtaking his face as he explained. And Sakura loved seeing the side of him there. It was more reserved than what she remembered of the Haruno family she had once belonged to – she wasn’t going to think of the alternate version of her old parents. She couldn’t. It would only hurt. Hers were dead, and now she had a new set thanks to Orochimaru. “Most can achieve it after only completing the hand signs, especially if their main nature is fire – though fire is a minor secondary nature for me… and given your parents, it’s likely you’ll only have it as a minor secondary affinity. From what Naruto and Kakashi told me, Uzumaki are generally water or wind natured, and Uchiha Madara was primarily a wind element, with a minor secondary in fire, like all Uchiha with a different primary.” Sasuke shrugged. “We can test you with chakra paper if we get the chance to steal some… but you’ll probably be wind-fire, if my guess is correct.”

Sakura bounced up and down on her feet, ready to learn whatever it was Sasuke wanted to teach her. It was a step towards not being so useless, especially if she could find a way to vend without punching things.

“I’m gonna teach you the Grand Fireball Jutsu, alright?” he asked, and Sakura nodded viciously. “It’s a coming of age right in our clan, so it’s only right I teach it to you – and if Naruto gets mopey, just punch him – preferably without chakra though – and tell him it’s a clan secret.”

Grinning, she nodded yet again, tilting her head almost in question at the slight flush to Sasuke’s cheeks.

“The hand seals are as follows snake, ram, monkey, boar, horse and finally tiger,” he said, going through them slowly, showing them to her in order before he turned towards the lake and did them at his fastest possible speed – which was very much slower than she remembered.

Fire burst from his lips, forming a neat ball a short ways away from the jetty, briefly illuminating the fish swimming at the top of the waters. Though they soon scattered under the heat and light of the Uchiha’s Grand Fireball Jutsu. Sakura clapped her hands together, excitement written across her face as Sasuke turned back to her.

“We probably should only do a few since it’s dark, and we don’t want people coming to investigate,” he said, and Sakura nodded, eager to breathe fire already.

Slowly, she made her way through the hand signs, her hands stiff and the motions unfamiliar due to a lack of practice in that body. But she still remembered them perfectly – the perks of being a very studious student. She pushed her chakra, lips curling up as the felt the warm hot coil near her stomach as she moved her hands into the tiger hand seal. Facing the lake, she let the chakra boil in her belly, before it came up.

Fire raged out in an unsteady stream, the ball she made larger but much less refined than Sasuke’s own. Satisfaction curled in her belly, and Sakura grinned pridefully. A step closer to not being useless, or so she mused silently to herself. “Thank you Sasuke-nii!” The flames had been so very pretty. “Can I have another go?”

Sasuke nodded. “But only a couple more. I’ll be waiting by the entrance to the training ground – unfortunately we need to get back to the snowball and the idiot.”

Sakura slumped at the reminder, going through the hand seals once more as Sasuke vanished into the forest behind her. Fire jutsu were exhilarating, she found, and after a few more times of making fire swirl in front of her, she knew she ought to head back. Sasuke said he would be waiting. She was trusting him to be there. She walked slowly through the forest, glancing at all the trees around her.

Flammable trees.

Fire jutsu had been fun, and a good way of relieving stress. But anger wanted to make her burn something more than air. Would a Grand Fireball be enough though? she wondered. It was like an itch she needed to scratch, and nervously, she glanced over towards where she knew the entrance to the training grounds to be located.

Madara had used a jutsu with just a horse sign.

She looked down at her hands. Sasuke had just said the fire release was the easiest to learn… and she’d only needed the hand seals… Sneakily, she glanced from side to side, confirming she was all alone before she readied the horse sign, sucking in a big breath before she moulded her chakra.

Fire burst from her lips once more, with almost enough force to blow her back off her feet. She was grateful her stance had been wide – otherwise she might have ended up blowing fire above her and burning herself. As it was, fire exploded outwards, burning through the trees with alarming distance and range. And it was only thanks to her newfound Uzumaki-Uchiha lineage which allowed her to have the ability and the chakra capacity to pull that particular jutsu off.

“I did it!” she whisper-yelled, a smile pulling at her lips as she watched the trees catch fire and burn. Fire was so pretty and useful.

“Sakura!” Sasuke leapt over to where she was, grabbing her by the arm. “You idiot!”

“Pretty,” she mumbled, waving her free hand at the burning trees.

Sasuke winced. “Oh… you’re one of those… of course you are,” he muttered, dragging her over to the nearest fence bordering the training ground she’d just set alight. “Now hurry up and follow me – we need to leave before someone comes to investigate and put out this damned fire – or would you rather I carry you?”

“I can run!” Sakura declared. She didn’t need to be carried.

“Then run you blithering idiot!” he hissed, jumping over the fence and onto the roof of the nearest house.

“I’m coming,” she hissed. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!”

Chapter Text

Sakura wrung her hands together nervously, staring at the ground in shame as she and Sasuke stood opposite Kakashi and Naruto. Her cheek still stung. She chewed on her lip. But she had deserved it, she supposed. “’m sorry,” she muttered, her selfish pride making it hard to choke the words out. Naruto hadn’t deserved to be on the end of her anger. She owed him a big apology for hitting him. For using him as an outlet for her rage. It wasn’t right to use him like that… It wasn’t right to use any of them like that – they were meant to be her family. Tears built in the corners of her eyes.  That was right. They were meant to be her family. Her hands trembled at the thought of them abandoning her, all because she couldn’t control her rage.

Naruto smiled, and revulsion curled in the pit of her stomach. Sakura hated herself. She hated that she had been so angry at Naruto. Hated that she was horribly impulsive. Hated that she had tried to despise that sunny smile of his. She cast her eyes back to the ground, shame crawling through her very blood at his words. “It’s alright, Sakura-chan!” he declared, smiling sunnily at her. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

Sakura hated, despised… utterly loathed herself right then and there.

“But speaking of that”—Kakashi looked at her, something akin to uncertainty in his expression—“I think we all need to sit down and have a serious conversation.”

Was this when they kicked her out? Told her to go and fend for herself? Her shoulders shook, and Sasuke’s arm came around her back, concerned black eyes peering down at her as she started shaking. She could barely watch as Kakashi plastered four sealing tags on each of the walls of the room they were in. How he and Sasuke had procured accommodation for them in such a short space of time, she had no idea. Only that they had done a good job. Unlike her. She wrapped her arms around herself, struggling to hold back the tears which wanted to come out. It was so much harder to hold back her emotions in that new body. But it wasn’t like she could change it. She shook her head, ridding herself of the thought that it was all Naruto’s fault. That train of thought wouldn’t get her anywhere. All it led to was anger and hurt.

And throwing people into hard surfaces, the snide voice in the back of her head whispered, and Sakura curled in on herself as she plonked herself down on the threadbare rug, rather than the comfier-looking sofa beside Naruto.

Sasuke sat down next to her, warmth radiating from him as he all but hovered over her. Why he had suddenly become that much closer, she wasn’t entirely sure. Because they were both of Uchiha blood now or because of her smallness on top of that? She didn’t know. But she appreciated his solid presence there. A reminder she wasn’t all alone. He hadn’t left her yet.

Naruto sat down on the rug in front of them, leaving a space for Kakashi as they formed an odd triangle of sorts – thanks to her and Sasuke’s closeness. His arm was tucked around her, hand resting in her lap as he held her close, looking at the other two of their quartet.

“I think it’s about time we had a… heart-to-heart,” Kakashi said, looking just as uncomfortable as the rest of them at the prospect. “Clearly there are some… issues we need to resolve before we can move on with our plans to eliminate Black Zetsu,” he continued, and Sakura squirmed ever so slightly. “Our bodies are different, but obviously we all have some… unresolved problems. Which is why I’m proposing we talk about this calmly and reasonably… like the adults we all are.”

“Hn.” Sasuke glared at Kakashi. “You’ve never been good at heart-to-hearts,” he grumbled, arms curling around Sakura that much more. “And it always seems like you’re playing favourites with Naruto as of late.”

“You left Sasuke-kun,” Kakashi said, and Sakura flinched. Nothing about her. Always about Sasuke and Naruto. “It’s only natural there’ll be some distance… we’ve spent less time together.”

Sasuke scowled. “Tch,” he muttered, black eyes darting down to meet her own as she buried her face into his stomach. She was always being forgotten, and it hurt. It hurt so much. “We’re a team of four, Bakashi,” he hissed. “Not three.”

Kakashi blinked, dark red eyes locking on her. She could feel them boring into her back. “Sakura-chan…”

“Don’t forget about her,” Sasuke warned, arms curled around her. He was protecting her, Sakura realised. Somehow he had grown closer to her… like siblings. Sakura valiantly tried to snuff the lingering romantic feelings which still tried to flicker into existence. She had dreamt of Sasuke protecting her… dreamt of him curling around her much like he was doing then. But it was so different. He seemed like he was almost on the same wavelength as her – as though he had a better glimpse into her mind than before. And given what she had just found out about the Uchiha… how their brains were different… it kind of made sense. Was that why she felt closer to him? “Or maybe we should do it like this,” Sasuke said, a frown marring his brow. “You can focus on Naruto, but I’ll be focusing on Sakura.”

Something warm and fuzzy settled in her gut, and she nuzzled deeper into his chest, feeling oddly content. Kakashi’s seeming lack of regard for her didn’t seem to matter so much to her anymore. She had Sasuke to play a bigger role in that respect. Sasuke had actually taught her something – shown her the steps, rather than the brief chakra control that Kakashi had hastily forced upon them all those years ago.

“Sakura-chan, Kakashi-nii doesn’t mean it like that—”

“Kakashi should explain it himself,” Sasuke hissed, cutting Naruto off. “Otherwise it’s going to be a problem.”

Kakashi stared at the ground, hands clenched together tightly, silence reigning for a few minutes before he let out a long breath. “On my old team, under Naruto’s tou-san, I had two teammates. One of them… as you know… was Uchiha Obito.” Kakashi closed his eyes, no doubt remembering his fallen friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend. “The other…” He paused, gritting his teeth. “Was a girl by the name of Nohara Rin. She was… a medic, too kind to a fault… and Obito’s crush… and she met her end by my hand…” His hands went to his head, yanking off his beanie, and pulling at his white hair. “She threw herself on my chidori… I’ve… never really gotten over it.”

Sakura scowled into Sasuke’s chest. He was seeing a ghost in place of her. “She doesn’t sound anything like me,” she said, pulling herself away from the delightful warmth of her cousin. Her cousin – so she had to quash those lingering romantic feelings. “The only thing that sounds the same is that we’re medics.”

Kakashi’s shoulders slumped. “I know.”

“I’m my own person… and I’m not kind to a fault,” she muttered, glaring at him.

“You are kind, Sakura-chan!” Naruto intoned, and she turned a withering glare on him.

“Don’t lie,” she hissed, shame rearing its ugly head yet again. “I have my faults. Don’t try and cover them up – it just makes me angry… and I hate being angry,” she grumbled.

Naruto looked down, biting his lip.

“And speaking of your anger…” Kakashi said, earning a dirty look from her. But he was getting right to the heart of one of her biggest issues. “I think we’re going to have some problems there.”

Sakura glared at the wall to the side of them, arms folded. “Hn.”

“Sakura-chan,” Kakashi urged, staring at her pointedly. He’d shared – so it was time for her to… in their blasted heart-to-heart. Sakura didn’t like it. Sharing like that made her feel naked. Made her feel ashamed. As though they might laugh at her.

“We won’t,” Sasuke promised, and Sakura blinked. Did they have Uchiha telepathy? She had once heard people joking about that before the clan’s downfall. Before the massacre that ruined Sasuke’s life. The massacre which probably wouldn’t even be a possibility with Hashirama and Madara both alive and well. Or so she assumed. Danzo was an unknown factor there.

Sakura shifted to wrap her arms around herself as she stared at the floor. Kakashi had shared a bit about his past. She supposed she ought to do the same. “I used to have a secondary personality,” she said, Sasuke’s arm at her back making her feel that much more confident about speaking as he kept it there. “Inner usually did all the yelling inside my head… it helped… with the anger stuff… but now she’s gone.” She kicked at the rug, shrinking into Sasuke’s side as she felt Naruto’s and Kakashi’s stares. “I’m tiny… and I feel like I’m about to boil over a lot more because of that. I don’t like being crushed in hugs… nor do I like being tackled at the end of a long day – especially when it results in my head smacking against the ground. It hurts. A lot.”

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, Sakura-chan… I was excited to see you… and kinda relieved that we’d found you.”

“Hn,” she grunted, leaning against her cousin. “And it’s not just anger that’s affecting me,” she said, squeezing Sasuke’s hand as he wrapped it around her smaller one. “I also get upset more easily now too… because you all keep abandoning me,” she whispered, sniffling. “I don’t want to be left alone. It hurts, alright?”

“But it was only the cats—”

Sakura snarled, a primal, guttural sound. “You left for two years… all of you did.” Sasuke looked away, biting his lip. Naruto blinked, confused, and Sakura hated the stirring annoyance raging in the pit of her belly. Kakashi frowned. “I didn’t hear anything from you… no letters… no drop ins from my dear sensei – the only one ever in the village,” Sakura spat. “I only had Ino… I’m not good at making friends, and the rest of the Konoha Eleven didn’t exactly try to hang out with me. You all left me. Alone,” she hissed, shaking as the tears trickled down her face. She knew better than to try and hold them back with her pintsized body.

“I couldn’t send any letters, Sakura-chan,” Naruto remarked earnestly. “Ero-sennin said it would be dangerous… with the Akatsuki—”

“It doesn’t change anything!” Sakura hissed, hiding her face back in her cousin’s shirt. She was doing that far more than she ought to. Embarrassment made her cheeks redden. She felt so horribly weak. It didn’t matter if she had monstrous strength if she couldn’t control it.

Kakashi stroked his chin, mulling things over. “So we’ll always leave one person with you at least… and we’ll let you know if we’re going out… and that we’ll be back,” he said. “Would that help?”

Sakura sniffed. “Actions speak louder than words.” She had long since lost trust in simple words and promises. Shinobi always had to be prepared for betrayal. Sakura prayed hers wouldn’t come in the form of her teammate’s abandonment.

“Naruto?” Kakashi turned to him then, eyebrow arched. “Your turn.”

Naruto smiled. “Right… well,” he mumbled, pushing his forefingers together. “I know… I messed up the seal badly, and I get that… but could you stop calling me names all the time?” he asked, chewing on his lip as his smile finally soured. “It… hurts, y’know?”

Sakura silently swore to not hit him again. Well, not with chakra at least – if she needed to nudge him, or they decided to roughhouse with each other then obviously she would wind up invariably making contact with her puny little fists.

“Hn.” Sasuke scoffed. “I’ll only call you an idiot if you do something idiotic from now on then, Naruto,” he drawled, pulling her onto his lap so he could rest his chin atop her horrifically spiky hair. Sakura sunk back against him, sleepiness pulling at her eyelids as the night wore on. It had been a tiring day.

“Sasuke-kun…?” Kakashi looked over at him.

He shook his head. “I don’t think I have any major problems right now,” he said flatly. “But if something comes up, I’ll let you know. Happy?” he grumbled, glaring at their white-haired sensei turned brother – well, for everyone aside from herself.

Kakashi nodded. “Right then,” he said, smiling under his mask, eyes curling up. “I think it’s about time we got to bed. We’re going to be signing up to the academy tomorrow… Sasuke-kun, you might want to get Sakura-chan up to speed with our cover before them – we’re going to be fairly busy tomorrow now.”

“Hn.”

Chapter Text

“Neh, Sasuke…” Sakura stared at the wall of the room they shared. It was tiny, barely fitting both of their futons in there, but it would do. She could feel Sasuke’s body heat at her back – as they lay there together, facing outwards.

“What is it, Sakura?” he asked, and she felt him shift behind her.

She bit her lip. “How do you think tomorrow will go?” she asked, feeling oddly small of a sudden. “Do you think my classmates will be nice?” Fear curled in the pit of her stomach. What would she do if she couldn’t make any friends?

“Does it matter?” Sasuke grumbled.

Sakura blinked, pushing her covers back, sitting up as she hugged her knees to her chest. “I want to make friends,” she mumbled. “Especially since I won’t be with the three of you… though knowing your luck, you’ll end up with Naruto somehow.”

“Dropping the honorifics already?” Sasuke mused, pushing his own covers back.

Sakura stared down at her hands, wringing them together. “Does it bother you?” she questioned, nerves building in her gut – both at what her cousin’s response would be and the thought of heading to the academy tomorrow.

“We’re family now. All of us,” Sasuke said, sharingan spinning to life in the darkness, and the sudden clarity which overcame her own vision told her that her own had awakened. He climbed to his feet, grabbing her by the wrist, pulling her up and over towards a screen door. Pushing it back, Sakura blinked at the sight of the large, untouched mirror in front of them. “Stand there,” he ordered, pushing her in front of him, right to the mirror’s surface. “Now tell me what you see.”

“Me?” Sakura offered, slightly unnerved by the sight of those spinning, glowing red irises on her own odd new face. She could see Madara’s genetics in it, and they were far too obvious for comfort.

“What are you?”

Sakura turned to him, blinking in confusion.

“What clan do you belong to?”

Pulling at her red hair, she frowned, the words feeling unfamiliar on her lips as she spoke. “Uzumaki?”

“Try the other one,” Sasuke said, folding his arms as he stared at the mirror, sharingan spinning pointedly.

“Uchiha?”

Sasuke nodded. “You’re an Uchiha. Don’t say it like a question.”

“So some funky eyes are all it takes to make an Uchiha?” Sakura mumbled, shoulders sinking. She didn’t feel like an Uchiha. In fact, she felt more like a girl playing dress up than ever. She didn’t feel a single bit as confident as Madara no doubt did, nor did she feel like she had an inch of power like his – and she was now his biological offspring. What hope was there for anyone else?

“There’s also the attitude—”

“The one where we treat everyone who’s not part of our clan like dirt and sneer at everyone else?” she asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “My cousin was always cheerful… nii—I mean Itachi was calm and polite… most of the time. Only those with weak will followed the ideas of the clan elders. Only those who were idiotic enough to believe that to be Uchiha is an automatic route to success…” Sasuke shook his head. “There’s more to it than that, but I’m getting off topic.”

“So you are,” Sakura murmured, staring into her own sharingan. She could probably cast a genjutsu on herself right then and there with her sparkly new eyes. She had been listed as a genjutsu type back in the Academy too. Kakashi never taught her any genjutsu. “Didn’t you used to think like that though?”

The barest hint of a blush bloomed to life on his cheeks. “We’re getting off topic,” he grumbled. “You’re an Uchiha, and if there’s one thing Uchiha are – it’s unapologetically themselves.”

Sakura blinked. “Even if I’m a pintsized ball of rage and anger.”

Sasuke shrugged. “Sounds Uchiha enough to me,” he said, and Sakura smiled ever so slightly, staring at those red red eyes of hers in the mirror before she pulled away – not wanting to see those spiky red locks nor the Uchiha-ness of her face any longer.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked, looking away from him determinedly, choosing to head towards the sole window in their small room. Her feet padded over the floor, and she pulled herself up onto the small table below the window, peering outside across the new strange village they had wound up in. Their new residence was situated on a small hill, and they were high enough up on it – on the outskirts of the civilian housing district – to have a clear view across the place they would now call home. “You always used to say the bare minimum to me… and then suddenly over the last day you’ve said more… shared more than you ever had before…” A frown pulled at her lips. “Is it just because I have these eyes now? Because I’m Uchiha?” she asked, fingers reaching up to touch the skin around her new sparkly eyes. “I don’t get it. Everything’s too confusing now.”

Sasuke joined her at the window, pushing it open to let the cool night air into the room which suddenly felt horribly small and stuffy. “Let’s just say I’ve decided that with this new body, it’s about time I turned over a new leaf.”

Wind whistled as silence fell between them for a couple of moments, and Sakura blinked a few times, taking a moment to digest that. “Sasuke… did you just make a pun?”

Sasuke laughed – an odd sound. But not one she disliked.

Sakura smiled then, and it felt like a proper one this time around – like she was starting to forget the stress which had led to all of those events. It was nice to relax. “It kind of feels a bit like a copout, you know,” she mumbled as both of their sharingan faded back to black. “I spent all of those years chasing after you… wanting you to open up… and then within a couple of days of being shoved inside these bodies you’re doing just that.”

“Would you prefer if I remained silent and stoic instead?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

Sakura thought on it for a short while. Would she really have preferred that? She shook her head then. “No… I like it like this,” she said, glancing up at the moon, eyes narrowing. Kaguya. She swallowed, averting her gaze almost instantly. They couldn’t afford for her to slip up again, not if they wanted to ensure Kaguya couldn’t be revived there. Her shoulders sunk. “But can you really just turn over a new leaf like that?” she questioned. “Especially with you keeping your… dislike for Kakashi…” She turned to look at him fully, tilting her head as she stared up at him. “Don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical?”

Sasuke shrugged. “Hn.”

Silence fell then again, a comfortable kind – which was soon broken by the sounds of sobs.

Sakura blinked. They were coming from the roof, she realised, gaze dropping to her toes as she realised exactly who was crying. Who was sobbing. Her eyes narrowed, hearing Kakashi’s voice speak so softly to Naruto. Seemed it was time for Naruto’s breakdown, only his was far less destructive than either of theirs. Though she guessed that was expected. She and Sasuke had always been the angrier ones of the team. At least the kind who left visible damage to things when angry. “I suppose we can’t blame him if he favours Naruto,” Sakura mumbled, ignoring the childish want inside to be the focus of everyone’s attention. Sasuke looked at her sharply. “If Naruto’s tou-san had lived, they would have been raised as brothers.”

Sasuke pulled the window shut, giving the pair on the roof their privacy. “We should get to bed,” he said, pulling back the covers on his futon.

She did the same. “Guess you’re not the only one who’s turned over a new leaf, eh?” she whispered, snuggling as close to her new cousin as she dared to, peering over at him with jet black eyes.

“Hn.”

Sakura smiled, reaching out and taking Sasuke’s hand in her own. He really was trying to be a good cousin, or so she decided right then and there. “Guess it’ll be Senju vs Uchiha in our new household,” she mumbled, squeezing at his hand.

Sasuke snorted, looking up at the ceiling. “More like the insanity of the Uzumaki.”

Sakura glared at the entrance to the academy, putting her meanest face on as she and the rest of their makeshift little family readied themselves to sign up. Her hair was tied back tightly, bangs framing her face while the rest was held in a ludicrously spiky ponytail. Sakura despised hairbrushes now. Her new hair was just not meant for them, it seemed. Though that didn’t stop Sasuke from attacking her hair with said brush. He was determined to be a good cousin and generally less of an arse on the whole, and it was showing – no matter how much it hurt her poor scalp.

She wondered how long he could keep the memories of his past locked up in the back of his head.

“We’re all going to be in different classes,” Sakura muttered, hand fisted in the fabric of the matching hoodie Sasuke wore. There hadn’t been too much variety in the boxes of clothing Kakashi and him had stolen. “You’ll—”

“At least one of us will wait to walk you home,” Kakashi said, ruffling her hair with a smile. Sakura let him, smiling ever so slightly – but with her new face it meant it barely looked like one. They were all a family now, according to their paperwork and their backstory that Sasuke had shared with her before they went to sleep.

Their parents were merchants of the travelling kind, and they were currently out of the village – leaving them in the care of Mitsuhide, their best friend and trusty neighbour. Who was currently a project of Kakashi and Naruto’s sealing abilities and shadow clones. She had heard them working on it the night before, after Naruto had cried his heart out. It was their thing which they did together. Sakura had cuddled Sasuke then, smiling as she remembered him teaching her the first fire jutsu. That was their thing. They had well and truly gravitated towards the traditional Uchiha and Senju pairings. It almost made her want to laugh, but things were still tense between both of their pairs so she couldn’t quite do that.

But she could deal with that, so long as she had Sasuke on her side.

Naruto was friendly enough – it was Kakashi who was the root of both her and Sasuke’s problems she had figured out. He always wanted to hold everything at arm’s length before, but now, whether it be partially the influence of the younger body he had been shoved into, or whether he just wanted to do things differently, he was letting them in. And by them, Sakura meant mainly Naruto.

But that was alright. It had to be.

“Do you have Sakura’s papers?” Sasuke inquired, not bothering to look at Kakashi as he spoke. “I’ll need them, given how she looks,” he said, gesturing to her shortness and general baby-faced appearance.

Sakura really wished her body wasn’t biologically two. It would have been easier for everyone if she was older – then they wouldn’t have had to lie on her identification papers. She wouldn’t have been so much shorter than actual five year olds.

“I’ve got them, Sasuke, don’t worry,” Kakashi said, gesturing to the backpack on his back – it was larger than the ones the rest of them carried – it having most of the important paperwork they’d need to register with the academy.

Sasuke scowled, empty hands twitching as they strode through the gates and into the academy… which, surprisingly enough, looked completely different to how they all remembered. It looked freshly refurbished for one, with more space for training grounds outside. Yet another ripple from the new dimension. Naruto stared at the ground, until Kakashi swatted him gently over the head, and then they were moving inside.

“Ah,” a fresh-faced chunin blinked at their arrival. “Are you four here to sign up for ready for the next intake? Or—”

“We’d like to test in for our current agemate groups, if that would be alright?” Kakashi interrupted. “I’m seven, my brothers are six, and little Sakura here has just turned five,” he said. “Would that be acceptable?”

“You don’t want to wait until the next class begins in spring…?”

Kakashi shook his head, and Sakura clung that much tighter to Sasuke’s clothing. “That’s over half the year away. We would prefer to be with those of the same age, and my cute little imouto doesn’t want to be stuck at home while we’re here, especially since she’s of a reasonable age to join now.”

Sakura wasn’t sure what she felt at those words. Cute little imouto. A frown pulled at her lips. Was that really what Kakashi saw her as now? Her shoulders sunk, and she blinked as Sasuke poked her cheek.

Cheer up, his expression communicated, and Sakura smiled, fingers creasing his hoodie that much more as she tightened her grip.

“I’ll go and confirm this with our senior instructor,” the chunin said, vanishing in an instant as they milled around by the entranceway.

“You think this will be alright?” Naruto asked, watching as other children close to their age hurried in. “Aren’t we supposed to start in spring like he said? They’re halfway through the year here.”

“There are two main periods people join – now or in spring… though most other children join in spring because they don’t have the capability to catch up, but I think we all should be easily capable of that much.”

“Right,” Naruto chirped, looking that much more excited.

Sakura felt nerves curl up like ball of knotted string in her gut. She could do it, couldn’t she? She swallowed, setting her face into a determined expression. She would do it, even in her pintsized body which sorely lacked when it came to anger management and control.

“Hn,” Sasuke grunted, and then the same chunin from before was back in front of them.

“You’ve all been given permission to attempt that,” he informed them. “Follow me. Your tests are being set up as we speak.”

There was no pressure, Sakura reminded herself. If she fudged everything up too badly she’d just be relegated back to the spring… and possibly another test if she flunked that badly. But she had been first in her class when it came to academics… and she had never flunked a test in her life. Her eyes narrowed, and her chakra itched at the pathways to her eyes before she jerked it back. Stupid Uchiha instincts to activate the sharingan under stress.

She tapped her pen against the desk, relaxing as she breezed through the test. Well, up until she reached the history sections of the test. She knew the names of all the Hokage, unable to forget her biological father had been the Nidaime rather than one Senju Tobirama. Both of whom were still alive and kicking.

Her brain felt utterly numb by the time she completed the test. Clearly the standards of education were higher in that of their old world.

“Was it really that hard, kid?” another chunin, female that time, asked as she flopped on the desk.

“Hn,” she grumbled.

She chuckled. “Don’t worry. Everyone finds the induction tests horrible,” she said, winking then. “But don’t worry. The score you need to pass isn’t actually all that high.”

Sakura felt her eyes narrow. What was that supposed to mean?

“You’ve got your fitness test after lunch,” she informed her, and Sakura nodded, padding silently away from her desk and the completed test on its surface. “A quiet one, aren’t you?” she murmured softly, earning a flat stare from Sakura until she was let out of the now empty classroom so she could find her brothers. She hurried down the stairs and out into the training grounds, a smile breaking across her face when she spotted the two heads of red hair and the familiar beanie covering the shock of white hair Kakashi had.

“Sasuke-nii!” she yelled, finally raising her voice since she had entered the academy grounds.

Naruto peered around Sasuke’s side, whiskered cheeks stretching as he smiled, big and wide. “Sakura-chan!” he called, just as she tackled Sasuke in a hug – though with her tiny body weight she didn’t even make him lose his balance.

“How did your test go?” Kakashi asked as she let go of her cousin, turning to face the rest of them.

Sakura shrugged. “Alright. History sucked though.”

“I think it did for all of us,” Sasuke remarked. “I mean… we probably should have visited the library a bit before coming here—”

“This is the only week they were accepting midyear admissions, unfortunately,” Kakashi said, pointing over at a table and bench set in what had to be a designated lunch area. “Shall we sit down? I’ve got our lunch packed and ready to eat—”

“Oy!” an unfamiliar, childish voice cut in. “Are you tomato heads the ones attempting midyear admission?” A boy strode towards them – similar in height to Kakashi – his hair a dirty blonde which had nothing on the sunshine Naruto’s hair had once been. His demeanour screamed civilian or possibly minor clan lineage. It also screamed bully.

Tomato heads.

Her eye twitched. How dare he mock her hair. Only she or Sasuke – and possibly Naruto too – could do just that.

A smile pulled at her lips, teeth bared in a mockery of a grin as her horrible temper flared. She was so so so beyond done with bullies, and the best way to deal with them was to punch them in their faces… break their noses and make them scream. Sakura blinked at the amount of violence lacing her thoughts, brushing off the small voice in the back of her head which screamed at her to rein things in. But she couldn’t tolerate bullies anymore. It would be alright too – she just had to ensure she kept tight control of her chakra while she raged. “What did you just call us?” Sakura hissed. “I do believe”—she rolled back the sleeves of her oversized hoodie, hands curling into fists—“that’s fighting talk… So… Wanna dance—?”

Two hands slipped under her armpits, Kakashi lifting her off the ground, swinging her around in a half circle before he all but threw her into Sasuke’s arms with a small hair ruffle. I’ve got this, it said, just as Sasuke’s hand settled in her red hair, ruffling her spiky hair that much more.

Sakura felt herself pout as she folded her arms with a huff. “Hn.”

Chapter Text

She stared at the dirt, scuffling it underfoot as she swung her legs back and forth as she waited for her cousin and the other two muppets on a bench on one side of the academy building. They were supposed to be her boys. Hers. So why didn’t she feel like calling them that? Her lip curled at the thought of Naruto and Kakashi, and their confusing relationship. Things had been far simpler before the messed up seal and the regression into their new bodies. And the uncontrollable temper which had followed her and become that much worse, given her hair-trigger emotional reactions which were the fault of her pint-sized body and the loss of that voice which had once screamed out her thoughts in the privacy of her mind.

She missed Inner.

A shadow fell over her, and Sakura smiled, looking up to see—“Oh,” Sakura mumbled, her smile fading, fingers twitching ever so slightly as she realised she was face to face with a smaller version of the boy who’d called her and her brothers tomato heads. “Can I help you?” she enquired, not wanting to leap to any conclusions. Maybe they were there to recognise her awesomeness – which she had displayed in her sparring trials, one of which had been against the mousy brunette hovering behind the blonde-haired boy.

She hadn’t held back in the slightest, not wanting a bad practical score to bring down her written test which she still wasn’t sure about. She didn’t want to fail the tests, given how she’d all but demanded that she had to take them. She didn’t want to be left behind again. Because then she’d be embarrassed, and no doubt angry. And she had already proven her anger never ended well.

“You’d better apologise to Yuusuke!” the boy demanded, and Sakura could only blink as she glanced at the brunette boy who was shifting on his feet as she turned her gaze on him.

Confusion was written all across her face at the demand. They were in the academy – so being beaten in a sparring match could be expected. “We sparred, and we made the seal of reconciliation at the end,” she said. “Why do I need to apologise?”

The boy puffed up in a way oddly reminiscent of a cat trying to make itself look bigger. “You scoffed at him and-and you didn’t have to hurt him as badly as you did!” he said, moving far too close for comfort as he tried to intimidate her – though sadly his attempts were in vain. Short of the world ending again, there was nothing which could intimidate her.

Sakura felt her eye twitch. He sounded like an idiotic child. Huffing, she folded her arms. Oh wait. He was a small child. She was the adult there, even if she didn’t look it – being that much smaller than everyone else there. She wasn’t going to be angry. She was calm. Perfectly calm. “You think enemies will hold back?” she asked, sighing quietly in the next breath. She just needed to let go of her pride and apologise. She wasn’t as insufferable as an actual Uchiha, no matter her new parentage. “Anyway, sorry, and I hope you feel better soon.”

The boy glared at her, and Sakura shrank back – unsure as to where she’d seemingly gone wrong. “You don’t sound sorry,” he declared, stepping closer until he was chest to chest with her. Though she was pitifully lacking in height. Sakura clicked her tongue. That didn’t mean she couldn’t punt him across the training grounds.

“I am sorry that your friend got more hurt than you thought he would, OK?” she said, reminding herself to keep a cool head. She didn’t want any more accidents with her strength. Sakura was going to be a good student, and a good shinobi of Konoha. And that meant no punching potential future comrades.

“You’re s’ppsed to bow when you apologise sincerely!” the boy asserted, still glaring at her spitefully.

Sakura felt her eyebrow twitch. Hold it in, hold it in, she chanted to herself silently, hating her bitty body and her immeasurable rage which always wanted to burn hot. Why couldn’t she control her emotions? Because she was in a two-year-old body and that was affecting her, a snide voice muttered in the back of her mind. Sakura only wished it was Inner, but Inner was gone, and Sakura was left to pick up the pieces by herself.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Hey!” a feminine, childish, familiar voice pierced the air, and Sakura’s heart pounded. That was Ino’s voice. “What are you doing ganging up on her like that?”

Sakura gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to be reminded of what she’d lost. What had abandoned her like everybody else in the end. The sound of small, light footsteps storming towards them made her close her eyes as the presence reached just behind her.

“None of your business, Yamanaka!” the boy hissed, hands clenching into fists. “This is between us, so keep your ugly nose out of it, stupid blonde!” Sakura almost hummed in amusement. Ino wouldn’t take that lying down, even as young as she was. But the fist which slammed into her face claimed her attention, and Sakura stumbled back, flinching as Ino reached for her. Outrage was written on her face, but also hints of concern. Even though Sakura hadn’t been pleasant with her or that dimension’s Haruno Sakura. She almost wanted to cry. To hug the strange version of her once best friend.

Rubbing her cheek, she opened her eyes, glaring at the group of boys and the girl who reminded her of a ghost long past. “They punched me first, so this counts as self-defence,” she said, not waiting for Ino to nod before a toothy grin split her lips. “Well then,” she murmured, cracking her knuckles. “Shall we dance?”

“Huh?”

Sasuke sighed quietly as he waited for Naruto to finish up in the grounds of the academy. The fool was already making friends no doubt. Part of him was jealous. He would never have that strange aura about him which would attract people to him in droves. Charisma. It had never been a strong point of the Uchiha, which he supposed really suited his new little cousin-sister. His other teammate who had never really truly given up on him completely. The other half of him was content with what he had – what he had gained. Until he’d started interacting with the cute tiny version of Sakura, he hadn’t realised the joy of having a little sister. It was probably how Itachi must have felt.

“So…” Kakashi leant by the opening in the fence, hands tucked in his pockets as they waited there – the silence horribly awkward.

The jonin-turned-child was like a beacon for all his anger. He was the oldest of them, privy to so much more information, holding that much higher of a standard in the village he had loathed. Though his loathing of Konoha and all it had done to his brother hadn’t transferred to that new dimension’s Konoha. Because it wasn’t the same as the one they had left behind.

Kakashi was a relic of that Konoha, and he bore all of the hate and loathing Sasuke had for the old place. And that was on top of how badly he’d failed as a sensei. He had never explained anything to them, always expecting for them to simply see underneath the underneath. Never had he said where he’d gotten his eye, nor had he ever really trained Sasuke one-on-one aside from that time for the chunin exams. He’d never formed an emotion connection, never tried to understand him – only ever seeing him as a ghost of himself.

Sasuke wasn’t Kakashi, and he swore he never would be.

He failed, even as a sibling, which was why Sasuke had sworn he’d be a good elder brother. What Itachi had been for eight years. What Itachi should have continued to be instead of being warped by the village and all its false promises. A sneer curled at his lips, before he pushed it down. That place wasn’t the Konoha he’d known and loved and hated in equal measures at different stages of his life. It was similar yes, but the Uchiha Clan was still alive, and Uchiha Madara had been the Nidaime. An Uchiha had been Kage. Not to mention he was still alive somehow.

Sasuke wasn’t too sure whether he wanted to focus on that fact. Not to mention the man was now his paternal uncle. Shaking his head, he wandered out of the academy building, frowning when he couldn’t spot Sakura. She had finished up earlier than him and was meant to be out there waiting for him. His fingers twitched as his eyes searched for that familiar bright red mop of shaggy hair, itching to ruffle it.

It was awfully soothing to pat her hair, though Sasuke wasn’t entirely sure why that was. Perhaps due to it’s unique texture? Pure lands knew he’d never managed to ruffle Madara’s hair. He probably wouldn't be standing there if he had.

“Have you seen Sakura at all?”

He barely managed to refrain from jumping. The damned ex-jonin had snuck up behind him so expertly, despite having been leaning on the fence only moments before. How could he forget assassination had once been one of Kakashi’s many specialties? “Get lost,” he grumbled, edging away from the beanie-wearing child form of his ex-sensei. He didn’t need him slapping his little sibling again. They were sister and brother, he decided then, not simple cousins. After all he could hardly treat her like he’d treated Shisui.

But that had just been because Shisui had stolen Itachi away. In hindsight to deal with the Uchiha before they became a problem. His hands curled into fists at the thought of Shimura Danzo, and everything he’d had to do with the Uchiha Massacre. Nothing like that would happen in this dimension though. Sasuke had decided that much. If Danzo even showed the slightest inclination for Kekkei Genkai theft, or child-snatching, then he would happily be the one wielding the blade decapitating him.

“We should find her before she gets into trouble,” Kakashi said matter-of-factly.

Sasuke sighed. “She won’t necessarily get into trouble, you know,” he grumbled, hating the lack of faith Kakashi had for his adorable sibling. Though he still wanted to find her, and ruffle that bird’s nest of hair of hers. He wanted the comfort of that – so off to find his wayward sister it was.

The sound of flesh meeting fist had him sighing. And he’d just told Kakashi Sakura wouldn’t necessarily be fighting with anyone. Sasuke let out a long breath, not wanting to look around and see Kakashi’s smug, pointed expression. The one which said, ‘told you so’. Scowling, he ran towards the sound, not surprised in the least when he spied Sakura still standing… Though admittedly she was standing atop a pile of at least four boys of the age she was supposed to be officially with a smirk as she crushed them underfoot.

Walking forwards, he scowled at the sight of Kakashi closing in on his precious sister. Hurrying forward, he grabbed the white-haired boy, yanking him back. So he couldn’t slap Sakura again. Sasuke bared his teeth at the thought. She was one of his lifelines there. Someone he could relax with. Someone he could share his Uchiha-exclusive knowledge with. Someone he could watch smile brightly when she successfully pulled off one of those jutsus he’d taught her. “Stay away from her,” Sasuke hissed. Kakashi and Naruto had hurt her deeply, but the latter he could forgive in time. He was an idiot so it was probably him being stupid and assuming everybody was as positive as he was. He wouldn’t let either of them hurt her again.

Sasuke ignored the voice in the back of his head which whispered he’d hurt her the most. Shaking his head at the thought, he hurried over to his sister, warmth stirring in his chest at the wide smile he received when she spotted him. Was that how he’d used to smile at Itachi? Smiling slightly, he let her engulf him in a hug – Sakura having leapt down from the small pile of unconscious bodies she’d created.

“They started it,” Sakura informed him, a scowl on her face when she glanced back at them. “They threw the first punch. Yamanaka-san can confirm that much,” she said, and Sasuke blinked, finally taking stock of the familiar child-sized blonde girl. His arms tightened around Sakura, one concerned red brow raising as he glanced down at his little sister. But she was fine. She wasn’t crying into his chest at the sight of the alternate version of someone she’d known. Who she’d never know the same way again.

Sasuke wondered whether he’d be able to do the same if he came face to face with that world’s Itachi.

“It’s true, you know,” Ino spoke up, stirring him from the thoughts he’d gotten lost in. “They punched her first. She was just defending herself, and then some…”

Nodding curtly, he placed Sakura back down, turning around and crouching so she could climb onto his back. “Thank you,” he muttered quietly, tucking his arms around his sister’s legs as he made his way towards the gate, ignoring Kakashi as he spoke with Ino for a few moments.

“We going home now?” Sakura asked from above him, black eyes staring curiously down into his own matching set.

Sasuke nodded.

“Hmm… Do you know what’s for dinner? I’m starting to get hungry after everything today,” she mumbled, burying her chin atop his less spiky locks.

“I’m not sure,” he said, voice soft as he carried her towards the gates, readying his chakra all the while in preparation for roof hopping. That was the fastest and most direct way home – and they’d already shown their genius, both in the written tests and the practical tests. Well, Sasuke hoped he had at least, given he didn’t know how much that Konoha had seemingly upped their curriculum level. It would be horribly embarrassing if he’d flopped that horrible entrance exam.

“Think we’ll need to pick up groceries on our way back?” Sakura asked, interrupting the stillness. Though it was a temporary stillness, given how the academy exploded in a clamour of noise as children ranging from their age to twelve hurried out, having finished for the day.

Sasuke felt his heart clench as he heard that familiar voice.

“Sasuke!” Itachi’s voice was audible over the din. Frowning, Sasuke looked towards the academy gate, chewing on his lip in confusion when he couldn’t spot his older—

No. Itachi was no longer his older brother, no matter how much that realisation stung. Because there was another Sasuke. Jealousy stirred at the forefront of his mind. But there was no point. It wouldn’t change a single thing.

“Don’t you want to walk back with me, little brother?” Itachi asked, and Sasuke’s brow wrinkled as he realised his ex-brother’s voice was coming from behind him. From inside the academy. Turning, Sasuke risked a glance backwards, breath catching in his throat when he recognised the ponytail of ash black hair and the lines already starting to set in around his eyes. But there was something missing. A forehead protector. He didn’t have one and coupled with the fact he was exiting the academy building.

His brother hadn’t graduated early.

It was the only possible conclusion. Was his brother simply just not good enough in that dimension? But that couldn’t be right. Itachi had to be a genius. He had to be.

“Hey!” the sound of his old voice, even as childish as it was, had Sasuke turning to look at the sight of his old childish body standing in front of him. “Why’re you looking at my Itachi-nii like that?” he asked, obsidian black eyes glaring up into his matching ones menacingly.

“No reason,” he said, turning back away, wanting to hurry back home, but the child version of him didn’t seem to want to let his staring go unnoticed. Didn’t want to allow him to look at his ex-brother in peace and quiet.

“You obviously—”

“’Coz he heard the name Sasuke, idiot,” Sakura said, coming to his rescue right then and there. “Or do you think you’re the only person named Sasuke?” she asked, folding her arms, and Sasuke could only sigh softly at the look in her eyes. Such a mix of protectiveness and thirst for a fight. Had Sakura always been so bloodthirsty? Sasuke tilted his head, mulling over the thought. He blamed the blood of Uchiha Madara for that, as well as Sakura’s regression into a more childlike state of mind and emotion processing.

“Huh?” his alternate self mumbled, blinking in confusion. “Oh. Your name’s Sasuke then?”

Sasuke nodded.

“He’s Sasuke-nii,” Sakura said matter-of-factly, almost seeming to glow with pride as she said it. “And he’s way better than you.”

Sasuke felt his eyebrow twitch. Was Sakura trying to pick a fight with his alternate self? He contemplated the idea for a moment, though it was soon driven home by Sakura sticking out her tongue at his alternate self. Maybe something to do with that once upon a time crush she’d had on him? Sasuke could only guess. Or maybe she was feeling the Uchiha Pride, or something along those lines?

“Hn.” Alternate Sasuke sneered at Sakura. “Well my brother is better than yours anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

Sakura edged forwards. “Why? Because you’ll be hiding behind him the entire time?” she asked, leering at the black-haired boy.

Sasuke only sighed quietly, watching as Sakura started arguing with his alternate self about their respective brothers – which gave Itachi plenty of time to reach them. Tentatively, he offered a smile to the alternate version of his brother. “Sorry about her,” he said, heart racing at the sight of Itachi’s slightly curved lips as he watched the relay between his cute little sister and his alternate black-haired self. He had quickly grown accustomed to his red locks. Now, he thought it a more fetching colour than those inky locks from before.

“It’s alright,” Itachi murmured, voice soft, even as their little siblings started shouting at each other – which ultimately culminated in Sakura grabbing his alternate self by the collar and hauling him closer.

“Do you want to d—mph?” Sasuke slammed his hand over her lips, muffling the word before it could escape.

“Sorry,” he said, still smiling at Itachi and the prospect of growing closer to his ex-brother even if it was just as a friend. Sasuke ignored the stirrings of disappointment which came with that idea. “We’ll be on our way,” he continued, ignoring the muffled protests which fell from Sakura’s lips as he put his free hand in her messy hair and started ruffling it.

The feeling chased all the bad thoughts away, and Sasuke only turned away, smiling over his shoulder. “It was nice meeting you!” Even though they hadn’t really introduced themselves. Itachi knew his name, and he knew Itachi’s. Even if the alternate of his brother didn’t realise it yet. “Come on, troublemaker,” he said, releasing his hold on her lips, smiling ever so slightly at the annoyed stare he got in response. “Let’s go home and have dinner.”

Chapter Text

Dinner, as they were informed upon arrival, was to be eggplant, noodles, and miso soup – one of Kakashi’s favourites, seeing as he had been the one to collect the required ingredients from the shop on the way home. Sakura grimaced at the thought. Eggplant wasn’t a particular favourite of hers, but she supposed she couldn’t be picky. She was two, and she needed to eat her vegetables if she wanted to grow well.

There would be no dieting this time around. Stunting her growth once was more than enough of an experience for her. She wouldn’t be repeating the process, not least because there was no Sasuke for her to try and look her best for.

Besides, if a man couldn’t accept her as muscled and awesome as she would be then clearly they weren’t worthy of her. Folding her arms, Sakura nodded vigorously, earning herself a quizzical sidelong glance from her precious brother. She had oodles of confidence this time around. And a horrible temper to boot, the snide half of her brain reminded.

“For the next few days,” Kakashi’s voice sliced through the stillness of the room like a knife even as he continued his work in the kitchen. “Don’t mention Zetsu or the whole dimension travelling experience,” he said. Sakura frowned, puzzled by his request. “We might be having some company, so watch your words, and try to act like the tiny genius children we all currently are.”

Sasuke scowled. “Whatever you say,” he grumbled, and then he was tugging Sakura to the garden. Fresh air was nice, but evidently Naruto had thought that too – hence the reason he was standing in the grass, playing with what looked to be a ball. How long had it been since she’d played a simple game like that? One not like inspectors and infiltrators. One not designed with shinobi children in mind.

“Oh, eh…” Naruto rubbed the back of his neck, just as he threw the ball against the fence. Sakura would deny that she got any satisfaction at seeing it smack him in the face. “Uh… how were your days?” he asked, dark eyes flickering between the pair of them, tension written all across his whiskered face. “Did you make any new friends?”

“Somebody seemed to be doing enough of that for the three of us,” Sasuke said, just as cutting as usual. It was actually somewhat odd for Sakura to see. Because Sasuke was being so nice with her. So gentle and caring. Sakura frowned. Him, Naruto, and Kakashi were all half-siblings now though… But for some reason they had gravitated into their current pairings, and all of them were apparently feeling the awkwardness of things.

“Yeah,” Naruto said with a smile – a forced one that time. “Thought I might as well start integrating myself in as best as I could… I couldn’t help it y’know?”

Sasuke turned away, evidently unimpressed. “Hn.”

“So, uh, do you want to play?” he asked, hesitancy written all over his expression as he offered out the ball. “Or I could leave it to you… and help Kakashi with dinner…”

Sasuke turned to her then, making it clear the decision was hers. Sakura shrugged. “We might get food poisoning if we let him help,” she mumbled, not wanting to say yes in its entirety to Naruto’s offer. He had abandoned her earlier, and he wasn’t seeming like his usual self. He hadn’t ever since they had jumped dimensions thanks to his faulty seal. She wanted to hate him for that, all her anger urged her to do just that, but she wasn’t going to be blindly throwing her rage onto him. She could remember all the times he had stood by her after Sasuke’s defection. She chewed on her lip, almost breaking the skin as she drowned in her thoughts. Even if he had left her for two entire years.

“Hn.” Sasuke snorted. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, catching the ball as Naruto threw it to him with a small hopeful smile. “We’ll play with you for now.”

Which was how the game of catch began, but at some point, being the tiny shinobi they were, they got it into their heads to start using chakra. Sakura wasn’t entirely sure who started it, but the simple, civilian game soon turned to something shinobi-ish, and that meant it became downright dangerous. Mainly thanks to the high speeds the ball was travelling at.

Though to all of them dangerous happened to be synonymous with fun. So by the time Kakashi called them in for dinner, they were all breathing heavily with slight smiles on their faces. It wasn’t enough to make her forget the hurt though, nor did the sight of the white hair make her any happier. In fact, it was the exact opposite. The happy mood from outside dropped like a heavy stone in the river, just as Kakashi set out four bowls at the table.

The chopsticks were new, no doubt purchased with stolen money – something they would have to start earning as soon as possible. Kakashi was their best hope of that, no matter how badly the thought made her want to sneer.

“Early graduation no longer exists,” Kakashi announced flatly, breaking the silence which had fallen between them as they ate like children after a hard day at the academy. Though it had only really been tests, and then Kakashi and the other two had been presented with other tests to get into their higher year groups.

Naruto blinked. “What?”

Sasuke hummed quietly under his breath in acknowledgement.

“Oh.” Sakura felt her shoulders sink, a mix of odd relief and disappointment hitting her square in the gut. On one hand she could be as genius child as she liked without worry of being forced into the field earlier than Kakashi would have agreed with, but then it was going to be that much harder for them to support themselves until then.

“More to the point though, as I mentioned earlier, we might be having some company in the coming days,” Kakashi remarked, steepling his fingers underneath his masked chin, contemplation written all across his face. “Seeing as we’ve probably scored higher than average on the tests, and added to the fact that some of us have been, according to our records, travelling around with our parents for years before settling down in Konoha…”

“While it gives us a reason for not knowing our peers as well as we should, it also brings up the possibility of us being infiltrators,” Sasuke muttered, scowling into his dinner as he said so. “Though Kakashi and I have been as thorough as we can with covering up our trails for that aspect…”

“We might have a jonin or an ANBU squad looking in on us and our daily life once our high intelligence comes out and seeing as how we all gave it our all on the test… it won’t be long…” Kakashi mused, setting his bowl back down again – and Sakura blinked, dumbfounded, having not even seen him lift it or remove his mask. “Either the standards for education are higher in this world… or we weren’t meant to do as well on that test. I can’t be certain which one it is,” he remarked, placing his chopsticks down, meal finished. “Though I suspect, given what the instructor hinted at me, that it’s the latter.”

“Oh goodie,” Sakura muttered, swirling her noodles around.

“Stop staring at your food and eat it before it gets cold,” Sasuke reminded, finishing his own dinner minutes behind Kakashi. Like it had been a competition.

“There’s leftovers if you want more,” Kakashi said, waving over at the deep pan on the side in the kitchen.

“What are we going to do about Zetsu?” Naruto’s voice broke through the suddenly tense atmosphere, all of them seeming to stop and think about the black-bodied, yellow-eyed creature who’d tagged along. And was undoubtedly hellbent on reviving its mother even in this strange dimension.

Kakashi closed his eyes. “We can’t do anything, Naru,” he murmured, the affectionate nickname falling from his lips so easily. “Not yet, at least.”

Sakura recognised the childish jealousy which surged forward like the green-eyed monster it was. Wanting to be the sole focus of attention. A hand in her hair pushed those thoughts away, and she leant into her brother’s side. “Sasuke-nii,” she mumbled, liking the way that name fell from her own lips.

“Finish your dinner,” Sasuke reminded once again, seating her back upright and moving her hand closer to her bowl. “Otherwise you’ll just get hungry later.”

“Hn.”

Naruto stared at the ground as he trudged to his room. His and his brother’s room. A smile curled on his lips at the thought. He had a brother. Two, if he wanted to be specific… and then there was Sakura, now related to him through Sasuke via… Frowning, Naruto mulled over the connection there. Officially they weren’t technically related by blood, given how he was related via their new mother and Sasuke and Sakura were related by their respective fathers. But officialities shouldn’t have mattered. He was Uzumaki Naruto – or Senju Naruto, if he wanted to go by something different this time around, especially seeing as how his counterpart was running around there. The counterpart who went by Namikaze Naruto.

The name he would still have had claim to if he hadn’t screwed up the seal which had dragged them into this bizarre dimension. At least five people who were supposed to be dead of old age or death in battle were still kicking with alarmingly young appearances.

Not to mention he had taken away everyone’s chances of getting what they wanted thanks to that little error he’d made. Who was he kidding? It was no little error. It was a massive blunder. One which weighed on him like a boulder. He felt like he was choking on his tongue every time he looked at Sasuke and Sakura.

They were so vividly different than before. And it was his fault. All his fault. His shoulders sunk, and he hurried into his room, feeling so hesitant and unsure. It was so unlike him to do that. Not that anyone had really noticed. Except his shiny new, older brother. But they had other things on their plates, and all Naruto needed was time.

Time to pull up his optimism and cheer from the darkening well of emotions rattling about inside of him. Time to mourn his losses and failures privately, before he bounced back into being the cheerful, happy shinobi they all knew and loved.

Every time Sakura and Sasuke looked at him it was like they were blaming him. It’s your fault they’re this way, the whispering voice in the back of his head always reminded him. And it was at times like that he missed Kurama. He missed the old tsundere fox, and he had lost his chance at ever becoming Kurama’s friend again. Of ever trying to deal with all the hate which bubbled inside this dimension’s Kyuubi. He missed the actual voice in the back of his head. He missed the goal he’d had to truly become friends with the old fox.

It was his fault he couldn’t do that.

Always his fault.

This time there was no way he could overcome that. He couldn’t change those eyes which burnt into him. He knew the cold eyes which blamed him for everything, and unlike before when he was an itty bitty child, he deserved them.

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and furious, he rubbed at them, hurriedly trying to conceal any and all traces of his sadness as he heard Kakashi making his way to join him in their shared room. Dimly, Naruto wondered whether they would be working on seals again that day – something they always did together, if only to improve their respective abilities.

Naruto didn’t want to fail anyone ever again. And once he’d improved his sealing abilities… then he’d be able to hold his head high again… and maybe work something out to make Sasuke and Sakura happier again.

“Naruto?” Kakashi looked at him, and Naruto knew instantly his reddened eyes had been seen. “It’s not your fault, you know. No one has ever managed time-travel before,” he said, red eyes staring into his dark ones. “The fact we didn’t all die, and we actually got somewhere…”

Chewing on his lip, Naruto closed the distance between them in an instant, wrapping his arms around his new brother. Kakashi stiffened, as he always did when it came to forms of intimacy, but Naruto was also making it one of his goals to convert Kakashi to the warmth and comfort found in hugs. As it stood, Kakashi merely wrapped his arms back around him, still terribly stiff even as he patted Naruto’s back.

“You’ve given us a new chance, Naru,” Kakashi continued, even as he slumped into the older boy. “It’s just not the chance all of us were expecting…” His gaze looked over in the direction they knew Sasuke and Sakura’s room to be. “They’ll come around in time…” Kakashi’s shoulders slumped at the admission. “They probably just need… some time and space to deal with things,” he murmured, pulling away from Naruto’s embrace, flicking the light on before he went and sat down.

Taking that as his cue, Naruto went and grabbed the box of sealing supplies. They need to continue working on their ‘neighbour’ who lived next door and checked up on them. Kakashi had told them they’d been lucky to find two sets of relatively cheap houses next to each other. The rest had been accomplished with stolen money and genjutsu on people at the civilian housing department and their neighbours to implant memories.

It was discrete, and as relatively untraceable as it could be. Not to mention as they interacted with those people more, the effects of the genjutsu would become less prominent as they built up proper relationships with them – instead of relying on fake memories to do the job.

“What part will we be working on today?” he asked, curious as to what they would be covering that time around. If only because Kakashi had found some books on sealing from who knew where.

Part of a good cover, or so Kakashi had said, should those who might come and spy on them on behalf of the village take a closer look at their room. Because books on sealing – which probably shouldn’t have been in the hands of a family like theirs – coupled with their distinctively red hair would indicate an Uzumaki heritage. Because Uzushio had still somehow been destroyed despite the founders being alive and well.

It would give reasons as to why their parents had moved about, why no one had seen them about too much. Why they were suddenly sending their children to Konoha – where it was safer… Not to mention it gave them something to hide, which might explain some of their actions, given how their childish bodies might affect their acting capabilities. It was safer not to bear the Uzumaki name, after all. Fear was a curious motivator, and the Uzumaki name brought just that. It was why they had been destroyed in both dimensions.

Summoning a shadow clone, both he and Kakashi got to work – knowing it would likely be the last night they could for a while. And their neighbour needed to be able to pass mild scrutiny, especially in the coming weeks.

“We’ve got the stability down,” Kakashi said, stabbing the clone with a knife, watching as it only bled without popping. “But it takes up a bit of chakra, especially while ‘injured’.”

“Should we add a chakra store it can draw from then?” Naruto asked, fiddling with the ink caps as Kakashi readied the expensive, stolen, brush and the paper tag they would then be sticking onto Naruto’s clone.

“Yes, and we’ll have to attach it somewhere close to the stomach area… and hope our neighbour doesn’t run into any Hyuga using their byakugan. They might be able to see through it somewhat,” Kakashi murmured, rubbing at his chin, glancing at Naruto thoughtfully for a few moments before he pulled his mask down and continued what he had been doing.

Naruto blinked, a beaming smile on his face as he saw his brother’s full face. Not that he’d ever gotten to see Kakashi’s actual face before the jump. Naruto paused. But there was a version of Hatake Kakashi running around in the village. A grin curled at his lips, and silently he thought about how he, Sasuke, and Sakura could—

His hands curled, ink almost spilling as his hands shook as he placed the vial of ink down in front of his brother. He needed to give them time. But maybe they wouldn’t mind eating with him tomorrow? Or should he try and branch out to create connections? Or would that be too suspicious? The thoughts and worries made his head want to spin, which, in hindsight, was probably why Kakashi didn’t let him draw anything that time.

One had to be focused in order to draw seals. Only bad things would happen if the visualisation and intent were lacking in the creation of the seal. Naruto knew those basics like the back of his hand, having been drilled through them so much by… He closed his eyes, not wanting to remember that, flopping back on hid futon as Kakashi continued his work. He’d had a better night of drawing seals before, and he would have one again sometime in the future. He wasn’t going to rush and mess things up like he had before.

He wouldn’t let them down ever again, and he’d tell them all that much. Just as soon as he mustered up the courage to face them. Because they were his friends, and it took ten times the amount of confidence to say to them that he wouldn't let them down.

That he wouldn’t be a failure ever again.

Chapter Text

The mood was tense when they set out for the academy the next morning. All Sakura could hear was the footsteps the three of them made – three, because Kakashi had been delayed by locking up the house behind them. Apparently he wasn’t too eager to catch up either. Sakura sneered, huffing as she folded her arms. No doubt he didn’t want to stare upon that which she had become – a tiny ball of fire and rage liable to ruin everything they were working for. Not that she could yell at him about anything time-dimension-travel wise.

Because wouldn’t that be a juicy little tidbit of information for the ANBU or jonin watching them to overhear?

They would either be classed as insane, deluded kids, or they’d be hauled off to the bowels of T&I never to see the light of day again. Sakura didn’t particularly want either of those to happen, so keeping her emotions in check it was. Maybe that was why Sasuke was right by her side? He seemed to enjoy ruffling her messy red locks, and Sakura didn’t mind it – mostly because she had confidence and strength to back herself up with this time around. She had already proven she wouldn’t let the bullies get to her. Otherwise she’d get them. Right in the face, with a nice right hook. Or whatever blow she managed.

Plus there was no denying the fact that it was impossible to save her hair from its perpetually messy state. Sakura would probably hiss like a cat if anyone ever approached her with a brush from then on. Her hair and brushes simply didn’t mix, and Sakura didn’t particularly want to start losing her hair before its time. Not to mention it hurt her poor scalp.

Sakura snorted, pulling a lock of that spiky red hair in front of her face. Oh how she had fallen… A low chuckle left her lips. And to think she had once obsessed over her appearance for hours before each day at the academy… She shook her head, blinking as she realised both Sasuke and Naruto were looking down at her in mild alarm.

“What?” she grumbled petulantly.

Naruto swallowed, looking somewhat hesitant as he spoke. “Your laugh is really scary now,” he mumbled, scratching at his whiskered cheek, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself. “It sounds like you’re plotting something.”

“Huh?” Sakura glared at him flatly. “Does not.”

“Does too,” Naruto retorted, seemingly gaining confidence when she didn’t snap and try to punt him into the nearest building. “Neh, Sasuke, back me up here!”

“Hn.”

Naruto pouted. “I can’t tell whether that was agreement or not,” he said, puffing out his cheeks as he stared between the two of them. Sasuke simply stared back at him, eyebrow raised ever so slightly. “Come on,” Naruto continued, still pouting – though the creeping grin and growing confidence made their way past the upset face he wore. “Our cute, little tomato-haired imouto is—”

“What did you just call me?” Sakura found herself asking, baring her teeth as she curled her fingers in the neckline of Naruto’s shirt. “Tomato… You just called me a tomato, didn’t you?” she enquired, ignoring Sasuke frantically gesturing behind her at the imbecile in front of her eyes.

“But…” Naruto scratched at his chin, not meeting her eyes. “Sasuke likes tomatoes… and your cheeks are really chubby – with, like baby fat of course, which is perfectly natural and cute – and your face is kinda a bit round thanks to that… plus the awesome hair—”

Sakura smiled, teeth bared in a mockery of a grin, eyes narrowed. “Do you want to da—mph!”

Sasuke’s hand closed over her lips just like the time before, halting her question on the last word, and she could feel him silently asking her to please stop asking people whether they wanted to dance or not. She didn’t particularly understand why she always felt so compelled to say that either though. The words just seemed to fall so neatly from her lips. “No punching him either,” he said, and Sakura felt her shoulders sink. It wasn’t like she was going to punch him… after all he’d asked her not to hit him, and she would refrain as much as she could… because she had reverted to a more childish frame of mind, which affected her in more ways than she liked to admit. Scowling, Sakura reached forwards, poking his sides, intent on getting justice for being called a tomato. She had expected that from the bullies, not her pseudo-brother. Not after he’d dragged them into the wrong dimension.

An accident, a part of her brain vaguely reminiscent of Inner added, and Sakura felt shame roil in her gut. She pushed it to one side, determined not to let emotions like that get the best of her. Think positive, she reminded herself, turning her attention fully onto the whiskered Uzumaki-Senju.

“Hey!” Naruto complained, giggling as she continued prodding him, and Sakura’s grin turned into a smirk as she realised how ticklish he was. A safe way of tortu—ahem tormenting him. One which wouldn’t break any bones or make her feel bad. “Sakura-chan! Stop!”

“Not ‘til you say you’re sorry for calling me a tomato,” she said matter-of-factly, continuing to poke him, free of Sasuke’s arms and free to keep on poking at his ticklish sides even as he fell back, clutching his stomach while he squirmed to get away from her small hands.

“I’m sorry,” Naruto yelled, giggling still as she gave a few last warning pokes. “Sorry… It’s… all my fault,” he mumbled, expression sobering up, and Sakura frowned at the closed off look in his eyes as he stumbled over his words. He wasn’t meant to stumble. She chewed on her lip. Maybe she was being a bit too harsh? Maybe she had been way too hard on him the last few days?

Self loathing curled in her gut, and Sakura hated. She hated her tiny body, but it wasn’t like it was Naruto’s fault she was in it. It wasn’t like he’d drawn the damned seal. Oh wait. He had. But he’d often tried to help her before the stupid jump through time and space. They were meant to be friends. So why was she always thinking about things like that? About what was whose fault?

She shuffled on her feet. Because she was an immature little brat who was regressing into a two-year-old? Or because she had always been a catty bitch…? Her toes dug into her sandals, and Sakura bit down on her lip that much harder. Think positive, she mused, pushing away those thoughts. They wouldn’t get her anywhere, except stuck in a cycle of self-loathing and hatred.

Sakura huffed, glaring down at Naruto as he floundered on the ground. “Come on,” she grumbled, offering out her hand alongside her brother as they stared at him down on the ground. “You’ll make us late at this rate.”

“Hn,” Sasuke agreed, grabbing a hold of his other hand, seemingly ignoring the brilliant smile which bloomed to life on Naruto’s cheeks as they resolved to pull him along. It was to get to the academy on time, obviously. Naruto lagging behind them would have only slowed her down.

They needed to get to the academy on time and see their results, because they would have been marked that same evening, given how the instructors of the academy wouldn’t want them to be even further behind on the syllabus. The sooner they were integrated into the system and their classes, the better, meaning they wouldn’t have to wait for results to be posted to their address – like what was done during the beginning of the academy year.

Swallowing, Sakura mulled over the possible results for her. She had definitely done well in the sparring section. The only real thing she was worried about was the history section, given how she wasn’t exactly sure of the date of certain battles. Not to mention how the Founders seemingly being alive had shifted events.

“We should go to the library later,” she said, staring at the cloudy sky. Autumn was well and truly on its way, and after it, winter would follow. Her first winter in that strange place. They would have to procure some winter supplies before then. Winter jackets at least, given how hoodies wouldn’t stop the water from creeping in.

Not that she was wearing her hoodie right then and there. Instead it had been shoved inside her bag, given how humid it was. She would have been seating buckets wearing that, so she had wisely foregone her wonderful hoodie. That meant her lovely, high-collared shirt which Sasuke had stuffed her into was on full display. All they were missing was the Uchiwa on the back, and they probably would have blended right in.

Well, with dyed black hair that was. She had seen blonde Uchiha, purple-haired Uchiha, the usual dark-haired Uchiha, but no red-haired Uchiha. She and Sasuke were the first there, the first to bear both red hair and eyes which could spin into a gleaming crimson colour. It made some part of her feel oddly proud – despite her body actually being the result of highly illegal genetic experimentation done by a missing-nin who was probably being hunted right that second. Sakura shook her head, pushing those sorts of thoughts away.

Thinking about Sasuke and Naruto was more important than being proud of her colouring. Sighing softly, she wound a lock of brilliant red hair around her finger before flicking her high ponytail back over her shoulder.

Her hair always looked better tied back. Even Sasuke had agreed, though Sakura highly suspected it was because she looked slightly less like a miniature red-haired version of Madara. They couldn’t afford to be recognised. Not yet, at least, if ever. Because otherwise they’d likely come under the care of their biological parents or their respective clans at the very least. Which meant less freedom. Less ways to sneak away and deal with Zetsu before it became too much of a problem.

That was something they couldn’t afford. Well, they probably could, but it would be a bother to work around nosy, well-meaning adults. They were almost adults too. She had the memories of one, at least, even if her mentality had regressed somewhat.

Scratch that, she was totally a child. Her shoulders sunk, thoughts bitter as she acknowledged the undoubted truth. She didn’t have the level of self-control an adult should have had. Nor did she perceive things the way she had before the jump into their strange new bodies.

“Sakura?” Naruto waved a hand in front of her face. “Are you paying attention? We’re here!” he called, bouncing on the balls of his feet as the familiar gap in the fencing came into view.

Sakura pouted. “I was paying attention,” she grumbled.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, scepticism written all across his face. Sakura elbowed him with a scowl. “Come on,” he said, smiling as his hand found its way into her messy red locks, ruffling her hair there for a few moments before he patted her head one last time and made his way in.

She followed on his heels, still half-dragged along by the grip Naruto had on her hand. He was excited, as per usual, she mused, gaze falling to the floor. How could he still be so cheerful after everything? The pit of anger in her stomach welled up yet again, but Sakura clenched her free fist and scowled that much harder. No. She wasn’t going to think of it like that. She had heard him crying. He was just dealing with things differently to her.

He wasn’t having to deal with too much anger bottled up in a too small body. Jealousy stirred in her gut, like a cat uncurling from a nap, and Sakura shook her head, clearing those thoughts in an instant. She wasn’t going to be a little girl with no self control anymore. She bit her lip, blinking as she spotted a familiar beanie cap a little ways in front of them.

Kakashi.

Sakura looked away, letting her eyes slide over him, clenching her teeth as Sasuke pulled her closer to his side, hand slipping into her own. “Shall we go and see our results?” Sasuke asked softly, nodding towards the noticeboard posted to one side of the academy entrance.

He felt it stirring the minute he saw them playing around with each other on the streets. The green-eyed monster. Jealousy. Envy. But he supposed he ought to be happy for his little brother. Brothers. And his little sister who wasn’t related to him by blood. The boy he had failed, the girl who he had left behind, and the boy who had defected. The one he’d failed in a different way. But what had everyone been expecting? He was Hatake Kakashi. Friend-Killer Kakashi. Socially incompetent genius who could barely take care of a plant, let alone three genin. Not that they were genin anymore. Not that they could become genin anytime soon – what with early graduation being off the table.

Senju Tobirama’s handiwork, no doubt, given how he presided over the academy as its head. Any legislations involving the education of future shinobi passed through the academy head. And clearly the principle of why Konoha had been founded hadn’t been lost… seeing as one of the people who had acknowledged that reasoning was the driving force behind their new education. Konoha hadn’t want to send children out to war.

Kakashi could still remember how he had scoffed when he had heard that. What exactly was a child? They became adults when they were given the headband with the metal plate on which was engraved that stylised leaf. The symbol which bound them all together.

The symbol for which he had spilt blood when he turned five. When he had become an adult. He could still remember those days, still remember his first kill. That face hadn’t been lost, despite the numerous others which had only followed after that dreaded C-Rank. First C-Rank missions were apparently a curse for him and his own. A mirthless chuckle left his lips, and he glared down at his too small hands. His too small body which had led to a slight loss of self-control.

He was acting slightly closer to his rule conforming child-self than he would have liked. Volatile reactions to being disobeyed had simply been a cherry on top. It was no wonder Sasuke was looking like an overprotective mother bear whenever he went even slightly close to Sakura. Him and his cute little sister weren’t a good pairing, and he doubted they would be until they both regained some self-control with a good help of time and patience.

He would only break things again, whether they be relationships or bones, if he got close. It was why he’d earnt the nickname Friend-Killer Kakashi. He didn’t want to kill anyone else he cared about. He didn’t want to watch as the pieces crumbled apart in his hands. But he couldn’t just leave Naruto. He couldn’t leave them all. They were so much smaller now. So much more breakable. He had to be careful. Had to make things up to them slowly and cautiously.

Because if anything went wrong, it was his fault.

He was the eldest. He was the one who had helped make the executive decision to remain in that strange dimension. But maybe it was a better dimension? After all, this one hadn’t thrown him a miniaturised jonin vest and sent him out to the frontlines when he was barely into double digits. If that hadn’t fucked him up, then everything else which had come after it had done the job.

His laughter was hollow even to his own ears as he stared at the noticeboard. The paper was pinned up, all four of their names written underneath one another. It was odd seeing his given name next to the surname he’d decided on. Nakamura. A common enough name native to their country, and one without any major ties to Konoha.

It wasn’t like he could go with any of the ones they could use. Uchiha was impossible, as was Senju. Uzumaki would have drawn too much attention, what with the clan being pretty much extinct. Namikaze was also impossible, no matter how much he would have loved to give Naruto his original father’s surname. Plus he wasn’t blonde enough, or blood-related enough to get away with it.

A smile curved at his lips. Maybe then he would have ensured Naruto’s safety. As it was, they were all set to hunt down Black Zetsu as soon as they grew into their bodies a bit more. Naruto and Sasuke wouldn’t take long.

The only problem was Sakura.

They couldn’t really leave her behind if they went off the hunt the yellow-eyed, black-bodied being – not with how she’d reacted to the abandonment they had already heaped on her in hindsight. Her reaction to Naruto simply hanging out with cats for a short while… It was telling of the fallout which would come if he tried to take only Naruto and Sasuke to hunt down the creature which had ruined all of their lives.

He couldn’t fail his genin-turned-family.

He couldn’t fail any of them ever again.

Sakura blinked as she stared at the board. Beside their names was their class designation. Only Sakura was struggling to wrap her head around the fact they had all seemingly been put in the same class. A class without a number.

S.

“Where’d you suppose that is?” Naruto asked as they made their way inside.

Sakura only glared at the signs outside the classroom bearing both numbers and letters. The number according to the floor, and the letter according to the classroom.

“There’s no number… but there’s nothing below the ground floor,” Sasuke said, observing the stairs in front of them. “Probably the topmost floor.”

“I’m gonna laugh if you’re wrong,” Naruto retorted.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, and then they were all headed up the stairs. Whether Kakashi was in front or ahead of them, Sakura wasn’t too sure. She was only certain he would be in the same classroom as them. “Sasuke-nii was right,” Sakura said, feeling oddly smug and satisfied at the putout look on Naruto’s face as they found themselves outside of the door underneath the sign bearing only the letter S.

“Teme,” Naruto grumbled, blinking a couple of times before he realised what he’d said. “Oh. Uh…”

Sasuke only walked past him, rolling his eyes as he slid open the door. “Come on then, dobe,” he said, smiling at Sakura as she felt something lighten in her chest.

“Unless you’d rather wait out here,” Sakura added, hurrying to reattach herself to Sasuke’s side. She enjoyed basking in the newfound attention way too much. But it was better that than feeling angry and abandoned, so if sidling up to her brother and practically sitting on his lap was the way to mitigate those feelings which welled up inside her unbidden, then she would happily do just that. No matter the curious gazes it earned from those around her.

Chapter Text

Sighing softly, Sakura swung her legs back and forth, waiting for class to begin and for Sasuke to remove his chin from its perch atop her fluffy red hair. It was strangely comfortable like that – weirdly comfy to sit on the lap of the boy who was so quickly falling into the role of an older brother. Like one of those times in her younger years where she’d so desperately wished for an older sibling to scare away the bullies… like the others she’d seen doing just that.

She had been alone as a young child. So very alone. A humourless smile curled at her lips. Maybe that was why the dam holding back her anger snapped like a twig when it came to that subject. All the memories of her loneliness were coming back to her in full force, and there had been far too much. How hadn’t she noticed it before the jump?

Greedily, she clung to the arms wrapped around her middle, sinking back into the precious family she now had. Dimly, she wondered about the upcoming class and what this S class would entail. There had never been a class like that before. Was it some remedial class or something? Her brow furrowed, and she glared at the clock above the board at the front of the room. S-Rank missions were usually the hardest. Was their class the hardest to teach then? Sakura tilted her head, eyes narrowing as the door slid open, revealing a strangely familiar figure who had Sasuke stiffening somewhat. Or were they all being classed as mini-geniuses?

“Right then, settle down, munchkins,” the Uchiha who walked in spoke, and Sakura frowned as she tried to place the familiarity. He looked a lot like Sasuke before the jump and after too. Oh. “For those of you who haven’t realised, we have four children joining us today. I’m Uchiha Izuna, your sensei for today's lesson, seeing as none of my colleagues took on the daily B-Ranked mission for your class of hellions…” Black eyes flickered over them, and Sakura felt Sasuke hide his face in her fluffy nest of hair. At least the Madara mop was being of some use… “Why don’t you introduce yourselves,” Sasuke’s biological father spoke. “The Nakamura siblings.”

A pointed look at the four of them had Kakashi standing up. “Yo.” He held up one hand, eyes curling up into a smile. “The name’s Kakashi.”

At least he didn’t say he hated them all, Sakura mused, watching as Naruto all but bounced to his feet next. “Hi! I’m Nakamura Naruto!” he said, smiling with teeth which were almost sparkling. Courtesy of Kakashi dragging him to the bathroom after breakfast with a toothbrush and a bottle of mouthwash. Typical Naruto. Sakura huffed. “Nice to meet you all. Hope we can be friends!”

Silence reigned, both Naruto and Kakashi looking over towards the pair of them along with the rest of the class. “Sasuke,” her brother spoke, and Sakura could tell he was already glaring at everyone. Sakura blinked, spying the alarmingly tiny form of her brother’s ex-brother. Well, maybe not everyone.

“Hn. Sakura,” she grunted, grateful for Sasuke’s arms shielding her from the worst of the stares as she introduced herself sullenly to their new class. Were they going to call her a tomato too? Her lip curled at the thought.

Izuna smiled then, looking between the four of them. “Well then, I’m sure your classmates will introduce them in time… but for now, all of you are due in the medical room for a physical – so off you go. You’ll be sent back once you’re done,” he explained, shooing them all towards the door with an alarming amount of urgency, an odd smile on his face as he watched the four of them leave.

Naruto tilted his head. “Uh. Anyone know where the medical office is?” he asked, looking around the corridor for any sort of sign.

Kakashi set off for the stairs. “First floor. We passed it on the way to get up here,” he informed them, walking ahead of them as they ventured off towards the medical office. And all the wonders of physical examinations. Sakura supposed she ought to have expected as much. Though physicals weren’t usually held until it came time for chakra to be taught. After all, it was usually fairly obvious in a matter of days if someone was unsuited for the shinobi lifestyle. Though occasionally those like Gai and Lee made it through, despite the hardships which came from being unsuited to one or two of the shinobi basics.

Sakura stared after him, frowning as she spotted his hunched over back. Had it always been so small? A soft snort escaped her lips. He was a child now. Of course it was smaller. “Let’s get this over with,” she grumbled, grabbing a hold of Sasuke’s hand, hurrying down the stairs.

“Race you there!” Naruto called, leaping down the stairs two at a time.

“Like you’re beating me,” Sakura grumbled, feeling the competitive spirit in her rise to the surface, and then she had let go of her brother’s hand in favour of sprinting down the stairs at full speed, determined not to let the moron win.

She had the family pride to uphold now, she mused sardonically. Plus a brother to impress.

It didn’t take long to reach the door on the far side of the first floor of the academy layout. Panting, she clapped her knees, half hunched over as she caught her breath. “I win,” she declared, standing up straight a moment later as both Kakashi and Sasuke came into sight.

Naruto pouted. “Next time,” he promised, staring at her as a smirk curved on her lips. “Neh, why didn’t you join in?” he asked, turning on Sasuke then as they milled about outside – waiting for Naruto to finish his pouting session.

Sasuke folded his arms. “Hn. As if I’d get involved in your childish antics,” he said. “I, for one, have better things to be doing.”

“Like walking safely down the stairs and staring at your cute imouto,” Kakashi chimed in, earning himself the stink eye from the boy in question.

“Shut up.”

The door to the medical office slid open then, and Sakura winced – realising how loud they must have been – only to pause moments later as she realised one Senju Tobirama was in front of them. “Huh?” Sakura blinked, rubbing her eyes at the sight, but he was still standing there.

“Right then.” He folded his arms across his chest, and Sakura swallowed at the severe expression on his face as he looked between the four of them. “Which one of you is first?”

Sakura hid behind her brother almost instantly, not liking the glint to those red eyes. The same eyes Kakashi now had thanks to his genetics.

“Me! Me!” Naruto called, sticking his hand in the air and waving it around like an excited puppy.

“And which one are you?” Tobirama asked, welcoming him into the room, fixing the rest of them with a glare which clearly stated they were not to move or cause trouble until he came back to collect the next victim.

Physicals were scary things.

Well, when the one carrying them out was Senju Tobirama, that was.

Nervous, Sakura shifted her weight as she sat on the edge of the cot, stiffening when she felt Tobirama’s chakra brush over her own like a gentle wave. Faintly, she realised he was searching for something. What? She had no idea, but his expression seemed to cloud as he failed to find whatever it was he’d been looking for.

“Right then,” he said, and Sakura swallowed as she realised he wanted to follow her across the room to where the height measurement chart and the weighing scales were. Her worst enemies, seeing as how she was actually two rather than five. She probably ought to have still had an hour’s worth of naptime in the middle of the day. They only managed around ten hours a night if they were lucky. It was no wonder she was developing eyebags and dark circles under her eyes. She was younger, meaning she required that much more sleep, not that she cared for it.

They had a job to do, lack of sleep be damned.

“Are you aware that you’re rather small for your age?” Tobirama asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow. It felt like he was staring right through her. Sakura was half-waiting for him to tell her to get her little two-year-old backside back home. His pen was moving, noting down the measurements taken, but his eyes were locked on her. Like he was staring her down and waiting for her to crack.

Sakura refused to crack. The documentation Sasuke and Kakashi had forged were nothing less than stellar, she knew. “So I’m on the small side,” she grumbled, folding her arms petulantly. “So what? I can hold my own.”

Tobirama sighed softly. “That you can,” he murmured, and Sakura relaxed somewhat. “Alright then. We’re mostly done here.”

“Good,” Sakura said, moving towards the door. Towards freedom and her delightful brother. But a tug on the hood of her jumper had her stopped in her tracks.

“Your eating habits?” he enquired, turning her bodily around, hands reaching up to examine her face. “You live together with your brothers, and I’ve given your eldest a copy of the recommended dietary plan. Though given the fact you’re undersized…” Tobirama stared at her, contemplative for a few moments. “We can wait and see how things go for the meantime, I’d say.”

“Hn,” Sakura grunted – that being the only thing she could really do with hands twisting her face from one side to another, fingers smoothing the bags under her eyes.

“I would also recommend that you get more sleep too,” he remarked, releasing her face, a ghost of a smile curling at his lips at the pout on her face as she glared up at him huffily. She hadn’t enjoyed her face being manhandled like that. Her fingers traced the lines under her eyes, trying to get rid of the odd sensation lingering there.

Sakura huffed. She was also a medic. She knew she really ought to be getting more sleep, but there was just so much to do. “Fine, old man,” she grumbled quietly, scowling at the raised eyebrow that earned her. It wasn’t like it wasn’t true. He might have looked young, but he was much older than that. Though she was rather curious about what exactly was the reason behind his youthful appearance and the apparent longevity which came with it.

“You can be on your way then,” he said finally, and Sakura wasted no time in racing for the door to freedom and all things safer than Senju Tobirama. “Best get back to class. You wouldn’t want to miss too much on your first day.”

“Uh… Thanks?” she mumbled, hurrying out the door, clueless as to what she had actually supposed to say after all of that. He was her superior technically, so she couldn’t be too rude to him… aside from the sliver of brattish behaviour expected from a grumpy child her age.

Sasuke turned to her as she left, and Sakura wasted no time in diving into his chest, snuggling into the warmth there. It was only when a throat cleared quietly behind her that she turned, blinking as she was met with the sight of Uchiha Itachi. “Izuna-sensei sent me to collect you… the class has moved to a nearby training ground suitable for our class. Today is one of the more practical days for us all, though I do not believe we will be undertaking any E-Ranked missions.”

“Neh, you know what we’ll be doing today?” Naruto asked, leaning closer to the older boy. Given Uchiha Sasuke was the same age as her brother, Uchiha Itachi was clocking on eleven years. He would be graduating in the next year, Sakura worked out, glancing back at Sasuke. At least he’d have a year to get close to his ex-brother. “Are we doing sparring matches?” Naruto continued, heedless of the way Sakura’s head snapped around at the enquiry. Her eyes bore into his back, a grin curling on her lips at the thought of battling against her whiskered friend. Spars were excellent stress relief, especially after the stress-incarnate that came from a physical performed by Senju Tobirama. It wasn’t like she could bring herself to go all out against Sasuke, and Kakashi would probably just irritate her. Naruto was the best sparring partner candidate she had.

She was itching to make use of that fact.

Plus there was the added bonus that spars were done under a controlled and safe environment, which meant minimal injuries at worst. Ones which would likely be healed in the medical office. Though admittedly, Sakura had the strong desire to avoid that room for the time being, and the white-haired elder Senju along with it.

“I do believe Izuna-sensei had something else planned for today,” Itachi informed them, tilting his head as he glanced between the four of them as he led them out of the academy and onto the familiar dusty streets. “Though he was not expecting the four of you to join today, so it was delayed until you returned,” he explained, leading them through a crossroad junction, into an area where the trees hung over the fences segregating the training grounds. “We’re here,” he said succinctly, leading them into a training ground which held their fifteen other classmates.

“I trust Tobi-chan didn’t scare you too much,” Izuna said, something akin to a shit-eating grin on his face as he spoke the odd endearment. “Right then.” He clapped his hands together, snapping their focus back to him. “I do believe it’s time to get this little exercise I’ve had planned underway.” He smiled then, unsealing a bag from one of the sealing scrolls he carried with him. “I’ve had to call in a few favours, and nag some others, but this should be exciting for all of you.”

Cheers rang out, and Sakura could practically see the excitement shining in all of their eyes. Izuna’s ‘exercises’ were probably something most of them looked forward to. Though Sakura wasn’t entirely sure what could beat the thrill of beating someone else in a straight out spar. Sakura shrugged. To each their own.

“Now, you’ll be split into groups of four, given our number of twenty… which makes for five groups,” he said, tilting his head as he looked at the bag. “Huh. Good thing I wrote up a spare one,” he mumbled quietly. “The specialisation for today is Search and Retrieval,” Izuna continued, and Sakura chewed on her lip as she felt the first inklings of dread build in her stomach. That feeling – that instinct – never boded well. Usually it signalled the wonderfully terrible luck of their team about to bloom in full glory. Sakura swallowed audibly. Those instincts were never wrong. “There are five red scrolls somewhere out in the village, each in a different location, with each one being guarded by one of my esteemed colleagues,” he said, beginning his explanation of their tasks. “Your objective is simple… Use the clue written down to decipher the location… and then get past whichever shinobi happens to be guarding that clue. You’re to bring the scroll back here by the end of the day.” Izuna grinned then – a terrifying thing full of teeth. “Feel free to strategize, scout, gather information, and figure things out here before you make your move, but don’t forget to eat your lunches.” He tucked the scroll away then, holding up the bag. “I’ve already separated you lot into teams, and I guess you siblings can be the last team then,” he said, still smiling as he beckoned them over. “Send over one person to pick your clue and be sure to pick well.” The grin only grew more terrifyingly sadistic. “Because two of your groups are guaranteed to fail.”

“Well that sounds fun,” Naruto declared, hurrying over towards Izuna, a bright smile on his face – so contrasting to the Uchiha’s own. Truly Uchiha had a penchant for manic, twisted grins. Sakura tried not to dwell too long on the fact she was now technically one of them.

Sakura sighed. “What’s the bet he picks a really hard one?”

Sasuke scoffed next to her, a soft, reluctantly fond smile painted on his lips. “That’s a fool’s bet,” he said, ruffling her hair yet again. “Of course he’ll pick the hardest one.”

Sakura chuckled, glancing to the side at their last ‘sibling’ who was only watching as Naruto shoved his hand inside, a triumphant expression on the whiskered face as he brought out a slip of paper. “Shall we get started then?” Kakashi asked, turning to them stiffly just as Naruto re-joined their little group.

“Show us it, Naru,” Sakura demanded, chewing on her lip as they all decided to sit down to work out their clue. “We ought to figure it out quickly… then we’ll have more time to scout and plan.”

“Correct,” Kakashi echoed. The words sounded hollow.

Holding out the slip of paper, Naruto set it down on the ground in the middle of the square they had made. The writing was written in sharp striking lines, because their new sensei apparently was quite good at calligraphy. They all ought to improve on their own, Sakura knew, if only to live up to the Uzumaki heritage all of them bore. A dying heritage.

Fan the flames upon which the village was built.

Sakura frowned at the short clue. “How does that correspond to a location?” she asked, brow furrowed as she tried to pick apart the meaning.

“Flames…?” Naruto tilted his head. “Something about the Will of Fire maybe?”

“That doesn’t really correspond to a location though,” Sakura mumbled, pouting as she wracked her brains for any other meanings. “Sasuke-nii… any ideas?” she enquired, turning to her brother then, edging closer to him as he sat there, deep in thought.

“Izuna-sensei said to decipher the location from the clue…” he trailed off, chewing on his thumb as he read over the sentence again. “Not that the location was written on the paper. Meaning…”

“It’s not necessarily telling us about a place,” Kakashi finished off, earning himself a glare from Sasuke. A petulant one. “It could be a clue about where the scroll is, but that where might be on a person instead.”

“And I’m fairly certain I know what clan they’re from,” Sasuke said, voice almost lost on the wind which whistled through the trees. The skies above them were darker now – a prelude to the mood, or so Sakura mused as she tried to catch up to her brother’s line of thinking.

Their wonderful sensei was grinning at them, and Sakura shuddered as she realised he was undoubtedly listening in to all of the groups as they tried to figure out their clues.

“What clan?” Naruto asked.

“Fan the flames,” Sasuke said, and Sakura’s eyes widened as she realised exactly which clan Sasuke was talking about. How could she not? “And what clan are associated with fire and have a type of fan as their clan insignia?”

“Uchiha,” Kakashi answered for them. “Though I do believe the best part of the clue comes after that part,” he said, smiling widely – far too widely for it to be a real smile. “Upon which the village was built. Know what event Izuna-sensei is talking about there?”

“The Founding of Konoha,” Sakura answered, the dread in her stomach only building as she realised exactly where this was headed. “And who is the Uchiha widely known for being one of the founders of Konohagakure?”

Naruto blinked. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Izuna-sensei said two of us would be failing… probably because of the difficulty of the shinobi guarding those red scrolls.” Sasuke let out a breath, staring up at the sky as he leant back ever so slightly.

“And it’s just our dumb luck that we got Uchiha Madara for ours,” Sakura muttered, shoulders slumping at the thought of trying to outwit that man. A different version of the man who’d brought their old world to its knees. And now they were up against an arguably saner version with double the experience. “Oh goodie.”

Naruto only smiled. “Can we get ramen for lunch?”

Chapter Text

Naruto slurped at his ramen, cheeks stuffed full of what he called delectable goodness, while Sakura and the other two simply ate with less gusto. Ichiraku Ramen hadn’t changed all that much in that strange dimension, or so Sakura thought. There might have been one or two extra seats though, given how eight people could be seated at a time – a full two teams of genin and their respective sensei. They had occupied the leftmost four, with Sakura seating herself closest to the wall, her dearest brother next to her. It was cosy and quaint, though not particularly private, but it didn’t detract their attention from the task set out before them.

“So…” Naruto began, setting aside his fifth bowl on the polished wood counter, smiling at Teuchi as he did so. “How are we, uh, gonna do it?”

“Well…” Sasuke stirred his ramen lackadaisically. “We don’t even know where our target’s house is within the compound.”

“Infiltration?” Sakura offered, doing her best to be somewhat helpful. And perhaps make up for the sheer amount of trouble she had caused as of late. “Or we could ask someone? Make up an excuse…”

Kakashi set down his chopsticks. “There are two options for where our scroll could be. Either it’s on Madara himself, which is likely, or it could be hidden inside his residence. We ideally need to check both… meaning we need to get him outside of his house, search his house… and if that turns up nothing, then we go after the man himself when we have more of a terrain advantage than say in the middle of his house.”

Sasuke scowled. “Hopefully it’s the house,” he muttered, grimacing at the thought of what they would be up against if it wasn’t.

It was no wonder Izuna had said two of the groups would lose. Sakura felt her shoulders slump at the prospect. She didn’t want to lose. Nobody would, especially not on their first day of the academy.

“Me and Sasuke-kun would be the best option for dealing with Madara in person if it comes to it,” Kakashi said, casting a hesitant glance at the boy in question. Sakura blinked, relief seeping through her when Sasuke didn’t sneer at the older boy. Their older pretend brother.

“Neh, Kakashi-nii, what about me?” Naruto complained, opening his mouth no doubt ready to fire off question after question about why Sasuke was so much more suited to the task, but Kakashi beat him to the post.

“You would be far better at bringing in a distraction to allow me and Sasuke to slip away,” Kakashi said, smiling at him with a nod. “We can finalise the details of our plan later… and if all else fails we’ve always been fairly good at improvisation on the fly.”

“But this time our opponent is—”

“Do we have to all eat at Ichiraku’s again, anija?”

Sakura blinked, all of them stiffening for a fraction of a second, before they went back to eating. Kakashi continued speaking with Naruto, the topic of the conversation having abruptly shifted to the best flavour of ramen.

“Our luck is ridiculous,” Sakura muttered, eating the last fishcake as she acknowledged Sasuke’s grunt of agreement at the sight of four of the most notorious figures in Konoha. Including their wonderful target. Who was currently out of his house, meaning that was the best time to go and check out his house. See if their assignment was hidden away in there. But it was also a good chance to ambush the man in question what with the busy street outside.

Her mind raced, itching to find a solution, and she fidgeted on her seat, ready to play her act to the maximum. She did look like a very small child, after all, and only two out of the four who’d joined them were aware of her apparent five-year-old status. Time to use that to the advantage presented to them.

“Nii-san.” She tugged on Sasuke’s sleeve, making eye contact with Kakashi briefly – whose lips curled up under his mask at her next words, spoken in her babyish voice. “I need to go to the toilet…”

Sasuke blinked a few times before realisation set in, but their eldest brother stopped the pair of them before they could get far.

“Naruto,” Kakashi said. “You can take her.”

Blinking, Naruto leapt to his feet, ignoring Sasuke’s scowl as he hurried over to her. Together, they walked out, listening to Kakashi pay Teuchi for their meals. And for more bowls for themselves. Sakura almost scoffed. Why did all the boys on her team have stomachs like unending caverns?

Though she supposed it only helped them at that instant in time as she walked away with Naruto. “We need to search his house,” she said once they were far enough away from the ramen restaurant. “Before he finishes his lunch.”

“Kakashi-nii slipped me this before we left,” Naruto said, pulling a small scrap of paper from up his sleeve.

Sakura frowned. Kakashi had managed to write a note like that under those circumstances? Her shoulders slumped. She still had a long ways to go it seemed.

“What’s it say?” she asked, peering at the messy scrawl – though she had seen his mission reports before, so she could hardly say she was surprised. Naruto had his uses though, what with him having been that much closer to Kakashi that time around.

“Says search and then under it he wrote distraction.” Naruto tilted his head, alarmingly well-versed in Kakashi-speak. “I think he wants us to go and search the house, and then provide a distraction for him and Sasuke to steal the scroll from our target if it’s on him.”

Sakura stared at him, appreciating her brother in a new light. And to think he’d once had the lowest marks and had been incapable of following Iruka-sensei’s orders… How things had changed. She stared at the bright red hair which fell in straight silky locks, and the familiar whisker marks on his cheeks. Those dark markings were pretty much the only constants.

“I love making things up on the fly,” Sakura muttered, folding her arms with a huff. “We can’t take too long… I’ll head over to the Uchiha Compound – I’ll be able to blend in better than you ever could right now…”

“We can both head over there, neh?” Naruto looked at her searchingly, a smile on his lips. One which faded as she shook her head.

“Divide and conquer,” Sakura replied gruffly. “The average shinobi takes at most fifteen minutes to eat their so-called ‘team meal’ if they have one… and though talking might extend that length of time… we should aim for as short of a time as possible.”

Naruto frowned. “Oh,” he said, stepping back, a smile lighting up his face moments later. “I get it! I’ll figure out a really awesome distraction, don’t you worry.”

Sakura chuckled. “You’ve always been good at that kind of thing… I can’t believe I’m actually saying your pranking had some use,” she remarked, scoffing slightly at the smug look which stretched across his lips. “I’m off then.”

“Good luck!” Naruto called, and Sakura smiled as she took to the rooftops, careful to use a nearby balcony to help her ascend. There would be no more faceplanting walls for her. Ever.

“You too,” she muttered, heading over in the direction of the Uchiha Compound, noting it was in a slightly different place to where it had been before. But it had been moved after the fox had run amok… which clearly hadn’t happened that time around. Yawning, she peered at the tall walls surrounding the place, the Uchiwa painted on at equal intervals. Clan pride. The same clan pride she occasionally took part in with Sasuke. It was oddly nice to think she was meant to be part of a big happy family that time around. Before it had only been her and her parents. No grandparents – those had passed long before she came into the world – and no aunts or uncles, seeing as her parents had both been the only child of their households.

Sighing, she clocked the nearest entrance point, jumping down into the district with little fuss. There weren’t very many people walking about at that time, what with it being so close to the usual lunchtime. Thinking about it though, it was alarmingly easy to gain access. Then again the walls weren’t really meant to keep shinobi out – they were more to stop nosy civilians encroaching on the Uchiha’s privacy. They were a fairly private clan, or so Sasuke had told her. They preferred to show their love and camaraderie where less people could see it. Uchiha weren’t prone to overt displays of emotion. Unless they were the rare kind, which Sasuke had all but confirmed she was.

Just like Madara.

Her lip curled at the thought, eyes narrowing as she tried to work out where to go from there. She was in the Uchiha Compound now, but the hard part was figuring which one of the fifty odd buildings belonged to Uchiha Madara.

Her eyes darted around, spying an adult milling in the background of one of the houses nearby. Someone to ask if she couldn’t figure things out from her own observations. Stealthily, she moved through the streets – though it was less stealth and more walking like she was meant to be there. It drew less attention than trying to skulk about. Besides, if anyone asked, she was simply doing an academy project on Madara – one of the esteemed founders of the village, and the Nidaime to boot.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she made her way towards the largest house, figuring she might as well start there. He was an important figure in that dimension opposed to her last, meaning his house would likely be fairly close to the main family’s as a show of respect. Clan politics and whatnot, as Sasuke had shared with her briefly on their last fire jutsu session before their ANBU watch had apparently begun. Not that she could sense them, but with Kakashi avoiding topics about their time travel she knew there was someone watching them all. He would tell them once it was safe, of that Sakura was certain. After all, no matter how incompetent he thought she was, Naruto and Sasuke needed to know that information too.

Silently, she wished she knew more than simply how to detect and dispel genjutsu as she crouched on the roof of the building of the head family of one of her lovely new clans. She’d have to ask Sasuke once it was safe. Hopefully Orochimaru had taught him some. Or maybe Kakashi had bothered to help him there.

Sakura shook her head, chasing away the bitterness which always surged at thoughts like that one. That wouldn’t help her there. Sighing, Sakura looked at the choices of possible locations for her target’s house, eyes narrowing on the building immediately to her left. It was smaller than the main house, but that was to be expected, given Madara had no children. Well, aside from herself, not that she ever wanted him to discover that fact. She highly doubted he would be a particularly brilliant father, if he even wanted to try and parent her in the first place.

Hoping down into the garden silently, she slunk over to the nearest window, cautiously peering inside – ducking down in the next second. Because there was a red scroll placed neatly atop the low table in the room.

Sakura scowled, resisting the urge to grunt in annoyance. Because that was a goddamned trap. There was no way it couldn’t be.

Of all the people they had to be up against it just had to be Madara.

She had heard tales about his ‘Now, what will you do about the second one?’ with Gaara’s division. Her eyes narrowed that much more, and she climbed up the wall like a gecko, knowing it would be downright suicidal to try and sneak inside that room through that particular window down there. Trap it might be, but then again Kakashi had once left a bell in plain sight in front of Naruto – and it had been the real thing. He had been arrogant enough to. Madara was certainly that arrogant as well, or he would be, given how his opponents were meant to be baby shinobi-in-training from the academy. So there was a chance it might be the real scroll, and that meant she had to check.

Biting her lip, she made her way to the upstairs window at the back of the house, holding her breath when she slid the window open. No traps there. Though the open back doors were most definitely one. Perhaps he thought she was stupid? Frowning, Sakura clambered inside, clinging to the wall and ceiling like her life depended on it when she spied the fine metal wire acting as a trip line at various places along the floor. Well, there were definitely traps then… Though either she was being guided into using the ceiling as her method of access, or he had simply assumed she didn’t know tree climbing.

It was one of the few jutsu and chakra applications which Kakashi had given them the thumbs up for – the only significant other being Naruto’s shadow clone jutsu. That would only lend to their cover as secret Uzumaki given the shadow clone was a Konoha ninjutsu… which could have easily been shared with some of their Uzumaki comrades before the fall of Uzushio, and then taught to children in hiding in the event of needing to escape.

Cautiously, Sakura made her way downstairs, ears straining for any sort of noise as she made her way towards the location of the required scroll. There was no one else in the house as far as she could tell, but it always paid to play it safe. She didn’t want to be the one letting the team down. Thought firmly lodged in her mind, she made her way into the room, pulling the door to behind her – not wanting to be caught should Madara have miraculously decided to return earlier than expected.

Scanning for any sort of trap, Sakura dropped down to the floor, frowning as she reached for the red scroll. It was probably going to set off the biggest trap as soon as she touched the scroll. Perhaps something genjutsu based? She would check her chakra for disturbances after touching the scroll and handle it if it happened though—

A gloved hand clamped around her wrist, and the scroll vanished in a puff of smoke.

Her free hand was already moving, pulling a kunai from her pouch, a grim smirk on her face as another similarly gloved hand clamped around that wrist too. Seriously? A snort left her lips and she channelled her chakra to her feet, sticking them in place. She really should have seen that coming.

After all, what greater trap was there than Uchiha Madara himself?

Or his shadow clone, Sakura mused, not daring to look above neck level, grateful it was only her wonderful diamond seal which had vanished and not the perfect chakra control required for it as she flipped the older man over her head. She couldn’t make eye contact at all, and not only because of the risk of being placed under genjutsu. Her own sharingan would activate if they met an activated set. An instinctive reaction which could be controlled in time, or so Sasuke had told her.

The shadow clone didn’t pop though, instead landing on its feet, but it released her hands. Just as planned, which meant she could hightail it—

A slow clap made her freeze, spinning around to find yet another Madara there. Had he made it back from Ichiraku that quickly…? Or… Sakura blinked, retreating towards the window, avoiding the wire no doubt rigged to yet another trap as she did so. He’d left two shadow clones. Her eye twitched. Oh Madara wasn’t apparently being arrogant. No. He was being downright cautious. It annoyed her all the same. “Well, aren’t you a strong one?” he spoke in an eerily pleasant voice, so unlike that which she’d heard in the war. “But I’m afraid—”

Her hands moved almost on instinct, some sort of self-preservation kicking in as she was cornered, forming a horse seal, raging hot chakra swirling up from her belly before the room exploded in fire and bellowed curses.

Sakura wasted no time in booking it out of the window, sprinting out into the street, heart pounding in her chest at the snarl of rage which followed along with the footsteps of pursuit. Enraged pursuit. She risked a glance over her shoulder as she sprinted over the Uchiha Compound wall. No mistaking it. An oddly hysterical laugh bubbled form her lips, even as shouts came from behind her – upon noticing the fire crackling away behind them. Madara was pissed.

Perfect motivation for her legs to run all the faster.

The wait was tense, though both he and Kakashi did a good job of concealing it as they made their way through the next bowl of ramen they had ordered. They needed to keep an eye on their target, but Sasuke couldn’t deny he was getting full – and given they would need to move very quickly, that wasn’t a good thing. So he switched to listlessly swirling his ramen with his chopsticks. He should have been the one to go with Sakura. His fingers twitched, something itching at his chest as he couldn’t find the fluffy locks to ruffle. He needed them. They calmed him down. Reminded him he still had family. A precious little sister. One hand went to his chest, scrunching up the fabric of the hoodie he wore. It was the only thing which really concealed the high collar of the shirt he wore. The familiar high collar of his old shirts before everything had gone sideways.

He kept his eyes on Kakashi, tension mounting silently as he waited for some sort of signal to move. They already knew the real scroll was there, courtesy of Izuna asking him about it, eyes glinting with mirth all the while as he and Kakashi stubbornly kept eating.

They had excellent poker faces, and they were both using them to their full extents right then and there. Maybe that was why Kakashi had requested he stay? His lip curled at the thought, a sneer wanting to break out on his face—

The chair slid back with a loud creak, hands slamming down on the countertop as Madara seethed. “That little red-haired shit!”

Sasuke felt his eye twitch, even as he made a note of the pocket he slipped the scroll into out of the corner of his gaze.

“What’s the matter, nii-san?” Izuna asked, frowning then as he stood up alongside his brother, and idly Sasuke wondered what Naruto—

“She set fire to my house!”

He and Kakashi moved at the same instant, knowing from their experiences that it would be the best chance to get the jump on the deadly shinobi as he flailed over the apparent situation with his house. They weren’t about to waste the chance Sakura had inadvertently bought them to attack the older man. Who’d just had his house burnt down by his beloved little sibling. His expression shifted into something reluctantly fond as he slammed his foot into Madara’s face – or he would of, had it not been caught by the gloved hands then wrapped around his ankle. He really needed to have a word with his cute little sister about her pyromaniac tendencies which seemed to be becoming all the more prominent with time.

Sasuke slammed his eyes shut before he could spy any swirling red eyes, not trusting his new body to be able to supress the instincts to activate the sharingan. Wrenching his foot was easy, given how Kakashi had already stolen the required scroll from Madara’s pockets in an instant. Seemed he was good for something, Sasuke mused bitterly, blinking as a voice vaguely reminiscent of his cute sister rang out, scolding him for the thoughts.

Leg free once more, Sasuke wasted no time in sprinting into the street, merging with the crowd of people walking to and fro, grateful to regain the use of his eyes without the threat of Madara’s sharingan ruining everything they were working for. “NARUTO!” he yelled, praying his irritating friend-turned-brother was nearby ready with some sort of distraction. That was the only reason he could’ve been sent away. He had indulged in pranks, meaning he was good at them, and those were excellent distractions. Sasuke only prayed he had been setting one up. Or that Kakashi had managed to tell him to do so on the note he wrote in a blur of movement.

Something flew past his face then, and Sasuke had a single instant to take in the ANBU mask before a blur of pale armour flew by and grabbed it. Laughter filled the air, and Sasuke could only sigh as he spotted Naruto leaping around, armful of ANBU masks in hand as he was undoubtedly pursued by the members of whom he’d stolen them from.

Typical Naruto.

He allowed himself the fond thought for a moment or two, before he sent his attention back to the street in front of them, and the field they needed to make it back to. Diving into the crowd, he ran after Kakashi, hurrying to make it back to where they needed to be.

“Naruto!”

The familiar voice had his head snapping around, blinking as Sakura hopped into view – bounding off the walls of an alleyway, something akin to desperation written all over her face as she charged towards the hustle and bustle going on around them. The reason for her desperation soon became obvious, and Sasuke snorted as Sakura sprinted into the street, ignoring the bellow their wonderful target let out at the sight of her.

He soon lost sight of her though, what with the deluge of clones Naruto produced. His chakra was as ridiculous as ever… Sasuke shook his head, applying a henge in the space of a split second, chuckling lowly when he spotted Sakura doing the exact same. None of them were stupid. Not anymore. And they were still somewhat in tune with one another, what with the results of the ridiculous task Izuna-sensei had set for them.

Jumping over fences and racing through the streets, he made it back to the very field Izuna had assigned them their missions in, sighing in relief as he skidded over the line. His heart was pounding, a twisted grin pulling at his lips as he gasped for breath. His body needed more training, that was certain. But he couldn’t deny the thrill he’d gotten. It made his toes curl.

“Thanks for waiting for us,” he grumbled, glaring at his beanie-wearing sibling. Not that he’d ever willingly call the older boy Kakashi-nii.

Kakashi shrugged, red scroll in hand as he leant back against the nearest tree, just as Sakura skidded across the boundary line, henge popping as she resumed her spiky-haired form. “I knew you would all make it back.”

“Hn.” Sasuke grunted, hating the way his ears warmed at the implied compliment. He wasn’t some child in need of validation and approval anymore. He turned away, reaching for his cute sister, sighing in relief as his hand found its way into that soft, fluffy mop of hair. “I hear you set Madara’s house on fire,” he remarked, herding her away from the entranceway as he heard the tell-tale sounds of shinobi coming their way.

Her ears turned a bright shade of red, and she folded her arms grumpily. “Hn. Nobody said we couldn’t.”

Chapter Text

Sakura frowned, half hidden behind her precious brother as she fiddled with his hair. Holding the ribbon between her teeth, she braided his hair carefully, grinning when she finally reached the end of his hair. Truly, his duck butt had grown out, and Sasuke seemingly had no intention of cutting his hair. Something about mocking and taunting all of his future enemies with his beautifully silken locks. Sakura chuckled, tying the black ribbon in place tightly, smiling as she stared at the last five minutes of her work.

“That little brat burnt down my house, Izuna!” Madara screeched, glaring down at his brother who had been clutching his stomach as he cackled manically – as he had been doing since he caught sight of her sitting there. That had been about the time when Sakura decided it would be in her best interests to ignore them all and plait Sasuke’s pretty hair.

Some small part of her was jealous of his smoother hair, but there was nothing she could do about it. “Sasuke-nii, did Izuna-sensei say what we’re supposed to do now?” she asked, leaning heavily against his side as Sasuke played with the metal wire in his hands – some sort of dexterity improving exercise to improve hand seals. “We got back here just after lunch… and the academy day isn’t over yet.”

Sasuke glanced over at the pair of siblings – one of whom was shouting like his life depended on it, the other laughing his head off. Though Sakura could safely say Izuna looked to be only moments away from flopping to the ground and rolling about in his glee. Hashirama was giggling too, which didn’t help him with attempting to console his best friend over the loss of his house. She couldn’t tell Tobirama’s expression though. In some ways he was awfully similar to Kakashi, and not just in looks. Her shoulders slumped, and Sasuke finally answered.

“I guess we might end up doing sparring, or maybe learning some new techniques,” he said, shrugging as he wrapped an arm around her. It seemed like such a natural action, just like the cheek which nuzzled into her fluffy red locks. She never would have pictured Sasuke doing that before their jaunt through time and space. Her pre-genin self probably would have fainted at the thought.

But she wasn’t her pre-genin self anymore… well she wasn’t her old pre-genin self at the very least, so she was content in snuggling into him without much fuss. They were related after all, and they loved each other because of it. Didn’t they? Her fingers dug into the soft fabric of the hoodie he wore to hide the high-collared shirt he so loved. They were impossibly comfy, and there was something about having an option to hide half of one’s face behind it…

Sakura sighed in contentment, blandly turning her attention back to the four adults who were messing about like overgrown children at the entrance to the training grounds they milled about in. “I demand reparations!” Madara screeched, waving a finger in her general direction. “I agreed to help you out – not to let some little gremlin destroy my house!”

“Oh, stuff it, Madara-nii,” Izuna grumbled, rubbing at his stomach, a smile still playing on his lips as he rose to his feet. “You have plenty of money to repair your house. Just hire a genin or chunin team for tomorrow… or get Hashirama to do it, if you want the entirety of the building made from wood.”

“Izuna!” Madara seethed, hand bunched in his brother’s oversized collar.

Izuna grinned. “You’re just embarrassed a bunch of kids got the drop on you—”

“One of them burnt down my house!”

Izuna scoffed. “Yeah. Heard you the first time, brother, now stop complaining like a broken record and go mope somewhere else… because four itty bitty children wiped the floor with you,” he said, grin turning shit-eating as he all but purred the last few words. Sakura shuddered, stiffening as coal black eyes turned to where the four of them. Rage was palpable on his face, and Sakura tried to supress the grin which wanted to break out across her face at the thought that she’d been the one to cause it. “Sakura-chan!” Izuna called then, and Sakura felt her heart pound. Sure she might have enjoyed riling Madara up somewhat, but that did not mean she wanted to be anywhere near him in that particular moment.

“What?” she grumbled, folding her arms, stiffening as she noticed the underlying rudeness to her tone. Izuna was her superior now. She had to be somewhat polite outside of her usual petulance. “Hn. What is it, Izuna-sensei?” she enquired, detaching herself from her brother as best as she could.

“Sakura-chan, though I must say you did a fabulous job of completing the mission I set your class—”

“Burning down my house is not fabulous!” Madara hissed, bristling like a cat as both he and Izuna stalked towards her. Sakura decided to meet them halfway. Sasuke bore too many similarities to his own biological father.

“—I’m afraid my brother is rather unhappy about the manner about which you went in distracting him and his clones,” Izuna said, ignoring his brother’s interruption, breezing on with what he was saying without a care in the world. “I would very much appreciate it if you could apologise to him now, and then you can both be on your way.”

Sakura folded her arms, looking to the side as she felt Madara’s gaze bore into her. And her too-similar face. And her too familiar bushy mane. Though hers was tied back and generally in much better condition, dare she say so herself. Clearly he didn’t shampoo and condition his hair. Her nose wrinkled. “I’m sorry that your house looks better on fire,” she grumbled.

“Sakura-chan… That wasn’t quite the apology I was hoping to hear,” Izuna said, patting her head. Sakura preferred when Sasuke did that. It didn’t feel the same. “I was hoping for something more along the lines ‘I’m sorry for burning down your house Uchiha-sama’,” he continued, looking at her with a mixture of pleading and glee as his gaze flickered between her and his enraged brother.

Huffing, she turned her head yet again. “Hn. Fine. Sorry for burning down you house, Uchiha-sama, though it looks better on fire,” she grumbled, part of her taking some sort of sick entertainment from annoying half of her biological makeup.

Izuna smiled. “Well aren’t you just a cute little pyromaniac in the making,” he said, cooing at her as he ruffled up her hair, sniggering at the disgruntled look she sent his way. “Though I think all your classmates have near enough finished with their missions,” he remarked, watching as another group of four came back, red scroll in hand. “Or they’ve given up.” He nodded to a dejected group of four who were glaring sullenly at the ground. “Which means it’s time I dragged you all back to the academy. We ought to cover some theory—”

“I will assist you there then,” Madara said, sounding like he was hissing the words through his teeth. “I believe your class of monstrous gremlins need to have a lesson on the dangers of fire jutsu, and who better than an Uchiha to teach that.”

Izuna blinked. “Sorry… are my ears betraying me?” He tilted his head. “Did you just offer to teach my temporary class?” Izuna folded his arms. “Who are you and what have you done with my nii-san?”

“Brat.” Madara swatted him over the head, glaring menacingly at Sakura once more, before he left, turning sharply on his heel and walking away. His head was held awfully high though, considering his latest defeat at the hands of the four of them.

“Ooh would you look at that, Sakura-chan,” Izuna mumbled. “Seems you’ll be getting a lesson from my nii-san himself…”

“Hn.” Sakura turned then, hurrying back to her own brother as Izuna got to herding the rest of their class back towards the academy. A hand ruffled in her hair immediately, and Sakura felt her brother relax even as he climbed to his feet then and there. “We’re going back to the academy for now. Guess I’ll have to put off my spar with Naruto,” she grumbled, rolling her shoulders at the prospect of fighting their ex-blonde. Though it wasn’t like they would be able to go all-out yet. Sakura scowled. She could hardly wait for their ANBU watch to be over and done with. She needed to gain better control over her new Kekkei Genkai. Their little mission had only proven that much. If her own sharingan reacted to any other aside from her brother’s…

Sasuke’s hand slipped into her own, squeezing it gently as they made their way down the street, and, true to his word, Uchiha Madara waited for them at the front of the classroom as their afternoon class began. Not that the S Class really seemed to have set classes. After all, when one had a bunch of possibly hyperactive, crazy genius children… Sakura sighed softly, slinking over to the desk she, Naruto, and Sasuke had seemingly claimed for themselves.

“Right then,” Madara spoke, glaring at their entire class. “Thanks to a certain little red-haired shi—gremlin”—he bared his teeth, glaring pointedly at her—“today we’re going to be going over the dangers of using fire jutsu, and why you should at all costs avoid using large kinds of these jutsu indoors.”

“Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun, Kakashi-kun, and Sakura-chan,” Izuna called, striding into the classroom minutes before they were due to be unleashed upon the world. “Would you come with me please?”

Stiffening, Sakura stood along with her siblings, all of them hurrying out of the door – what with Naruto being jittery and far too full of energy. Something a good spar might solve, or so the small, sadistic part of her whispered. But still, she wondered why Izuna would call them out there. They weren’t in too much trouble or so she hoped. Madara had already covered why it would be best to not set fires to houses inside one’s home village, and also why it was bad manners to steal masks from on duty ANBU. Naruto had shifted in his seat somewhat at that. Sakura had only felt a vindictive smugness that she wasn’t the only one being called out for her actions of the day. Though she had been the sole focus of most of his glares for that little lecture. It wasn’t her fault she set fire to his house – it was his for being too good of an opponent. Not that she would ever tell him that to his face. He was smug enough as it was.

“How can we help you, Izuna-sensei?” Sasuke asked as the older man turned to face the four of them in the corridor.

“Right, well, given how you are all cute little new students of the S Class, I’ll be giving you the same mission I gave all of your classmates when they first started in this class,” Izuna said, crouching down so he was at eye level with all of them. Well, Sakura mused, hating her shortness, most of them. “It sounds simple in principle, but some of your classmates have really struggled with this.”

Naruto shifted on his feet, a bundle of nervous energy. “What is it, sensei?”

“It’s to make a friend – outside of your siblings, of course,” he added on, having spied her and Sasuke eyeing each other up as friend candidates. Though their bond was so much deeper than that. “Ideally by the end of next week, I’d like for you all to each have one new friend. Simple, isn’t it?”

Dread welled up in the pit of her stomach. Who was she supposed to befriend? Ino? Her alternate self? She shook her head. Those routes were already closed off. She couldn’t stomach being too close to that pathetic version of herself. She wasn’t strong enough. Not to mention she would only snap at them. Because she was pathetically angry. If it wasn’t her physical weakness, then it was her mental weakness. Her hands curled into fists. It wasn’t like he could force her to make a friend, she mused petulantly.

“Well then,” Izuna said, clapping his hands together as the door to their classroom slid open and all of their classmates escaped. “Find your future buddy and get to befriending them. You’ve got some time before they leave the grounds, unless they’re the type who go straight home.”

That said, he left them, wandering inside the classroom, the murmurs of noise coming from the door he’d closed behind him telling them he was talking with his brother. And splitting the pay of the B-Rank mission babysitting their entire class was worth.

Somewhat numbly, Sakura wandered down the stairs, following after Sasuke as he purposefully made his way forward. Silently, she wondered who Sasuke’s friendship target was going to be – but the answer soon became clear as her brother made his way towards the taller figure. With soft black hair tied back in a low ponytail at the base of his neck.

Uchiha Itachi.

Sakura blinked, a soft smile pulling at her lips. Of course. She should have guessed. He would want to befriend his past life’s brother. Though he would never be able to call the older boy ‘nii-san’ ever again. Sakura loathed the part of herself which was happy about that.

So selfish, that snide voice in the back of her head whispered. She didn’t want to share her brother with yet another. Naruto and Kakashi she could live with, but no more than that. They were family, and Sasuke was the most precious member to her. She wouldn’t lose him ever again.

Sasuke opened his mouth, words dying on his tongue as Itachi moved on ahead of them, and Sakura could only quash the bitter jealousy as he ran forwards, fingers curling in the high-collar shirt the older boy wore.

“Hey!” Itachi’s brother turned around at the sudden stop to his and the older boy’s journey back home. “Why’re you grabbing onto my brother like that?” little Sasuke demanded, glaring menacingly at her Sasuke.

Sasuke flinched, and Sakura could only watch as he struggled to find the words to ask for his ex-brother’s friendship. The alternate version of him glaring and shouting at him was no doubt not helping in the slightest. Which meant it was time for her to be a good little sister…

Sakura scowled, storming towards the alternate Sasuke, grabbing him by the collar of his stupid shirt. The high collar suited her much better. “Come on, dimwit,” she grumbled, dragging him away, uncaring as he choked on said oversized collar. “We should leave them to it,” she said, hating the jealousy she felt towards Itachi as her own brother sent a grateful look her way.

“Get off me!” Sasuke hissed, thrashing about in her grasp.

Sakura continued to drag him away. “Shut it, moron,” she snarled. “Sasuke-nii just wants to be friends with your brother, and he can’t manage that with you yelling and accusing him of things like the entitled little snot you come off as.”

“Your brother can’t be friends with mine!” Sasuke said matter-of-factly. “Itachi-nii is way better than your stupid brother – and I am not an entitled little snot!”

Sakura snorted through her nose. “Sure had me fooled, now shut up and stay over here with me while we let our brothers do whatever they want to—”

Sasuke slapped at her hands, biting at her fingers, and Sakura let go of him with a yelp. Pain spied from the bite marks marring her fingers, and she felt her lips pull back in a snarl. “You little shit!” she snarled, chasing after him, glee bubbling up in her chest when he spun around, terror flashing across his face as she bounded after him. “Get back here!”

His words were failing him as he stood there, hand bunched in the fabric of Itachi’s shirt. “Can I help you, Sasuke-san?” the soft, painfully familiar, voice sounded as his ex-brother turned to him, the slightest hint of curiosity gleaming in his eyes. The expression was usually very prominent in the eyes when it came to his clan. And he and Itachi were Uchiha through and through.

“Uh.” His words came out a jumble. “Izuna-sensei… just gave me and my siblings a mission,” he said, hating the terror rising in his gut at the thought of being rejected. He needed to be close to him. Needed to protect him. Needed to prevent him from being warped into—

“Foolish little brother.”

Sasuke shook his head, hands shaking, and he hated it. He wasn’t supposed to be scared. This was supposed to be his brother, but Naruto had gone and messed up that seal. His grip on Itachi’s shirt only tightened. He had interacted with Itachi easily enough the last time… what was so different about the interaction this time?

He wanted to be friends with the older boy. That was it. “I need to make a friend,” he said, making an effort to keep his teeth from clamping together. There was no going back from what he was doing. Itachi would never be his brother. He had Sakura now. All he needed was Sakura. Itachi would be but a simple friend. That was all. He couldn’t expect any more than that.

He loathed the part of him which wished for it.

“So I was wondering if I would be able to acquire your friendship,” he said, his grip still white-knuckled and shaking as he held onto the older boy like he was a lifeline. “I mean… I wish to become friends with you, and I am enquiring as to whether you would be willing. I know I may be a bit younger than you, but I would like it very much…” He swallowed thickly, silence falling between them, and he could feel those coal black eyes of family measuring him up. “Please.” He couldn’t take it if he were to be rejected.

“I am uncertain as to the prerequisites for friendship, but how would you feel as to accepting an invitation to return home with me?” Itachi offered, and Sasuke felt his grip slacken, relief seeping through him at the invitation. He could become friends with Itachi then. Friends hung out with one another at their respective homes, or at training grounds.

“I would like that very much,” Sasuke said, nodding. “Would you be amiable to my little sister accompanying us? She is… very fond of me and likes to follow me wherever I go.”

Itachi nodded, blinking placidly as that dimension’s Sasuke sprinted towards them – only to be tackled by a very angry red-haired Sakura upon reaching the pair of them. Sakura shoved his fingers into her mouth, baring her teeth. “How do you like your fingers being bitten, dimwit?” she hissed, and alternate Sasuke shrieked.

“Sakura,” he called, a smile pulling at his lips as she perked up at the sound of her name falling from his lips. “We are visiting Itachi’s home.”

Itachi only smiled, walking on ahead, pausing only to call back to his little brother. “Come, Sasuke,” he said. “We are returning home. Bring your new friend along too.”

“She is not my friend,” Sasuke shouted indignantly, but Itachi only chuckled, and he fell in step with his ex-brother then, following him as he led them an unfamiliar path to an all too familiar compound. Sakura and his alternate self followed them diligently, and Sasuke could only smile as he heard the bickering going on behind him.

They would probably be friends in no time. He remembered arguing with Naruto like that, and they had become friends. Well, somewhat before he drowned himself in revenge and angst. He closed his eyes, heart pounding in his chest as he found himself before the doors leading to the Uchiha Compound. They were exactly the same, despite the location being different. A dark lacquered wood, with regal silver handles bidding one entrance to the heart of the Uchiha’s Compound.

He could still remember opening them that night. His hands shook at the memory, but he soon jammed them into the pockets of his hoodie, hating the concerned glance it earnt him from his ex-brother. No. His soon-to-be friend. Itachi wasn’t his brother anymore. And he never would be. He needed to get that thought fixed in his head, nailed down so it would never waver.

A small hand closed around his elbow, coal black eyes blinking up at him before the look softened as a comforting smile made its way onto Sakura’s face. His hand slipped out of his pocket, fingers finding their way into the soft, fluffy hair belonging to his little sister. Cousin, technically. He didn’t care. Sakura was family. Sakura was all he would ever need, along with the soothing texture of that red hair of hers.

Itachi held the door open, looking on curiously as he ruffled his sister’s hair one last time, his entire body relaxing as the fluff brushed under his fingers. He wasn’t alone in that world. He had her, and she had him. They would be happy there, with Itachi and Sasuke as their new friends of no consequential familial relations.

Liar.

The accusation rang true inside his mind, and once again self-loathing stirred in his gut, creeping up to squeeze at his heart and bring his fears to life. He wanted to panic. He wanted to run. He wanted to be in the right dimension where everything would be OK. But he couldn’t do that.

“So who was your target for today’s mission?” Sasuke asked, figuring that was as good a topic as any to start the conversation off with.

Itachi inclined his head. “That would be Hatake Kakashi, one of the jonin of our village,” he answered. “To get the scroll from him we had to use teamwork…”

“Make a friend,” Izuna had said. “Simple, isn’t it?”

His nails dug into the skin of his palms, and Kakashi was only grateful they had been trimmed neatly. It meant they couldn’t draw blood. It meant he could scratch at non existent wounds until they bled. That task wasn’t a simple one. Not for him.

Children all around him were screaming and yelling, and Kakashi had no doubts Naruto was among that number. Sasuke and Sakura had already vanished off somewhere – but that was fine, because they would be together. They were better off like that. Far away from him and his grubby hands which always broke everything.

He stared down at his hands. He could still feel where Obito had grabbed him to yank him out of the way of that boulder. His hand still crackled white with the chidori as Rin’s blood squelched between his fingers, her heart torn to pieces in an instant.

The blood wouldn’t come off.

“The Hatake disgrace,” the crowds of people around him had whispered. “But haven’t you heard?” the slimy voice rang out inside his brain. “He’s got a new nickname now…”

“No,” Kakashi hissed, venom in his voice as he tried to push the memories away. Lock them away in a tiny box, never to see the light of day. He didn’t have time for that. He had more important things to focus on. Like Zetsu. Like ensuring their new, confusing world didn’t end up in the same state theirs had.

“Did you hear?” the voices whispered. “Uchiha Shisui’s corpse was found in the Naka River this morning,” they crowed, and Kakashi could still feel their eyes on him, burning into his head, accusing. “Wasn’t he that Hatake’s friend? His favourite underling?”

His hand went to his chest, creasing the shirt there as he felt his heart try to beat itself out of his chest. It was too noisy. Everything was. He closed his eyes, cursing his tiny new body which refused to listen to him when he said to stop thinking about those things. He was supposed to be better than that. He was the eldest one of the four of them. He was—

“Friend-Killer Kakashi.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, hating the stare the child nearest to him directed his way. Their eyes stared into him wherever he went, words like kunai to the back as they gossiped between themselves. The same gossip which had driven his father…

Kakashi shook his head, sprinting back inside the academy building, away from those accusing eyes. Like a coward. He needed space. He needed air.

He couldn’t breathe—

His back slammed into the wall of the boy’s bathroom. He wouldn’t be disturbed there, he knew. Not with every other student on their way home. Not with Naruto out there making friends. He wouldn’t get in the way of that. His breaths came in ragged gasps, a familiar panic clawing at his chest as he began hyperventilating.

“I am Nakamura Kakashi,” he whispered, struggling to get the words out of his wheezing chest as he pushed his head down between his knees. “Blood type O. I am seven-years-old.”

Panic squeezed at his chest, a hissing voice right by his ear, “Friend-Killer Kakashi,” it said, gleeful and mocking. “But you don’t have any more friends to kill now do you?”

“I am Nakamura Kakashi,” he began again. “I do not have any more friends to kill. I am safe inside the academy,” he said, fingers digging into the skin of his legs as the panic begins to ebb – the flow of pure terror drying up. He doesn’t have to make any new friends. He doesn’t have to try and fail at protecting them. He doesn’t have to watch them die.

His legs shook as he pulled himself back to his feet, and he clung to the bathroom sink, silently berating himself. He shouldn’t have had a panic attack. He was supposed to be above them. Closing his eyes, he let out a sigh. At least Naruto didn’t see. That was a small mercy—

Warm hands circled around his back and underneath his shaking knees then, and Kakashi snapped out, baring his teeth under his mask in a growl as he thrashed about in the foreign grip. He didn’t want to be touched. “Let’s get you to the medical office,” Izuna spoke, easily dealing with his frantic swipes with all the grace of a trained shinobi. “It will be calmer there…”

Kakashi stiffened, hating how weak he felt in that moment, closing his eyes as he engaged his sensory abilities, wanting to know where Naruto was. Wanting to know his brother was safe. Being a brother was far different to being a friend or a mentor. But rather than finding Naruto’s cheerful signature, he found something else instead. Someone else.

The boy who hated him the most out of their team.

And his chakra was flickering in distress, two concerned, muted chakra signatures following in his wake as he ran right into…

The Forest of Death.

Kakashi’s eyes snapped open, crimson red chips glaring at the onyx ones before he extricated himself from Izuna’s tight grasp. A hand reached for him then, snagging on his beanie hat – the only thing his sensei could grab a hold of before he was off, sprinting across the village. And towards the source of raging distress and anguish.

The kind so similar to that which he had just experienced.

Sasuke really was far too similar to himself. Kakashi felt his hands curl into fists at the thought. Though he would endeavour to ensure that the younger boy never bore a similar nickname to that which he had so long ago. He was Friend-Killer Kakashi.

He wouldn’t let his new, angry, little brother become Friend-Slayer Sasuke.

Everything had been going fine, or so Sakura had thought. Her precious brother was making fast friends with his ex-brother, and the little toe-rag which was her brother’s alternate self was driving her up the wall and genuinely making her want to punch him in the face. And knock his teeth out. How she had ever been attracted to the boy… Sakura shook her head. Clearly she’d had very poor taste – which she had happily rectified.

But then they had needed to leave to get back for dinner, seeing as Itachi, the annoyance, and their parents would soon be eating their own meal.

That was about time when everything went to hell.

Sakura could only watch as Itachi moved on an odd sort of reflex, two fingers prodding her older brother in the centre of his forehead. Her heart warmed, and she moved to put on her own sandals, but the ragged gasp of shock stopped her in her tracks.

She looked up, heart thumping as she caught sight of Sasuke’s long red braid swinging behind him as he sprinted away. As he left her behind. Sitting by the doorway, sandals pulled on her feet, she blinked slowly. Sasuke wasn’t there. Her hands shook. She was all alone. Sakura stared down at her legs, wondering quietly why they weren’t moving – why they weren’t chasing after her brother. Because Sasuke wanted to be alone. Because he’d left her behind, just as he had done on the bench. Alone. Unwanted.

Fire coiled in her gut, like a serpent waiting to strike. But she wasn’t supposed to get angry. She knew why Sasuke had left. She could understand it, seeing that forehead poke. She knew what memories he was battling against. She knew what he was coming to terms with. She knew exactly what he had lost.

But he had gained her.

She just wasn’t enough. She was never enough. Tears bit at the corners of her eyes, stomach twisting as anger faded for once, but what was left in its place wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t anything good. She felt empty. She felt miserable. She felt numb. She couldn’t feel the familiar presence of her brother at her side.

Her legs moved then, hands throwing open the door, a spiderweb of cracks appearing on the doorframe from her grip. She had to go. She had to leave. Because it was all Itachi’s fault. Because he didn’t understand how deep his claws were sunk into Sasuke’s heart.

And Sakura hated him for it.

She wanted her brother to be happy, but jealousy was an ugly thing which Sakura was far too intimately acquainted with. So she had to leave. Had to go and say sorry. Had to go before she hurt both her brother and Itachi because of her stupid puny body’s mood swings. Had to apologise for not being good enough. Had to figure out what she was lacking as Sasuke’s sister.

A hand snagged on her collar. “Can you not go a few hours without ruining something, brat?” a familiar voice hissed, and Sakura felt her lower lip wobble. She had been ruining everything as of late. Nearly blowing their cover with her temper. Causing trouble for her brothers. “Setting fire to houses and breaking doors—”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, fingers digging into the reinforced green material of the jonin vest in front of her. “Brother…” she murmured, grip white-knuckled as she tugged at the flak jacket as though it could bring Sasuke back. “Don’t leave me. Come back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Brother—”

“Shit.”

The world shifted around her, but Sakura paid no heed to it, whispering tearful apologies to the flak jacket, wishing she could get Sasuke back. Wishing that she could be enough for him to stay. Wishing he wouldn’t leave her behind ever again.

She was selfish. So very selfish.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sakura-chan?” Naruto’s voice cut through the haze she had buried herself in. Her brother. Not her favourite, but he was still family. He was precious to her. Even if she had been terrible to him.

“This annoying little shit is your sister, isn’t it?” the flak jacket said, yanking her loose and all but shoving her into her brother’s arms. “Try to keep her from breaking anything else, and ideally stop her from freaking out. She seems to want her brother,” the gruff voice continued, but Sakura was too busy burying herself in the presence of her brother to focus on the owner of the flak jacket as he walked away, long, spiky black hair swishing behind him as he went.

They hadn’t abandoned her.

“Sakura-chan?” Naruto peered down at her, black eyes wide with concern. “Where’s Sasuke? Did he leave you all alone?” His arms wrapped around her then, and Sakura sobbed into his chest.

“It’s not his fault,” she said. The words burnt her throat, shame welling up inside her. She wasn’t supposed to freak out when they left her alone. It had just been too sudden. Too soon. Just like Sasuke had left them before.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it again if he left.

The forest was silent around him when he regained control of himself. Hands shaking still as the rush of memories which had overcome him faded back into the recesses of his mind. Exactly where they belonged. He didn’t need them. Didn’t need the memories of the massacre or the torture which had followed.

Tsukuyomi.

How he loathed the word. He hated the technique even more. Sasuke supposed he ought to have been grateful he hadn’t ended up with it in one eye. He probably wouldn’t have wanted to use it if that had been the case. Not with how the aftereffects of being exposed to it still lingered.

Shaking his head, he stood up, sighing at the sight with which he was met with. The Forest of Death was almost unnaturally quiet. The wildlife around him uncannily serene as he stood there, frowning like his life depended on it. He was forgetting something, he knew. Brow furrowing, the answer came to him then.

Sakura.

Hatred curled in his gut. He had left her… all because Itachi had poked his forehead. Laughter escaped him, cold and bitter. He loved Itachi. He loved his brother. He just hated all the trauma connected to him. It made him want to grab his ex-brother by the throat and scream. But this Itachi hadn’t done anything. And he wouldn’t.

Sasuke wouldn’t allow it.

Scowling, he made to hurry out of the training ground he had instinctively fled to, freezing when he spotted the downed bear only a matter of metres away from his clearing. How had he not heard that? Though more importantly…

His eyes narrowed into coal chips, flinty and hard as he glared around until he spotted what he was looking for – a shock of white hair. Familiar white hair. A snarl pulled its way from his chest, and he was on Kakashi in an instant.

He hated him. He hated everything he represented.

But he had kept him safe while he mourned. He hadn’t interfered with his own pity party. He hadn’t annoyed him just by breathing the same air as him.

His hands bunched in the front of his shirt, yanking the older boy down somewhat before he slammed his so-called brother back into the rough bark of one of the twisted trees which grew in the deadliest forest in Konoha. “You bastard,” he hissed, fury making his fist slam into the trunk by Kakashi’s head, bitter tears daring to spill down over his cheeks. “Why do you have to make it so hard to hate you?”

Kakashi just stared at him, red eyes feeling as though they were boring into his very soul. His fingers slipped free of his shirt, and Sasuke sighed, turning on his heel to make for the nearest exit.

“I hate you,” he muttered softly, hating the silent presence at his side. “I really do.”

Chapter Text

She had felt eyes on them all of the past week. Since they had all freaked out. Since they had all been stupid. Sakura buried her face in her hands. It was lucky they hadn’t blown their cover. They were mostly lucky that Izuna-sensei had been away – with some other various jonin taking the B-Rank mission their class was. Sakura was only glad she hadn’t as of yet seen the man whose house she had burnt down again. She hated him. Hated the fact he’d seen her in her moment of weakness. When she had been vulnerable.

Sakura didn’t want to be vulnerable again, and that meant gaining a better control over her emotions and the numerous problems she had with being left alone. Sighing quietly, her shoulders slumped, heavy with the weight of expectation and failure. At least Izuna-sensei hadn’t tried to catch up with their progress on making friends. Her teeth ground together. They were all incredible shinobi, no matter their de-sized bodies, so they should have been able to complete any and every task sent their way. Pouting, she swung her legs back and forth, barely listening to the class they were having on the history of their village.

It was one of the few classes all of them were forced to attend rather than being guided outside when classes began for various topics they had already proven they were flawless in. It meant there were usually a total of two sensei – well, when Izuna-sensei wasn’t there to guide everyone out to an interesting training ground. Sakura wasn’t sure what she thought of him. He was nice as a sensei, but he was technically her uncle. Sometimes she found herself wondering about what it would be like to—

Shaking her head, she cleared that thought from her mind. They weren’t going to be finding their biological family there anytime soon, if at all. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Uchiha Madara. Especially not as his biological daughter. They couldn’t afford to be caught, especially not with Zetsu still on the loose. Shivering, Sakura thought of how he could be watching them from anywhere with those creepy yellow eyes of his. She hated him. Hated the way he could phase through any material and spy on anyone. Thankfully Kakashi would be able to sense his chakra, though it might have changed somewhat, like their own. Hers felt more like an Uchiha’s.

And it was due to that reason they wore the seals Kakashi and Naruto had finished a day or so after their arrival there. Ones which diluted the feel of their chakra somewhat or changed it enough so their relations wouldn’t be obvious, should one Senju Tobirama happen to feel their chakra. Dimly, Sakura wondered if Zetsu—

Her chair skidded back, clattering to the ground as she stood suddenly, attracting the attention of the entire class as the thought occurred to her right then and there. It was good in some ways, but terrible in others.

“Nakamura-chan?” their temporary sensei asked – a young chunin woman with silky blonde hair which made Sakura think she was a relation to the Yamanaka clan, what with her pupil-less green eyes.

Sakura blinked, retrieving her chair, sitting back down silently, ignoring all the eyes on her as she resumed her bored position without another word of explanation. She needed to talk with her brothers and Kakashi, but it wasn’t time. They needed to be in their house and behind privacy seals. Sakura was only happy it hadn’t occurred a week previously – when they had still been under ANBU watch. Those days were thankfully behind them, though Kakashi had said they ought to remain alert for the occasional drop by.

Eventually, their sensei figured out she wouldn’t be getting an answer, and she moved on with the lesson rather than trying to make her apologise. Maybe it was the expression on her face? Sakura tilted her head. She took more after Madara in appearance, loathe she admit it. Her cheeks were chubbier than ever, but Sakura figured it was less of her having a rounded face, and more the baby fat. Considering she was biologically two, though soon to be three, if the files stashed back in the safety of their home were accurate.

They had been very careful to keep the ANBU away from those. It would have ruined everything, but they no longer needed to worry about them thankfully enough.

Still, Sakura comforted herself in the fact that she had Kushina’s colouring for the most part – aside from the coal black of her irises instead of the beautiful violet-blue of the eyes in that photo. It was no wonder Namikaze Minato had fallen for her. She was beautiful. Sakura hoped she would grow up to be at least half as pretty, considering how much Madara she had in her features. Really, it was a miracle nobody had bothered to look any closer.

“Right then!” the woman’s voice cut through her daydreams, and a glance at the clock told Sakura it was time for the academy to end. Though they wouldn’t be going home. She and Sasuke had fallen into a routine of hanging out with Itachi and that dimension’s Sasuke, although the latter was a bit more begrudging to hang out with her.

Personally, Sakura suspected Itachi had a word with his brother, because the morning before that one Sasuke had even nodded to her in greeting. It had been weird, and it had made her shudder for some unknown reason. Maybe that was because of the glares she had felt at her back because of that though.

“Oy!” An elbow to her side made her look at Sasuke – not her precious brother, obviously, he would never have elbowed her so sharply – and Sakura scowled. “Itachi-nii is going somewhere with your brother, and Shisui is dealing with your other brother, just like Izuna-sensei instructed, and both of my parents are currently busy…”

“Your point being?” Sakura spoke sharply, ignoring the sharp pain in her chest and the ebb of terror which she quickly supressed as she watched her precious brother head on out with Itachi. They were getting her used to being separated little by little. Sakura had found it worked best when she knew exactly where each of her brothers would be.

It was because of that she knew Naruto was busy chatting up the entire playground – and would then head straight home by himself. Kakashi had been dragged out the morning after their freak-outs and had been made to go and see one Uchiha Shisui, courtesy of Izuna for one reason or another. Sasuke could either be found in the company of his ex-brother or wound up searching for her after he was done with making progress on their ‘friend’ mission.

She was apparently stuck with that dimension’s Sasuke for her own friendship mission, much to the annoyance of all of Sasuke’s fangirls. Sakura had spotted them once, in the corner of her eye. She was glad to see that her alternate self along with Ino weren’t part of their number. Yet. She swallowed at the thought, the image of that pink-haired green-eyed girl making her stomach roil. You’re too weak, part of her wanted to scream. The other part wanted to fold up and have a panic attack at the sight of her and everything she had lost in their jaunt through time. So staying far away from her alternate self it was.

Sakura wouldn’t risk their mission again. She wouldn’t disappoint her family again. So they would never be tempted to leave her. Ever.

“We’re going over to Naruto’s house,” he grumbled, turning on his heel and leaving them – meaning Sakura had no choice but to pull her rucksack on and chase after him. Inwardly, her heart was racing at the thought. Because going over to Naruto’s house meant coming face to face with her biological mother.

Smiling, Sakura hurried to follow him, a tense feeling unfurling in her gut when a familiar blonde with three damning whisker markings made his presence. “Hi!” Namikaze Naruto spoke, bright blue eyes staring into her coal black ones with an almost alarming amount of scrutiny. He looked so similar to her original Naruto. But his demeanour was completely different. He was just as boisterous and loud as before, only there in that dimension he held himself with confidence. All hesitancy and hurt were gone. Because he hadn’t grown up as the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. Because the fox hadn’t been set loose.

How fortunate for him, a snide part of her couldn’t help but pipe up. Sakura pushed it away. “It’s Namikaze-kun, isn’t it?”

“You can call me Naruto-senpai!” Naruto said, beaming at her. “You were that girl who was crying—”

“I wasn’t crying,” Sakura hissed, hair ruffling up at the odd gleam which had entered Sasuke’s eyes when Naruto had said that. “Those were just allergies.”

“But—”

“Allergies,” Sakura hissed, lips pulled back in a snarl.

Naruto blinked. “Allergies,” he repeated slowly. “Of course.” Sakura snorted. Clearly Naruto was somewhat smarter when it came to people skills in that dimension. Though he didn’t have the same charisma her brother had. Give and take. That was what the universe did in seemingly equal measures.

“Besides,” Sasuke intoned. “She can’t call you Naruto-senpai, dimwit,” he said, folding his arms across his chest with a huff. “She’s in the S Class.”

Bright blue eyes blinked yet again, mouth dropping open, and Sakura just about managed to catch the slight flicker of jealousy which flashed across his face so quickly it was gone after she blinked. He looked her up at down then, and Sakura only raised an eyebrow, all but daring him to comment on her lacking height and her far too puffy cheeks. “Cool!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get moved up to that class, but it’s super hard,” he said, devolving into everyday chatter as he led them to a building Sakura didn’t recognise.

The garden was fenced off, the house a mishmash of cylindrical and rectangular parts. It looked slightly haphazard, but Sakura supposed it suited the name of the dying clan which resided there. Uzumaki. It was why Naruto had ended up with his father’s surname rather than the Uzumaki name he had gone by in her old world.

“Kaa-chan!” Naruto ran into the house, and hesitantly, Sakura followed Sasuke in. Red spirals were drawn on the walls, standing out against the pale cream of the rest of the walls. The table had seats rather than cushions, it being raised far above the floor. “I brought over another friend,” he said, and Sakura blinked placidly at the realisation that Namikaze Naruto already considered her a friend. Somewhere within that short walk, she had grown close enough for him to assume that connection. Her biological half-brother counted her among her friends.

Her chest felt oddly warm at the thought.

Their makeshift family were assembled around the table when she returned. Her ears were still red, a blush staining her face from when she’d accidentally stammered out that she thought Uzumaki Kushina was pretty. Needless to say, she had extracted herself from the situation soon after, uncomfortable with being in the presence of the Hokage. One of the people they were fooling with their stunt. Namikaze Minato was known for being incredibly sharp though. Maybe that was why she had hightailed it back home at the earliest convenience.

After all, he was the one who’d assigned them an ANBU watch. And he could easily set them back upon the four of them had she done something stupid in front of him. “I had a thought today in our last class slot,” she said, breaking the oddly tense silence as she finally spoke about what had been bugging her since earlier in the afternoon. “You know, we’ve all been assuming that Zetsu didn’t end up like us for some reason,” she continued, sighing quietly at the slight confusion plastered on their faces at her wording. “By that I mean that he’s still in the black, inky form,” she added, relaxing ever so slightly as comprehension dawned on each of their faces.

“So you’re saying you think he might have ended up in the body of another of Orochimaru’s experiments,” Kakashi said, chewing on his lip as his eyes darted about the room. “But doesn’t that beg the question of where he was when the rest of us woke up.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed into flinty little chips, and Sakura could almost see his sharingan raging to be set loose. “You don’t think… Danzo?” The name was snarled, and her precious brother’s face was twisted with rage. “I’ll kill him!” The again was left unsaid.

Kakashi slammed his hand against the table with a loud thump, and the killing intent Sasuke had been radiating faded away in an instant. “It’s highly unlikely Danzo is the same in this dimension,” he said levelly. “For one, Senju Tobirama is still alive, and I doubt he would let his student commit borderline treason when his methods go against every reason the village was formed in the first place,” Kakashi finished. “He’s… likely different, loathe I admit it.”

Sasuke snarled, hands clenched into fists and shaking with rage still.

Sakura reached out, clasping one hand in both of her own, squeezing it gently. His hand unclenched in an instant, one hand slipping into one of her smaller ones, almost crushing her tiny hand with the strength of his rage. His other hand slipped into her hair, ruffling it far more gently compared to the bruising grip on her hand.

“It’s more likely that he’s with Orochimaru,” Kakashi said. “But with any luck his file will be with the others.”

“But aren’t the files locked away in the archives somewhere? That’s where those sorts of records end up…” Sakura spoke, tilting her head in question. “How are we supposed to get them? There are usually ANBU or the like watching over them.”

“Infiltration?” Naruto offered.

Sakura winced.

Kakashi grimaced. “If we want to slip in and out we ought to do it sooner rather than later – unless you all don’t mind waiting at least three months,” he said, and Sakura frowned at his words. Why would they have to wait three or so months? “You know what time of year it is, don’t you?” he continued, having evidently spied the confusion creeping across all of their faces as they sat there, deep in thought.

Sasuke sat bolt upright. “The Chunin Exams,” he said, eyes wide.

“They’re still run twice a year, and it means throughout the duration Konoha’s security will be tightened so no one is able to do what we want to do,” he explained, “also… I don’t have a good feeling when it comes to these exams. Zetsu probably wants to take the four of us out, given we’re the only ones who know what he’s up to, and with the traffic in and out of the village… If he’s like us, then it’s the best time to slip in. Even if he’s not, it’s the best time to stir up chaos.”

“So we need to be on guard!” Naruto declared, a smile on his face. “Me and Kakashi can think up some seals to help us all…”

Sakura nodded, hating the way an odd silence fell as their serious conversation tapered off, and they were reminded of the awkwardness between some of their number. Chewing on her lip, she stared down at her hand, wincing as Sasuke released it from his grasp. She cradled it to her chest, sending her chakra to deal with the slight ache. It was worth it for being a good sister.

“We’ll head on to our room then,” Kakashi said, climbing to his feet where he shifted awkwardly on them until Naruto was on his way upstairs. He wasted no time in following the whiskered redhead up, and then it was just the two of them left in the room.

Sasuke frowned, obsidian black eyes boring into her, narrowing on the hand cradled to her chest. “Your hand…” he started, fear and hurt written on his face.

Sakura smiled. “It’s nothing.”

His hands curled into fists, eyes darting down to the floor, and Sakura finally realised exactly what was displayed in his expression.

Shame.

“I see,” he mumbled, body tense and turned away from her. Sakura wished it wasn’t. She had the strangest feeling he would push her away should she try to get close to him in that instant. “Well then, we should probably go outside and train,” he said. “I’ll… teach you another jutsu tonight.”

He was a terrible brother.

He wasn’t Itachi, and he never would be.

At least Itachi had only ever hurt him when he meant to.

Sasuke was a failure – a huge, gigantic failure. Those were the only words which could describe the steaming mess he’d become. After he’d tried to be better. After he’d tried to turn over a new leaf. But change was hard.

His eyes narrowed. He would just have to try harder, he knew, no matter how the thought filled him with irritation. Because he wasn’t good enough.

He hated the part of him which screamed he never would be.

Kakashi folded his arms before the door, flinty red eyes glancing at the coal black pairs. “Right, so,” he began, a tentative smile curving underneath his mask. “Everyone know what we’re doing today?” he asked them, reminding the three of them about the plan he and Naruto had barged into their room to discuss.

Part of him had found it oddly adorable to be on the receiving end of two sets of miniaturised sharingan. The other part had screamed about how they both hated his guts in that moment. Fortunately, he hadn’t been stuck in some horrific genjutsu. Rather they had looked embarrassed to be caught cuddling up so closely – though Kakashi didn’t really understand why. Sakura had sat on Sasuke’s lap in front of witnesses before. They could be horribly affectionate in public to, what with Sasuke constantly ruffling her hair and sidling up to his sister.

“I’ll get one of my new friends to dare me to pull a prank,” Naruto said, a grin on his face at the thought. It would give Naruto a reason for being in the archives, should they have to use him as a decoy in order to escape with the required files.

Sasuke folded his arms with a grunt. “I’ll be running surveillance if I can get near the tower… but given what subject our lesson is on today…”

“You’ll be part of the group going to receive a talk from the Hokage,” Kakashi finished off. “And lastly…?” He trailed off, eyebrow raised as he glanced at the little hellraiser herself. She had burnt down Uchiha Madara’s house on their first day of classes – he was allowed to call her that inside the depths of his mind. After all, no one had to know about his innermost thoughts. Well, unless they were Yamanaka.

“I’ll be staying out of trouble by myself,” Sakura grunted, looking less than pleased at the prospect of doing just that. “Because it’ll look suspicious if we’re all involved or near the tower for too long.”

Kakashi grunted, concealing the chuckle which wanted to escape as he gently ruffled those spiky red locks. There was something about that hair which made it so ruffle-able. It was a soothing sensation under his fingers. He could almost see why Sasuke did it so often.

Sasuke batted his hand away with a hiss, replacing it with his own in a split second, but his glare was somewhat lacking to before. Softer, somehow.

They were so adorable.

Even if they hated him so.

Chapter Text

She couldn’t sit still.

Just thinking about what the other three would be doing that day had her feeling jittery. Because what if it all went wrong? What if they got caught? What if she was supposed to be doing something? What if burning down a random building would distract them from what her ‘brothers’ were doing…? Sighing softly, she kept the twitchiness of her fingers to herself, resisting the urge to breathe those wonderfully warm and comforting flames. The sight of something burning always seemed to help calm her down, for reasons she couldn’t quite place.

And it wasn’t that she was a pyromaniac, no matter what Naruto said – on the rare occasion he had caught a glimpse of her and Sasuke training together. He was usually busy with Kakashi, dealing with all the seals needed to maintain their cover. It also helped that they were posing as the Nakamura siblings, who were secret Uzumaki’s hiding away after the tragedy of what befell their clan years before.

The best deceptions were the multi-layered ones. But now it was growing risky, because they were targeting the files of Orochimaru’s experiments, and Sakura was willing to bet that Konoha’s Intelligence hadn’t managed to sift through all of his experiments. There had been far too many. Sakura’s lip curled. Proof of how lax Konoha had been in their monitoring of the goings-on in their own village. Proof of how well Orochimaru had managed to play the system.

It meant their files hadn’t been looked through. Nobody had thought of a connection between them and the lab they had broken out from upon their arrival in that timeline, nor the madman whose clutches they had managed to escape. Sighing, she swung her legs back and forth, trying to conceal the bubble of unease that came with being separated from her brothers. Sasuke. Her fingers twitched, itching to grab onto her brothers’ clothing. She wanted to pull them close and wrap herself around them. So they couldn’t leave. But that train of thought wasn’t healthy, so away it had to go, and Sakura had to learn how to deal with being alone. Because her brothers would come back, and if they didn’t, then there was nothing stopping her from going to get them. Well, aside from her own fears and doubts. She didn’t want to let them down again.

She tapped her finger against her desk, half-heartedly paying attention to the lecture on the history of the shinobi world and Konoha’s illustrious part in it. Her eyes drifted to the clock, chewing on her lip as she continued swinging her legs back and forth. Part of her wanted to scream. The hands of the clock were moving far too slowly. They should have been moving faster, because the faster time went by, the faster she would be reunited with her brothers. “Stupid,” she muttered, wincing as she tasted blood – having bit her lip a bit too hard.

Dimly, she hoped a certain white-haired Senju wouldn’t be in the medical office if she went to get the nasty cut she’d just given herself healed. She needed to practice her new differently-flavoured chakra on some fish before she went around healing herself as such. She didn’t want to take any chances – like if she had a new wind or fire affinity and wound up making her injury that much worse. Patience was a virtue. Unfortunately not one she was bestowed with, nor one which was easy for her to learn, being as hot-headed as she was. A curse of her previous temperament, the impulses of her tiny body, as well as the new genetics of both of her parents – who had both been known to have volatile tempers. She really had scored the genetic lottery. Anger, and eyes which could cause blindness and mental instability. Just her damned luck.

“Nakamura-chan!”

Sakura bared her teeth, barely refraining from growling as their instructor for the day called on her to answer a question. It really wasn’t a good day for her, or so she decided, going back to watching the precious seconds tick by until her brothers and their esteemed leader returned.

He had a five minute window, and the timer was ticking down on his watch. The seconds were rushing past far too quickly for his liking, and he and Naruto weren’t even through half of the required files. Part of him really wished Sasuke was there too, but two of them being mysteriously missing in the vicinity of the Hokage Tower… Kakashi shook his head. That would not have looked good. Not to mention Sasuke was running interference for the pair of them, in case they were noticed missing too soon.

Naruto’s sealing scroll containing his prank supplies was half unfurled and clipped to the belt he had worn that day. He would have at most two seconds to get out the paint if their prank cover needed to be used to get them out of trouble. Obviously, he was the responsible brother who had been trying to drag his brother out, and he’d be hastily apologising to the ones who found them. Silently, he prayed it wouldn’t come to that – that they would make it out of the Hokage Tower quickly and with the information they sought with no one any the wiser. That was the best outcome of their mission.

“Any possible candidates?” he hissed, flicking through file after file, trying to look for any subject which would be viable. It was likely if Zetsu had ended up in a body that it would be of the same experiment batch as they. If that held true, and Kakashi was praying it did, then it narrowed their search down to those of the same experiment, but ones completed in a different base.

Red hair, black eyes. Brown hair, purple eyes. Brown hair, brown eyes. Bob cut. Kakashi slammed that file shut as quietly and quickly as he could. It wasn’t Rin. His fingers moved, flicking through the next file, as though he hadn’t been shaken by that image. Lightning crackling in his hand, blood trickling from her mouth. “Kaka—shi,” the word a choked whisper. His eyes roved through the folder, snapping it shut, thinking on the blonde hair and the black eyes which didn’t bring up any memories. “Red hair,” he muttered. “Red hair, violet eyes. Red hair, yellow—”

His voice cut off, staring at the file of a male who would be three years his senior. Zetsu was technically the eldest of them all, so it made sense he would have been assigned the oldest available vessel. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto had been very similar in age, and the sexes of the bodies…

“If this isn’t him,” he whispered, plucking the file out, emptying its contents into the file he’d brought along for that specific purpose. A glance at his watch told him they had thirty seconds to at least be in the ventilation system. “Naruto. Got it. Get out,” he said, gesturing upwards, relief seeping through him as his little brother vanished through the space where the grate had been. Kakashi followed, soundlessly fixing the grate back into place, tapping Naruto’s leg to get him stealthily shuffling his way back towards the men’s toilet.

Just in time, too.

Sasuke tapped his foot against the floor as he stood in the middle of the Hokage’s office. “I don’t know where those two idiots have gotten to,” he grumbled, glaring up at their temporary instructor-slash-guide for while they were in the tower. Silently, he prayed the two idiots would hurry it up. He had been stalling for five minutes already. “I’m not their keeper.”

Sakamichi-sensei looked less than impressed. “You’re their brother—”

“Sorry we’re late!”

Naruto’s voice had him breathing a soft sigh of relief. They had succeeded. Naruto wouldn’t have looked so pleased with himself otherwise. Sasuke rolled his eyes. As if there was ever any thought of them failing. A snide voice in the back of his head silently listed off the many things which could have, probably should have, and would have gone wrong had it not been for their well thought out plan and the absurd luck they seemed to have when it came to events like those.

Sasuke folded his arms then, raising an eyebrow at their slightly irritated guide. “Hn. Told you he was probably in the toilet with a case of raging diarrhoea. Kakashi-nii has always tended to dote on him way too much. Probably wiped his arse for him and everything,” he muttered, moving away from the duo, fingers twitching as he found himself missing Sakura. Though it was probably more him missing the fluffy locks to ruffle. They calmed him down, and more than anything, he needed to be calm.

He was swiftly coming to terms with the fact he was a terrible brother. He’d never be anything like Itachi. Not good enough. He was never good enough. There was a reason he was just ‘the spare’. His teeth sunk into his lip, and he scowled, grunting when Naruto came to his side. “When will this be over?” he grumbled, feeling horribly twitchy the longer he stood there. “Sakura’s waiting…”

Naruto smiled then. “You’re a good brother, aren’t you, neh, Sasuke?” he spoke then, sounding so cheerful and happy.

He wasn’t. Not really.

And Sasuke had the sinking suspicion he never would be.

Sakura chewed on her lip furiously as the academy day came to a close. Naruto and Sasuke weren’t there. Her fingers twitched, and the restless ball of energy in her gut wanted to be unleashed. Preferably in the form of fire. But she had to be good and being good meant no setting fire to anything or anyone. She was a big girl, even if she didn’t look it, and it was time to put on her big girl panties and go home by herself. They hadn’t abandoned her. They would come home, and Sakura would be there to welcome them.

Nodding to herself, she made her way from the gate then, feeling oddly naked without Naruto and Sasuke there at her back. They were oddly like blankets in that way, and she felt exposed without them. She didn’t want to feel exposed. No shinobi did, and Sakura was no exception to that.

Walking was fine. Walking gave her time to mull over what to do. There was no need to do any thing other than what Kakashi had asked of her – which was simply to not set anything on fire or destroy anything. Sasuke had asked the exact same of her, and she had no wish to trouble her precious brother, so being good it was.

Lost in thought, and impulse control, it took Sakura a few minutes to notice the girl trying to get her attention. She almost slapped herself. What if that had been Zetsu? Sakura scowled. Stupid infantile body and childish attention spans…

“Nakamura Sakura.” The red-haired girl vaguely rang a few bells in the back of her mind. She was… oddly familiar, especially for someone not in her class. Sakura tilted her head. From before? she wondered. It wasn’t the same red colouring of the Uzumaki, so there was little chance they were related. The other girl’s was a more carrot-ish colour, while she and her make-shift family, excluding Kakashi, were a dark crimson. “We need a word with you!”

Sakura blinked then. “We?”

“Yeah,” another voice sounded, and Sakura only raised one red eyebrow as the tall brunette came out of the shadows.

“Hn.” Sakura shrugged, allowing herself to be herded into the nearest park where some more . It was a way to pass the time… not to mention Izuna-sensei would probably be pestering them to make more friends. Silently, she weighed up the girls before her, wondering whether she’d be able to befriend any of them. It would probably be nice to have some female friends… especially seeing as Ino was beyond her… “What’s this about?” she grumbled. “I need to get home,” she said gruffly, hating the tone of her own voice. How would she make any friends of them if she spoke like—

“We’ll make this simple then,” redhead said, proving herself to be the leader of the little group who were undoubtedly older than she was claiming to be. “Stop hanging out with Sasuke-kun!” A finger jabbed into her chest then, and Sakura hummed in contemplation as she realised a few things. She had been backed against the wall. She was being stared at by Sasuke’s fan club. She knew the redhead from her old life, given she had been the leader of Uchiha Sasuke’s fan club when the world had been normal. And not whatever weird dimension this was.

“Friendship mission from Izuna-sensei,” she said flatly, rolling her eyes at the annoyed looks on all of their faces. “My brother is friends with his brother. It’s not my fault if I end up spending time at his house, because y’know I go there with my brother.”

“We’ve all sworn to admire him from a distance,” brunette chimed in. “It’s not fair to the rest of us if you go getting all chummy with him!”

Sakura fought the impulse to say life isn’t fair. She could feel her cheek twitching as realisation swiftly set in that she wouldn’t be making any friends right then and there. “OK,” she said, letting out her breath through gritted teeth. She wanted to throttle them all and be done with it. She wanted to hurry up and get back home to where her brothers were. And Kakashi too. “I’m going to say this only once, because it’s ridiculous, so listen closely.” Sakura closed her eyes, arms folded as she enunciated her next words very carefully. “I. Do. Not. Want. To. Have. Uchiha. Sasuke’s. Babies.”

Redhead blinked at her, cheeks flushing then, and Sakura smirked.

“He’s just gonna be a friend, that’s all,” she continued. “I don’t see why you think you can stop me, or him for the matter, from becoming friends. I’m in the S Class for a reason, you know.” She stood straight, hating her lacking height. She’d eat more vegetables and proteins when she got home. Milk too. That was good for bones. “Now, if you’ll excuse—”

“You aren’t going anywhere!”

Metal flashed and her eyes darted onto the gleaming kunai which was pressed into the redhead’s hand – the other having grabbed the high collar of the shirt she had worn that day. Izuna-sensei had looked oddly like he was going to burst out in laughter when he spotted it that morning. It had been a rare warmer day, so she had foregone her usual hoodie. It was stuffed into her backpack in case of emergency, but fortunately it hadn’t been needed. It would have only been easier for the redhead – who was swiftly getting on her nerves – to grab.

“Ha! Scared, now?” redhead said, and Sakura felt her eye twitch as the overwhelming urge to punch the girl into the stratosphere rose up inside her. But she had promised her brothers no trouble, not to mention she was actually older than the other girl, mentally, if not in appearance. She wouldn’t rise to the bait. “Chiyo got these… and they aren’t the lame blunt ones you’ve been practicing with. These are sharpened.” She sneered, and Sakura balled her fists. Her nose looked so… punchable. She shook her head then. Self-control, Sakura reminded herself. She needed self-control. “That’s right! You should be scared…”

Sakura screwed her eyes shut, hating the tears of anger building in her eyes. Stupid young body which wasn’t good at holding her raging tide of anger in. She wasn’t going to let Sasuke down. She was going to be a good sister, so he wouldn’t run away again—

Fingers closed around a small handful of her hair, yanking it in front of her face, and Sakura could only blink dumbly as the kunai sliced through the air. Had they just—? Did they just—?

Control the anger, a voice chanted in her mind, sounding vaguely reminiscent of Sasuke then, and Sakura sucked in a sharp, shaky breath, quashing down the instinct to rip the brat’s intestines out. Bad Sakura. She couldn’t kill a kid, no matter how utterly homicidal she felt. Cutting her hair didn’t justify that kind of a reaction. But making the girl bald instead…

Sakura shook her head, pushing away the violent thoughts. She was going to be good, and not start any fights. Her brothers would be so proud—

“—to hide that ugly face of yours,” redhead said proudly. “Though I suppose your tomato head detracts enough from your appearance as it is.” She yanked harshly on her red locks. “Do you think it’s time we harvested—?”

Sakura smiled, teeth bared as her fingers curled around the girl’s closest wrist. “What did you just call me?” she snarled, paying too much attention to the girl’s face.

Pain bloomed across her cheek, something warm and wet dribbling down to her chin as Sakura blinked slowly. Something had nearly taken her eye out, and she hadn’t reacted. Her lip curled as redhead yanked her wrist free, turning on her heel and flouncing away. She said something then, looking insufferably smug, but Sakura couldn’t hear her beyond the ringing in her ears. Shocked, Sakura took a few moments to lift her hand, gingerly prodding at the fresh wound on the half of her face which wasn’t concealed by the new fringe she seemed to have earnt.

Her brain felt like it was working so painfully slowly as she tried to adjust to what had just happened. Her face had been cut. She stared down at the sticky red liquid coating her fingertips. Those girls had made her bleed.

“Fuck it,” she decided, ground cracking as her feet clenched in her now uncontrollable anger. A low growl ripped out of her throat, and then she was sprinting for the exit to the park. Redhead turned then, eyes widening, but Sakura was already leaping onto the bench redhead had been passing. Her hand closed around the stupid girl’s throat, and then she was hefting the imbecile up. A smile split her face then, wild and manic as she felt blood trickle down her face. “Do you want to dance too?”

Chapter Text

The urge to activate her sharingan was overwhelming. It was like an itch behind her eyeballs, and Sakura wanted nothing more than to scratch it. She could feel the smile on her lips as she stepped out of the way of the kunai, blood dripping down from her fists. Already she had broken two noses, though she had been very careful about it. She could hardly kill them by accident, should impact or broken bone stray to the brain, and she could just about control her rage that much in order to ensure they all lived to see tomorrow and beyond. But they had cut her face and her hair and threatened her person. They could live, Sakura decided, with a harsh reminder of why not to piss the wrong person off. It was a very important lesson, or so she thought savagely, so it was best to etch it into their eyeballs as soon as possible. Their lives could depend on it.

Her teeth gleamed, bared in a mockery of a grin as she wrenched one of the girls back by her long hair. They weren’t going anywhere. “Don’t you want to dance too?” she asked, some part of her feeling mushy and contented at the terrified gleam in the girl’s eyes as Sakura shoved her face down into the mud, stomping down on her hand a few times. Until she heard a lovely snap. “Ooo, there go the bones!” she whisper-sung, giggling at the whimper of pain from beneath her. “You look so much better all bloodied up…”

Water crashed into her then, sending her backwards, and she slammed into the wooden fence wall, winded momentarily. Sakura tilted her head, eyeing the ringleader, a smile curving her lips as she spied the red mark still marring her neck. It seemed there was more to her than her civilian upbringing. Perhaps one of her parents was a first-generation shinobi? Not that she really cared. It just made the fight that much more interesting. Exhilarating. She loved the taste of blood and ash upon her tongue. Part of her called for it. Craved it.

“Why are you running away?” she crooned, laughing as she danced about the field, chasing after her fleeing dance partners, stomping on as many limbs as she could. They made the most wonderful sounds. If they thought they could attack her and get away with it, they had another thing coming. “The music hasn’t finished just yet, and I’m sure I can fit in an elegy for you…” Her hand, fingers outstretched and ready, slammed into a mousy girl’s face, sending her crashing down to the ground. Another water bullet soared her way, and Sakura dived out of its path, laughing as it only soaked the idiot’s companions. It didn’t have the strength or range to do any real damage.

“You’re insane!” the ringleader yelped, and Sakura could only grin.

“You started it,” she said, stalking towards her, stopping only when she heard the pounding of feet against dry ground. She turned then, spiky red hair flaring as she spun to catch a glimpse of the runner. Another miniature water bullet soared her way then, and Sakura was forced to dodge once more. “Tch.” She clicked her tongue, scowling as one of the idiots snuck away, only a flash of black hair visible as they vanished through the gateway. “Don’t blame me if I’m the one who finishes it,” Sakura snarled, sprinting towards the other girl for the third time that day.

She startled at the sight of Sakura hurrying over, and Sakura could only grin – a vicious, sharp thing which reeked of victory. At least until sharp kunai soared towards her yet again. If she could activate her sharingan, and had enough practice with her relatively new dojutsu, then dodging them would have been a cinch. As it was, she couldn’t. Not without compromising her cover. All she could do was avoid them as best she could, and she wasn’t at her peak strength, what with her too short and small body. Metal bit into her flesh, drawing out a yelp from her, and then her hands were moving almost instinctively, despite the cut marring her shoulder. “Bitch,” Sakura snarled, chakra bubbling up in her belly, trickling up her throat as she inhaled, ready to spew out the element she so loved.

Fire roared, red and orange flames flickering as they burst from her lips, ready to burn and consume those who had attacked her. Those who had injured her. Those who had made her doubt her own strength and skill. Already she felt weak, simply because she’d been injured a few times. Shallow wounds. Ones which shouldn’t have affected her as much as they did. One of the unfortunate perks of having a smaller body. The body of a three-year-old.

The sound of a kunai slicing into the ground was the only warning she received before water exploded outwards again. Only this time the volume and strength of the burst was completely different. Fire met water and became steam. Hot steam. Sakura cried out, leaping back from the hot steam, fingers at the ready to fire off another jutsu as soon as she had a visual on her target. That girl had started it by using water jutsus, so it wasn’t like she could be blamed. Sakura gritted her teeth, hating the tears biting at her eyes. She was just defending herself.

“What—?”

The tell-tale sound of a shunshin had her spinning, arms and legs at the ready, but the sight of Izuna-sensei standing there stopped her in her tracks. There was a frown set upon his face, so unlike the usual cheerful expression, and Sakura felt her teeth grit together as she glared at him mulishly. “Sakura-chan.” He paused then, drawing in a deep breath which Sakura knew he would use to berate her. His eyes narrowed down on her, and he blinked a few times. Then his lip started wobbling.

The steam cleared behind her, revealing, obviously, that it hadn’t been the annoying girl to cast that water jutsu. Senju Tobirama stood there, the other girl at his side as his blood red eyes surveyed the damage surrounding the both of them. The bodies lying on the ground in varying states of consciousness. “Uchiha!” he growled, and Sakura flinched for a split second before she recalled the actual, recognised Uchiha on her other side. “Stop being idiotic!”

“I can’t help it,” Izuna snickered, looking away from her then, and Sakura felt her brow furrow in confusion. “The fringe…” Her hand tugged on the shorter red strands now falling down in front of her face. “Mini-Madara…”

Sakura froze, and perhaps had she not exhausted her anger, she might have lunged for the man. But she was tired, and her anger had all but left her as the fight had been brought to an abrupt halt. She had failed to control herself, her bubbling rage, and she had failed to get the situation which had led to it under control either. Maybe if she had simply swallowed her pride and pretended to be meek… But she hadn’t. Now she had a fringe, and it only emphasised the resemblance to her biological father.

“Sakura?” a small voice came from by the entrance into the field, and Sakura only blinked dumbly at her precious brother.

Then she burst into tears.

Anger stirred, burning hot in his veins as he finally managed to track his precious sister down. Truly, all he had needed to do was follow the trail of carnage and the sounds of commotion, and there she had been. She was there, standing in the middle of the little field. Bodies littered the ground, all of them still breathing, but as his eyes drank in the sight of his precious sibling – his only remaining Uchiha-related biological family, that was – he sorely wished they weren’t.

He always assumed the possessive, protective love he had harboured for both his siblings was something that wasn’t meant to be shown. When he had simply been black-haired Uchiha Sasuke, he had hidden those sorts of feelings deep down. Others wouldn’t understand. They never did. Not even Naruto knew the depth of the obsessive love Uchiha had. The love that was hardwired into them. The love that they themselves had learnt to hide as a clan. The love and loss which gave birth to a unique chakra which forever altered their eyes.

It stirred then as he stared at his precious little red-haired sibling. She looked small. Far too small. Then there were the scratches and cuts he could see littering her tiny body. She was only three-years old. Coal black eyes flickered over all the forms of the other fallen children, and his lip curled. His hands twitched, part of him wanting to draw a kunai and stab the little idiots. They had lain their ugly, dirty hands on Sakura. They had made him fail at a big brother’s duty to protect their sibling. He stepped forwards, hating the tears which glistened as Sakura cried yet again. He knew she hated crying. She hated other people seeing her cry. But that was how she expressed herself in that titchy body when things became too much for her.

He stepped forwards then, a vicious smile curling at his lips as he walked straight towards his sister, uncaring of anything in his way. Like the squishy bodies of children who deserved to be trampled on. If he stepped down unnecessarily harshly, then that was entirely his own business. “Sakura,” he said again, wrapping his arms around her then, his hand finding its way into those silky, spiky locks. He needed to calm down, and what better way to do just that than by mussing the familiar red locks which whispered of family.

“Oh, Sasuke-chan!” Izuna smiled down at him, receiving a glare in reply. “I don’t suppose you’ll be willing to escort your cute little sister back to the academy. Tobi-chan wants to ‘discuss’ what happened here…”

“We need to get home,” Sasuke said, hiding Sakura from sight as best he could as he nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head.

“Sakura-chan also needs to be healed,” Izuna said merrily, ushering the both of them back out onto the street. “Tobi and the other girls will follow along shortly.” He skipped along beside them, whistling a happy tune all the while. “Whilst fighting is allowed in a controlled environment, outside it’s frowned upon, especially for academy students. Not to mention most of those girls were unconscious, and Sakura-chan here is in the S Class unlike the rest of them… It doesn’t look good.”

“They hurt her,” Sasuke hissed, all but carrying Sakura as she huddled into him, shaking all the while. Proof of how much she had been hurt. Not all hurt was visible though. Sasuke knew that better than anyone. And he wondered what other doubts and worries were ringing around in his little sister’s brain. “You saw how many were there!”

A frown crossed Izuna’s face then. “I know,” he murmured. “It’s why we’re going back to the academy. So what happened can be figured out… and then the appropriate punishments dealt out.”

Growling, Sasuke begrudgingly allowed himself to be shepherded back onto academy grounds, and into an empty classroom. “Sakura doesn’t need to be punished,” he grumbled. “It was obviously self-defence!”

“You’re her brother,” Izuna snorted, planting himself down in the seat nearest to the one Sasuke had pulled him and Sakura to. She was sitting on his lap, sniffling still as she hid her face in his shoulder. “Of course you have to say that. You’re biased.”

Sasuke snarled, the sound cut off as a certain white-haired Senju decided to join them. Truly, Kakashi took far too much after his biological father. Though in that moment Sasuke didn’t particularly care. He hated them both.

Heavy silence settled over the pair of them as they left the academy late that evening. The sun was low on the horizon, half of an amber orb, as they made their way down the street. A white plaster covered the wound on her face. One which Izuna-sensei had told her would heal without a scar now that it had been seen to. Part of her rejoiced in that, because she was a girl, and her face was important to her. Another part of her chastened that part. She was meant to be a shinobi. Those had scars. They were also supposed to be strong. She was supposed to be better than before. After all, she had bloodlines now.

A sigh escaped her, and she thought of all she had lost to seemingly gain just that, feet skidding to a stop as – as if by magic – Haruno Sakura and her parents appeared. Haruno Kizashi and Mebuki. The familiar sounds of her mother’s laughter reached her, her father’s belly-deep chuckle greeting her, and for a moment her heart lifted. Before she heard the sound of Haruno Sakura’s voice. A reminder that they weren’t her parents.

Sasuke was all she had left.

Indeed, she could never picture Madara actually acting as a father, if a caring one at that. Then again, all her memories were tainted by his manic laughter and his warmongering ways. Her grip on her brother’s hand tightened. Her only family… well along with Naruto, and maybe Kakashi… but they were found family. Sasuke was the only true relation she had. “Let’s hurry up and go home,” she grumbled, speeding the pace of her walking up. She wanted to reach the safety and solace of their shared room that much quicker.

She wanted to snuggle up next to him and let him help her forget all about the day’s events. But, as per usual, she could never forget. The whispering voices in the back of her head never let her. They told her of her failures. Of how she was weak and pathetic. Of how she was no different to before. She had truly and utterly failed at dealing with the girls earlier, and now she was stuck on cleaning duty for the next three months. Sasuke promised to wait for her always.

She was such a burden.

Her shoulders sunk, and together they trudged back to their makeshift home. Dinner was finished and ready and waiting on the side for them. Kakashi knew of her slipup, having brought their ‘guardian’ to do the appropriate things in regarding to the conversation they’d had with Tobirama and Izuna-sensei.

Though Sakura had outright refused to go to the Yamanaka for counselling, as Izuna had offered – a frown on his face when she vehemently refused. Kakashi couldn’t judge her for that. She had learnt, on good authority, that Izuna had tried to ask him to visit the Yamanaka too. He had refused too. Ino had oftentimes told her years before that counselling only really tended to work when the shinobi wanted to be there. If they opened up somewhat. And given how precarious their place in the village was…

It was safe to say they wouldn’t be opening up to anybody anytime soon, if at all. That was just the nature of a shinobi, secretive and guarded. Well, to any bar family, or so Sakura mused as she pressed her cheek against Sasuke’s chest.

The Chunin Exams were all anyone could talk about.

Konohagakure had opened its gates the day previous, and the class was awash with conversation about the upcoming spectacle. Visitors and genin from other villages were already pouring through the place, their comings and goings closely monitored by their own village. As Kakashi had predicted, security had been tightened, and Sakura was simply glad they were no longer being watched by ANBU. She wouldn’t have liked being unable to discuss their situation and the very real possibility of Zetsu slipping into the village.

“No one goes anywhere alone,” Kakashi had ordered, reminding them of that golden rule, and it was something they couldn’t begrudge him for. It was common sense, plain and simple. If Zetsu was going to be gunning for anyone, it would be them, and they all knew it would be all too good news for the plant-turned-boy to get rid of them in one fell swoop. In fact, he was already probably tugging on the right strings to get everything in order for the grand finale of the puppet show he was putting on.

It was something they were all unanimously aiming to prevent. By killing him. No matter how deceptive his new shell looked in that photo – or the shell they assumed he occupied, at least – there was a horrendous monster within. One who cared for naught but his ‘mother’, his creator. Sakura swore she would never let him hurt any of her found family again, and that included one socially inept Kakashi, no matter her slightly negative feelings towards him at that point in time.

She had fallen into a routine by that point, what with her still being required to clean the classroom after the day was over. It was a boring slog each time, what with either Izuna or another sensei looking in every now and then – partially to ensure she was working, and partially to ensure neither she nor the other girls tending to their own classrooms bumped into each other.

Only one thing was different that day though, and she realised it immediately upon exiting the building, ready to head home. Rather than Sasuke waiting for her, Naruto was, a smile on his whiskered cheeks as he waved her over.

“Sakura-chan!” he called, engulfing her in a hug as soon as she reached him. “Shi-nii needed Sasuke, so I’m here instead…” he said, and Sakura barely managed not to scowl. She had favourites. That fact was undeniable. But Naruto wasn’t the target of her raging maelstrom of emotions, so she smiled instead, contributing to the cheery mood which soon settled over them. “Cleaning wasn’t too boring, right?” Naruto prattled on, filling the air with conversation. “Shi-nii made me clean the house earlier. Though he said I did a fan-tastic job of it.”

“Hn. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she muttered, the harsh glint in her eyes softening at the way Naruto predictably preened at her words. “Is Kakashi putting the dinner on?”

“Mhm.” Naruto nodded. “Fish and rice today, with pickled vegetables.” He made a face, but Sakura only shrugged. It was rather bland in the grand scheme of things, but a good meal all the same. “I don’t know why we can’t have ramen instead!”

“I like fish,” Sakura said, feeling rather disconnected from the walk back home as they trundled along. Part of her wondered what Sasuke was doing, always worrying and wondering about her precious brother. She looked up, the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the sudden chill at her back. The winds were picking up, bringing with them a slight hissing sound. An ill omen for the events of the finals of the Chunin Exams which were still to come.

“You can have fish in ramen—!”

Hissing.

Seal burning on paper.

Explosive tag.

Sakura’s eyes widened a moment too late as the boom rocked the earth beneath her, fire exploding through the brick and mortar of the building beside them. A hand slammed into her chest, sending her flying back over the hard ground, arms coming up to shield her face from the worst of the blast as her back slammed into the wall of another building. Dry air and brick dust caught the back of her throat, the acrid taste of smoke making her choke and gasp for cleaner air as she tried to breathe.

Her ears were ringing, a faint buzzling sound as she lowered her arms from her face. What had just happened? The world seemed so far away, along with her body, and she fought for some form of equilibrium. Dimly, she felt something warm and sticky drip down the side of her face as she stumbled to her feet. Tears leaked down her face, her skin stinging from the heat which had licked at her body and the salty tears now pouring down her cheeks once again. She was horribly weak still. Unable to react to a situation as efficiently as she should. She should have been able to get away from that explosion on her own.

The building had exploded, and she had been pushed out of the way of the surprise attack by—

“Naruto!” The word was a hoarse scream as she stared at the pile of rubble where she had been walking with Naruto. On shaky legs, she stumbled forwards, heart in her throat as she tried to run back to that pile. Where was he? Where was Naruto? “Naruto?”

A shadow fell over her then, and she looked up, staring at the figure who stood atop the mound of rubble.

Yellow eyes stared down at her, long red locks battered about on the wind which had whispered to her earlier of ill omens. Why hadn’t she listened? A snarl left her lips, the screech of a wounded animal as lips curved up into a satisfied grin. “You!” she growled, chakra making her fingers spark, eyes widening a split second later as he vanished into thin air, leaving her all alone in the street as the sounds of people coming towards them reached her ringing ears. “Naruto?” Her voice was quieter that time, a sob escaping her as she caught sight of a hand half-hidden beneath the rubble, and then she began to dig, uncaring of the sharp broken brickwork which sliced at her skin. “Naruto!”