Kakashi Hatake

When Kakashi wakes up, he's tired. He's always tired though so that's nothing worth noting really. He lays on the ground, feeling the imaginary chain holding his chest to the ground, thinking of the effort it will take to sit up. Morning light has just started to touch the trees high above, and the forest floor is still almost entirely dark and quiet.

After a slow count to five, Kakashi sits up and glances at Sakura, who's on morning watch. She's awake, which is good. Given Team Seven's rather dismal skills he was half afraid she'd be dead asleep. She's watching the forest and Kakashi sighs. Now is as good a time for a lesson as any he supposes. Hopefully once he teaches Sakura then she'll teach the other two so he doesn't have to worry about it. (He has enough to worry about as it is.)

"Sakura," he says, drawing her attention immediately. Also a good sign, given that Kakashi has known more than a couple shinobi who had a tendency to cast genjutsu that made them appear alert while they slept. Not a bad tactic in certain situations, but a bad habit for a genin, especially one with as little chakra as Sakura. Kakashi stands and moves past the sleeping boys.

"Good morning, Sensei," Sakura whispers, her voice obviously tired.

"When on guard duty, there are varying levels of awareness required." Kakashi says, "sometimes it will be important that you are awake and aware of your surroundings. Other times you just need to be awake. You'll have to practice to find the balance, but in general, there's a pattern you can follow. When we're in Fire Country on a lower-ranked mission - B-rank or lower - then you can set traps and do some quiet activity. Reading usually."

"But Iruka-sensei said that we have to be ready to fight at a moment's notice."

"Ahh." It's considered rude to say that chunin are idiots and are only accepted as teachers because children are idiots too. "You will learn that… there are certain ideas that make sense in theory but not in practice. Being ready to fight for 15 hours of a day can lead to hyper-vigilance which makes functioning in-village highly difficult." He would know, after all.

"Would I take down the traps when I go to bed and then have the person on the next shift put up new ones?" Sakura asks, looking increasingly awake as she shuffles around (far too loudly) and glances over at her sleeping teammates.

"Sometimes." It depends on how much you trust your teammates, Kakashi doesn't say, "for now we'll have whichever one of you is best with traps set them for the night under my supervision. It's important that you understand how the traps work and how to work with, and around them."

It feels neglectful of the academy to have not taught this. Or maybe it's his fault for not having taught this already? He can't remember a time before he knew about the details of guard duty. When he was young he remained constantly vigilant each night of course, because that's what the official instructions said. Minato-sensei hadn't stopped him because they were at war and it wasn't a bad idea in that instance, but he had known and made a conscious decision about it.

He doesn't think about the letter from Konoha. He doesn't think about the instruction to watch Sakura closely. He doesn't think- doesn't think- doesn't-

"Go to sleep Sakura," he says, not looking at her, instead focusing on the familiar text of Icha Icha.


Sakura Haruno

Sakura is high on success as they enter back into the village. She misses Asano, and her medical books, and using her own shower. She misses Konoha. That said. The mission wasn't as bad as she was expecting. It started off pretty poorly, and she'd been ready to murder all three of her fellow shinobi by the end of the first week. (She missed Asano so much.)

She'd realised around that time that their clients were lying to them. It had been little things, like the way they looked at Naruto weirdly and commented on Sakura's hair. Then bigger things, like the way they moved around Naruto's traps, and the dad - Kishi - had gotten into a boisterous conversation about ramen. Which shouldn't be that weird, except that he kept up with Naruto, for like, an hour and a half.

The thing that really caught them though, were the seals. Sakura knew seals, only peripherally because of Asano, but she knew them. She recognised ink stains when she saw them. And that sealing paper was different from normal paper.

And then they'd been attacked and Sakura didn't know what to do but Kakashi protected them and she and Sasuke protected their clients, even if Naruto froze.

Then they learned that their clients were Uzumaki. Naruto was an Uzumaki.

Sakura missed Asano. She would've known what sealing questions to ask, and how to talk about Uzushiogakure. (A quiet repetition of 'Asano, Asano, Asano' ran through her head. She'd make Asano proud, she missed Asano, she couldn't wait to tell Asano about their mission- Asano, Asano, Asano.)

"Team 7, back from their first C-rank," Kakashi-sensei said to the woman at the desk, just outside of the Hokage's office.

They were let in, and then almost immediately told to leave while Kakashi gave his report. Why'd they even have to show up at all? Whatever, Sakura needed to take a shower and hunt Asano down.


? ?

The girl is in a private room. Shinobi are usually placed in private rooms. Genin are sometimes in shared rooms. The girl's record said she was a new genin. She is approximately the same age as me, though I don't know my exact date of birth.

The girl is left alone at night, her Father leaves and a medic-nin only visits every three hours.

After one of the medic-nin on duty (Kouta Itou, civilian raised, none, genjutsu and ninjutsu) left the room at 11:34, I enter through the window.

The hospital is one of the easiest missions available up until one of the surgery patients started talking. In English. None of the medic-nin recognised it of course, thought the patient was babbling, or that the girl's new tongue was getting in the way.

I know the truth though.

The girl is not completely asleep, but not awake either. Her eyes are mostly closed, her hand twitches at her side. There are bruises around her wrists from where she woke up during the surgery and panicked. A rookie mistake.

She jolts and turns to look at me.

We stare at each other in the dark.

"You spoke English," I say, switching language mid-sentence. I'm not fluent in English, but I know enough to communicate. I think - I can't remember clearly.

"What the fuck."

"You speak English," I say, perhaps she is confused. The anaesthesia may still be affecting her. Against her English, I can hear my own accent, I hadn't been able to remember what native English speakers sounded like.

"You speak English?!" She echoes back. Perhaps she is just stupid.

"Obviously."

"I- What. Sorry. What?!" She looks around, pinches herself and then reaches out. I step forward, allowing her to touch my uniform. "You were reborn too?"

"I don't know that word - reborn?"

"Reincarnated, reborn. You were- you remember too?"

"Did you assume you were the only one?" I ask, "how arrogant."

"I- Maybe, but. Who are you?"

"I don't have a name," I lie.

"ROOT?" She asks, after a moment of hesitation. I nod sharply. "I'm sorry. Do you remember… before?"

"My previous life? Yes."

"Do you remember Naruto?"

"Yes."

The room is dark and near-silent. I had held onto those faded memories so hard, and now as near as I could get to proof was here. I wasn't crazy.

"I'm going to change it- I have changed it." She says hands clenched tight around fists full of blankets.

"Good, I will do my best to help. In return, you will help me get out of ROOT."

"Okay," she turns and smiles at me. "My name's Asano Sakurai now, it's my pleasure to meet you."


Shikamaru Nara

"Do you remember Asano?" Ino asks, and Shikamaru can barely resist a groan when Choji turns to give Ino his full attention. "Apparently, her team was disbanded! She's working at T&I now."

"Do you know why?" Shikamaru asks, even though he's not sure he actually wants to know. Sage, he'd hoped he'd heard the last of the girl.

"MMm, not sure sure," Ino says, "but I heard their mission went really bad."

Shikamaru opens his eyes and sits up.

"How bad?" He asks because there is definitely a scale of really bad for shinobi missions. Ino looks a bit pale, and her lips are pressed tightly together.

"I- I heard that her team was captured. For information."

Even Choji's stopped eating. All three of them had known it was a possibility for as long as they could remember. One of Shikamaru's cousins died during an escape attempt, she'd stayed behind to hold as many enemies back as she could. Her shadows had returned without her.

Shikamaru couldn't even really imagine staying behind, knowing he might die, but deciding it was worth the chance it would help his teammates live. He could decide he would do it, had already decided. He couldn't really imagine it though. It seemed far off, a different world from the one they were in.

"Is she... is she okay?" Choji asks, and Shikamaru feels a flicker of love for Choji's caring nature.

"I don't know, Daddy asked me to talk to her. She's going to work with T&I soon." Ino flicks her hair back, but Shikamaru can see the tension in the way she leans back.

"Be careful," Shikamaru says after a moment, "she might be volatile." Ino scoffs because she knows, but the unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach didn't let up.

A/N:

There's several more chapters up on AO3. I update more there for this fic and others.