Kakashi used teleportation-jutsu to get them both home. The second they touched down in his genkan, twin puddles of muck began to form around their feet. For the first time, Kakashi realised Sakura was barefoot.

"You need to get cleaned up." He started to usher her further in, toward the bathroom, but she hesitated.

"Your floor…"

He laughed, because there was no universe in which he could possibly care about his floors in that moment. He grabbed her gently by the wrist. "Come on, it's fine."

"I could just go back to my place?" Sakura gestured to the door behind her. "Use the shower there."

Now it was Kakashi's turn to hesitate. He stood there, foolishly, hand still wrapped around her thin wrist as he tried to think of a good excuse why she couldn't leave his sight.

As if reading his mind, Sakura turned from the door and started heading deeper into his apartment. "On second thought, there's no point in both our floors getting muddy."

Kakashi stood just outside the bathroom door, scratching at the dried mud on his face. He had sent Pakkun to Hokage tower with a quick explanation for why he had pushed his panic button and left Obito unattended, and a promise to follow up in person ASAP. He hoped this would buy a little time before the inevitable chaos.

A restless part of him wanted to pace back and forth, but he knew the cleanup would be hell. Also, he was terrified of being too far away from Sakura.

"Can I borrow your shampoo?" She called softly, and Kakashi leapt on the opportunity to keep her talking.

"Knock yourself out. I mostly use it on the dogs anyway."

She laughed, the sound echoing strangely off his bathroom walls and through the door where he stood. "Pakkun mentioned that we used the same shampoo once. I'd never been so insulted."

"Floral Green is easy on the nose; no weird chemicals that get in the way of tracking."

"I thought they stopped making it years ago."

"No…?"

Silence from the other side of the door. Then finally, "oh, right. My mistake."

Sakura insisted Kakashi shower after her, so he scrubbed himself clean while straining his ears to hear her pottering around his apartment. She had promised not to go too far even though she complained that the clothes he had lent her were too big.

The second he was clean, dry and dressed, he sprang from the bathroom to find Sakura kneeling on the floor with a rag and bucket.

"You don't have to do that," he told her, bending down to help her to her feet.

"My fault," Sakura said, and he could see the chagrin in her eyes.

"Are you ready to talk about it?"

She nodded.

He led her to the couch, where she curled up at one end. Despite her recent shower and dry clothes, she still shivered with some unknowable trauma. Her face was clean, but her eyes were red-rimmed and deeply shadowed.

"Wait right there." Kakashi ducked back into his bedroom and ripped the blanket off his bed. Just as he had done the other evening, he tossed it around Sakura's shoulders.

"Thanks."

"You're very welcome." In truth, he was glad for the blanket hiding the way his baggy clothes made her look far too thin, or the defensive hunch to her shoulders. "Are you hungry?"

She nodded. "Haven't eaten since Ichiraku's."

"Give me two seconds."

Kakashi almost ripped his cupboard door off, and he forced himself to relax. In truth, he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. It had taken many years to make peace with his father's death, and Sakura's would have been every bit as painful. What cruel god decided that she had to suffer so much trauma that death seemed like the only escape?

But it wasn't a god, Kakashi thought grimly, as he poured boiling water into a cup ramen. It was Obito and his damned Infinite Tsukuyomi.

"This was the quickest meal I had, but I can make something more substantial if you prefer," Kakashi said, but Sakura lunged for the plastic cup like it was a feast. She wolfed it down while Kakashi settled himself into his tiny armchair, waiting (somewhat) patiently for her to speak.

"Okay," she started, placing her empty cup on his coffee table, "Where should I start?"

"Start at jumping into the river, please." Tell me you're not going to try that again.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself. Just so you know."

"But that's exactly what would have happened if I hadn't been there." He tried to leave the frustration out of his voice, but Sakura still winced.

"Actually," she frowned, "why were you there? You were going to go to Obito's and then check on me later, right?"

Kakashi closed his eyes, remembering the look on Obito's face when he arrived without Sakura. "As soon as I arrived I could tell something was wrong. Obito didn't want to talk at first, but it was clear your absence worried him for some reason. And you had been...strange, this morning. So I pressed the panic button and went looking for you."

Sakura laughed mirthlessly. "He probably thought he'd broken my brain or something. Which, to be fair, he nearly did."

"You said 'genjutsu' back at the river." Pieces were beginning to fall into place, but he didn't like the picture they were forming. "You think Obito did something to you?"

"I know he did."

"But…" He didn't want to believe it for so many reasons. "What about the cage seal? If he'd moulded enough chakra to put you under another genjutsu we'd have noticed it."

I'd have noticed it.

"That's because he did it before this week. I'd just broken out of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, and I was paranoid about being put under another major genjutsu by...someone." Her cheeks briefly flushed. "But things didn't happen the way I was expecting, and I wasn't prepared for anything small-scale. Obito took my hand and looked me in the eye, and...he got me, without me even realising."

Kakashi recalled the consternation on Obito's face when confronted with a girl who had abandoned his paradise. He had said something to her, but at the time Kakashi had been distracted by Sasuke and Naruto.

"It was subtle," Sakura continued, "so subtle that I don't think it fully impacted me until I saw Obito again. He told me this world was the fake one, and every time he took my hand, it seemed to reinforce my doubt." She flexed her fingers as though they pained her.

It wasn't fair. Life as a ninja was rarely fair, of course, but sometimes Kakashi forgot Sakura was a ninja. She seemed too normal, for one thing. She had parents, and crushes, and pink hair, for god's sake. Why become a tool for the village when she could have become literally anything else? Why did she put herself through so much danger and heartache when she had a choice? It was one of the many reasons he'd avoided training her seriously; because part of him still hoped she'd wake up one day and realise she could pursue a happier life, free of the danger he'd have to lead her into every day. But that was his weakness, his selfish desire to protect her. Fate wasn't fair to either of them.

"We'll have to report Obito, of course," he said, and he suddenly felt so weary that he could have fallen asleep right there if he hadn't been so terrified Sakura would disappear the second he closed his eyes.

"Despite everything, I don't hate him." Sakura bit her lip. "I'm mad at him, don't get me wrong. But it's not like he wanted to hurt me personally. He just wanted to find a world where he could be happy. I can't blame him for that."

"What was your world like?" He was afraid of pushing her too far too fast, but he had been waiting for Sakura to open up for so long that he was afraid she would withdraw back into herself before he learned how to help her.

The silence stretched out for several seconds, and Kakashi was about to change the subject back to safer waters when Sakura finally spoke.

"I had a daughter."

According to all the reports he'd read, most dreams had not lasted very long. After a certain amount of preamble, most people had settled into a happy moment that then crystalised. The gardener from Shiroito had been an outlier.

"How long?" He asked, and Sakura gave a shuddering sigh.

"Hard to pin down an exact date. I kept starting to figure it out, so my memories were all disjointed. But I'd say about thirteen years, based on how old Sarada was when I...left."

Sarada, he presumed, was the daughter in question. He could also guess who the father had been. Sakura's idea of paradise was pretty easy to guess.

"You seemed so different after the war ended. At first I thought it was the trauma from Amaterasu, or even your involuntary haircut making you look a bit older. But I guess it's because you are older, even if it's only mental."

Sakura removed the blanket and stood up. Before Kakashi could ask what she was doing, she started forming seals he recognised.

"Henge no jutsu."

In a puff of smoke the girl he knew was gone, and in her place was a woman with a taller, more mature body, an elegant bob haircut, and a red jacket bearing a fan crest.

"This is me," the woman said. "The real me. Or the fake me, I guess. But it still feels realer than the girl in the mirror."

"Now that you've broken Obito's second genjutsu, perhaps you'll start feeling more comfortable in your real body."

"Perhaps," she murmured, dropping the henge with another puff of smoke. "But I don't think I can blame everything on the genjutsu either. It's a huge adjustment, going back to being an unmarried teenage chunin and having everyone call me Sakura-chan."

Kakashi grimaced, forgetting for a moment that his face was bare and his emotions were on full display. "Sorry about that."

She shook her head. "Not your fault. It was weird, though, having you speak to me like you were my captain again. In my dream, we were more like...friends." She tugged at a loose strand of hair, revealing an ear that had turned almost as pink. For a kunoichi, she could be really terrible at hiding her emotions.

"I like to think we're still friends," he offered, but to his surprise (and maybe disappointment), Sakura's reaction was lukewarm.

"I guess so."

They raided Kakashi's fridge for some real food. He found some eggs hiding at the back, and began scrambling them while Sakura stood at his elbow and watched.

"Can I help?"

Kakashi shook his head. "You just relax."

"I truly am okay, Kakashi. Not perfect, but better than I've been in a while."

Once again she dropped the -Sensei, assuming a level of familiarity that was still jarring to hear from a teenager. Perhaps he didn't understand their level of friendship in the dream world after all. "What about physically? Sometimes people start dry-drowning from the trauma."

She laughed, turning to face him fully. "Who's the medic here? I'm not about to have a pulmonary edema, I promise."

"You better not," he warned her. The mere thought of Sakura doubled over, unable to breathe while he could do nothing but watch, was terrifying. "I'm still getting used to seeing you hurt yourself on purpose, even if you do heal back up right away." That diamond on her forehead was equal parts blessing and curse. Blessing, because she could heal almost anything that hurt her. Curse, because she was far more likely to get hurt in the first place.

"Because of the river?" She smiled sheepishly. "I said I was sorry...and also not completely in control of my mind."

"The river, yes, but also Amaterasu, and letting Madara impale you just to create a distraction." That one had been the scariest, partly because he hadn't known she would actually be okay, and partly because it was far-too reminiscent of Rin.

"Oh." That was all Sakura seemed able to say for herself. Kakashi wanted to shake her, but knew it wouldn't change anything.

They talked while they ate. He had been maskless since the river, partly because there was little point hiding what had already been seen, and partly because Sakura had explained that being able to see his mysterious face was part of the reason she could tell this was reality after all. But he had to force himself to eat slowly; the instinct to wolf his food down while in the presence of others was too strong.

"Orochimaru was allowed to keep experimenting on children, and everyone was just...fine with it, for some reason." Sakura was recounting parts of her dream, and between that and the food some colour was returning to her cheeks. "Yamato-taichou had to follow him around like his keeper."

He silently noted that Yamatou was still -Taichou in Sakura's dream. "Orochimaru fled the battle, but I have it on good authority that a team of hunter-nin from several villages were dispatched almost immediately, with orders to kill on sight. If they haven't caught up to him yet, they soon will."

"Glad to hear it." Sakura ate another mouthful of eggs, chewing placidly. "You and Naruto both ended up becoming Hokage, and you both hated it."

"That one sounds pretty likely, actually."

She frowned. "I don't want that to happen to you. Or to the village, for that matter."

"I doubt we'd ever hate it to the point of neglect, but it's not like the role is designed to be fun; you'd know that more than most, as Tsunade's apprentice."

"Tsunade is incredible. But she didn't really want the title to begin with, and I suspect she doesn't want to keep it forever."

"And yet she rose to the challenge when the village needed her. Her replacement would have to do the same."

"What if you're the replacement?"

He took a sip of his tea. "There's a decent chance I will be, if she decides to abdicate after the New Era of Peace is officially ushered in. Naruto would still be too young, even if he claims otherwise."

"You did a pretty good job in my dream; Orochimaru's freedom notwithstanding. But you never seemed like the hat-and-robe type. No offence."

"None taken; I'm not. But part of being a shinobi is adapting to the needs of the mission. Besides, it's not like Tsunade is quitting any time soon, so I won't worry about it until she does. Tell me something else about your dream."

"Sai married Ino."

That gave Kakashi pause. "I didn't think Sai was into...people. Like, at all."

"Yeah. I guess my subconscious was just being naive: wanting him to be happy in the only way I understood happiness at the time, you know?"

"Sure."

"Turns out he's not the only one who would likely object to that union."

"Ino isn't still hung up on Sasuke is she?"

"Er, no. Turns out it was never about Sasuke."

"Oh. Oh. I never would have guessed."

"Yeah. Some best friend I turned out to be, huh?"

"If it's any consolation, you've still got nothing on me." Obito would be back in his prison cell by now. He and Sakura would soon have to report to Tsunade that the Uchiha had failed his probation. What would happen then?

The conversation fell into awkward silence, punctuated only by the crunching of toast and the slurping of tea. "Oh!" Sakura said suddenly, breaking the tension. "Naruto and Hinata got married, because of course they did; but one of their kids didn't even have the Byakugan! I should have guessed there was something wrong the second Boruto was born."

He smiled at her very transparent attempt at pulling him out of his thoughts. So much for he being the one to comfort her. "First of all: Boruto? Second of all, maybe you did. You said whenever you questioned something, the genjutsu tried to make you forget."

"True. There are a lot of gaps in my memory. Things that should have been really easy to remember, like my wedding to Sasuke-kun." This was the first time Sakura had mentioned her relationship to Sasuke, or anything particularly personal about the dream world. "It's like I knew it had happened, but it never occurred to me to try to remember any of the details."

"It's hard to question the ways a genjutsu is manipulating you whilst you're inside it," Kakashi said gently. "Especially if you don't even know you're in one."

"It's probably for the best." She smiled even as her eyes began to tear up again. "I think my subconscious just...sent Sasuke away after a while, because I didn't know how to get close to him without making myself miserable. I think it would be harder to separate that life from this one if I had any strong feelings left for him."

"Is that why it's so hard to forget Sarada? Because you felt such strong love for her?"

"..."

"I'm sorry. I understand if you don't want to talk about her."

"It's alright. It's just hard to think about her when I'm back in a world where she clearly doesn't, and won't ever, exist. She'd only be a few years younger than I am now. I love her, but I don't know what to do with that love anymore." She wiped the tears from her eyes, and no more took their place. "Where do I put it all?"

"I truly hope you find the answer to that question one day."

Sakura insisted on changing into her own clothes before they reported to Tsunade. She was, he noted, still choosing generic fatigues over her usual colourful and personal clothes. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her wearing red.

They were waved through to the main office immediately, presumably because Tsunade wanted their explanation of what had happened with Obito.

"Sit down," the hokage was all business today, barely looking up from the official-looking document in her hand. Shizune hovered near her elbow, looking just as harried but sparing the newcomers a quick smile.

"We've come to report about the Obito mission," Kakashi said, as Tsunade was liable to forget they were there after too long, and he didn't want Sakura to be here any longer than necessary.

Perhaps sensing something in his tone, Tsunade finally put the document down and fixed them with her full attention. "I take it that something went very wrong, then? Obito didn't say anything to the auxiliary team when they escorted him back to his cell, and neither of you were there at all."

It was a long story and most of it wasn't his to tell, but he wanted to spare Sakura some of the effort. Sharing some details with him over lunch was different to presenting a formal report. But Sakura spoke up first.

"We weren't there because Kakashi was busy pulling me out of the river."

Tsunade raised a single brow before gesturing to Shizune, who turned to grab a pen and blank scroll from a nearby cabinet. "Genjutsu?"

"Mostly. With a dash of genuine psychological trauma." She gave the Hokage a sardonic smile. "Though to be fair, most of that was also genjutsu-related."

Tsunade fixed Sakura with an intense stare for what felt to Kakashi like an age, before throwing her head back and laughing. To his surprise, Sakura laughed too, her body language open and unguarded. He hadn't realised just how close she and the hokage really were.

"You are not my friend."

That might have been true once, but now the thought annoyed him.

The hokage composed herself, settling back into her chair and looking once again like the leader of the most powerful village in the world. "Tell me everything."

And so Sakura told them everything; or at least, Kakashi assumed no important details were omitted. She told them about the universe where Sasuke's susanoo had protected her too, where none of her friends had to watch her succumb to the creeping vines of the world tree. In that version of events, Madara had been dispatched by an even deadlier foe: the goddess of the moon. Kakashi recalled her sudden interest in all things astronomical.

"I know it sounds silly," Sakura said, "but perhaps the genjutsu knew that Madara's motivations for changing the world were too complex and tragic, and just gave me some overpowered bad-guy scenario instead in the hopes that I'd sleep happily once I punched it in the face."

"Even if punching a god in the face and ending the war had been a sufficiently enjoyable experience, I suspect it would have still been difficult to put you under," Tsunade mused, and Kakashi couldn't help but agree.

"Probably because I didn't know what would actually make me happy," Sakura joked feebly. "Everything went the way I wanted or expected, but it always made me feel worse in the end."

When Sakura revealed that she had a daughter, both Tsunade and Shizune paused to wrap her in a hug. Kakashi sat awkwardly beside three of the most formidable kunoichi in the village as they wept and grieved together. Once again he felt agitated. If he had never given Sakura to Tsunade, would he be the one she felt closest to? Did he even want that responsibility? It was a stupid, impractical emotion, and certainly it was selfish to mourn such an ancient loss when Sakura had so recently lost every anchor in her life, but he couldn't help but wonder what life might have been like if he'd tried to keep his students. Probably they would all be dead by now.

When they were able to resume the report, Sakura sketched a more complete picture of the dramatic changes to Konoha. When she mentioned that Kakashi had become Hokage for a while, Tsunade turned to him with a sadistic smile.

"Now that's an interesting idea. Interested in my job, kid?"

Kakashi bowed so deeply in his chair that his nose almost touched the floor. "Nobody could hope to replace our esteemed and illustrious Hokage-sama, much less this humble fool."

The esteemed and illustrious Hokage-sama laughed. "We'll see."

He barely repressed a shudder.

"I think the dream changed tactics at some point," Sakura continued, "possibly because it was getting weaker every time I challenged it. Instead of trying to create a happy future from scratch, it started reminding me of my happy past. That's about the time that Kakashi and I became friends."

She glanced at him, her smile almost apologetic. "At first it was just training, but I think the dream could tell how happy it made me, so it kept pushing us together until we were essentially close friends." Once again a blush crept over her ears, like the fact that she wanted to be his friend was embarrassing somehow. He wondered if Naruto and Sasuke felt the same way.

"Anyway, that's when Kakashi attacked me."

"I beg your pardon?" Kakashi blurted out, wandering mind pulled abruptly to the present.

"In the dream. The genjutsu version of you realised I wasn't interested in—being happy, so the whole dream warped and started trying to subdue me by force."

"Oh." He knew his face had been the key to her distinguishing realities, but she had glossed over the details in the first telling.

Sakura turned back to Tsunade and Shizune. "But it was good that it was Kakashi, because that's how I was able to break out in the end. The genjutsu was using my mind to fill in the gaps for everything, but I didn't know what he looked like under his mask so the whole thing started breaking down."

"That's why you were so weird after the Tempura Incident," he realised suddenly.

"After the what?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow.

"Sakura burned down her apartment."

"I didn't burn it down." Sakura glared at him, and he gave her his usual placid eye-crinkle in return. "But yes, that's why. I thought I'd made tempura a million times, but in reality my brain was just filling in the gaps or glossing over the minor details."

"Like stove temperature," Tsunade guessed.

Sakura nodded. "And not to throw water on an oil fire."

Shizune snorted, trying unsuccessfully to turn it into a cough.

"But you'll all be pleased to know my apartment is still fully intact," Sakura's eyes lingered significantly on Shizune as she continued the transcription, "with the slight exception of my front door."

"How did the door—" Tsunade began, but seemed to stop herself. "Getting back to the genjutsu?"

Sakura briefly recapped the events following her jumping into a dream version of the river and drowning herself awake. She spoke only briefly about the fight with Madara and general post-war goings-on, as most of it had been in her original report. But she did note the suspected moment that Obito first put her under his genjutsu.

Tsunade swore aloud. "Barely an hour after you broke out of the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

Sakura nodded. "And well before a suppression seal could be put on him. When I saw him again, all he had to do was mould a tiny bit of chakra to reactivate it."

It was genius; diabolical, even. Kakashi was once again reminded that his goofy teammate had developed a skill for evil.

Sakura finished her report by recapping her dreams of "home" and treasonous conversations with Obito, culminating in her jumping into the river in a last-ditch effort to change reality on her own terms.

After a few moments of silence, Tsunade stood and walked over to a heavy-looking filing cabinet. Lifting one corner like it was made of cardboard, she fetched a sealed bottle of sake lying on its side underneath.

"This calls for several drinks," she said.

Shizune had already put down the now-full scroll and fetched four cups. Kakashi took his silently, and the Hokage herself filled it for him.

"Well," Tsunade raised her own cup briefly, "thank the gods for Kakashi's face, that's all I can say," she smirked at him briefly before turning back to Sakura. "I myself haven't seen it since he was just a cute little kid. I have a bet going that he's ugly now."

Kakashi opened his mouth to remind everyone that he was still in the room and did in fact have feelings, but Sakura threw back her drink in one gulp, distracting him.

"You'd lose that bet, Shishou."

After one more drink and several more formalities, they were finally dismissed. Kakashi's legs had all-but fallen asleep, and as they walked outside he noted that the sun had already gone down. "November," he muttered darkly.

"I'm glad Tsunade isn't going to punish Obito." Sakura was walking beside him, face turned toward the road ahead. "Any more than he already is, I mean."

"Me too," he admitted.

"I'd like to visit him in prison soon, if you'd be willing to go with me?" She was still turned away, but Kakashi could tell she was gauging his reaction closely.

"If that's what you want," he said, before remembering what that phrase meant to her now. "I mean yes, I can do that. I'm happy to do that with you."

Sakura nodded, offering no further comment or reaction. At one point they passed a bar, the red lanterns above the door basking them in a warm glow. Kakashi tried to think of sunlight instead of fire.