A/N: Hi! Welcome back. Nice to see you. I won't tell you to read the extended description this time but personally, I think it would be nice if you read the extended description.
- I'd also like to suggest that if the readability of the work is low (despite the amount of time I've spent trying to separate the paragraphs better), PLEASE go read on AO 3 where the spacing between blocks of text is much better! Trust me, I have the same issue of accidentally re-reading the same line 4 times.
Previously, on A Treatise on Interdimensional Travel: Sakura died lol. She gets transmigrated into a version of herself from an alternate universe, realizes she's four, realizes she has to go to school all over again, and finds out that the Leaf may be headed for a war. Uh oh spaghetti-o.
Sakura quickly gets disillusioned with the Leaf seeing as how she, y'know, died. Here is where we begin to see her diatribe against the village build. Sakura doesn't know the ins and outs of this new reality but she's beginning to understand that what happened to her, what the Leaf made her do/think, in the past reality was super duper wrong bro. F in chat.
I also want to warn you, the reader, again of the UNRELIABLE NARRATION. This is 3rd person limited POV. You will only know what Sakura knows or what I need you to know for the story to progress. So when Sakura is wrong about something, you won't know she's wrong unless she knows she's wrong. Take everything she thinks with a grain of salt.
The Academy was in the same place it had been previously: at the bottom of the Hokage Tower, attached to the building. However, Sakura's house wasn't in the same place. Instead of being two blocks from the hospital, it was five blocks from the market street.
As a result, Sakura had to walk past the market in order to get to the Academy. There were the ever-present market stalls, set up between buildings. There were merchants hocking their wares. There was the fragrance of smoked meat.
And Sakura noticed the absence of imported metals.
She peeked up at the Hokage mountain. Four heads, four faces. First, Second, Third, Fourth. Fuck, Sakura thought. Where's the fifth head? Where's the Fifth Hokage's head? Worse, where were the Senju heads? The First Hokage was clearly an Inuzuka. The Second Hokage bore the clan markings of a Hatake. And the Third was a Sarutobi. It wasn't an Uchiha. Where was Hashirama? Tobirama? Kagami? At least the Fourth was the same. Good ol' Namikaze Minato.
Sakura trudged past the Academy gates. If the Fifth's head wasn't on the mountain, that could only mean that the current Hokage was Namikaze Minato, the Fourth. If that was so, then Sakura could have traveled backwards to some point in his twenty-one-year reign. She could be anywhere.
A horrified thought dawned on her, causing her to fumble her next step. Could it be that she wasn't in her own timeline at all? Could it be that she'd crossed dimensions? It was…possible, right? The Yondaime was capable of creating space-time fūin that allowed him to instantaneously teleport. However, the multi-dimensional "theory" was regarded by scientists as nothing more than a product of overactive imaginations. Sakura had thought to herself, many times, that scientists hid their irritation at the unknown under all that bluster.
If she had done the impossible, had indeed crossed dimensions, then everything she knew to be reality was forfeit. Her understanding of chakra laws could be based solely on her own dimension. Her understanding of theory, of physics, of (rudimentary) medicine, of biology, of botany, of village regulations, all of it could be wrong.
The first shinobi rule that had ever managed to wedge itself into her brain had been that great shinobi were always prepared for anything.
And here she was, flat-footed and caught out.
Sakura found her age group of snotty four-year-old's. They were congregated in front of a chūnin with lanky brown hair and a grimace. The chūnin muttered under her breath, flicked through a sheaf of papers, sent a long-suffering look up to the sky, and barked all the Academy recruits to attention.
Sakura easily filed into line, surreptitiously observing her compatriots. There were a few clan children she could recognize: an Uchiha, a Nara, a Yamanaka, a Hyuga, two Aburame, an Inuzuka, and an Akimichi. In total, there were about fifty children assembled. Sakura swallowed the lump in her throat.
Not enough children, not enough people, not enough fodder to outweigh the value of the clan children. Eight clan kids to just over forty civvies. She didn't like those odds. From what she'd heard, they were at war. Numbers like this didn't bode well.
Sakura shoved the thought down. What she didn't like was that the age group would be split into halves, which meant more focused attention from the instructors.
Before, there'd been fifty kids to a classroom. Fifty kids and an elephant in the room that blared a war-horn.
The chūnin went down the line, calling their names and separating the children into sections. She reached Sakura. "Haruno – group B. Your instructor is Umino Iruka."
Sakura walked to group B in a near daze. That chūnin had been far more polite than those from Before. Where was the strict, biting tone? Where were the scoffs? Sakura refocused on the group in front of her and paled. Oh, there was no need for the chūnin to scoff, not when she was assigned to the group with the most clan kids. If anything, the chūnin would have been near obligated to give her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
Umino Iruka (just call me Iruka-sensei, said with pearly-white teeth) was a teenager on the shorter side of average height. He had a smile that was easy to summon. He did his best to focus on everyone in the class, rather than just the clan children.
The standard entry-level Academy curriculum began with practicals: mathematics, various applied sciences, field botany, etcetera. Then would come the history. That would be the first year. There were eight years in the Academy, each level getting progressively harder than the last. It was in the last four years that they would begin working on jutsu, as by that time the noncommitted would have been dropped from the program.
(Civilians capable of jutsu would quickly become disillusioned with shinobi villages. Civilians capable of jutsu would find that the lack of a vote in their government was no longer acceptable. Civilians capable of jutsu were capable of defending themselves against shinobi longer. Civilians capable of jutsu were capable of uprisings and strikes. Of food shortages. Of labor shortages. Capable of tanking Leaf's economy.)
The children were given the explanation of this curriculum while they stood in front of the teacher's podium. They shifted from knee to knee, some even yawned. Iruka, after finishing his housekeeping lecture, shuffled a paper out from a tan file folder. He skimmed it, then looked up at the children.
"The seating arrangements are as follows…"
Sakura drowned out the list because the first name on it was an Aburame. It wasn't an alphabetical list, or maybe it was but the seating wasn't alphabetical, and Sakura couldn't parse why it wouldn't be.
"Aburame Shino, seat 4."
She couldn't parse why it wouldn't be alphabetical. If it had been, perhaps she wouldn't be seated next to the body and mind of someone approximate to her best friend from Before. Maybe she wouldn't have suffered under the weight of not knowing him, not knowing him as he was here and not there. He was alive, which mattered, but he didn't know her.
All he could know was that when her name was called, she took her seat gingerly next to him, gave him a wan smile, faced forward, and said nothing.
Fuzz filled the space between her ears, and as such Sakura didn't bother thinking for herself. When Iruka passed out the classwork sheet – the assessment paper that determined where one placed in academics the entry hadn't tested – Sakura dutifully filled it out without pause. Her pencil stopping was what caused the fog to lift.
Logically she knew she shouldn't have finished so quickly if she wanted to be normal, so instead of turning it in, she double checked her work. She hemmed and hawed, worried her lip, erased answers, and filled in numbers that were just slightly off.
She tapped the butt of her pencil against the desk. She paused over particular questions. If no one had seen her answers before she edited them, and that was a certainty, then she could pass this off as test-taking prep done the Sakura way. Rush through, throw any answers down, then on the second go 'round she went over her work and filled in the correct answers. She was aiming for a seventy-five percent, maybe a sixty. If these assessments didn't require a curve, then she would be average.
Three people went up to deliver their papers to Iruka, Sakura did the same.
Lunch break came after a lecture on mathematics.
Sakura shuffled out of the classroom with her bento clutched tightly in two hands. Iruka sat in a chair and leaaaaned until a few pops came from his back. The door slid shut, dampening the sound of his sigh.
In the Academy yard grew an old black pine. Years upon years of abuse with weapons had scored up the bark. One side of the black pine was especially vulnerable. It was this side that wept sap from a puncture.
If Sakura had known that this spot, under the largest boughs of the black pine, was the prime estate for beetles and ants then perhaps she would have chosen a different spot to eat lunch.
Alas, it seemed that her time-travel (if that was indeed what happened) was a once in a lifetime deal.
Sakura examined Aburame Shino. His hands were tucked into his coat pockets, like always. His shoulders were austerely in line, his posture perfect. Like. Always.
Sage, to see him so young and unworried about politics or inheriting his father's council seat far too soon. To see him as young, young, young as he should have always been allowed to be. Thirteen, the weight of the world on his back. Four, apprehensive about making friends at school.
Shino shifted his balance from one leg to the other. A muted vibration began in his gut, then spread to his arms, then abruptly stopped. Buzzing, Sakura thought, buzzing of kikaichu. It was the nervous tone she recognized as being so constant Before.
Sakura cleared her throat. "Yes?"
A furrow grew between his brows. "I wish to sit here."
Sakura waited, out of habit, because she knew what was coming.
"Why?" There it was. "Because the insect populations are densest here."
Should she? Did she dare strike the friendship anew? Could she cling to the familiar, rather than the unknown? Sakura smiled crookedly, half-anxious. "Sure."
So he sat, smoothing his coat under his bottom. He pulled his bento out from a coat pocket. Sakura watched him for a second, then lifted her chopsticks again.
For a minute there was only the sound of clicking utensils and the cool breeze ruffling pine leaves. Sakura allowed a moment to ache for what was lost, long for more of these peaceful silences that were always in abundance with Shino. She caught a twitch out of the corner of her eye. Always attuned to her best friend, Sakura could feel Shino getting frustrated.
"It's a nice day out, huh?" Sakura said with her eyes locked onto the dwindling contents of her lunch.
Shino exhaled, slightly louder than his regular breathing. "Yes."
She steeled herself to look at him. "Agonum should hit a peak for population this season."
Shino's chopsticks clicked. His head turned sharply toward Sakura. "I – Yes! They should!"
The ground beetles in the genus Agonum were far from Shino's favorite. However, he was most excited to talk about bugs with someone outside of his clan. It was something he and she had done often Before.
Shino leaned forward. "Do you – I," he stammered. In his excitement, he lost his articulate speech. He took a breath. "I'm surprised that you are knowledgeable on insects. Why? Because you are a civilian born."
Sakura tilted her head. "I am," she agreed.
Shino made a face. "I – Apologies. I did not mean that the way it sounded…"
Sakura waved it off. "I'm not offended by my background. Though, if I were you, I wouldn't assume civvies were always afraid of insects. It's mostly a class thing."
Shino adjusted his glasses. It had always been his gesture for her to continue her rants. Sakura shoved away her heartache for the moment.
"It may not be evident from your perspective, but there is a huge difference between a civilian merchant and a civilian farmer."
"Farmers know more about ecological cycles than merchants," Shino deduced.
Sakura smiled. "Precisely. Y'know what? I think we're going to be good friends." And this time, it wasn't just because of her knowledge of another him, it was the knowledge that Shino would always understand her in every reality.
His chin sunk further behind his high collar. Shino hid his smile.
A/N: wow that was something! i'm a sucker for shino and sakura being friends. I think Shino would be a perfect voice of reason for Sakura because we all know that no one on Team 7 could be. Sorry, but I'm right.
AO3: "hey our website auto-generates tags from the works put into fandoms. You can select or you can write in what tags you want to include/exclude. No pre-made drop down menus for tags. We even offer a little guide and a bubble that gives you search examples! also we love you :)"
FF: "Oh, sure it's MY fault that the exclude option for ships only works if you select 2 characters max! OH, RIGHT it's MYYYYY FAULT that I thought you meant 'no 4somes!' Right, blame it all on the poor widdle website! Have some more SasuSaku + NaruHina fics! Why are you crying?"