Author's Note: Somewhat lukewarm response. Then again, I've never really, really written in non-crossover parts of the fandom before. Hopefully the writing of this chapter will change that! I have big plans and all.

Don't flip out when you read this chapter. I'm saying this because I nearly flipped out when I wrote it.

This will definitely be a ton darker than I thought it would be.

Disclaimer: All I want to do is bring you on a journey with me. Yeah, sure, you shouldn't go off with strangers and all. Bah.

Variants

by Lungs

Split 1: Long Hair

I came back to this day because I knew he had gone further, had changed something. I came back because I couldn't ruin his excitement or sacrifice my own. But if I really had to choose, I would do anything for him.

My name is Hurano Sakura and there is nothing more important to me than the three boys on my team. There, that was the first time I actively said it aloud since arriving.

I used to do it every night, to remind myself, when they all went rotten in their own ways and then redeemed themselves.

I am the second victim of the Eight Trigrams, the revelation of our immortality, of our insignificant worth in the face of others, in the face of rebirth.

I am Sakura of the Earth. I am Sakura who blooms in the winter.

Naruto, my Naruto, shouldn't have been surprised when I caught his lazy, barely competent foot sailing through the air, not taking me seriously, when I had changed so fundamentally in the last three seconds.

I snapped his leg in half. When Hyoton meets the Great Fireball…

Of course, Naruto had been completely unprepared. We had come back from the Wave mission, where he had found his will to protect those close to him, just a day ago, after all. Haven't I?

And my hair drifts ever so slightly over my face as Kakashi and Sasuke cry out in alarm. I put on my best innocent little girl act and squeak, only half pretending, "Help me, Sasuke-kun!"

Naruto is glaring at me because Kakashi and Sasuke are staring the wrong way. Even in our pasts, Naruto never wanted to offend either of them. He didn't care much for me though.

Our sensei turns and his face, oh-so-good-at-deception, melts into the image of surprised pain.

"Okay, let's get Naruto to the hospital," Kakashi says cheerfully. Sasuke grunts, but helps Kakashi pick Naruto up and the silver-haired man disappears in a whirl of leaves.

Sasuke and I are alone now and the setting sun is painting the sky as pink as my hair. The trees look vaguely ominous and amazingly safe. The trees are home, are Senju, are Shodai. The boy next to me is ninja, is Uchiha, is… Sasuke.

He is not Madara. He will never be Madara. From the jaws of the abyss, he did find redemption.

This wasn't my Sasuke though, so I walked off quickly and quietly in the direction of the hospital.

When I finally arrived at Naruto's bedside, Kakashi had already gone. Naruto was very clearly unharmed and smirking at me.

"You." We both said it at the same time and despite himself, Naruto giggled. I was scared.

"How are you, Inner?"

"Don't call me that. I am Sakura."

Naruto grinned, feral and ferocious and fox. My heart skipped a beat. I wasn't the girl he loved.

"You're a pale imitation of her desires, her subconscious, Inner."

I felt like crying, felt like telling him that I loved him, that I loved Sasuke and Kakashi, that he was hurting me, hurting me so much, but I just glared.

"The Sakura I knew released herself from the Cycle a long time ago. She ascended. There's nothing but you, you stubborn…"

I couldn't let him. I couldn't. My first flew towards him, ripping through the air so quickly that my hands, so used to dainty things in these formative years, ripped open and splattered him with blood even as his block drove him into the bed.

"You can't beat me, Inner. Not even Sakura could, in the end. I had to let her."

He was goading me and I was falling for it. My hand glowed green for a moment, healing the damage as I pounced on him, ready to hit him with every single little part of my body.

"If you can't beat them, rape them?"

I growled at him and very suddenly, he flipped me over and pinned me down to the bed.

"I'm not going to hurt you. You still wear her face. And she is my heaven. She is my hell. She is my everything." His eyes glowed blood-orange as he pushed against me even harder. The Two Skies Seal fizzled away, glowing once on his forehead and then disappearing. He scowled and reapplied it quickly.

"Are you afraid of your Inner, Naruto?" I was sitting beside him now, my back to his shoulder, my blood staining his jacket. "You shouldn't be. You're a good man, even if you don't realize it."

Naruto shook his head emphatically but I knew he was.

I stood quickly as the door opened and Sasuke walked in.

"Where did you go, Sasuke-kun?"

"To get changed." He was still so very curt. He might not be, soon. He might be crazy. Like me. Like Naruto.

At that moment, Kakashi dropped into the room and smiled behind his mask. "Now, are we ready to go back to the training field?"

While Kakashi walked ahead and Sasuke stared at the ground sullenly on their way back, I quickly signed in General ANBU 'Find me after training' and to my surprise, Naruto nodded at me.

We continued to spar and walk up and down trees for several hours before Kakashi dismissed us. It was nice to have so much time to ourselves, so much time to think about just anything that crossed my mind.

I walked off towards the direction of my home and my parents, so distant to me now that I barely knew how to react to them.

But I didn't have to worry about that confrontation yet, because Naruto was lounging around the intersection a street away. I walked up to him and he nodded gloomily as I stuck my finger through his chest and he disappeared with a puff of smoke. Kage Bunshin. He never stopped loving the first techniques he learned.

In several minutes, Naruto had appeared yet again.

"Training area?" he said quietly and we walked off in silence. If anyone had seen us and cared enough to take a second look, they wouldn't have believed we were walking together. My very footsteps were taut with anticipation and a slight helping of fear, while Naruto seemed to be jaunty and upbeat. As his personality slowly changed and he embraced the fox, he had become very hard to read.

Why do I always feel invisible? For just a moment he had noticed me, then I had faded out of his vision. He didn't see Sakura. He saw Inner.

We didn't spar, we dueled. It was a clash of our personalities. He saw nothing but his fists and I saw nothing but him. He was Naruto.

Once upon a time, I had overlooked him, thought that he was useless, and I had told Outer that he was a sideshow, someone for Sasuke to squash like a bug.

A fist sank into my chest and split my sternum in half. I pushed myself out of the way of a crescent kick, coming down harder than any moon could and my bones knit themselves. I coughed once and I was fine.

"You don't fight like her. You're too… wild," he decided. "You can't take advantage of any of my openings."

Fist hit fist and my knee blocked his.

"She was the perfect blend of impulse and analysis."

He broke my neck with his next strike and I crumpled to the ground. I snapped it back into place with my hands and stood up quickly, blocking another strike.

"You are inferior."

He got behind me, somehow, and my back snapped in four places. I fell forward and he tried to follow through, but my forehead slammed into his Achilles tendon and knocked him to the ground. I stood up and cracked my back a little.

"You're living on borrowed techniques."

A fist slammed into my liver and it blew out of my back in gory red and brown chunks.

"Borrowed dedication."

His elbow collapsed my left lung.

"Borrowed time."

He fell on my stomach and drove his knee straight through, into the dark earth. He stood and looked down at his handiwork as I struggled to my feet.

We paused for nearly fifteen seconds. "Are you ready to start again?" he asked me, almost gently. He couldn't stand seeing the face of his first love in pain.

"Just kill me, Naruto. Just kill me. It's what you want, don't you?"

He shook his head. He was openly crying now.

"You're mad, Naruto. Crazy."

"Like a fox." His eyes flashed remorselessly through his pain. I wasn't sure if he had felt bad at all, to be honest. Outer could read him like a book, even near the very end, but I couldn't.

"How do I fix this?"

"You can't." He grinned through tears and I bit my lip. There was something so very dangerous about someone so animalistic. I wanted him, a mirror of how I wanted my team. Outer had always said that I was too possessive for my own good.

"I can bring her back."

He tore my body in half, growling. "You will not bring her back from paradise. She does not need to feel the pain of living once more."

And he was entirely serious. There were very few people Naruto loved in the end, but he loved Outer. He wanted nothing but the best for her. If I brought Outer back, I would wish I had not lived to regret it.

"I'll say it one last time, Inner. You will hurt her no longer." The moon lit his face in sharp relief and this… this was the man who sat upon the Throne.

"I never wanted to," I begged. He wasn't hurting me anymore, but this was far worse. It's easy to lose yourself in pain. It's hard to match blades with the truth.

He began to walk off, but my voice stopped him. "They're coming. We're all coming."

"I know."

"All of us."

I slowly drew a Yin on the hard earth. Resigned, he nodded and he completed the symbol. How could he not? We were all ritualistic, we were all insane. He could not walk away from the wellspring of his insanity.

I avoided the Throne and I avoided my own Trigram, but I drew the others out on the sides.

"My weakness counterbalances your strength, Naruto."

"Sakura wasn't weak."

Unbidden, my hands shook. "But I am."

That wasn't entirely true, but it was most certainly fair.

"I think Sasuke's going to come next," Naruto decided. "It was always the three of us."

"Who will come after him?"

"The Trigrams need to be counterbalanced, Inner. You are the Yin to my Yang. I believe that you will have an effect on who might appear next."

I paled.

He grinned.

I paled further. "Can you delay it?"

"Why should I do anything for you, Inner?"

I stood, frozen in a curious blend of fear and anticipation.

"My my! Train beyond sundown! And a pair of genin, too!" I recognized the voice immediately. The slithery lilt, recklessness - it was all there. Anko was approaching.

It was at this point when both of us decided that we wanted to go home and we walked from the scene slowly, entertaining the woman as she alternated between cutting us up with her kunai and sharing sticks of dango.

Neither of us were, but I couldn't help but notice that I wasn't the only one caught up in the illusion of being twelve years old again