Summary: She was in the past
Secure your belts kids, this is going to be a long long ride. kakasaku endgame, but very slow burn.
After the war and its destructive path through Konoha it's time to pick up the buildings from the streets and rebuild. many of the shinobi now are helping with the cleaning and it's a mess all over.
Sakura not exempt from those orders gets up early and leaves the apartment she shares with three more ninjas. it's a difficult time in the hidden villages mostly for the quantity of hurt people from the war and usable things left, there's not much place to be and a lot of place to construct at the moment but everyone is doing their best to get back in shape.
Her forehead is filled with sweat which she cleans for what feels like the ninth time and huffs she has been cleaning debris all morning, her attention drifts to a spark in the darkness under the wreckage of the house she is currently cleaning. Sakura lifts some rocks and a door that fell over the thing. in the process she gains a few more layers of dust and grime it mixes with her sweat and it's gross, she can't really see much so she reaches into the crawl space with her hand she tries to pat and find the thing "aha!" she celebrates excitedly. The thin and papery object, she realizes is a scroll upon a second look. she holds it close to her face studying it better. It´s a little dirty and old looking from the dust but it certainly is really fancy, she doubts that the metal holding the paper is real gold but it's shiny enough to look like it. Sakura decides to leave it at the library so someone can further inspect it while she continues with her hard work.
Sakura wasn't going to look at it she is a professional! never would she open a scroll just because she was a bit intrigued of course not, she was just going to take it to the library and make it someone else's problem. but out of the blue a loud scream from Naruto a few yards over startles her. He screams at Konohamaru about something or other in the middle of the street and of course Naruto makes her drop the scroll.
Of course.
She bends, irritated by Naruto again. The scroll rolls away from her, opening on the ground and revealing some kind of seals inside. Sakura's eyebrows rise at the symbols because she has never before witnessed something like those symbols. her hand is over the scroll in the process of retrieving it as a strong wind blows harshly, her pink hair flies off of her face as the wind cools her skin and she squints to avoid any dust. in her distraction she ends up touching the seal in the center with the tip of her fingers.
The scroll comes to life suddenly, surprised and maybe worried she gasps when the scroll explodes in a blinding white all around her. the symbols turn red all at once and crawl on her hand and arm rapidly like ants, wrapping her entire body. It feels as if she is consumed as if her body caught on fire and her ashes dissolved in the strong light, it wasn't painful but it's startling and soon it ends just as fast. Sakura's eyes drop and she tries several times to open them but she is very tired, feels heavy and warm.
She falls asleep in a confused haze.
Just as she feels herself whole again, pain rocks on the side of her head. it knocks her off with force and what balance she had is lost (not that she knew she was standing) like gravity was switched off. Sakura confused tries to grab onto something and in a flailing dance of limbs not yet connected to her brain, falls to the ground. her body comes back to her senses in parts after that.
Her body is wrong on her somehow, she tries like a newborn fawn to grab the side of her hurting head, somehow she misses and slowly moves to stand. a kid's hand comes in view as she tries to prop herself up. Sakura, cocks her head perplexed she looks at the hand in surprise flexes her hand and the tiny hand moves… it´s her hand!? "what's that?!" the now little shinobi screams, she shakes her arm around like it will make it change back properly that way. It doesn't and she loses her balance face planting on the dirt.
Someone snickers at her misfortune behind her before she can hit that someone, a green-ish blur lifts her up and off the floor into a standing position. the green blur, obviously, Lee she thinks. when she finishes dusting herself off ready to offer her thanks to Lee looks at him and spats "who the hell are you?!" When Lee's face failed to be- well, his face!
Just before he made his characteristic pose she recognized who it was.
"Beautiful Konoha damsel my name is Maito Gai" and his teeth sparkled when he finished his pose, thumb in the air and all.
Her head started to swim it wasn't possible. But the evidence was clear and damming. Then she rationalized she must be dreaming obviously this was a dream. Something must have fallen on her head and now she was unconscious on the floor dreaming about tiny Gai sensei.
Must be Naruto's fault, it's always Naruto.
Sakura laughed relieved placing her hand over her chest "oh god for a moment I thought this was real wow that-" she looks at the other kid besides Gai and stops cold was that? Gai ignored her ramblings and motioned to the messy grey haired male to his left "this is my rival Kakashi he is the most difficult to beat but I have managed to win in my-" she ignores Gai and glances at Kakashi, he has both of his eyes uncovered and he's missing the sharingan but still wears his blue mask over his face and as Gai, different clothing than their grown up selves "he was the one that threw the rock but it was unintentional" Gai ends making a happy face Kakashi shows a bored face pained to be in such situation.
Sakura does the most rational thing to do in one's dream and what she excels at "stupid Kakashi at least apologize!" and her body moves faster than intended but her body is less than normal so her strength makes her fly and before her punch makes contact with him, she sees his eyes widen and his arms rise instantly. her hit on KAkashi's face is hard enough to blow him away the distance of six houses, Sakura ignores Gai's heart eyes and turns her legs moving automatically in the other direction to avoid stupid old people like Kakashi.
Pain erupted in her brain once she was far enough. Sakura grabbed the side of her head that was hit with the unidentified flying object from before, it was matted with blood.
Memories started to come to her in a rapid succession, she saw people around her and felt herself tiny again, she saw grandmother appeared but it was her mother now and she was young and the grandfather she knew wasn't there anymore but some other man her now father she guessed. Childhood memories started to stab into her brain one after the other invading her.
The pain was so great she could barely stand without grabbing onto a wall her temple was throbbing and her respiration was ragged. She hid in one of the alleys and sat hugging her knees resting her aching head on her knees her pink hair fell like a curtain while the cold, dirty wall held her she closed her eyes in pain.
When the pain and the memories stopped coming she knew this wasn't a dream and she was still Sakura Haruno.
A different person but like a page being overwritten with different ink. The memories from her real past seemed to take a step back in her mind.
Her new life, was similar to the Sakura she was barely a few minutes ago, now she wasn't obsessed with Sasuke, she was with being a better shinobi like her grampa wanted. Her friend wasn't Ino but Anko (so weird) but so alike, in a million small ways.
She was cold and felt vulnerable.
How did something like this happened? Something so big! without her consent, her whole life gone in minutes replaced with another. she was at war with herself, the past Sakura and the new Sakura felt very deep, ingrained in an equal space both memories.
In spite of being so filled with memories she felt empty, did that mean that her friends and her family no longer belonged to her? Naruto and the others forever beyond her reach? But how did it happen?
Her green eyes fill with tears Sakura stays for a long time just sitting and grasping what her life was left at, she loved other people and had other friends, but if she focused enough she still recalled her mother's smile and her father's wrinkles when he joked, still remembered Naruto on a ramen binge and Ino giving her courage, Tsunade shishou, herself as an adult. The memories were there but difficult to recall now like a dream, or a memory so old and so buried it was difficult to remember but there when she thought about it really hard.
Once her pity party was done Sakura decided to look for the scroll as it was the last thing she saw the only thing that activated some kind of jutsu, if she found it then she could go back. She dusted herself a little and began walking back.
Once she found her way that led her to the sector of houses she was cleaning just a few hours prior, her steps slowed down and stood a few houses over to the place she found the scroll before she dropped it. It looked normal, before the wreckage of the village; everything was whole if a little changed. Like when something in your room is different but you can't put a finger on what. The sight that welcomed her was an empty plot of dirt and that's when it hit her fully.
She was in the past.
Her hands closed on her shirt tightly, and her blood chilled. She was stuck here, in the past until the building was built again.