Ino is going to kill her. Twice.

First when she finds out that Sakura lost herself for a bit and her instincts—the masterfully refined and horribly inconvenient (in this case) instincts of Shisui—took over.

Then, she'll kill her again when she finds out that Sakura got to renew her summoning contract with the crows before she did.

The hardest part will be choosing which piece of news to share with her first.

The only mercy she receives as they continue to their stop for the second night comes in the way that others look at her with more concern than fear. As her parents recall the story, it happened too fast to know with certainty what killed the men and how Sakura ended up in the middle of them with blood on her. Suspicions can be had and assumptions made, but nobody speaks them aloud. Her sudden displacement. Her lack of injuries.

Sakura wears a smile and tells them she's not hurt, and yes, she's sure. Otherwise, she keeps quiet, afraid that she'll say something to confirm their suspicions. Fooling herself into believing that she hasn't been fully incriminated already.

They arrive at the inn where they'll spend the second night of their journey, and Sakura realizes that the day passed in a blur and she can recall few details with clarity, none of them important.

This village is slightly larger than where they spent the previous night, but still small compared to Konoha. There are a few places selling food, and Akira suggests that Sakura's parents go get supper for all of them since they know this village the best. Plus, he wants to take a minute to speak with Sakura about what happened earlier. So, he sends his genin out to explore if they want to, or set up in their inn room if they don't.

How thrilled she is to have this conversation with Akira. Not.

She sits atop the clean linens of one bed in the inn room while Akira sits across from her on the edge of the other bed. He's careful to not block either her view or her path to both the door and window, which she appreciates.

"Today, I put you in a bad situation due to my own desire to try to avoid conflict with the bandits," he says. "I'm sorry for that."

Sakura nods. She doesn't blame him, but it's a nice gesture. Truly, she's the one who's put him in a worse position having to report on the deaths of bandits.

Akira loosely folds his hands, letting them dangle in the empty air between his legs as he rests his forearms on his knees. "Perhaps it was idealistic of me to try passing by the bandits without needing to shed blood."

"Ideals aren't bad," Sakura says.

A shinobi without ideals is nothing more than a tool.

"Maybe not, but because of mine, your hands have been stained," he says. He raises his hand to stop her from speaking when she opens her mouth. "Don't lie to me, I know it was your doing. Unlike the others, I felt your chakra flare, then vanish for a moment. Yet, after that moment passed, those three bandits were dead and you were in their midst. Covered in their blood, no less."

"What do you want from me, then? Clearly, it isn't answers you're after."

"Well, a large part of my wanting to talk to you was to apologize. I should have gone ahead on my own and handled the bandits. I never thought that you would take such drastic actions."

"How could you have known?"

Akira looks away from her, then meets her eyes. "Your parents told me that you're a troubled soul. They wanted me to share with you some of the burdens that come with the shinobi career so that you would know what you're getting into by going to the academy. They worry about you a lot, you know."

"How could I not?"

Akira chuckles. "Yes, well, they also don't believe that you have the skill required to kill three grown men in the blink of an eye."

"No, they wouldn't believe that."

"Why's that? You're clearly more than an average academy student. Far more."

"In the eyes of everybody else, I'm nothing more than average," Sakura says. "I spent a long time working on that image, and I've ruined it with one lapse in judgment."

Sakura balls her hands into fists, feeling her fingernails dig into her palms.

Akira sighs. "You've put me in a difficult position, Sakura. To admit in my report the truth would be the same as putting a spotlight on you. I have no doubt that you'd be advanced through ranks and thrown into missions."

"Is that what you're going to do?" she asks, her stomach heavy with dreadful anticipation.

"No," he says. "I won't say anything to my team about the truth. They might go around sharing their versions of what they think happened, but they're still young and inexperienced so I don't think much suspicion will come your way from them."

Sakura nods. "I really appreciate it, but can I ask why you're doing this for me? I'm just your current clients' kid."

Akira gives her a small smile. "Being gifted as a shinobi is more of a curse than anything. I'm not, but I've watched too many who are gifted be destroyed by the pressure they get put under. A little girl with pink hair shouldn't end up among them."

"Thank you. Really."

Sakura takes a long, deep breath, letting some of her anxiety fade. Yet fragments of it remain. She won't be able to let her guard down in the village for a long while on the off chance that Danzo takes interest in what the genin might say and then decides to investigate.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Your parents should be back with dinner any minute now, and I have to round up my students."

He stands up, and she follows him as he leaves the room. While his words soothed some of her worries, they did little to quell the anger she holds towards herself.


The rest of the trip passes uneventfully, but the atmosphere is heavy and everyone keeps mostly to themselves. Sakura rides in the wagon after the second day at the request of her parents.

Not that she minds the silence or the lack of wind in her face for now. It gives her plenty of time to get lost in her thoughts.

As glad as she is when they arrive back in Konoha, she dreads speaking with Ino. Yet, she knows that it must be done.

Once back in her own bedroom, Sakura drops her pack to the floor and lies on her bed, staring at the ceiling. It's early evening, and she should seek out Ino. The longer she waits, the angrier Ino will be.

And yet, she delays. She could try to hide that anything happened, but Ino has a way of discovering secrets that transcends lifetimes.

She decides that either waiting or hiding would be useless and hauls herself up to face her mistakes.

Her parents are relaxing on the couch when she bids them goodbye. They stop her only long enough to say that she'll start meeting with a therapist again. It's not a suggestion, and Sakura only nods.

She won't confirm or deny her parents' suspicions, but she can at least soothe some of their worries. Besides, their trip proved to her that she needs some sort of help. It won't be perfect when she can't tell the truth, but she might be able to get decent advice with a convincing enough story.

It's that or Ino will conduct a forced rummage of her mind. (Seriously, how did Itachi end up reborn in a family with that kind of technique? How does he have that kind of luck?)

Her feet take her without thought through Konoha, its pathways familiar to her. Achingly so. This is the village she has already died for once, and she's willing to die for it again. All she asks for is a little more life this time. Making it even to age twenty it would nice.

Standing in front of the Yamanaka main family's door makes her feel small, like the child she's supposed to be. She knocks.

Inoichi answers the door and speaks before she has a chance to say a word. "Chouji and Shikamaru took her out to eat with them," he says, not unkindly.

"Oh," Sakura says. In all her worrying, she hasn't considered that Ino might be busy. Although, she's never thought of what Ino does without her around.

"You're welcome to wait here for her to come back, although it might be awhile given that legendary Akimichi appetite of Chouji's."

Sakura shakes her head. "That's alright. I can go meet up with them. The usual place?"

"Yeah," Inoichi says. "And welcome back, Sakura. Ino said you were traveling."

"My parents had a business trip and took me along."

"Well, I'm glad to have you back."

Sakura thanks him and leaves, but she can't help thinking that he might be the only Yamanaka glad to have her back.

Her path heads back towards her home, which sits rather closer to Yakiniku Q. Civilians tend to run the shops and cluster their homes together. Solidarity or something.

Probably.

She just wishes she'd known ahead of time where Ino is to save herself from doubling back to Chouji's favorite restaurant. She should have just looked into the building while she passed.

Sakura takes her time walking, letting her feet drag against the streets. There's no rush. She can't talk to Ino in front of, well, anybody. But Ino will know that she needs to talk with her if she shows up. Or it'll at least give Ino an excuse to leave and talk to her friend who's just returned to Konoha.

And if they finish by the time she gets there, Ino will have to pass by her to get home.

Or the ground will swallow Sakura before she sees Ino in either scenario.

That would be nice.


The atmosphere of Yakiniku Q is lively with drunken, well-fed patrons, mouth-watering smells, and warm lighting keeping away the darkness as the evening light threatens to fade.

Sakura likes the food here well enough (she's hardly one to criticize a meal that isn't composed of soldier pills), but this time the smell of grilling meat only makes the knots in her stomach tighten. She hasn't had much of an appetite while anticipating the potential fallout of her colossal mistake.

"Sakura?" she hears Ino ask.

She turns to see Ino with a cup of tea cradled in both hands while Shikamaru and Chouji continue to enjoy their food. Ino scoots over to make room as Sakura slips into the booth next to her.

She greets the boys with a nod, and they acknowledge her and let her know that if she's getting food, she's paying for herself, but not more than that. Which is fair. Sakura hasn't spent her time getting to know her classmates or anybody else. Aside from Ino, she wouldn't consider any of them as her friends. They have no reason to buy her food, and honestly that money is better spent on Chouji.

"When did you arrive back in the village?" Ino asks.

"Not long ago," Sakura says. "We made good time on the way back."

"And you decided to wander the village instead of resting?" Shikamaru asks.

Sakura shrugs. "I came to chat with my best friend."

Ino sets her cup on the table along with some ryo. "Well, I have finished with my meal. If we may be excused, then."

The boys have no protests over Ino's departure, and Ino tells Sakura as they step out of the restaurant that she'll see them again tomorrow anyway when their families meet up. It's a regular thing for their families. The result of generations of bonding and specialized three-man teams.

Sakura nods, but she stays silent as they make their way to Ino's house.

Funny how Ino is the social one this time around.


Ino activates the seals in her room and sits across from Sakura in the middle of the floor. "You may speak freely now."

Sakura doesn't speak immediately, and Ino doesn't rush her. It's one of the things she appreciates the most about Ino: her patience.

"I messed up," she says, finally. "I saw some bandits and lost it, killing some of them—the ones trying to sneak up behind us. It was too quick for anyone to see what happened, but that doesn't stop the people there from suspecting me, especially the jounin."

Ino stares down at the carpet in thought, the lines on her face growing deeper. "In truth, I suspected that it would be a matter of time until one of us slipped. The burden of carrying the entirety of a past lifetime—one which contains countless high-ranking secrets—is a heavy one to bear."

Sakura's heart stops for a moment, then restarts once she realizes that not only is Ino not tearing her apart, she already planned for this scenario. "You!... You expected this!?"

Ino looks at her with narrowed eyes. "Don't mistake my preparedness with forgiveness, cousin. I know my weakness and where I'm most likely to slip up, and that's in regards to Sasuke."

Sakura slumps a bit. "And we don't know what will make me slip up."

Ino nods. "I don't think you ever came to terms with your death, and that's a problem as well."

"It wasn't exactly planned."

"Precisely why I believe it's so much more difficult on you. My death was planned. I had years to make my peace with my lot in life. And now I am Ino, and I'm at peace with my new life."

When Sakura thinks about it, she finds that it's sound enough logic. Ino has always been reasonable—and too brilliant for her own good—and this is no exception. That day wasn't supposed to end with Shisui throwing himself off a cliff in front of Itachi. The nightmares. The memories that take over at inopportune times. It all lines up with not having accepted death. Not being able to let go of a life that's ended.

Without this new body, Sakura would be no more than a spirit of Shisui roaming the streets and frightening people.

She's a single soul trying to separate herself into two entities rather than see her lives as the past and present of one soul.

Which is especially confusing when her lives overlapped, but perhaps time is more complicated than tracking the position of the sun and stars.

Sakura takes a deep breath. "I don't know how to do that," she says, "but I know where to start."

Ino raises an eyebrow.

"Crows! They allowed me to sign a contract with them again during my trip. Who could be a better help when figuring out the mysteries of death?"

"They signed a contract with you again?"

Sakura hears the unspoken 'before me' ending that question. She nods. "They seemed to be able to tell who I used to be, like they are connected to my soul and not just my blood."

"If you think it will work, then by all means seek them out as soon as you can. As far as the rest of the matter goes, well, I hope that Akira proves worthy of your trust in him, or we're going to have a lot more worries."

"I know," Sakura says. "I'm going to lay low and watch my back. Danzo isn't going to get the jump on me this time."

With that, she stands up and stretches. The sun has set and darkness fills the streets, but the shadows have always been her home. "I'm heading to a training ground to speak with the crows tonight. Hopefully, I'll be able to start the process of putting myself together by morning."

"I'll be here if you need me," Ino says.

Sakura smiles. "I know. You always are."