Sasuke is different.

Sakura isn't surprised, but she watches him a little closer with the trained subtlety of the ANBU member she used to be.

He's sitting in the back row of the classroom, so Sakura takes up the seat in the back corner next to a window. She has the protection of a wall behind her and the promise of a quick escape through the window beside her. An ideal seat, really. And that's what she'll tell anybody who asks about her new choice of seat (not that she suspects anybody will, the other kids seem to find her weird and mostly leave her alone).

Ino sits closer to the middle, but off to the side far enough that she can glance back at Sasuke frequently. Sakura notices how she's careful to avoid locking eyes with her, but she'll get answers from Ino sooner or later. She can try to ignore her all she wants until then.

Iruka keeps an eye on Sasuke as well, but he's the only one in the room who has the authority to do something to help if he thinks Sasuke needs it. Sure, Sakura can voice her concerns to him if she notices anything too wrong with Sasuke (which is a difficult observation to make because who could be alright after the massacre of their clan?), but beyond that she feels more powerless than usual.

Sakura doesn't pay attention to the lessons that day, and she does the average amount of work required of her when they move onto target practice and sparring. If she's slipping a little below average that day in her accuracy, then it's because of her worry and inability to help Sasuke. She wishes she could let him know that she's there if he needs anything, but she can't give him back his family. She can't give him anything to lessen his pain.

Sasuke doesn't participate at all (she thinks it might help if he does, or at least it can distract him for a bit), and Iruka doesn't make him. Instead, he sits off to the side of the academy's training grounds and stares into the distance. He isn't seeing anything, and Sakura knows this. She's experienced that thousand yard stare herself, when the horrors of the things she's seen crept up on her. So, it doesn't surprise her to see that look on Sasuke. In one night, he witnessed enough death to last a lifetime.

At Itachi's hand, Sakura reminds herself. Her kunai embeds itself in the center of the wooden target across the field with a satisfying thunk.

Ino can't avoid her forever.


Sakura chooses the simplest approach to force Ino to speak with her. Show up at her house and appeal to her parents for a long overdue playdate.

Inoichi is home that day. He's kind and seats her at the family table with plenty of snacks laid out in front of her, saying with a wink that Ino's sweet tooth forces them to have plenty of treats around for her. He says that Ino is helping out at the flower shop, but she's welcome to wait for her to come back.

She plasters on a smile and thanks him, trying to convince herself that she didn't just barge into the home of a prominent Torture & Interrogation member. That would be madness, though nobody's ever called her sane. (And maybe she should feel a little concerned about that now that she thinks about it.)

It's a nice house. The Yamanaka family does showcase their love of flowers, though. Every surface that can hold a vase without hindering its purpose has one, and the variety of flowers is overwhelming. They make the house smell nice, and Sakura figures that she would care more if she understood anything about flowers.

Kunoichi classes haven't taught her about flowers in any way that she understands yet, and they aren't any more interesting in the third year than the previous two years. Not that Ino has issues with them. As usual.

If she wasn't full of conflicting emotions, she'd spare a moment to think about how Itachi is weirdly good at being a girl.

While she waits, she picks at the snacks Inoichi has set out for her. She takes her time choosing each one she eats, and she chews slowly. It might be more appropriate for her to dig into the sweets as she is, physically, just a kid, but grazing allows her to keep her nerves at bay and slow the questions that want to race through her mind in a desire for answers.

She will get those answers tonight, even if she has to beat them out of Ino.

She fidgets, snacks, and adjusts her goggles, though they fit perfectly over her eyes. Nervous habits that Inoichi would pick up on if he stayed around rather than adjourn to the home office in order to address some work. She's glad for that. She's happier being alone while she waits and having the time to think over what she wants to ask.

After continuing this routine to keep her anxious energy in check for half an hour or so, the door to the Yamanaka household opens and Ino steps in.

"I'm home," she says, taking her shoes off.

"Welcome home," Sakura says, standing up and moving to the kitchen's doorway.

As Ino looks over to her, eyes gaining a steely quality to them, Sakura releases her chakra from its suppression. There's no need to hide anymore. Ino makes no move to run from her own home, but her parents expecting her presence probably contributes to that. Her sense of duty runs deep to a fault. (As both an Uchiha and a Yamanaka, apparently.)

Besides, Sakura figures that Ino also realizes she owes some answers and will have to give them sooner or later.

Why not sooner?

With a deep breath, Ino straightens her posture. She passes Sakura as she enters the kitchen. (The lines under her eyes are more prominent, now that Sakura sees them closer.) Taking a plate and stacking sweets on it, she heads to the hallway leading to the bedrooms in the house.

"Come, then," she says. "We can speak in my room."

Sakura doesn't need to be told twice, and she flickers into Ino's room, not caring at the moment if anyone notices her ability to shunshin, though Inoichi is likely more preoccupied with his work instead of looking out for a small flicker of chakra in his home. She's been in the house often enough to know the exact location of Ino's bedroom and memorize the soft shade of purple painted on the walls along with the cream colored carpet to the point that her brain fills in the color over the red tint of her world.

She seats herself in the middle of the floor with her arms crossed.

Ino takes longer to enter the room, walking with slow, careful steps. Then, she closes the door to shut them in, privacy seals carved into its wooden surface.

She sits across from Sakura, the plate of snacks between them with neither one reaching to take a bite.

Silence stretches on until Sakura figures out what, exactly, she wants to ask. Then, it comes out in a strangled voice. "Why?"

Ino clenches her hands into fists as they sit on her lap. "It wasn't a choice anymore. Not really," she says. "Danzo gave me the ultimatum. If I didn't kill the clan with my own hands, then the squad given the task would not have spared Sasuke."

"There was no other way?"

"If I wanted to both ensure Sasuke's survival and avoid a civil war, then no. There was no other way," Ino says. "Talks of a peaceful solution failed."

Sakura sits, frozen. "Why did you leave the village then? If it was an order, then you should have been able to stay."

Ino smiles, but all Sakura sees in it is bitterness. "It kept the clan's name untarnished. I wanted Sasuke to hate me, not the village. I made sure that he saw me standing over our parents' bodies, but that he didn't see the tears on my face. As far as he knows, I killed them all to test my skill. When he is ready and has his own Mangekyou Sharingan, I allow him to kill me and pass my eyes onto him."

"The Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan."

Ino nods. "I left the village to spy on a group known as Akatsuki and relay information about them back to Konoha. My plan had one flaw, but I didn't know about it until after my death. The man who called himself Madara Uchiha—yes, as in one of the founders—knew the truth about the Massacre. About Danzo and the coup. He told Sasuke about it after implanting my eyes."

It's a barrage of information, too much to process at once. A founder of Konoha is alive? The Uchiha are dead at the hand of Itachi. Danzo gave out the order to have a boy, barely a teenager, kill his clan and family, with the exception of one, under the threat that none of them would be spared otherwise.

Sakura added to that torment, too. Throwing herself off a cliff in front of him. Casting more suspicion on him from the clan. What the fuck was she thinking in that life?

"Itachi… Did I… Was my death…" Her questions trail off, but she isn't sure what she's asking. Not really. There's too much to ask and she doesn't know the words to express the pain that those questions bring.

Ino's silence is her answer.

Then, Sakura is gone.


As Shisui, she was called the strongest Uchiha of a generation (though she'd argue that Itachi was better). Strength didn't matter. Not when she couldn't save anybody.

Using her shunshin to get away from the suffocation encroaching on her under the weight of Ino's words, Sakura ends up in an empty training ground as the sun sets. It's quiet, but does nothing to soothe the torrent of emotions raging in her head. The accusations that she's failed, in her past life and in this life.

She wishes that she could hate Itachi, but she understands the feeling of being caught between two options and knowing that she'll come out as the loser no matter which one she picks. It's just that it would be easier to hate him and call that the end of it. She still has questions and needs Ino to explain a lot of the information that she dropped on her, but tonight she doesn't want to add more into her storm of thoughts.

Instead, she spends her time hating herself. Not Itachi. Not the rest of the Uchiha clan. Not the village elders or the Third Hokage.

Just herself.

What has she accomplished, really? She asks herself that again and again, never coming up with an answer.

It's sobering to look back over one lifetime (one and a half?) and realize that you haven't made a difference. Not for a single person or cause. Even giving Itachi the Mangekyou Sharingan came at too high of a price to consider a victory.

She lashes out at the nearest thing, and her fist meets the unforgiving surface of a boulder. Her flesh and bones give way before the stone, and the shock of blinding pain grounds her to the present. The scream that tears out of her throat is equal parts rage and agony.

While there may be a crack in the boulder (hardly a fracture), her arm falls to her side and hangs there. She doesn't need to look at it to know it's in shambles, and she feels the warmth of blood trailing over her skin and dripping to the ground.

She could have lessened the damage to herself with chakra, but she needs this pain to sharpen her senses. She needs to know that she is living a fresh life, and the pain as a punishment for her old life. There's so much she needs to do. People who need her to be strong. Who need her to be fast.

She, on the other hand, needs a doctor.

The tears flow. She pushes her goggles up so she can wipe her eyes with the back of her left hand while the entirety of her right arm throbs in sync with her heartbeat.

Sakura takes a deep breath and looks around. While she doesn't know exactly how long she's been at the training ground, she knows it must have been a fair amount of time as the sun has fully set and the moon sits high in the sky.

Home, then to the hospital is probably her best course of action. Her parents will be worried that she hasn't returned from Ino's yet, and if they find out secondhand that she's at the hospital, then one or both of them might have a heart attack. They truly aren't meant for the shinobi life, but Sakura thinks they make the most of their civilian talents.

Maybe Dad will give me a piggy-back ride to the hospital.

She's awfully tired and the idea of being able to trust adults to take care of her from this point on so she can stop thinking is both refreshing and welcome.


"Sakura, what happened?" Her mom's voice is shrill in her panic, and she alternates between wanting to touch Sakura's mangled arm, and not wanting to cause more damage to it by touching it. "Kizashi! Kizashi, get down here!"

"It was a training accident," Sakura says. She could go into an explanation of how chakra is kind of protective and that she maybe didn't use it against a boulder, but figures that her parents won't get it.

Besides, she's tired and doesn't want to get into teaching any new concepts right now.

"What are you-oh no, Sakura!" Kizashi is crouching in front of her then and in the same state of wanting to touch her arm, but not wanting to touch it that her mom has been trapped in.

Any other day, she would find this scene amusing. As it stands, she's tired, the adrenaline is wearing off so the pain is coming back with a vengeance, and she really wants to get that whole going to the hospital thing over with.

Her parents aren't fast. They aren't abnormally strong. She could be at the hospital in the blink of an eye if she wanted. But when her dad crouches down and her mom helps her onto his back, she can't bring herself to care that the walk will take a little while.

For the moment, she needs the warmth and love of her parents. She needs this chance to truly be a child and let her parents take care of her and make decisions on her behalf. It's a sensation that she never felt as Shisui, and the chance to experience it has tears slipping down her face.

"Sakura, don't cry. We'll be there soon," her mom says.

"It's not that," Sakura says with a small, tired smile. "I'm just happy that I have such kind parents."

The grins and watery eyes that she sees form on her parents' faces lets her know that maybe they need her warmth and love as much as she needs theirs.

She hopes that Ino gets these moments of contentment with her family, too.

It's the least they deserve, right?


A/N: I hope to get through the main arcs of Naruto in this story, but I'm curious which filler arcs people might want to see included?