Full Summary: Sakura dies in that first Chuunin Exam, a casualty of Orochimaru. However, her role is crucial towards Naruto's whole saving-the-world thing, and her current self isn't quite what the deities need to help the Savior advance. So they pull in a recently dead soul from another world, making a deal and bribing the soul into agreeing to rewind back in time and displacing Sakura's soul when she is born. It takes a lot of arguing, but they get him to agree.

Yes, him, because the soul (once, he was Wu Jin An, written with gold and safety. Now he is Raku, written with a comfort that doesn't exist) was a transgender male in his past life, and he isn't very happy having to operate in a girl's body again. To make it worse, it's a completely different universe. "I spent the first twenty years of that life in the wrong body, so if you expect me to be smiles and sunshine being stuck into a female body again, it's not happening."

The transgender male oc-insert Sakura fic no one asked for.

Notes: I've had this story idea for about two years. Finally, it's being published. I never considered actually writing it out (I let it stay an 11k document of rough sketched plot) because of the sheer amount of oc insert Sakura fics out there, this would just be one of the many. I suppose it still is one of the many, but at least it's published lol.

It would have remained just a rough sketch until oblivion, but due to the excitement of my little sister and kei and Ao, here's the first chapter.

down the rabbit hole

Compared to Zabuza, the danger of facing this strange shinobi was infinitely greater.

Sakura could remember that, being frozen at the sheer killing intent in the air, a dozen images of her possible death swamping her mind and paralyzing her movements with pure fear. But this fight was different.

Sasuke struggled against the Sound-nin in front of her, throwing kunai and shuriken that spun in the air much like the tomoe in his eyes. He didn't look at her at all- not for assistance or to check if she was out of range. Her presence was completely disregarded in exchange for focus on the threat before him and something in Sakura drew back, offended.

He thinks I can't help, her thoughts snarled, even though we're teammates, he thinks-

Well, to be fair, she hadn't done much to prove herself in front of him lately. Then change it! the same inner voice snapped.

So, with her lips pressed in a determined line, Sakura drew a kunai and charged the Sound-nin.

A hand flickered through the air even as the stranger dodged Sasuke's attacks, piercing her defenses and a knife-hand piercing through her chest.

"Oh dear, that was a reflex," the stranger said.

"Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu," Sasuke bit on the ninja wire, flames racing down as Haruno Sakura fell to the ground-

Dead.

Breathe. The man reminded himself. I have no idea where I am, no idea who these kids are- He winced as the pink-haired one dropped to the ground, most likely dead, and the other kid collapse to the ground from a bite to his neck. From this distance, their patches of hair was the only thing that let him differentiate who was who.

"So, what's going on?" he asked his silent companion, who had been hovering next to him in the air during the whole conflict. "I would ask where the fuck am I, but considering I just saw three kids get murdered, I'm assuming hell."

Eighty-four eyes turned to him, a beat of six wings turning the being around to bear its full gaze on him. They regarded him with amusement, constantly blinking, others staring at the sky, at least a dozen watching the people a few hundred meters on the ground below them. He managed not to betray how unsettled he was by their appearance, if only just barely.

This is not Hell. Or Heaven, for that matter. The words echoed around Jin An's ears, seeming to come from every direction at once, a voice that was a cross of tolling funeral dirge bells, the roar of a waterfall, and the screech of nails on metal. This is the mortal plane.

"Well, okay then. Why am I here then?" he tilted his head in query, looking down at the ground and holding a translucent hand in front of him. "I died, didn't I? I don't remember where I'm from or who I am- but something in my mind tells me that I died."

An offer. For you.

He narrowed his eyes, and turned to the being, meeting the eighty-four eyes with only the slightest internal cringe. "What sort of offer?"

The eyes perceived his discomfort, and he got the faintest sense that they was amused at him. Resurrection. A return to your life, at the beginning. To have another chance.

Something tugged at his mind, an emotion that he labelled 'regret'. Did he have many regrets about his life? Probably. It seemed correct to say, at least. "Resurrection at what cost?"

The being looked downwards, two wings ceasing their beating to point pinion feathers sharply at the children they'd witnessed get nearly eviscerated minutes ago. Haruno Sakura. Twelve. We have ordained the boy Uzumaki Naruto as the Chosen One of this world. Haruno was to be one of his companions to aid his quest. But she has died. What you see here happened in the past.

He narrowed his eyes at the being. "Where do I come in, then?"

Haruno Sakura was unable to survive this trial. Her soul wanders, now. You died at the same time as her, in your plane. Others died at the same time, in all of the different versions of the mortal planes. But you are the most fitting to take her place.

No mincing words, now. "Why me?"

Criteria which you mortals cannot perceive.

You may have a resurrection in your own body after you live in this one. Live in Haruno Sakura's body to take her place in aiding the Chosen One to save the world. Upon your success, we will switch your souls again.

"Again?"

In order to prevent her soul from being lost in the reincarnation cycle, she will live in your body until you succeed or fail. A life for a life. A body for a body. All things must be fair. And it will start in the beginning of her life, and she in your beginning, so that you may be accustomed to this world.

"So I have to help someone save the world in return for another lease of my life?"

Correct. The being seemed pleased. He didn't like it.

But, there wasn't really any other choice, Jin An figured. Refuse, and be... reincarnated? Agree and- still be reincarnated? What the hell. At least, if he agreed, he'd have some sort of knowledge what was going on. "Will I at least remember who I am after I am reborn as that kid?"

Yes. Eventually. Babies cannot hold the mind of adults after all.

He hesitated, and looked at the pink-haired kid on the ground, a splatter of blood in the forest. "She's a girl, judging by the pronoun you're using. I spent the first twenty years of my life in the wrong body, so if you expect me to be smiles and sunshine being stuck in a female body again, it's not happening."

All the eyes blinked at once, giving the sort of impression of a visual scoff. We expect you to save the world. 'Smiles and sunshine,' as you say, are not required for that.

He couldn't resist the urge to laugh helplessly at that. "Of course not. What if I fail?"

About thirty or so eyes blinked simultaneously, something akin to amusement in the way wrinkles appeared at the corner of the eyes. The longer you live in this life, the longer you are guaranteed your life. Die young, and you will die at the same age. Die after saving the world, and fate will allow you a long life.

That was... foreboding. It did make somewhat sense, though. There wasn't really anything that he could argue against, was there? "I agree, then."

Haruno Sakura was a precious child, bright and loveable. Four years old and happy and smiling as she bounced in the street next to her mother, chattering happily - curiously - about a sight she had seen in the market that they had just gone to. "They were walking on the walls, okaa-san! How do they do that? I tried to walk on the wall earlier and I fell-!"

Her mother, Haruno Mebuki, gave a slightly pained smile at her, unfortunately used to Sakura's antics and ceaseless need to know. "I'm not sure, dear. Shinobi can do things normal people can't."

"But shinobi are people too!" Sakura insisted, "They're just a lot more kick-as-"

"Language," Mebuki reminded. Sakura's mouth closed and she tilted her head in confusion. "Little girls shouldn't swear."

Sakura looked up at her mother, face painted over with utter confusion. "But I didn't swear, okaa-san?"

Sometimes, Mebuki wondered exactly where Sakura got her vocabulary from. Surely not her father- Kaito never swore in the house- and surely not her thin children's books. Sakura rarely went outside without her, too, so it couldn't have been from the neighborhood kids. (They lived in a respectable neighborhood, after all.) "Just don't say words like kick-ass, dear," she chided.

The child paused, mouth forming an 'o'. "Okay, okaa-san! Well shinobi are people too, but they're just fucking hardcore, is all-"

Mebuki froze in her steps, turning the full brunt of her shocked gaze on her daughter. "SAKURA!"

"But... I didn't use kick-ass?" was the reply. Sakura didn't understand why okaa-san didn't want her to talk. She wasn't using bad words! She didn't use bad words. Some of her words made okaa-san mad, though. Which didn't make sense, because words were just words and Sakura heard the ones that made okaa-san mad all the time in her dreams so-

Seeing her daughter's face scrunched up in perfect confusion though, Mebuki sighed again. One day, she would find out where her daughter learned her swears from. Not today though. Not now. They were hosting a dinner with some business partners tonight, and she didn't have time to ask Sakura the origin of 'kick-ass' and 'fucking hardcore'. And 'shitstain' and 'asshat' and-

The list made Mebuki want to groan. I'll just think about it some other time. "No using," she winced at having to say it herself, "'fuck' or the like, Sakura. Proper little girls don't use that words."

A peculiar expression came across Sakura's face, but it passed away a moment later. "Yes, okaa-san," she said obediently, and lowered her head to look at the ground as they walked.

For some reason, when okaa-san said 'proper little girls', something in Sakura had risen up, dark and snarling and full of old pain. I am not-

She shook her head of the strange voice and concentrated on putting her feet in front of each other as she walked, the way that okaa-san insisted that proper little girls walked.

The strange discontent was still in the back of her mind, though.

It wasn't much longer until they arrived home. "Hello, otou-san," she greeted once they entered, voice coming out in a mumble rather than the usual cheer anyone was used to hearing.

Her father raised an eyebrow at this, cup of tea paused at his lips. "Did something happen, Sakura?"

She shook her head, silent, and dragged one of the grocery bags to the kitchen. Haruno Kaito shot his wife a concerned expression, and Mebuki sighed, taking a seat across from him and pouring herself a cup of tea. She waited for Sakura to finish putting some of the food away and head upstairs to her room before opening discussion. "She's a bright girl."

"Of course she is," Kaito agreed, pink hair bobbing as he nodded. "One of my friends in the academy said that if we still wanted to enter her early, we would be able to." Civilian academy, obviously. Thankfully, their only child had never professed an interest in becoming a shinobi, no matter how curious she was about how shinobi could do things.

"She would make a wonderful wife someday," Mebuki added, "her language bothers me, though. No matter how many words I tell her not to use, she keeps coming up with new ones! It's appalling, frankly. And she always says she learned them from her dreams."

Kaito shrugged. "She must have unconsciously picked it up from people when she goes outside."

"She doesn't go outside often."

A wince. "Well, she'll grow out of it, surely? She's only four, after all. The Batsumo heir throws tantrums and doesn't behave at etiquette lessons, I hear. I would rather deal with Sakura's swearing rather than deal with tantrums."

Mebuki sighed with a sort of helpless agreement. "I suppose you're right, dear. I'll just have to keep teaching her what not to say. Her language, my goodness..."

It never quite occurred to them that most of the time, they had to teach Sakura what not to say rather than what to say.

She was in the City again.

Sakura flailed a bit on the sidewalk as people streamed around her, going their different ways with all their different lives. It was hard to dodge their legs, especially as no one seemed to notice her.

With great difficulty, she weaved through the crowd, occasionally looking upwards at the grand constructs all around her. The City was always so much different than Konoha. Buildings as tall as the Hokage Tower everywhere, except made of metal like knives were. Glass in big windows that showed into shops with clothes and foods she couldn't see walking down the marketplace with her mother. Outfits called 'suits' that people like her otou-san wore, except otou-san wore haori and hakama when doing his formal meetings. Suits looked much nicer, in Sakura's opinion.

She wondered why no one in Konoha wore suits. Maybe because it wasn't as cold in Konoha as the City?

Colors, too. Konoha was full of the brown of roof-tiles and the dirt road- nothing like the shiny grey steel roofs or the black asphalt here. Bright lights everywhere, shining on massive advertisements for expensive products. Even the people! Everyone in Konoha looked a little alike, with brown or black hair and pale skin. Some people had darker skin, or had strange hair like Sakura's own pink. But here, people came in more shades than she could count, and there was red brown yellow black everywhere. They wore strange clothes, like fat jackets with fat fur hoods and some blue pants called jeans.

Pinching her pale yellow sleeping-dress, Sakura looked at a woman walking by, in her own comfortable fat jacket and jeans. She wished she could wear them too.

Eventually, she found herself in front of the Bar. "So it's a Bar dream!" she realized aloud, a bit belatedly. She knew that that hot-dog vendor was familiar! She always passed him when coming to the Bar.

The Bar was named Moonshine Fountain, judging by the silvery curling script on its windows. It was easier to call it the Bar, though. All of her dreams took place in either the City or the Town, and most of the City dreams led her to the Bar, or to the Apartment, with some exceptions.

Darting in behind someone, Sakura hopped onto a table just as a beer bottle smashed on the wall next to her. "You missed, you bastard!" someone yelled gleefully.

"Watch my fist miss your pretty face, son of a bitch Jin!"

Sakura's eyes fixed on the man in the center of the Bar, the man she always dreamt about. He was laughing as someone charged him, a portly round man whose face was red with either alcohol or anger. Both, Sakura guessed.

Jin An threw his head back to finish his shot-glass, and slid out of the way quite easily. "Missed again, Frank!" Another roar, and this time all it took was a flick of a wrist and Jin An sent him sprawling into another table, knocking over several drinks and causing two people to get to their feet with displeased expressions. Sakura put her hands on her knees and smiled at the scene. A Bar fight, something she wasn't unfamiliar with. All the Bar fights were a little different, but they all ended the same- Jin An standing strong and dancing out into the City, laughing and smiling and happy.

Sakura had to tilt her head when another beer bottle flew past her head, concentrating on the whirlwind of fists and kicks and elbows. Watching him fight was always nice. It was mindless, easy and entertaining, and-

"You shouldn't be here, kid," someone said.

Sakura blinked and turned to the side. Jin An stood there, looking at her with crossed arms and a non-expression. She looked back at the fight, and he was there too, long hair snapping through the air with his snap-kicks and dislocating of people's arms. Looked again at the one next to her and asked, "Why are there two of you, ojii-san?"

Wu Jin An- Jin An for short, smiled down at her. "Because this is a dream, of course. And dreams don't make sense, do they Sakura?"

He was right, they never did. Sometimes she dreamt of Jin An when he was a little girl like her, sometimes a young boy who hated his body, sometimes an adult, comfortable and calm and at ease with his life. She hopped down from the table, and put her hand in his offered one.

They stepped back outside into the City, and the world shifted, colors and laughter and crashes blurring into nothing before reforming around them again, to something different. Only Jin An stayed the same.

They were in the Town now, in the House. Sakura hated dreaming about the House, she always felt cold there. Jin An always looked awful, too. Looking up at him again, she observed his expression to see if he was unhappy as the younger him usually was. His face gave away nothing.

The younger Jin An had short hair in a bob, and was loud and energetic outside the House, but quiet and withdrawn when in the House. Sakura shook her head of the memories, and tugged on Jin An's arm. He tilted his head at her, and she held up her arms to be picked up.

He took a long breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, but bent down to put an arm around her, Sakura grabbing his collar to be secure. "You know, I used to be a girl," he said, gesturing to the tiny Jin An standing in a skirt his mother had made him wear, "But I figured out later," the dream-world changed again, and Jin An had a ponytail and wore pants and a uniform shirt, laughing in the halls of the Middle School, "that I didn't like being a girl, and I wanted to be a boy instead."

A finger bopped her on the nose, and Sakura went cross-eyed for a moment before turning to look at him in the eyes. He had brown eyes, and sometimes they were hard and unforgiving like stones, but now they were warm and... gentle, like sand on the beach. "Oh," she said, something connecting. "Is that why I don't like it when okaa-san wants me to be a proper little girl?"

Jin An smiled, pleased, and set her down. "Of course, Sakura. We are the same person, after all."

Sakura looked at him, tall and sharp and handsome in a way she wanted to be like. Long brown hair in a high ponytail that reached to his waist and swung with his movements. His eyes were sharp and keen, and he wore the clothes she- wished she could find in Konoha to wear.

"We are, ojii-san?" she asked.

Jin An patted her pink hair softly. "Not yet, but soon. Once you remember everything."

"Everything?"

"Give it another year or so, kid." He paused as the dream melted away at the edges, "And be a bit careful on your midnight walks, okay?"

"But how did you-" Sakura woke up with the words on her lips, reaching for a person that wasn't by her side.

It took a few minutes for her to readjust from her dream of the City to her plain bedroom. Wood instead of metal, warm Konoha air instead of the wintery biting chill of the City.

It was simple, routine even, to stealthily make her way out of her house, wincing at the squeaky fourth step on the way downstairs. Sometimes she couldn't escape the house, because her parents were still awake and would hear that squeak, but tonight she could leave through the front door instead of the other, more difficult tree-route.

Sliding on her outside shoes, Sakura quietly closed the front door behind her as she left the house for wanderings around Konoha, to wherever her feet would take her. She wanted to- needed to clear her head after her dreams, sometimes. Just to remember that she was living in Konoha, and not the City or the Town.

Konoha didn't have suit-shops or metal buildings or hot-dog vendors after all.

It was a year later, and whilst other children played shinobi and hung on to their parents, Sakura loved to do nothing more than dream and read.

Dreaming always made her feel a bit better. Like there were pieces of her scattered in her dreams, and she was running around to collect them! Sometimes a second jii-san would be there to talk to her and explain things, not just the Jin An that the dreams always centered on. She had asked him about it once, and jii-san had looked sad.

"You'll remember eventually, kid."

Jii-san always called her 'kid', never by name- he called everyone by name except her. Which was weird, but jii-san was always a bit weird. Sad all the time, even if he liked to hide it with a smile and poke her nose.

That year, and Mebuki was confused by her daughter, who had disavowed wanting to be a 'proper little girl' a while ago and was starting to grow out her hair. Disagreements had sprung up, about what Sakura wanted to wear and wanted to walk, but Kaito had assured her it was "just a phase." God, she hoped so.

A year after her jii-san had told Sakura, "Give it another year or so," and she marked it off on her calendar before pulling up her blankets to her chin and turning over to sleep.

The first thing she felt was warmth. Undescribable warmth, and Sakura knew where this dream was immediately. "Mi-nii!" she cried, bounding through the apartment and plopping herself on the couch next to Jin An. "Mi-nii" was curled on the couch on the other side of Jin An, reading on his phone while Jin An muttered something about idiot characters.

Jii-san walked up to them, standing behind the couch. Turning from Jin An's screen to jii-san position, she caught the same look of melancholy the man always wore whenever she had a dream about "Mi-nii". She called him Mi-nii, except his name was Ivanov Mikhail, a Russian with red hair and green eyes a shade darker than Sakura's own.

Mikhail was warm, dreams with him were always warm and made Sakura wake up happy and floating. "He made my apartment somewhere to come home to," jii-san had explained long ago, when she first dreamt of him. "That's why you feel that way."

Sakura wanted to meet someone that made her floating and happy like Mikhail someday, but there weren't any redheads in Konoha. She had asked, once, if any people had red hair like the ones in her dreams, and the obaa-san that ran okaa-san's favorite fish stall had looked sad for a moment before saying that they were all gone. But that was okay! Maybe she'd meet someone, they just wouldn't look like Mikhail.

Something in her chest always stung at that thought, though.

"I can't believe this asshole," Mikhail muttered, nudging Jin An's arm with his head. "She should just get the fuck over him, already. Kishimoto is just killing her development like this."

"What happened in Naruto now, Mikail?" Jin An asked, a patient tone that indicated he had heard similar complaint many times before.

Sakura craned her neck to see what Mikhail was now showing Jin An, but jii-san tapped her on the shoulder. "Let's go somewhere else," he said, expression blank.

"But I want to stay with Mi-nii!"

"No, kid, you don't need to see what happens next-"

The conversation behind them was cut off with a groan, and Sakura turned back around to- Jin An on top of Mikhail? They were laughing together, and-

Jii-san made an undignified sort of choking noise and grabbed her, lifting her from the couch and clapping a hand over her eyes. "Hey!"

"You'll remember later! And it'll be okay when you remember! But not now, you're still a kid-" jii-san blabbered as he ran from the room, through the apartment door. "Time to wake up, not remember my sex life-"

She woke up alert, an unnerving sort of energy filling her body and led to her sliding out of her bed, walking quietly over to her drawers to pull out the one pair of pale purple pants she had managed to persuade her okaa-san to buy for her, and yank on a long-sleeved shirt over her sleeping dress.

"That was a weird dream. Why couldn't I have stayed?" she wondered aloud. Shrugging, (there was no point in dwelling on jii-san's behavior) Sakura paused in front of her door, shaking her head after a careful moment of consideration. The squeaky step might give me away.

She turned to her bed instead, clambering back up and carefully pulling up the window next to it. She winced at the grating sound, but fortunately it seemed that neither of her parents heard it or paid attention.

Sakura's room was on the second story of their house, facing their backyard. She gauged the distance between her windowsill and a convenient nearby tree branch. Normally, she would sneak out through the front door at night, but tonight something suggested that that route was a bad idea. So backyard and around the house it was.

A leap- clumsy, her foot nearly catching on the windowsill- and Sakura had to bite back an 'oof' as she landed on the tree bough stomach-first. She hung there for a moment, trying to catch her breath, and inched her way towards the trunk, for the trusty route of close branches and leaves that she could get close enough to the ground to drop without breaking anything.

Another "oof" later and she had dropped four feet from the lowest branch to the ground, getting to her feet and dusting her clothes off. She darted behind the tree a second later when her mother opened the backdoor, drawn by the noise, and breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed again.

Walking as quickly and silently as possible, Sakura through the garden, crawling on top of a bonsai plant rather than risk the gate creaking on her, jumping over and managed to safely land on the ground, in the street.

She had no idea where to go, honestly. Night time was exploring, and exploring meant letting her feet take her wherever they felt like.

Konoha at night was much quieter than the City at night. If anything, the City seemed busier at night, with bright lights that outshone the stars and endless foot-traffic that Konoha only matched during great festivals. Occasionally there were soft thuds on the roofs, shinobi travelling on buildings for patrol or simply as a quicker route.

Maybe she'd try to find a shinobi tonight. She never did manage to find out how they could walk on walls, after all.

The Rusty Kunai was like the Bar in her dreams, but smaller. And less glass. Which made sense, because shinobi were much more dangerous than the Bar patrons. Laughter was mixed with melancholy as men and women drank together, some in uniform and others weary strange clothing Sakura didn't even would be seen in the City. They all seemed so tired, like laughter was more of a learned response than genuine amusement.

Pushing the observation to the side (it was weird, sometimes she felt like jii-san was talking to her even when she was awake) Sakura stepped in to the bar, looking around the room for a shinobi who wasn't drinking or talking.

"Hey, kid, what are you doing here?" The words and tone are so familiar that Sakura immediately turns around, eyebrows furrowing as she stared up at the man that had talked to her.

"Since when did you have blond hair and blue eyes, jii-san?" only to be followed a second later with, "Wait, you're not jii-san!"

Yamanaka Inoichi stared down at the kid that had been blocking his usual seat. She has pink hair, and wide green eyes. They couldn't be natural. Except she was clearly about Ino's age so... they had to be natural. What the heck. "I am not your jii-san, kiddo, and what are you doing here? A bar isn't a place for kids. You're too young."

"I'm five," she said defensively, and holy shit she was the same age as Ino. "And you said the exact same thing as jii-san does whenever I'm in the Bar. Your hair is a lot like his, too."

"And who's your jii-san?" he asked, crouching down in front of her. "Whoever he is, he needs to keep better tabs on his kids."

The girl hesitated, and she tilted her head in thought. "Jii-san is jii-san," she settled on saying. Before Inoichi could respond, she hastily added, "But that's not important! I was looking for shinobi tonight because I have a super important question!"

Inoichi moved around her and plopped onto his regular chair, waving for a waiter to order a decent sake. Interestingly enough, the kid crawled onto the chair in front of him, eyes with with expectation. "What's your super important question, kid?" he figured to humour the child a little. It wouldn't hurt to answer this question whilst he drank his sake before beginning a game of 20 questions to figure out how to take the girl back to wherever she lived.

Her entire face lit up with joy. "How do shinobi walk on walls?" she demanded. "Is it because you're all fucking badass? Because I want to walk on walls too."

It was a good thing that the sake was only halfway to his lips, otherwise Inoichi was sure he probably would have spat it out. As neatly-dressed as the girl was, he hadn't been expecting alley-kid language from her at all. He choked down his amusement and confusion with a sip of sake, and set the dish back down. "We are pretty badass. Most of us, that is." She nodded patiently, as if she had been expecting this. "But no, it's because of a chakra-channelling technique we all learn as genin."

Her head tilted again, "Chakra? Genin?" definitely a civilian. Red light district, maybe? "What are-"

"Heeey, Inoichi!" someone called, drowning out her question, "Guess who Asuma has a big fat crush ooon!" Looking over at the bar, Inoichi made eye contact with Genma, who was clearly tipsy, and hanging off of Asuma's shoulder.

"Shut up, Genma-"

"Kurenai," the name dropped from the girl in front of him, and a strange, blank expression came over her face, startlingly different from the previous curious vivacity. Inoichi stiffened at the change, suppression jutsu coming to his mind just in case-

The kid gave a massive yawn, and her head went 'thunk' on the table.

He blinked, once, twice, and sent a flicker of chakra to check on her mental state. One of the smaller Yamanaka jutsus, best for making sure that unconscious prisoners were truly unconscious. A second later and he knew that yes, the strange-ass kid was asleep. Deep asleep and dreaming, by the looks of it. Weird.

All well. He settled for throwing a jacket on her as a blanket before waving over some other jounin to talk to before he left and dragged the kid to wherever she was from.

"You're here early," jii-san said, head resting on the side of the bathtub, sitting on the floor. "Too early."

Sakura stared at him, right hand tightly clutching her hair from the sudden ache in her head. "Jii-san? What's happening? What are you doing?"

He smiled at her, a different smile from his usual gentle ones. This wasn't even a gentle smile that was hiding his hurting, this was broken and jagged like the glass in his hand- the jagged cuts on his wrist that bled freely into the bathwater. "Come here, kid," he murmured, a bloody hand lifting itself from the water and reaching towards her.

She froze, watching the water drip to the bathroom tiles red with blood, running down his arm and staining his sleeves. Blood dripping from his wrist, three perfect horizontals that she reached for, unable to control her own body-

And then he was leaning on the tub again, wrists in the water and calm as he bled. No, not calm, calm meant your emotions were still and quiet, this was not calm. Dead inside, heart frosted over by ice, and he didn't know if the numbness was from the blood loss or-

Jin An gasped and Sakura gasped, together, vision darkening at the edges, a horrible loneliness creeping at the back of their mind. "Soon," they said in tandem, and Sakura-

Connected. The dreams weren't dreams, they were my- our memories, she thought he thought, experiences as Wu Jin An and Haruno Sakura overlapping, blending at the edges, his mother's disappointment overlapping with her mother's expectations, his father's stoicism with her father's casual air, his consuming loneliness and her-

Their loss, because Wu Jin An became Haruno Sakura, and Haruno Sakura had been Wu Jin An before made a deal with a being that had eighty-four eyes and six wings and a voice that didn't belong on earth. They were one and the same, and-

Jin An gasped, "If there is a next life, I want to love you again."

Sakura gasped, "That was our end, and this is our beginning."

The child woke up screaming.

NOT SAKURA, NOT SAKURA, NOT ME. I DIED, I DIED, I MADE A DEAL BUT NOW I CAN'T SEE HIM AGAIN AND WHY DID I MAKE THAT DEAL HE'S DE- raced through his mind like a bad record on repeat, Jin An falling to the floor and clutching his head as this five-year-old body struggled to connect all the broken fragments of his memories from his dreams, screaming with the physical pain and the old one, the wound that he'd forgotten in some part of himself and ripped open just now-

He's only faintly aware at the commotion around him, of people crowding around and strong arms lifting up his tiny body and meeting the night air, an upward leap and the thud of feet on roof-tile, a shinobi racing with him as fast as possible somewhere. "It'll be okay, the hospital-"

"I died," he only barely manages to wheeze, "I died I'm dead but I'm-"

"You're alive, kid. Trust me on that one."

He wanted to protest, to show the stranger his wrists as proof, but these were the wrists of a child, not the sliced ones of a suicidal adult. "I-"

"What's your name?" the shinobi cut him off, "I'm Inoichi Yamanaka, like boars in the mountain and..." he tuned him out, recognizing the calming tactic for what it was, even in the midst of his migraine.

A name. A name. Haruno Sakura is dead, she died a long time ago. I can't use my name, I can't- Sa Ku Ra was hers, if I change the syllablles and delete one I- "Raku," he said, words unfamiliar in his mouth but the character tracing itself in his head along with memories of years of calligraphy lessons, "Raku, like comfort-" as his vision distorted one more time, a choked yell ripping itself from his throat, his last thoughts ran.

Raku, like a comfort that doesn't exist.

At least... not yet...

I'll have to help save the world to find it.

Exile: holy crap it's happening ahh, I never thought it would.

Just in case for anyone thrown off by the thought pattern/behavioral switch of Sakura when she was 'dreaming' and right after she was dreaming, her sudden vocabulary set can be attributed to the fact that she was mostly remembering rather than actually observing.

(Hope you enjoyed?)