Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A SKY FULL OF UNSEEN STARS

Sakura breathed harshly, trying to stave off the panic. She was back in time? But how? And why? She didn't want to be a child again! She'd been perfectly happy right where she was.

CHAPTER 1

REBIRTH… OR JUST BIRTH?

Sakura flailed in panic when she came to…or at least tried to. It was an utter failure due to the sole reason that she didn't have enough space to flail about in. She struggled against the constraints and tried to gasp in a much needed breath only to end up choking instead. A strong pressure was being exerted on all parts of her limbs and when she tried to open her eyes, they burned.

It was instinct to circulate chakra to her lungs, trying to take in some oxygen but to her horror, her chakra disappeared before she could get a good hold on it. What was going on? Was she being drowned, was this an assassination attempt?

Don't be ridiculous, she told herself. Of course it is. Why else would you not have access to your chakra?

She tried to hold in her breath which proved harder than expected, as if her lungs had forgotten all the training they'd received to make her capable of holding her breath for minutes at a time, aided by the rush of liquid that she'd only partially coughed out. Thankfully, when she finally gave in and took in a hesitant breath to relieve her burning lungs, though the air smelled wet and bloody, she managed to inhale some blessed air.

Her relief was short lived as the bag like structure holding her captive constricted like the coils of a snake around her and…tried to expel her from it?

Well, Sakura thought determinedly, her captors might want what had been her desire just a moment ago, but now that she had ascertained their immediate intentions, she'd be damned if she cooperated! At least this way, enough time might pass that whatever was preventing her from using her chakra and making her body so unwieldy and reluctant to follow her orders would wear off.

It was only her stubbornness and the fear of what would happen to her next that enabled her to hold out for what might have been hours. As the time passed, she grew more and more confused. She'd thought she'd get a few minutes at most, not hours! And why weren't her captors doing anything to forcibly pull her out? In the end, it was partly her curiosity but mostly the weakness of her body that resulted in her being ejected from the slimy bag among a rush of fluids.

She tried to deliver a chakra enhanced punch at the person who gripped her but to her frustration, the chakra dissipated before it even made it to her hands. Of course, when the arms held her like she wasn't a nineteen year old Kunoichi but something that could be fitted into someone's grasp like a loaf of bread, she realised what she should have known from the beginning. No wonder everything seemed so confusing, she had been drugged!

Now, Sakura would be the first to admit that she didn't need to be rescued, but why should that mean that no one was even trying? Last she could remember, she'd been dealing with a patient brought in with wounds that looked to have been carved into his flesh with a red hot knife. Even if she'd collapsed from chakra exhaustion, someone at the hospital had to have seen something!

That's fine, she told herself. I'll simply have to rescue myself till someone comes to help. I'm Haruno Sakura. I can get through this, even if I can't use chakra.

Once she'd regained her equilibrium, she tried to sense the people around her. To her relief, though she could only feel human chakra in about a metre radius, at least she could feel something. Which meant whatever chakra sealing jutsu had been used on her wasn't full proof, or at least, didn't stop chakra from being released.

It simply stopped her from being able to control it, Sakura noted with a small frown as she made another attempt to use her chakra.

She took in a deep breath, wondering when and what her kidnappers were going to do to her, and reached for the vestiges of her hard won chakra control and tried to circulate the energy inside her body, hoping to augment its flow in her brain. To her frustration, she kept losing her sense of it, it kept slipping out of her control.

While she had been experimenting with her chakra, Sakura hadn't stopped paying attention to her surroundings. Her sight was practically nonexistent as her eyes refused to focus and her hearing was malfunctioning as well, sometimes disappearing and sometimes coming back with a vengeance. It was enough to give her a headache and jut as her attempts to corral her chakra appeared to be working, a rush of blood entered her head as she was upended and then SMACK!

Sakura yowled, tears bursting from her eyes at the pain and shock of being hit on her butt. What the…? To her further dissatisfaction, her body decided to simply ignore all her stringent command to just not react and started letting out great sobbing cries. Dimly, a part of her was satisfied that her captors would be discomfited too now, but most of her was humiliated as she cried like a baby, and with so little provocation too. Try as she might, it took several minutes (or what seemed like it) to stop wailing.

Even then, the sensations that assaulted her were bewildering. Something really soft and warm was rubbed all over her skin, which brought to her notice that she was naked! Then, as if to add insult to injury, she was wrapped in what felt like a blanket. Try as she might, she couldn't make out much more than a giant expanse of off white and what felt like hands except enlarged on her skin. Her neck felt all wobbly and boneless and controlling her limbs felt like a futile endeavor as they were now tightly bound in the cocoon like wrapping around her.

Intellectually, she knew that a calm and level mind was her only recourse to escape from this situation but the mind over matter technique wasn't precisely working for her. As repeated attempts to use her chakra petered out to nothing, the terror that she tried to subdue continued to rise.

What was even more frightening was how she was being passed around from one set of arms to another. She felt like a doll in the arms of gods and it wasn't a feeling she liked. Even trying to get angry wasn't working as that made her tenuous hold on her chakra flicker out to nothing. Her growing headache just made matters worse.

Still, despite her lack of success, like a good shinobi, Sakura continued to pay attention to what the people around her were saying. It was this what gave the Kunoichi her first real advantage since she woke up.

"Here is your daughter," she heard before her sense of hearing gave out again.

What? What daughter? Was she kidnapped by a family? That might make it easier to get out if she managed to take one of them hostage, though whether she'd be in any condition to do so when the time came wasn't something she wanted to debate about.

"…beautiful," Sakura again managed to make out. It sounded like a woman, but she couldn't be entirely certain with her muddled brain, which all of a sudden seemed obsessed with food. And sleep kept pushing her eyelids closed, not that her eyes were proving to be of much use.

Still, she thought sourly. What type of amateur kidnapper, that managed to capture her, wasted time on preening? When they were going to chop her head off, not that that was an outcome she was holding her breath for, or were they going to use her as a hostage to get something from Konoha? While she'd like to think the administration would be willing to bargain, she doubted Kakashi sensei would agree to anything too important. Her sensei might have become Hokage, and he might like her, but she was under no delusions that she mattered as much as say…Naruto. Or Tsunade shishou. Or even Sasuke, what with his being the sole possessor of the famed Sharingan.

Thinking of these things made her feel worse than before so she put all of her energy in trying to blow away the fog steadily creeping over her thoughts. It was hard. All of a sudden, hunger and sleep felt like the most important things in the world and the fact that she couldn't get food or go to sleep in enemy territory made her feel off-balance and crabby. Her eyes burned and watered and she felt so exhausted and she just wanted it to stop.

Things were different when she was on a mission. Then she wasn't drugged and she was prepared for facing hardships. But being abducted from the hospital, which was almost her second home, when she'd thought she was safe and then suffering through the perplexing actions of her captors was too much.

Her helplessness reminded her of earlier days, when she wasn't the cool and composed Haruno Sensei, apprentice of Godaime sama, but simple Sakura, who despite her best efforts, just always had to be rescued. Against her will, tears started dripping down her cheeks. Normally, she knew she wouldn't be reacting like this, and this useless sniveling just made her get angry at herself, which led to even more tears, though angry ones this time.

It was while she was breathing through her mouth, her nose partially blocked with snot that something skinny was brought to her lips. And by skinny she meant skin like texture, not something thin. It was instinct, an instinct she didn't know she possessed, that made her move her head aimlessly for a few seconds before her mouth clamped down on something and she sucked. To her slight horror, something came out and entirely without her own volition, she swallowed it.

It was disgusting yet strangely fulfilling. She wanted to barf yet kept guzzling that custard like, pungent concoction. It was at that moment that her eyes focused on what was right in front of her face and things went from unclear to downright murky. Was that… skin? Was she sucking on…?

Compartmentalization was a useful skill for a shinobi. Sakura just never thought she'd be using it for this. She was hallucinating, she reasoned. She wanted to be safe and her mother reminded her of safety and hence she was imagining this up. She carefully refrained from thinking that if she was really looking for a presence to make her feel safe, shishou or Naruto would be much better choices than her dead, retired Kunoichi turned housewife mother. She wanted to be reassured, not traumatized.

She'd been paying so much attention to not paying attention, that when she slipped into the arms of sleep with a full belly, she never knew.

Sakura woke up to yet another uncomfortable feeling. At least this time, she noticed wryly, she could breathe. Her bed simply happened to be unpleasantly damp. Again, she tried to use her chakra and though there appeared to be a slight increase in her truly minuscule reserves (and how was she not dead with such a small amount of chakra? Was it even safe to use any of it considering she was clearly suffering from chakra exhaustion, though the tell-tale signs were currently missing?), her control over it was still horrible.

This, Sakura thought depressed, must be what someone with atrophied muscles must feel. Feeling depressed, in her opinion, was much better than feeling terrified out of her wits, not that they were doing her much good at the moment. She needed a plan.

The only thing she could come up with was hopelessly simple. Simply don't ingest anything and hope whatever drained her chakra in the first place wasn't repeated. Then again, Sakura thought a little desperately, simple plans were supposed to be the best right?

Yeah, she knew Shikamaru would never agree with her. A simple plan was best only when it was hidden beneath an extremely complex plan that had minimal chances of failure. And she didn't have one.

Now that she had nothing better to concentrate on, the wetness at her back and bottom practically demanded attention. She shifted in discomfort but that only pressed a slightly less soaked are of her skin in contact with the sogginess. Honestly, what was it, Sakura wondered in distaste, wrinkling her nose as she got a good sniff of something foul.

It took her an embarrassingly long time to determine that it was the smell of her own wastes. Logically, that meant the wetness was…. Now, Sakura was no stranger to human waste products, but she drew a line at lying in them.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Sakura yelled, or at least tried to. All that came out was a high pitched screech that she would never have believed issued from her own voice.

Honestly, Sakura scolded herself crossly. Did you expect something that leaves you without any motor skills would leave you in full possession of perfect speech?

All the same, she let out another cry and continued to so till someone arrived. She very carefully didn't think about what she would have done if no one had responded. It was harder than expected due to her tendency to over-analyse things. She really didn't like it, especially since this disgruntlement at being unable to control her thoughts, combined with having soiled herself… made her want to cry.

When someone did come, their actions surprised her. Honestly, she'd half expected a kick or something and an order to shut up. After all, what did people who'd abducted her care if she spent the entirety of her stay with them laying in her wastes? Hence, she was a little and only a little, she assured herself because of course she wasn't actually feeling that way, flabbergasted when they changed her wrappings, wiped her clean and dry and it wasn't even harsh on her newly sensitive skin.

To her disgruntlement, after that person had left, she slipped into sleep almost as if something else was controlling her body, or rather like someone had given her some knock-out drugs. The thought that she really disliked her captivity was the last one she had for hours as she once again fell asleep.

The days passed in a similar manner. She ate, tried a few chakra exercises and fell asleep. She wasn't harmed any more that what had already been inflicted on her and that made her hopeful that Konoha had met her kidnappers' demands and that she would soon be back home. Unfortunately for her flagging optimism, there was no such indication. Though she'd never thought it possible, soon enough, Sakura was beyond bored even when she'd been captured y enemies.

While she wouldn't say that she wanted adventure, intrigue, torture, a worthy antagonist, this nothing was its own form of torture. She'd dived into work after the War and she'd never managed or even bothered to surface. She met her friends when they took the initiative, and though she'd never been a social butterfly, she'd also never wanted to be left alone as she was now.

Normally, she procrastinated on engagements till there was no time to spare for them, made excuses that were actually plausible though she knew that if she just tried harder she wouldn't have to postpone that training, that party, that lunch…

She shook her mind clear, this was an unproductive line of thought and something she wasn't going to dwell on simply because she didn't have anything better to do. Trying to use her chakra would be a better use of her time and it was already yielding results, minuscule though they might be. She could already tell that her reserves had grown slightly with all her efforts to make the chakra move from one place to another.

This wasn't something she'd anticipated. The most she'd hoped for was being able to manipulate the chakra she did have, but while there was no improvement on that front, to her fascination, something else was happening. As she moved her chakra from one part of her coils to another, for however long she managed to do it, her body simply produced some more chakra at that point slowly, as if to compensate.

She's never encountered this phenomena before and she had suspicions that maybe she was imagining it all in the desperation to have something go her way but until she was proven wrong, she didn't disregard it out of hand. Not to say she based any escape plans on it. Even if this increase was real, it was so gradual that were she not used to storing her chakra in a seal, she wouldn't even have registered it. She'd grown hyperaware of the reserves in her body as well as supremely efficient in managing what she had and she was convinced that these were the principle factors that made it possible for her to detect this.

Still, the frequent sleeping had thrown off her sense of time. She knew that she'd been shifted somewhere else but she'd been asleep during that time, and placed in a bed with bars. Though what the bars hoped to achieve considering she didn't have enough energy to even turn over she didn't know. She wouldn't even have understood that she was in a new place if it hadn't been for the lack of significant ambient chakra. People let out chakra through their tenketsu and it was detectable for a while. Her previous location had had quite a lot of it but this place? It was practically deserted.

She had two primary abductors, she'd found out. A man and a woman though the age difference between them didn't seem so large that the woman could be the man's daughter. But what did she know, this was all based on the visual and auditory impressions she'd received, all of which were unreliable considering her eyes didn't focus and sound didn't hit her ears correctly. Or maybe there was a problem in her retinas and her eardrums were damaged. Still, she thought she would have noticed the balance impairment even though she didn't actually move. But she was drugged and even though her mental acuity seemed the same, her body was clearly suffering. And she wasn't going to make the mistake that her mind and body didn't affect each other.

…And the cycle continued with increasingly unlikely ruminations till Sakura found one day, completely by accident, that if she just scrunched her eyes like that, her vision was much clearer. It was with this new ray of hope that she realised that somewhere along the way, she'd become resigned to this place and situation.

Well, she thought determinedly. I'm not going to do that anymore. And I'm, not going to be a little damsel in distress. I'm a Shinobi. And shinobi don't give up, they only make tactical retreats to recuperate.

This resolution lasted for quite a few days till she finally managed a clear look at her snatchers. They looked…Sakura had trouble breathing. This was, this was horrible. Yeah, psychological torture was a thing and maybe she'd simply never met anyone who'd really used it on her, but there was something really wrong with people who would make themselves look like her parents on the off chance that she grew an immunity to whatever drugs she was been given.

Well, whatever safety they thought would be afforded by being in the guise of her dead parents would simply not be given. Anger filling every inch of her, Sakura vowed that the moment she got control of her hands she'd be landing such a punch on these bastards that they'd go clean through the wall. And she wouldn't even need to use chakra, such would be the power of her righteousness.

Simmering in anger and thinking wrathful obscenities at them didn't do much good but it was all she could do and so she did it with a vengeance. Her parents weren't images that they could simply put on like a mask, use and then discard like that. What did those monsters think? That she'd hesitate to hurt them because they were disguised like her parents? Well they were wrong because she had buried them and they definitely hadn't been brought back with the Edo Tensei, and even if Sasuke had figured out how to bring people back to life with his Rinnegan, he would hardly come back to the village, use it and have her abducted and then go away again without telling anyone anything.

All of which led to only one conclusion. These people might have hoped to emotionally compromise her and they might even have succeeded but never in their wildest dreams would they have imagined just what she'd do to them. The good part of being a medic and being- well she wouldn't call it inspired, but maybe…encouraged by Kabuto's achievements?-was that she was really good at hurting people. She knew the most painful spots of a human body and if she landed a fatal wound in her excitement, she'd simply heal them and start over again.

Sakura was aware that there must be a truly disturbing look on her face but she didn't care. They would pay!

However, as time passes and gradually she regained both her sight and hearing, the conversations between the kidnapper duo struck her as something strange. The height disparity between herself and the rest of her surroundings was something that frustrated her with its illusiveness of cause but after so long, she'd just shoved it to the back of her mind to be investigated when she'd thought of something new. What felt like months had passed, and to her quiet glee, she could move her hands and legs, not that she did it in front of these people. She wasn't going to let them know that whatever they had done to her was weakening. With luck, the Genjutsu muddling her senses would also lose its effectiveness and things would come back to a normal size soon.

Sakura was pretending to be asleep when she heard something worrying. Pretending because she was strong enough now that wasn't actually sleeping all the time. Someone, the woman probably, was running their fingers through her hair. It made her want to really fall asleep but she held on because this was bizarre and humiliating and though this entire thing was strange, something especially weird had to be Sound out as soon as possible.

"Sakura chan moves so little, it's worrying." The woman told the man.

"There must be a Nara in the family. She spends more time sleeping than anything else," the man replied jovially.

"This isn't funny!" The woman snapped. "She should be moving a lot more than she is by now. Something may be seriously wrong."

"If there is, we'll simply work at it till it becomes something right," the man assured her.

"I think we should take her to the doctor." While the words were a statement, they were uttered in a questioning tone.

"I did think she'd be livelier." The man admitted.

While Sakura kept her ears perked up, they changed the topic and soon enough left her alone. Once on her own, she ruminated over the disquieting news. So this meant this increased mobility she'd been experiencing was an intended effect. And by hiding it she'd done something suspicious. She would have cursed if her tongue had been capable of forming words.

And now they were going to take her to a no-doubt friendly doctor who'd know there was nothing wrong with her and while she hadn't been unduly harmed till now and certainly not interrogated, she hated to think about what would happen to her.

If they kept to character, they might comment on her cleverness but in that creepy way of theirs where they pretended they actually cared for her, in a manner which send shivers racing down her back. There were sinister connotations behind almost their every action and looking underneath the underneath as Kakashi said, all the time was headache inducing as well as terrifying in a deeply primal way.

Sometimes she thought this entire thin was a Genjutsu but just like the one distorting size, she could find no sign of it. Fluctuating her chakra wasn't something she was currently proficient in but pain was generally a better method. It hadn't worked. She'd even used the technique of focusing on something that was present both in reality and in the illusion and then discerning its true shape. Everything seemed and felt correct. It just couldn't be!

That night, and she knew it was night because her room had a window, as if for the sole purpose of taunting her and now that she could see she could make out elementary things like day and night, she didn't sleep well. It was a first in her time there. She dreamed and they were nightmares. Too realistic memories of the war and then half formed fears about things she couldn't remember, starring faceless horrors.

She woke up intermittently with sweat soaked clothes and went back to sleep only by force of will because she knew better than to waste any opportunity for sleep but it was difficult. When she woke up in the morning, she felt cranky and put up stubborn resistance to being dressed and picked up though she didn't start wailing at the top of her lungs. She'd save it for when they were outside.

The woman's blonde hair hung just above her face and Sakura felt the urge to grab hold of it. Instead of reining it in, she carried out her impulse and once the lock of hair was in her fist, she pulled hard. "Ow," the woman yelped, much to Sakura's pleasure. Her gambit to use a little chakra had paid off and the tug had been much harder than expected.

Of course, she would feel much happier if this chakra manipulation lasted long enough for her to do something useful. Like bash someone's skull in or even a simple compound fracture. She was even willing to settle for just being able to dispel this Genjutsu. Which was appearing a lot like it had been cast by a Sharingan. But as far as she knew, Sasuke was the only one with the dōjutsu left and again arose the question, why would he do something like this?

Then to her surprise, they exited the house that was exactly like the home she used to share with her parents, into bright sunlight. The man locked the door with a key but Sakura wasn't fooled. There were probably seals and jutsus in place to ensure that no one could enter or exit the place with permission.

Her captors were somewhat professional at least, Sakura realised as she noted their casual, civilian walk and the way they didn't appear to be in anything but the expected hurry to reach an appointment in time. She changed her mind though, when instead of taking sparsely populated streets, or even better, calling a medic to the house they were holed up in, the fools entered what sounded like a market place.

Shopkeepers were announcing sales to lure customers in and haggling was heard between many people. Sakura caught snatches of conversations, "500 ryo! That's practically thievery!" and "Add in two ore and I'll take it."

Sakura wondered, was she kidnapped by a Village? While there was something akin to peace in the Elemental Nations, rivalry between the Ninja Villages had only risen with more people focusing on reconstruction than the traditional tasks that shinobi were most suited for. The fact that she was still alive spoke for it and against that supposition too. A village would certainly have the resources to keep her captive as well as the confidence that they could get away with it.

On the other hand, Naruto at least and Tsunade Shishou and even Kakashi Sensei would probably go too great lengths to get her freed and the risk of collateral damage was too big for a Village to agree with it easily. They were friends with Suna and Kumo had working relationship with them but only because Sasuke wasn't really in Konoha and both Naruto and Killer B were jinchūriki.

Iwa…well they weren't on bad terms specifically but their medical program was quite bad. If they were the ones drugging her, she was sure she would have broken out with some sort of side effects by now. They weren't very good at sealing either, the other way her chakra could be kept suppressed. They were on amiable terms with Kiri but that didn't really mean anything. That meant, any village except Suna could have sanctioned a mission to kidnap her, and there were many of the smaller villages too.

Still the theory of being taken by a village was looking better and better by the moment as the two people lugging her around walked so brazenly through the throngs of people, exchanging pleasantries.

She got the shock of her life though when a woman came and pinched her cheek while cooing, "What a pretty baby! What's her name?"

The woman holding her answered, "Sakura. Her hair reminded me of the Sakura blossoms."

"What a unique colour. It looks really pretty though, Mebuki san." the cheek pincher commented.

"I know. It's a lighter shade of her father's hair." Her female kidnapper responded. But Sakura was in shock. Why did that woman call her Mebuki san? That was her mother's name! Just what were these people planning that so much emotional torture was necessary? And to include so many people too!

Then she corrected herself. This could just be an accomplice and Sakura herself was probably covered by a Genjutsu. Then again, if it had been cast to change her looks, she would have detected it. Her chakra system would have put up at least a little fight to the influx of foreign chakra.

This was so confusing. She hated it. Even all the techniques she'd learnt as Tsunade's apprentice to keep her mind intact weren't doing anything and she couldn't help feeling that her mind had gone unhinged. Why else would she have thought even once that maybe she really was a baby and these people really were her parents? That she was in the Konoha she had been born in and everything was still alright? It was a fanciful dream and she wasn't giving into it.

She was carried through the market and in front of a building that she recognized on craning her neck. The hospital! It looked…different though. The doors were in different places and it was smaller than expected. The colour was different too, instead of a white washed building, it was a light cream structure. This was strange. Then she remembered. The hospital she was remembering was the one built after Pein's attack and this one was the one that had lasted till then. Even then, when she had worked there in her apprenticeship, it had been different. Maybe Tsunade had changed a few things after Orochimaru's assault?

Or maybe, Sakura thought with a frisson of excitement, this was a mistake made by her captors and the image they had used was the wrong one. Because she didn't remember this hospital at all.

Her hopes were dashed though, as they reached the reception desk and were faced by the person who had to be Motoko san though a younger one. She remembered this woman. She had been the receptionist for so long but she'd died of wounds sustained after Pein had already brought back the dead. Or maybe she ought to call him Nagato but Nagato was the well-intentioned but misled relative of Naruto's. Pein was the monster who'd destroyed her home.

She didn't pay much attention as they were told to wait in and after a few minutes, allowed to go meet whichever doctor was in the pay of her kidnappers. Or maybe everyone was…she couldn't figure it out. This all served to only make her more confused. She could finally appreciate what people had told her before but which she had never believed. Genjutsu could be dangerous.

She was lost in deciphering her own thoughts about this while she was settled down on the examination table. She only came back to reality when she felt medical chakra enter her body. Sakura could truthfully admit she was surprised. People who could register diagnostic jutsu could also register the presence of Genjutsu that was centered on them. It was why most illusion were are effect ones which distorted what people could see in that place.

This meant…what? That the entire city was under a Genjutsu? But that was simply not possible. The amount of both control and chakra reserves required would be enormous. Try as she might, whatever she thought of that could explain her situation turned out to be something that was impossible. Right now, after what felt like months, the only thing thatcame to mind was being reborn, but then why would she have the same parents? It certainly wasn't time travel. She knew what that was supposed to do and shape changing was definitely not included.

She waited with resentful curiosity for the medic's verdict.

It came after many different types of diagnostic jutsus which she did her best to foil but was aware had worked correctly. She tried to be belligerent but apprehension was the most prominent feeling.

The woman who was the iryo nin finally said, "Your daughter has disproportionate amounts of spiritual and physical energy. While no one is perfectly symmetrical, there is such a big disparity in the two components that the only thing I can assume is that her body is not circulating enough physical energy."

The woman pretending to be her mother asked worriedly, "Is that dangerous?"

The medic shrugged while placing a placatory smile on her face, "She'll probably have horrible chakra control and never be athletic. It is possible that any type of physical exertion might lead to unconsciousness. Currently, her body is producing more spiritual energy than physical. Her production capacity is so small that making more than the bare minimal of physical energy is simply not possible."

"So she'll probably be an intellectual who go on to become the cleverest person in all the Elemental nations, right?" The Kizashi look-a-like asked with forced cheer.

"It is entirely possible," the medic agreed but the woman who looked like Mebuki said with irritation, "I don't care if she wants to grow up to become a clown. Is this going to harm her health?"

The iryo nin sounded hesitant as she answered, "Her spiritual chakra is even more than what the Nara clan are born with. While they can lead normal lives which gives hope for Sakura as well, this is an unprecedented occurrence and I cannot say anything for sure. All I can suggest is doing things with her that focus more on her body than any mental stimulation. We'll simply have to wait and see. I am going to write down a few inoculations that she ought to get since her immune system might be even worse than any baby."

And that was that. Instead of returning to the place where she was usually kept, the three of them went to a park. The man who looked like Kizashi kept her in his arms and Sakura inspected him intently. While the vantage point she was looking at him from was very different than what she'd last seen him, as far as she could tell, the man looked…just like her father. He even had that slight scar below his right ear that the man usually kept covered with make-up but which was visible right now due to her face being so close to his. She could make out the spot where the make-up was applied as the pores on his skin were invisible at that part.

This was horrifying. No because it meant someone had known her father so well that was still alive. That was impossible because the only reason she herself knew was because he'd taught her how to conceal a scratch on her face that she had been torn up about till he reassured her that he too suffered from facial disfigurements. Even her mother had only found out about the scar years into her marriage because her father used shinobi grade make-up that he used henge to purchase.

It was horrifying because it meant one very terrifying prospect might be true after all.

Sakura breathed harshly at the realisation, trying to stave off the panic that arose. She was back in time? But how? And why? She didn't want to be a child again! She'd been perfectly happy right where she was.

A/N: I have found exactly 2 Sakura back in time stories till now and I really liked them. This is an attempt at writhing my own. The other chapters won't be so boring. Sakura was deaf, dumb and blind for most of the chapter and that puts a damper on things.

Please review.