I had to work on other updates before I even attempted to begin writing this chapter…I kept putting off older updates I'd already promised and I just couldn't keep doing that. So, yeah. That's why this update didn't come quite as quickly as the others.

So here is where a little more about Sakura's predicament comes to light. Some perspectives from the friends she left behind. Some angst, some original lore, some more adventure in the past. All the fun.

A couple of quick notes…

A few very small things diverged from canon. Sasuke and Naruto did not have their big fight where they each lost and arm. Sorry, but that's 100% unimportant to this story.

Sakura doesn't know every single little detail about the past.

Sakura still has her Allied Shinobi headband, as we now know. This is because it will become important later.


Naruto had never known a single week could be so long. And even after losing Jiraiya, he had never known the void left by someone's absence could be so crushing. That was how it felt, returning to the village without Sakura. A hollow victory.

She was there one minute, ripped away from them— from him— the next. Sucked into a damn lizard's eyeball. It had almost sent Naruto on the warpath again, but Kurama's insistent voice in his head, telling him he had to calm himself, had brought him out of it. All he'd been able to do after that was sink to his knees in despair and punch the ground.

He vaguely remembered Gaara joining him, apologizing, and Hinata's feeble attempt to get him to pick himself up. But losing one of his teammates again right after they'd fought so hard together…it was just too much. It gave him a new perspective on what it meant to be helpless. So close! They were so close to having Team Seven reunited at last.

The blonde couldn't even remember the sequence of events that had come afterwards. It was one long string of blurs. He'd ended up back home somehow, and the village had begun the process of grieving for the fallen. Neji's death was compounded sadness, something he did his best to support Hinata through, despite his own grief over losing Sakura. She wasn't dead though. He refused to believe she even could be—wherever she was, she was alive and fighting to get back to them.

In the meantime, Naruto left no stone unturned looking for answers. He had seen a lot during and before the war, so he wasn't about to disregard any possibility. It could be some crazy genjutsu.

A powerful enough genjutsu could literally bend reality, as everyone who had dealt with Obito and Madara were well aware. But Sasuke had been standing right there, Rinne-Sharingan activated, and he'd told his old teammate if it was genjutsu it was the likes of which not even his eyes could get through.

Naruto asked Kurama, but all the fox had been able to tell him was that the eye was most likely a portal leading to another dimension and that he'd briefly caught wind of a very powerful, very ancient presence. Too bad it disappeared when the eye did and the Kyuubi couldn't answer any more about it.

So Naruto spent the next week going from angry to sad, helpless to determined. He didn't interact much with his friends; in fact he hardly left his apartment. Tsunade had told everyone it was best to give him space. For the most part everyone did. They were missing Sakura just as much as her team was, but life had to continue, somehow.

It was on the seventh day of Naruto's descent into solitude that he got an unexpected visitor. "How long do you plan to go on like this?" Naruto half-turned to see his estranged teammate standing there, regarding him coolly.

"Oh great, I should have known if I stayed cooped up in here too long they'd send in an expert. Being depressing is your department. Sorry if I stole your thunder." Naruto replied, hands folded behind his head.

He heard the quiet scoff as Sasuke said, "No one sent me. I came to see when you planned to get off your ass. This isn't like the reckless, impatient dobe I know."

Naruto sat up at his words. "Know? How long's it been since we knew each other Sasuke?"

Sasuke didn't bother to deny the quiet accusation of his question, simply looked around at the small space that was quickly slipping into disarray. Naruto wasn't the neatest even when he wasn't sulking. But a week of neglect had his apartment almost in shambles—like he'd left it the way it was before the war, and added new messes on top of the old.

The layers of dust he could see accumulating made Sasuke believe it'd been a while since Naruto had been home prior to the return to Konoha. At least the ramen cups scattered across what served as his breakfast table meant he was eating. Eating junk and not much else. Probably drinking expired milk, too.

"All I know is, if you want to see Sakura again you won't be able to do it like this."

"Don't you think I know that?!" Naruto snapped, his eyes suddenly flashing with fighting spirit. "But what the hell am I supposed to do? I don't even know where she is! No one does!" Naruto dropped his head into his hands with a deep sigh.

When he raised it again, Sasuke could see the bags beneath his eyes and the tiredness radiating from his whole being. It wasn't just from a lack of sleep either. How long had the dobe been playing everyone's hero?

"Since when do you care about Sakura anyway?" the blonde spat resentfully.

"…I never said I didn't care."

"You've got a hell of a way of showing it, Sasuke." Naruto chuckled mirthlessly. He collapsed back on his unmade bed, staring at the ceiling quietly.

"I came here for a reason, Naruto. I've been thinking of a way to at least find out what dimension Sakura's in, but I'm going to need your cooperation. Or are you not up for the task?" Sasuke wasn't sure if it was the proposal itself or the hint of mocking that got Naruto to look at him.

Naruto sighed, reluctantly giving the Uchiha his attention. "Keep talking, asshole."


A week. She had been in the past for a whole week, and if it was some elaborate genjutsu, the caster had spared no expense to make her believe it was real.

She knew genjutsu tricked the senses, but Sakura was almost positive it had to be real. Only someone with extensive knowledge of history could have made a world so immersive around a time period when there were still so many mysteries left out of texts.

Sakura was slowly but surely taking it all in, trying to get used to living without the comforts of modern technology. She missed what she'd taken for granted. Showers, for instance.

She was now taking baths instead, and getting water to boil from a small spring that had mysteriously appeared behind her house. Toka had appeared twice after their initial meeting, making sure Sakura's food supplies were kept well-stocked.

The worst part was feeling a bit disoriented in terms of her routine. Before the war she'd had a solid one. Mostly, she was at the hospital keeping her medical ninjutsu skills sharp. But with no hospital and nothing to really do here but attempt unsuccessfully to find a way home, she was, for lack of a better term, bored out of her skull.

Sakura didn't work her ass off enduring Tsunade's rigorous training regime for years just to let it go to waste now. If nothing else, she at least wanted to spar with someone—anyone!

She'd become so paranoid about her skills getting dull (even though she'd barley been off the battlefield a week) and so desperate to keep that from happening, she'd almost barged in on a spar between two kids that couldn't have been older than academy age to ask if she could join.

Something had to be done soon, or she'd eventually return to her own time a drooling vegetable, her sanity lost to boredom.

As she sat in her house meditating, her consciousness being pulled further from the world around her, an image flashed through her mindscape. The haunting image of a reptilian, green-gold eye.

"Why do you resist?" It was the same voice she'd heard on the battlefield. "I am giving you the chance to become so much more than you are. I am making you my own!"

Slowly, the shape of a woman formed. Someone she had never seen, wearing an emerald kimono with a gold obi, with impossibly long black hair to her feet, similar to Kaguya's save for the color.

Her features were hard to discern beyond that. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat reminiscent to the ones the Akatsuki had dawned, and it hid much of her face. She saw the dainty ruby red mouth frowning shallowly though.

Sakura's consciousness tensed away, but she bravely continued her meditation. 'And you are?' Sakura thought.

"Someone you likely would not know even if I told you…I, unlike the foolish, vain Rabbit Goddess, am not someone who seeks to rule through fear. Someone so insecure I feel the need to manipulate from the shadows."

Sakura's felt like cold flames had been lit inside her heart. She knew about Kaguya. But she had called her "foolish" and "vain"…as if the terrifying Mother of Chakra were insignificant. Was this a new threat?

'What do you want, then?' The kunoichi asked cautiously.

"Haven't I told you? I want to give you everything, sweetling. In time, you will ascend to the position you belong. The first step…was placing you where you were needed most."

'Is that why you brought me here?' Sakura asked, unable to contain her anger. This woman claimed she didn't believe in meddling, but exactly what did she think ripping Sakura from her time and dumping her here, in the distant past, was doing?

"Yes." The mysterious deity said simply. No remorse. No understanding of the magnitude her actions had already had on Sakura's life. "You have already encountered Kaguya's descendants." She meant Hashirama and Tobirama…and the Uchiha, Izuna. Naruto had briefly told her, as best as he could explain it—it was Naruto after all—about what he'd been told regarding his ancient heritage by the Sage of Six Paths.

Hashirama and Madara were reincarnations. And subsequently all members of the Senju and Uchiha respectively, were direct descendants of the Sage's sons, thus making them direct descendants of Kaguya's.

"I have no descendants. I had no children. But I have chosen you, darling girl, to be my progeny."

That left Sakura speechless. 'I'm not sure I follow…you brought me back in time to…' Even as Sakura tried to wrap her head around it, she found it impossible. Here was this ancient deity who scoffed at Kaguya's attempts to bring the world to its knees—an attempt that had very nearly succeeded—but who also seemed to have chosen Sakura to carry on her own line.

"From the moment I claimed you, my blood flowed through your veins, child. You are as much a descendent of the Otsutsuki clan as if you were born so."

'Otsutsuki?! You are like Kaguya.'

The woman lifted her chin proudly, slowly removing her hat to reveal golden-green, reptilian eyes and a face that was certainly befitting a goddess. Porcelain smooth and expertly composed. Even Sasuke would probably be impressed by her poker-face.

"I am Mizuchi no Megami, the Dragon Goddess."

'Oh, hell no.' Sakura couldn't help the curse that flickered through her mind. One goddess had been cataclysmic, and even with Team Seven's combined strength they had barely managed to seal her away. Now, here was another goddess that came from who knows where. And she had her sights firmly set on Sakura.

"For so long, it was my younger sister's descendants who molded history, all for the sake of preparing for her arrival. But I am not like Kaguya. I do not seek the subjugation of humanity. I am content to observe, as I have for many millennia. I now simply wish to observe through you."

Yes, and that was exactly what bothered Sakura. This goddess wasn't sealed. Nothing was able to stop her from doing as she pleased. Sakura alone knew she certainly wasn't enough.

"For now I depart and leave you to your ruminations." Mizuchi, after casually dropping that bombshell, had the gall to say she was leaving. How the hell was Sakura supposed to meditate now? There was no getting her mind to a calmer place and there likely wouldn't be for a while.

As soon as she felt the goddess' presence leave her mind, her eyes were wide open and she was on her feet, looking around wildly. But she was alone. In every sense. The only evidence of the goddess' "visit" was the searing pain on the inside of her wrist in the shape of a crescent moon with a small circle situated inside the curve. The pink-haired kunoichi grit her teeth, quickly using a henge to cover it.

Sakura's mind raced as if pure adrenaline had been injected into her veins.

The blood of the Otsutsuki.

She was like Naruto and Sasuke now… Sakura wasn't sure how that was possible; she also wasn't sure how she felt about having god-blood. What would that mean for her in the long run?

Sure, she had always strived to catch up to Naruto and Sasuke, but not for a minute did she want their inheritance. She was proud that even without a shinobi pedigree, she had still risen to exceed the expectations of herself, and everyone around her.

Her normalcy was what had always set her apart on Team Seven. At first she had seen it as a hindrance. Overtime she had made it a strength. She didn't want to change into someone she couldn't recognize.

The longer she thought about it the more overwhelmed she felt.

Now she really needed a good spar. Dressing herself in the red battle kimono and securing her shiny hitai-ate, Sakura took the weapons she'd gotten on her first day in the past and set out looking for somewhere to train.

There were several individuals she could think of who would be the perfect opponent, but she wasn't bold enough to ask them when she'd barely seen either of the Senju since their last encounter, when Hashirama was running away from his brother in terror.

The thought of it still had her choking down a laugh. The two were something of an unwitting comedy duo. And yet she had seen for herself that they were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

While she was just fine not seeing a battlefield again anytime soon, she had been a shinobi for most of her young life and wanting to train was practically ingrained in her now.

It was only after she'd made it into the crowded village streets that she realized with dismay she didn't know where to train. Maybe if she was lucky, her team's training grounds would be there.

Sakura knew the way by heart, and the whole walk there she crossed her fingers that the clearing would be as she'd remembered it.

'I wonder if I could talk to the Hokage about doing missions…The village is accepting mission requests, aren't they?' Sakura needed something to take her mind off what had happened during her meditation. The mark she'd managed to hide felt like it was exposed for the world to see, and she unconsciously rubbed her wrist.

Since she didn't want to do anything to draw suspicion to herself, it was better to keep the symbol Mizuchi had callously branded her with hidden at all times. 'Maybe I should start wearing a bandage on my wrist, just in case?'

Sakura was preoccupied finding ways to make sure the Otsutsuki symbol was never uncovered. And then there was the question of what it did. She wasn't naïve enough to think it was simply for decoration. She continued to stare blankly at her wrist as she walked, though the henge was holding fine.

'I guess there's nothing I can do about it right now. Better find someplace to trai—' She stopped abruptly as she bumped into an armored chest.

"Again, I find you unaware of your surroundings…I question your abilities as a shinobi more with each meeting."

She stared up into the blank face of Tobirama, who had appeared from nowhere. Given his reputation as the fastest shinobi of his time, it was quite possible he had.

"I guess that's what passes as a hello around here." Sakura huffed.

Tobirama dipped his head slightly in a mocking show of greeting.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

Tobirama plowed on. "My brother requests you. A matter of importance, or so he claims."

Sakura's brow furrowed. "And for this he sent you and not a messenger hawk?"

Tobirama gave her a wry sort of smirk. "My sentiments exactly." Clearly, he wasn't amused that his brother was sending him on paltry errands.

'Well so much for training…I wonder what the Hokage could want to see me about. He's not…going to ask for my headband back, is he?' Sakura's heart thudded painfully at the thought. Or maybe they'd discovered something that made her a suspicious person. Though, if that were the case she was almost positive Tobirama would have attacked her outright.

"Alright, let's go." Tobirama seemed satisfied she would come without argument, taking to the rooftops with Sakura right behind him. Every now and then Sakura noticed he glanced back as if to see if she was still there, and the kunoichi thought he almost seemed amused she could keep up.

'This guy really doesn't think much of my skills, does he? Though to be fair I guess he's never seen me in action.' Sakura smirked at the back of his head. 'Better watch out! Looks are deceiving.'

As if he sensed her gave, Tobirama glanced over his shoulder on cue, his face still expressionless. Sakura sobered up after that. When the Hokage residence came into view, Sakura was half-surprised Tobirama led her in through the open window behind the Hokage's desk. Nevertheless she followed, greeted by the sight of a sulking Hashirama at his desk, sorting through new requests. Toka stood at his side, arms folded with a stern look on her face.

"Toka, can't you ease up a little?" he whined, apparently he hadn't noticed them yet. "We're old friends! You don't have watch me just because Tobirama told you to."

"Lord Hashirama, even if Lord Tobirama hadn't requested I keep you from running off, I'm well aware of your tendency to become distracted in my own right. As you said, we are old friends." Toka smirked slightly.

"Brother," Tobirama cleared his throat, and Hashirama stiffened as he looked up.

His expression only brightened when he noticed Sakura standing at his brother's side. Presumably because he saw her as the one person in the room who wouldn't gang up on him.

"Sakura-san!" The Hokage greeted happily, an audible sigh of relief following the exclamation.

Toka nodded politely. "We meet again, Sakura-san."

"She isn't here to save you from your duty, Hashirama." Tobirama reminded. "She's here at your request, which you led me to believe was important."

"Ah!" Hashirama seemed to remember suddenly as he nodded in agreement. "I know this is short notice, and you're still getting accustomed to the village, but how would you feel about taking a mission?"

"Yes!" Sakura all but screamed without hesitation. Anything was preferable to languishing in the village over her predicament.

"Brother, how is that wise?" Tobirama questioned. "We know nothing of her skill or competency."

Sakura's eager expression fell into a scowl. Tobirama had a habit of talking about her like she wasn't in the room. And he was always so blunt with his skepticism.

Hashirama's smile didn't fade. "That's true, but if she made such a difficult journey here, then I believe in her abilities." He looked to Sakura with his usual sincerity. Sakura understood the Hokage was a man that believed in his judgement when it came to having faith in others. How he had ever been close friends with a man like Madara alluded her.

"I should inform you that you'd be going on this mission with Toka." Again, Sakura met eyes with the brown-haired woman. As far as Sakura was concerned, the Senju woman seemed like a reliable ally.

"It'll be nice to work with you Toka-san!" Sakura said amiably.

"Likewise." A ghost of a smile appeared on her normally solemn face.

"What kind of mission is this brother?" Tobirama asked, his eyes going from glaring at Sakura in suspicion to eyeing Hashirama doubtfully.

"Well, actually…" he chuckled slightly. "I'm not the one with the details. A request came early that one of the clans could use some help from outsiders, preferably two women. I decided to send Toka, and she actually requested that you also be assigned this mission, Sakura-san."

Toka nodded in agreement. "Yes. I can't explain it but, I feel a kinship towards you Sakura-san. We will work well together, of that I'm sure."

Sakura's mouth opened slightly to voice her confusion.

A cold look overtook Tobirama's face as he glared toward the Hokage's door. "This mission request came from him."

"Him who?" Sakura couldn't stop herself from asking.

"You can come in now!" Hashirama called, and as the door opened Sakura felt her heart seize up.


Fun facts about some of the changes made to this chapter during the revision process:

That scene with Naruto and Sasuke almost went a completely different way. Instead of Sasuke saying "…I never said I didn't care."

It was almost. "…I was going to ask her to marry me." which would've been a nod to canon. But, I decided there was no point in getting anyone's hopes up when this story doesnt really have any chances of SasuSaku.

And look guys, I don't know about you, but I'm not sure Sasuke's plan is even gonna work. After all, Sakura's not exactly in another dimension. :P

There was almost a heated spar between Izuna and Sakura.

Sakura almost met Madara while wandering the village, instead of Tobirama, at which point she was going to attack him on sight, and thus make enemies out of the Uchiha clan for an unprovoked attack on their leader.

This last part was changed mostly because I felt it was too much of a dead end with where I wanted this chapter to lead to.

And at this point in the village, since Madara didn't go quite off the deep end because he didn't lose Izuna, public sentiment among the Uchiha about him is somewhat better at this point. A small faction still remains wary of course.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this chapter despite the change in tone somewhat. I kind of like walking the line between fluff and "feels" (aka angst).

I do not plan for there to be a Godlike!Sakura. Frankly, I view god-like abilities in the series similar to a cheat code and I'm not wild about all the power-ups Naruto and Sasuke were given in the end just as Sakura had caught up. I mean by chapter 699 in the canonverse Naruto and Sasuke were literally an inch short of being actual gods, what the hell? And let's be honest, if not for all the extra abilities they got, she would have been on equal footing with them a long time ago. Anyway, I don't want to cheapen all of Sakura's hard work by making her some sudden goddess. But that doesn't mean she won't possibly get a new ability or two. I've got a lot of options with where I could take this new development so I have to keep some things close to the vest for now.

Also! The water source in Sakura's backyard did not just appear from nowhere. So far we've been introduced to two Senju who favor Suiton techniques so feel free to assume it was either one you want. Lol My guess is Toka. I sort of see her as being stern on the outside but she's trying to discreetly mother Sakura. In this story Toka is a young woman in her twenty's by the way. Some of you asked for gal-pal Toka so gal-pal Toka is what you'll have.

Please don't forget to review to those of you who've been lurking. ;) I'd appreciate it. I'm off to update more of my other fics.