Later on that night, Sakura dreams.

However, she isn't in the sparsely decorated room that her dream-self calls her bedroom. She isn't fighting the other children in the tunnels either or watching nii-san cough discreetly when he thinks she isn't looking. The otter-masked girl who's in charge of medical checkups isn't present either. Instead, she finds herself at home.

She's in her house, which is a first, and sitting on her bed. She's rummaging through the backpack she brings to school, but at the same time, it's not . Her sketchbook is missing and her pencil case full of brushes is gone, leaving only two pink pencils in its place. She looks up, directly at the full-size mirror hanging on her wall, and there's a red ribbon holding her hair from her eyes.

Her eyes. They aren't the dark black orbs that no one other than the Uchiha possess; they're a bright jade green.

There's a knock on her door. She hears her voice as she says, "Come in!" against her will. The door cracks open and her mother slips in, blonde hair unkempt and - and clad in her chūnin vest. She blinks; the last time her mother wore that vest, she was injured so badly that her career as a shinobi was as good as done. Her mother's blue eyes seem dulled down, if that's possible, and dread settles in her heart as a heavy weight.

"Sakura," her mother says and it's the first time she has heard any names in her dreams, "Sakura, sweetie, school has been cancelled. Something terrible has happened."

She wakes with tears in her eyes for the first time in five years.


"Sakura-chan?" Naruto can feel a frown forming on his face as he watches Sasuke poke and prod at their mutual friend, his eyes burning with concern. He tears his eyes away from him to look at Sakura-chan. She's drawing mice on her notebook, shadowed green eyes looking somewhere far away. For whatever reason, Naruto feels strange as he looks at her, as if the person peering out of Sakura-chan's eyes wasn't Sakura-chan at all.

"Hey, dobe," involuntarily, Naruto's eye twitches. Somehow, through some miracle of life, the bastard has it ingrained in his head that insults can come off as affectionate. Worst of all, his insults do feel affectionate, but Naruto will first swallow his tanto before he admits that.

"Yeah, teme?" never let it be said that Naruto isn't petty, because he is.

Sasuke frowns, scrunches up his nose in a way that makes Naruto want to tease him – and he will, but not right now – and, clearly through immense self-control, ignores Naruto's own affectionate insult and whispers, "What's wrong with Sakura-chan?"

"Why the heck would I know?"

Sasuke crosses his arms, unimpressed, "Maybe because you basically live with her ?"

That's – that's a good point, honestly, and Naruto ducks his head, resisting the urge to slam it against their desk. After Mebuki-baa learned that he lived in Konoha's red-light district, she had gone to the Hokage. She did so again and again, for months on end, until one day she returned and asked Naruto if he would like to live with her family. The next day, she returned with official adoption papers. Naruto cried. And now he feels like crying again, because for all that he lives with Sakura-chan, he doesn't even know what happened to make her act like this.

In all the two years that Naruto has known Sakura-chan, she is either bubbly and energetic like the child she is, or calm and reserved but relatively still kind. She has never been – what's the word, ah, yes –despondent.

"I don't know what happened," he says, frowning and feeling more than a little disappointed in himself. There's a poke and he looks up, hopefully conveying his confusion. Sasuke's glaring, hands crossed over his chest. It's cute. It's no wonder that Sasuke's brother spoils him if he gets to see this kid's adorable face on a daily basis.

He sounds like Mebuki-baa. Eugh.

"Don't do that," Sasuke says. Don't do what? "That," Sasuke says in response to Naruto's silent question, vaguely waving his hands in front of Naruto's face. What the heck is that supposed to mean?

Sasuke wants to slap a hand over his eyes like how Shisui does – did. "Sakura's already sad enough for the three of us."

Naruto frowns. It would have been unnoticeable, but Sasuke has been his friend for six months now, and Naruto has always been good at reading people. So he says, "Hypocrite. You're sad, too."

"Looks like we're all gloomy."

Sasuke and Naruto will deny it for the next few years. They did not shriek.


"I'm fine, guys, really," she says for the nth time that day.

They're in the woods again. Sasuke is practicing shurikenjutsu while simultaneously trying to hide his interested gaze in the tanto that Naruto is swinging around. Sakura is sitting in a tree, a scroll spread out in her lap, and smirking subtly at their exasperated expressions, because they can't walk on trees quite yet. Like the many skills she possesses, she learned tree-walking in her dreams. After she felt how it was done the first time, she tried to do it out of her dreams – and she got in in the first try.

And because Sakura is a good friend, she taught it to her best friends. It's not her fault that they can't quite do it yet.

"Yeah, you say that, but we can see it, y'know," Naruto makes a cutting motion with his tanto, "Something's wrong and you're not saying what."

"We just want to help," ironically enough, Sasuke's input is ridiculously unhelpful, "But we can't if you won't tell us what's wrong."

Sakura purses her lips. It's not that she won't… she just can't. She can't say that she's been having dreams of her mother on loop, coming into her bedroom and saying that something terrible has happened, because she knows Naruto and she knows he's going to ask why that bothers her so much. Sasuke will then tact on quickly and the both of them will back her in a corner. Somehow she knows that she'll end up telling them all about her dreams and

She can't do that. They can't know about the people she watched die, killed by the unfortunate end of a tipless tanto that she doesn't own in this life. They'll think she's a monster even worst that the fox that she has seen Naruto turn into for watching people die and not feel disturbed in any form. She can't lose her friends. Not again and not like this.

...Again? Sakura blinks her blurring vision away. Where did that come from?

"Sakura-chan, you're doing it again." Naruto makes his sentence sound like an accusation. Sakura smiles, a subtle twitch of her lips.

"Now, now," she says airily, her hand forming a seal, "I'm fine, don't worry about it. But you, on the other hand, won't be." she grins, pauses and murmurs the technique underneath her breath.

Chakra flows from her body and into the scroll on her lap. Slowly, the mice rise from the surface of the scroll. She can feel her friends gaping as the mice scurry down the tree, and she's right. Sakura looks up and sees the wide eyes of her friends as roughly twenty ink mice surround them. For a bit, Sakura feels proud. This jutsu is almost instinctual and Sakura has long ago been capable of casting it, but still she feels proud because she can do it. A horrible thought had haunted her for a while that she can see all sorts of amazing techniques in her dreams and yet be incapable of doing it. But she can, and she did.

"How are you doing this?" comes Sasuke's hushed whisper. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees the glint of eagerness to learn reflected in his eyes. Naruto says nothing but his own blue eyes are wide, his mouth hanging just a little bit open.

"I'll tell you later," she says it like a promise, "But for now! You two gotta put what you've learned to use. Get rid of all of them," and, at their horrified expressions, she adds gleefully, "Or they're gonna drag you into the woods and tie you to a tree."

Naruto and Sasuke don't even ask her if her ink-mice are capable of tying people up. Naruto simply draws his tanto and runs towards the closest mouse, and Sasuke sends three shuriken flying in the air.


"You're evil," the blonde boy in the group seethes and Sasuke can't help but agree with Naruto on this one, "Absolutely, undoubtedly evil."

Half an hour later, the sun is beginning to set. Sasuke has used up all his kunai and shuriken and he's more or less covered head to toe in ink. Naruto isn't doing any better. His tanto is somewhere on the ground and his blonde hair is matted with black, like he took a shower in ink. Sasuke distantly shoves 'draws exploding ink-mice' underneath all the other things Sakura can do.

If Sakura was from a clan, Sasuke has no doubt that she'd be off their class and noticed by the council already. Another prodigy. Sasuke hates the fact that he feels bitter about it.

"The sun's going down," he hears Sakura say. Sometime between Naruto's proclamations about her evilness and Sasuke's musings, Sakura jumped from her tree, looking none the worse for wear at all. She turns her head to look down at him from his place on the ground and smiles her fox-smile.

Naruto groans and Sasuke looks away from the sole girl in their little band to look at him. He's propped up by his elbow and wiping the ink off his face. Or trying, at least, but the most he's doing is smearing the thing onto his face even more so that it's covering the strange whisker marks on his cheeks. Sasuke feels like laughing, and he does. Naruto makes a face and Sasuke laughs harder – and then he suffers as Naruto jumps on him and bats at his face, hands wet with ink.

Sasuke's too busy shrieking at his friend to notice Sakura's eyes flicker black.


"Something terrible has happened."

If Sakura-chan's holding on to Sasuke's hand tighter than she usually does, Sasuke doesn't say anything. Naruto subtly grabs on to Sasuke's hand, sandwiching the Uchiha between him and Sakura-chan as they trek out of the woods. The part of the forest that they practice in is technically part of Uchiha grounds and Naruto knows it's relatively safe.

But it's quiet. Quieter than usual.

After Sakura-chan extended the 'olive branch', as she called it, towards Sasuke all those months ago, their training ground stopped being Sakura-chan's backyard and started being the woods ten minutes away from the academy and twenty minutes away from Sasuke's house. Compound. Whatever. Naruto was fine with that. At least the stab marks on the tree in their backyard would fade away now that no one's stabbing it on a daily basis.

Do trees' wounds heal, too?

"That's strange," Sasuke says, frowning. If he listens intently, there isn't even the slightest sound in the night. The insects aren't chirping and even the birds are quiet. He looks up towards the towering trees. There are no birds there, sleeping or otherwise. "Something's wrong."

And then Sasuke spots it. Beside him, his friends freeze in their tracks as they undoubtedly see what he sees.

It's the gate of the compound, but the steps leading into the compound itself is flooded with warm, warm liquid that Naruto only dreams about seeing when he's finally a full-fled shinobi, spilling out of the steps and spreading in every direction. Naruto feels light, lighter than he has ever felt, and his knees threaten to give out beneath him.

There's blood pouring out like a waterfall out of the compound gates and Sasuke breaks away from their slackening hold and sprints.

"Sasuke–"


"–you bastard, come back!"

She's not in the Uchiha compound anymore. Naruto's there, he's taller, and he's bleeding through his stomach and screaming his lungs out, and she can't do anything but watch , "Sasuke, you asshole!"

The ground shatters and breaks and—

—She falls out to see that she's running through the compound, following tiny bloody footsteps, Naruto running beside her and she's calling out Sasuke's name, fear gripping her heart, and she's never felt this way before. In the many years since she has seen people die in her sleep, she has never felt this fear, and it's like she's a whole new person. In the corner of her eye, she sees that Naruto has his tanto drawn and Sakura feels her dread choking her. She knows, deep, deep down, that as much as Naruto knows how to cut mice open, he still can't cut through flesh.

There are bodies everywhere. Sakura ignores them, only stopping to pull Naruto along as she runs. She can't leave him here alone or else – someone will take him – he'll get lost among the sea of blood and corpses.

"Sakura-chan, everyone's dead—"

"Something terrible has happened."

"This is Sasuke's house—"

Mikoto, smiling sadly as she watches Sasuke and Naruto in the backyard by the pond. Sakura gives her a knowing look and Mikoto gives her a hug.

"He's inside, Naruto, we have to go—"

"This is the Quiet Room," Sasuke says solemnly, "It's where father used to talk to Itachi-nii and Shisui-nii."

"Used to?" Naruto asks, eyebrow raised. Sasuke looks down and scuffs the floor, "Shisui's—"

"—gone. We have to find him, he could be—"

"—dead." She's standing over Naruto. He isn't breathing.

Sasuke is in the formal sitting room, writhing on the floor and screaming into the air. There's a boy in front of him, older than the three or them, and his pinwheel-eyes widen imperceptibly as he looks at them. They know it's Sasuke's brother, despite the fact that they have never really met him before. And they make the mistake of looking back.

Naruto gasps and falls, and Sakura—

The world is red and she jerks, stumbling backwards. The boy is there, staring at her, but his eyes are wider, staring past her. Hesitantly, she turns around and – she sees herself.

But she's taller, her hair is shorter, and she's holding a kunai in her hand. There's a purple diamond smack in the middle of her forehead. Beside her, standing still, is a pale man – boy? – and his hand is on her shoulder. The older her is grim faced and her voice reverberates as she speaks.

"Sai, get her out of here."


A/N: Sai-Sakura gave Naruto a tanto, fight me.

(please don't, i'm weak)

Hey look, I didn't save the Uchiha clan. This is purely self-indulgent and honestly if they're alive then my whole plans will be shot to hell.

Now for a bit of explanations:

This is where the body sharing tag takes an effect. The whole time-travel tag will be more obvious in later parts of the story.

If one looks back to chapter 1, Sakura talks about the memories as if they're simply dreams. And no, she's a kid, she may be smart but she never really came to the conclusion that her dreams are memories in itself, especially since they're not in chronological order. And all of them have been Sai's memories, until the one in the beginning of this chapter.

The Sakura that has been around since chapter 1 is a Sakura that really was a kid. She has a different consciousness from Sai and the older Sakura that was mentioned at the very end is different too.

Basically, just think about Sai and Older-Sakura like the Kyūbi inside Naruto. Naruto has Kurama inside him but he's not Kurama himself. The fox is just sealed inside. Now apply the sealing logic to Sakura here.

Wow this is rlly self-indulgent.