A/N: Naruto does not belong to me. This story is the product of having an over active imagination.

As I went through the memory-books, a small headache started throbbing at the back of my eyes. I rubbed my eyes, and put the last book on the relevant shelf.

I sat back on my haunches and mused over the information I had reclaimed.

The Haruno Sakura in my memories was, in personality and behaviour, very similar to me when I had been that young before. Just that fact brought up questions in my mind about the metaphysical aspects of soul transmigration, and the age old debate of nature vs. nurture. However, I stopped that train of thought almost as soon as it occurred. I did not want to dwell on those questions as that way led to madness of the research variety. I knew myself well enough to know that if I went down that rabbit hole, I was not coming out, because at heart, I was a scholar.

I had fallen into counterintelligence by accident but then discovered that I had a head for tactics, and well, the rest had been history. However, I was skeptical of my experience being of use here, as Shinigami-sama had implied, where the socio-political system was so very different, almost feudal. I knew how to work in a military machine but that was the extent of the usefulness of my experience, I thought.

I forcibly brought my thoughts back to my life in this dimension. As a child, I had been rather introverted, preferring books and my own company over other people. That seemed to have transferred onto this life, with me being a loner in school, top of the class, but very aloof. (I didn't notice when I had started to refer to Sakura as I. The transfer was seamless and almost as if someone had made me unable to notice it, looking back.)

Since I was enrolled two years later, all of my peers were seven years old, and that had been a factor for my somewhat childish self. The fact that I had not been shy in showing my higher intelligence had led to others viewing me with jealousy, and me disdainful of them. God, I had been a very snooty child.

One of the things which threw me for a loop was that up until now, except for Inuzuka Kiba, none of the so-called Rookie Nine were in my class. I figured that the Academy slowly filtered the ones with more potential from those who didn't have the talent or countenance for it. Looking over my memories of the past four years of my academy training, most of the faces were the same, which made sense as we had only learned theory up until then. Our physical conditioning and taijutsu would start in the coming year, and chakra training a few months later. I was not worried about that seeing as due to my imbalanced chakra, my mother had started on my physical training when I had been five.

On the topic of my parents, I apparently had been very spoiled by them, as I had been a miracle child, born after years of them trying for one. Haruno Mebuki had been 38 at the time of my birth. So they both doted on me quite a bit. Thankfully I had not been too much of a spoilt brat, probably due to the early training I received, which had been brutal, though my mother had kept my age in mind while training. I had flourished under her tutelage, taking to taijutsu like a duck to water. The place where I lagged was in bukijutsu, my kunai handling abysmal, my shuriken training not much better. Only through hard work and intense practice, my aim had increased from abysmal to average. Hopefully it would get better as I got older, and be able to handle the size of the kunai better than I did with my tiny hands now.

My father had also started me on kenjutsu, the Haruno being a samurai clan in the Land of Iron, where my grandfather was the head of the clan. My father, being the third son, had been allowed to leave and settle in Konoha, where he oversaw the business dealings of the Haruno in the Land of Fire. Even though he was mainly a businessman, Haruno Kizashi had not forgotten his samurai upbringing, and made sure his daughter knew how to handle swords at least. At the moment, I could only use a tanto, the others being too big for me. I had gotten quite good at using the short blade, to my father's obvious pride.

A clap brought me out of my head, as Maya tried to get my attention. I turned towards her and raised a brow. She beckoned me over to where she was standing. I absently noted that she had moved away from the table at the back of the room. She was now on the other side of the room, near the wall where there was empty space, which I was pretty sure had not been there before.

I cocked my head at that, a silent question in my eyes.

She shrugged. "I cannot affect the memory-books of this life, but this is my domain as much as it is yours. I can change it at will. After some time, you would be able to as well."

She then indicated the chalkboard which was on the wall, which I had somehow missed. It brought up a welling of nostalgia inside me, having used the same kind of boards in my previous line of work. A look at Maya showed me that she understood how it affected me. However, she didn't bring it up, for which I was grateful, as I never did deal well with others' emotions, let alone my own.

"Now that you are caught up with your memories, we need to start planning on how we are going to deal with the whole moon goddess thing. I have been waiting eleven years for you to catch up."

I scowled at her tone, "That was not my fault."

She ignored my comment and asked, "Well?"

"Alright, let's get started, then. We should list out all the different players on the board first."

She nodded, and turned to write Akatsuki in big letters on the board.

"The members of the organization would be Pein, Konan, Hoshigaki Kisame, Iwa no Deidara, Kakuzu, Hidan, Zetsu, and Uchiha Obito, a.k.a. Tobi."

"Orochimaru would also be a member of Akatsuki, as he had been one, before being ran off by Uchiha Itachi in the original timeline," I added.

"Oh, good point," Maya said, "And on the other side, we have the ninjas of the hidden villages."

"Let's write down the ones we can be absolutely sure we would be able to count on fighting the Akatsuki. The relations between the hidden villages has soured considerably, and Konoha's only nominal ally is Suna, and you know how that turns out in the OG timeline," I pointed out. "We also need to plot a rudimentary timeline for each village using whatever knowledge of their internal politics we have."

"Alright." Maya started writing down names. "Konoha this time around has a shit ton of S-ranked ninja, even with the deaths of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina. We have the two remaining Sannin, the White Fang, Senju Nawaki, Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Itachi, and Uchiha Shisui. We have the clan heads, all of whom are exceptional ninjas. We also have the Rookie Twelve, all of whom have the potential to become A- and S-ranked shinobi. Not to mention the dozens of Jounin. In a pinch, we could also call upon the expertise of the Nidaime's remaining students."

I stared at the long list of names and a corner of my mouth ticked up. I believed in stacking the deck against any opponent, and the list on the board offered me the opportunity on a silver platter.

Maya cleared her throat, and tapped the board. "Anyone else? Or should we go on to the next part, the different villages?"

"Yes, let's move on. Which should we do first?"

"We barely have information on the internal politics of Iwa and Kumo. The Tsuchikage is Onoki, and he would remain so until he dies, whenever that is. Iwa's two jinchuurikis will soon defect, if they have not yet. I assume Deidara already has. Now, Kumo. Kumo I have very less information. The Yondaime is A, and Killer B and Nii Yugito are the Jinchuurikis."

I let out a hum of assent, as I stared at the board, deep in thought, eyes unfocused. Kumo was a power-hungry state. As the Hyuuga affair had never happened, they must be consolidating power for a territory grab rather soon. With Kumo nibbling at the borders of other countries, an alliance would be very difficult. I said as such to Maya, who nodded, a calculating light in her eyes.

"Suna is more difficult to predict than Kiri, I think. With Akasuna no Sasori as a loyal nin, who knows how his presence would affect the internal politics. Suna is more of a monarchy than other villages. But as he would be the highest ranked nin in Suna, apart from the Kazekage, perhaps he would be in line for being the Kage. And could be that with his presence, Suna won't invade Konoha during the Chuunin exams," I mused.

"Kiri is relatively easy. Right now, I believe Yagura is still alive and under a genjutsu. Kiri will most likely be occupied with its civil war for the next three to four years. Hopefully, Terumi Mei will be the next Mizukage."

"If this timeline is at least somewhat similar to the original timeline, the next big event we would have to look out for are the Chuunin exams in three years. Till then, we have next to no chance in influencing anything major."

Maya agreed, "Yes, I think for the next three years, you should focus on your training. If we are to go against monsters, we need to at least match them in strength."

I inclined my head at that, agreeing that it would take me much training to be able to hold my own against the will of a Goddess given form.

Maya sent me an admonishing look, and said, "You need to be more sociable. Up until now, you were an absolute loner, an introvert of the highest caliber. If we are to succeed at our plans, we will need allies. Also, you need friends."

I said nothing at that, but she could probably read my thoughts from my face alone. This body was very expressive. I hated that.

"Don't be like that, darling. You'll find out that you will occasionally act and feel like an eleven year old girl. Your soul might be old, but your body is not. Plus, you are on the verge of puberty. Get ready for hormones!" Maya smirked.

I grimaced at her words, horrified that I would have to go through puberty again. I was so not looking forward to the multitudes of mood swings, awkward crushes and, worst of all, periods. Hopefully, the ninjas had come up with a method to deal with them, otherwise, I would scream.

"Which brings me to our last topic," Maya tapped at the chalkboard with a pointer, which she had gotten from god knows where, "Our training. We will be continuing with our taijutsu training from Mom, and kenjutsu from Dad. However, there is the question of all the other aspects of ninja warfare. More specifically, chakra."

"Well," I began slowly, "We are supposed to start chakra training in the coming year at the Academy. To start before that, we would need a teacher. I suppose we can ask Mom for that."

Maya paced in front of me. She began thinking out loud, her expression thoughtful

"In the original timeline, Haruno Sakura had perfect chakra control, but below average chakra reserves. She was hailed as the second coming of Tsunade, with her super strength and ability to heal. Do we follow that route?" She waited for my answer, which was an immediate no. She continued, "So we don't go that way. Now, from what I have observed, our reserves are a lot more than I had expected. I believe that we had the Yin chakra of a full grown adult, more so because our previous job required a lot of mental strength. Our Yang chakra is slowly increasing to match the size of our Yin, which by my calculations would be by this time next year if we continue as we have. This would give us a large chakra pool, by any standards. And we can keep increasing the size of our reserves. This gives us many more options."

"But we won't have the innate chakra control that this body was supposed to have," I frowned.

"We can compensate for that."

"Fine. Then, I think, we should not limit ourselves to just one or two fields of interest. Why handicap ourselves when we can try to learn it all?"

"You know what they say about being a Jack of all trades," Maya said pointedly.

I scoffed. "You have so little faith in us? Thankfully, our work ethic carried over into this life as well. We can manage. We have approximately five to six years before the Akatsuki start moving decisively."

"Alright," Maya said, holding up both her hands, "Then let's break down our training into parts. Taijutsu?"

"Mom has that covered."

"Bukijutsu?"

"Needs a lot of practice. But doable."

"Kenjutsu?"

"Dad."

"Ninjutsu?"

"We will need to find out our affinity first. Then we will see."

"Genjutsu?"

"Research needed."

Maya sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Does anything else come to mind?"

"We will need to learn fuuinjutsu. If we find out Zetsu cannot be killed, sealing him would be our only option."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Maya despaired. "There are only two seal masters loyal to Konoha right now, and both are too busy to teach some random academy student."

I tch'ed. Then something struck me.

"Maya, didn't Shinigami-sama give us a gift?" I asked excitedly.

Her eyes widened. "Of course. Why didn't I think of that earlier?" She facepalmed.

"With that ability, we would be able to learn so much. That boon is going to prove invaluable to us. Just think, we would be able to learn from Uzumaki Mito, Uzumaki Kushina, Senju Tobirama."

"We would be able to meet our great-aunt, the first transmigration."

I felt giddy.

A/N: Please Review!