A/N: I haven't written for the Naruto fandom before, but I feel that it needs more Shisui and Shisui could use another chance to live and mess up the timeline a bit. Many creative liberties have been and will be taken.

Give me one if it's real

And two if you can feel it

Give me three signs that you're awake

- Let the Sparks Fly, Thousand Foot Krutch


He's falling. Blind. One eye in Danzo's possession. The other in Itachi's hands.

Then, the wind envelopes him as he tips over the edge of the cliff with a smile on his face. He trusts Itachi. Besides, without his eyes, he has nothing else to offer his village or his clan.

"I believe in you, Itachi."

Sakura wakes up with tears on her face and shaking hands. She's known about her past life for as long as she can remember, but that never makes certain memories easier to face in her dreams. So, she cries all the tears she held back in that previous life because they're in peace time now and she's a clanless child with none of the responsibility that weighed her down last time. No 'genius' title is being applied to her. No plots are brewing within her clan. She doesn't have to worry about clan meetings at all anymore.

She just wishes that Itachi could have this chance to be a regular kid. The problem is that she's figured out time isn't linear. The other problem is that she hasn't figured out how reincarnation works.

Because Uchiha Shisui, who she used to be (and will always be in a way), is still alive.

If she's been reborn while her old life is still on-going, then Itachi could be reborn at any point in time. She can't imagine who else might be lurking around in the bodies of people she least suspects. Unless it was a fluke that she's ended up like this?

Every time she tries to figure out this situation, her head hurts and her thoughts get jumbled until she gives up. No matter how she looks at it, there doesn't seem to be any logical explanations.

She's seen Sasuke at the academy (and how cute Sasu-chan is at this age with his little fan-girls fawning over him), and she knows that it'll be a few more years before the dream that haunts her the most becomes a reality for this timeline's version of Shisui.

Though, she admits she's curious about what happens after. Does Itachi manage to save the clan? What happens to Danzo (that old, eye-stealing bastard)?

As she thinks, her tears slow to a stop and she wipes her face with her quilt. She's had her moment, and it's late enough in the morning to get up from bed (plus she's young enough to still be a ball of annoying energy in the house).

She trains in her room with simple exercises, the best way to remain unseen for the time. She flows through kata that are as familiar and natural to her as having two lives is. She meditates and stokes her chakra, pushing it to grow a little more. She sits and practices her sleight of hand with the toy kunai her parents bought her (though using real ones makes the trick much more satisfying).

She makes no noise in her routine.

She has all the experience of a Jounin, and she knows that she won't waste it. She needs to be prepared for whatever comes next.

She just isn't about to get herself marked as a prodigy this time. Pretend to be normal and watch from the shadows. Being in Sasuke's class could turn out to be fun, after all.


Her routine hardly wavers as that first year at the academy passes. She's still too young to head out to training grounds and really get into her capabilities without the fear that a passing ANBU will report on a genius pink haired little girl, and there aren't enough of them around to give her reasonable deniability.

So, she makes the best of her training at home. At the same time, she makes sure that she's painfully average in the academy. (She finds that part to be its own kind of training, and also rather fun.)

Body flickering from corner to corner of her room gets a little boring, and she hopes that she'll have a chance to find larger training grounds soon.


Well, no one's ever called her a good child in her past life (ignoring that her father didn't even recognize her by the time he died). So, she starts sneaking out at night. Not for any nefarious activities, but simply because her training is at a plateau without more space and less breakable valuables.

She waits for her parents to go to bed, then she gives them an extra hour to fall asleep before she slips out the window in her bedroom.

She hopes that she doesn't run into herself… Or, well, the still living Shisui of this world. Man, this is confusing. Shisui still has to play his part in Itachi's development and the (hopeful) dissuasion of the Uchiha Coup.

It seems like every option she has is a bad one, but doing anything other than pretending to be a normal academy child will draw attention she doesn't want. To get herself noticed by ROOT is the same as signing her life away.

She ends up looking at the Uchiha Compound from the shadows. Wind tussles her hair (wind is all he feels as he falls), hair that is long and bright and out of place in a world filled with darkness. Beyond the wall sectioning off the compound, she knows everyone.

Yet none of them know her.


Kunoichi classes are different. New. They weren't part of her old life, and she finds that they are pretty pointless (and no, that isn't just because she's bad at them).

So, she isn't good at arranging flowers. Not a big deal. Who cares? She is purposefully, painfully average at every lesson in the academy. The difference is that she isn't average on purpose in the Kunoichi lessons.

And, fine, that hurts her pride a bit.

They're just flowers. How is it that every time she tries to make a bouquet, it's somehow wrong? She thinks they look perfectly (well, decently) nice.

"It's about the meaning of the flowers," a girl in the class says. Ino, if she remembers correctly.

"What?" Sakura asks.

Ino sits nearby, not looking up from the collection of flowers she's carefully adjusting to perfection. "You arrange the bouquet to have a meaning based on the flowers you choose. As a Kunoichi, that meaning does not have to be related to your mission. It's part of your cover. It just has to be… nice. Deceptive."

Sakura looks between her own pitiful bouquet and Ino's. Then, she throws her hands up and lets the flowers scatter around her on the grass.

"I'm just not good at this," Sakura says. "I still don't get it."

Ino turns, finally, and gives her a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes and the familiarity of it brings up a deep ache in Sakura's chest. Her eyes look too tired for the face of a child, but she finds only kindness directed at her.

"Maybe you'll be better at the next lesson," Ino says, an attempt to placate her.

"Maybe. How do you know the flower meanings?"

"My family has a flower shop."

"Oh." She pauses. "My name is Sakura."

"Ino."

Ino returns her attention to the flowers, but Sakura continues to stare. She feels like she should know Ino, but she can't remember talking to her before today. She's seen her in class, sure, but they've never interacted.

"Friends, then," Sakura says with a nod, driven by a need to figure out why she feels a connection to her.

Ino looks back at her and seems uncertain as to whether she should be shocked or grateful.


She's afraid of losing her eyes. Nightmares of fingers dipping into her sockets and ripping away her sight have her waking up screaming. In fear or frustration, she isn't sure. There are inklings of hatred and images of a bandaged man in her memories.

The tears that fall down her face, however, are regular and not trails of blood flowing from empty sockets.

She wakes her parents up with her screams in the night, and they come and wrap her in their arms until she calms down and can find some measure of sleep tucked between them before being sent off to the academy in the morning. They hush her with soft words, and they believe that she is ordinary enough to miss the worried looks they exchange with each other in the dim room lit by a childish nightlight that she never has the heart to remove from its outlet.

They understand that she has some deep-rooted (no pun intended...Well, maybe a slight pun) issues regarding her eyes and her paranoia about losing them. They don't understand why.

She knows they don't understand why because they haul her to a shinobi who specializes in the mind to try and figure it out, but he ends up telling them in front of her that he can't find the cause of this apparent trauma. She doesn't know what he tells them when he asks to speak with them alone.

Then, she spots them in a shop for durable gear. Goggles. She pulls on her mother's hand and drags her into the shop until she has her tiny hands on them.

"Sakura?" her mother asks, slight confusion coloring her voice.

"These are perfect, Mama," she says. She has a bright grin on her face. "They'll protect my eyes."

And no, she still doesn't understand, but she buys Sakura the goggles anyway, and Sakura's vision is tinted a comforting red once she pulls the black strap over her head and her mom adjusts it to fit properly.


Ino glances at her several times during their next day at the academy, and Sakura would have missed them if she'd been any less trained. When they break for lunch and sit next to each other, she finally asks, "Goggles?"

Sakura nods with a grin. "I need to keep my eyes safe."

Ino's eyes widen a minuscule fraction before she smooths her face back into its neutral expression that has a hint of both curiosity and sadness. "Are your eyes in danger?"

With a hum as she thinks, Sakura shakes her head. "No, I don't think so. Not yet, at least. Or not anymore? I have a lot of nightmares though and maybe I'll tell you another time about them."

She doesn't know why, but she isn't outright against telling Ino about how she was once someone else and her past life overlapped with her current life (and still is for the time being). Not yet, but she'll keep an eye on Ino and decide as they learn more about each other.

Worst car scenario, Sakura figures she can play it off as a joke. Or that she's crazy.

"If you wish to, then I will listen," Ino says.

"Thanks."


Sakura spends her nights in the older training grounds that are less likely to be used. She works on perfecting her body flicker technique for the second time in a new body, and she runs through kata with her wooden tanto (her parents refused to buy her a real one for her seventh birthday and gave her this one instead). Her speed improves, and she wonders if she'll be called 'Shunshin no Sakura' this time around.

During the day, she attends her second year of the academy. (Sasuke was the Rookie of the Year last year, how adorable.) She continues her game of pretending to be average, and Ino tries to teach her about flowers, but Sakura thinks that any cover story involving her and flowers is going to be a no go. Ino is patient, though, and Sakura appreciates that. They eat lunch together everyday.

It's when Ino's hair grows longer and she ties it in a low ponytail that Sakura blurts out "Itachi" on accident when trying to get her attention.

Sakura slaps both of her hands over her own mouth, and Ino looks like she's been struck by lightning.

"Sorry, Ino!" Sakura says, her words pouring out in a rush. "Your hair just really reminded me of someone and it slipped out."

Ino's expression smooths over, but the way her eyes narrow doesn't help Sakura distinguish her from Itachi in her mind. A little blonde Itachi with blue eyes.

And Sakura takes a minute to really pay attention. Ino has always had a familiarity to her, and Sakura tries to dig deep into what it is that causes that. Now that she's focusing on it, Ino's chakra has a charred feeling to it, but there's also a muted quality like a snuffed out fire. She's suppressing it but it feels so much like…

"Itachi?" Sakura says again, this time her voice is no more than a whisper full of disbelief.

She watches hundreds of theories flash behind Ino's eyes as she tries to figure out who would recognize she had been reincarnated into the past, while the person she was is still alive in this world.

Sakura's face splits into a shit-eating grin. "And here I thought you paid such close attention to Sasu-chan because you were one of his fan-girls."

Ino gags and glares at Sakura, who laughs until she falls to the ground and continues after.

Sakura feels pain in her side as Ino kicks her and curses her old name under her breath.

"Shisui."

Sitting up once again, Sakura nods at Ino. "Been awhile, cousin."

"Those variations of us are still alive."

"I know," Sakura says. "None of it makes sense, but if anyone deserves to be a little selfish and have a childhood for once, it would be us."

"Hn."

"You really haven't changed."

Ino gives her a look that she interprets as 'And you have?'

Sakura shrugs one shoulder and taps her goggles. "Turns out I came into this life with some new crippling fears. I couldn't sleep without nightmares of what happened until my parents got me these."

The bell rings to signal the end of lunch, and kids start filing back into the academy. Sakura and Ino put their conversation on hold, but they walk to class together in silence and sit side-by-side now.

They both do a fair job of pretending to pay attention to their teacher, but Sakura slips a note to Ino without Iruka being any the wiser.

"Using clones again to play hooky?"

Ino smirks.

For now, they can be children.


A/N: I had this idea and started working on it to help with Writer's Block on other projects. I thought it would be fun. I plan to continue it and let Shisui have a bit of fun as Sakura Haruno.

Hopefully someone out there finds enjoyment from it as well.