Kakashi's View:

To get things somewhat back normal, the Academy was reopened within a week. Iruka and the other teachers quickly modified the lesson plans for the new world we now lived in, starting to focus more on other options besides just becoming a ninja. With peace across the nations, not every student needed to become a ninja anymore. He was telling me of the plans to expand on how long they would focus on each topic, extending kids time at the academy until they twelve year old, which meant they would need new teachers. Another thing to add to my already long list, which seemed to be getting longer everyday.

I tried my best to listen, I really did, but most of it I didn't pay attention to. Tsunade and I were neck deep in paperwork to keep the revamped Konoha Military Police from revealing every one of the Roots identities. Yes, a lot of them were criminals, but most chose to change sides when their seals were removed. Some had made progress in their lives, exposing them would only harm them and put targets on their backs, including Yamato and Sai. I couldn't let people tear them apart for their pasts.

"Kakashi?" I snapped out of it when Iruka waved his hand in front of my face. "Did you hear me?"

"Eh...sorry." I promised when I was home I would focus on family, but it was hard to think about when part of the extended family is in danger. "I think your ideas are great." He glared, apparently he wasn't talking about the school anymore.

"I asked if you had gotten through to Aurora yet, that this isn't a dream still?" Apparently he had been telling me that at school she didn't interact with anyone, even when Sora kept landing paper frogs on her desk. She didn't believe they were her real classmates, or believe anyone else, but us and a select few, were real.

"I've tried, but maybe it hasn't been enough." The last chance was for her to see Sakura at her new clinic, but she hadn't gotten everything running just yet. "Has she said anything to you?"

"Other than she prefers this version of me, no." An odd thing to say, but apparently he had been different in the dream too.

"What did you dream about?" Maybe his dream held a clue on what to do. Iruka scratched his scar nervously.

"Not much changed." He blushed. "Biggest difference was that you apparently were a part of the police force, which was strange, but we were married." So, his dream wasn't as clear as hers. What was the difference? Why wasn't he as affected by the jutsu as she was? "What? Did I say something?" I must have had a look on my face, which might have given him the wrong impression.

"Sort of. You said you remember pieces of it, Aurora remembers every detail, but the jutsu was the same." Were kids affected differently?

"It could be because she's still a child." At least he came to the same conclusion. "She also saw people who aren't alive anymore."

"You...didn't see your parents?" Iruka looked towards the floor.

"I...don't think I did." I didn't mean to upset him. "But I think it's because I've come to terms that they're gone and I'm happy with my current life. That could factor into why everyone's dream was different."

"You don't think Aurora's happy?"

"You took that the wrong way…" Iruka laughed. "I think she is, but there's something she thinks she's missing. You and I both know she's always wanted to know why she doesn't have a mother." He let out a shout when I tackled him down on the bed. "What are you?!"

"You may have just solved it. Thank you." I know he was confused, but he made the connection I couldn't; the dreams were what each individual wanted deep within their heart. "You know, we can make part of your dream come true…"

"Eh?" I felt his body stiffen. "S-stop teasing!" But I wasn't. Guess I'll ask at a different time.

Sakura listened to what Iruka and I theroised, taking note that she had been thinking the same thing. She needed more evidence to make it conclusive, but shinobi had yet to line up for any help for themselves. That and medical ninja were still stretched a little thin, which meant it was just her and Ino for the time being.

"Would you bring her here after school today? Maybe she'll talk to me. There might be something about the dream she's uncomfortable talking to you about." I hadn't thought of that before.

"I'm sure she'd be happy too."

Aurora's View:

"Huh? Kakashi, I didn't expect you here." I heard dad say as I was grabbing my things. I looked up to see father in the doorway. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing. Sakura wanted me to bring Aurora to see her, apparently she really misses you." That's a lie. "We'll see you at home?" Dad sighed.

"Yeah, sounds fine. I might be a little late again tonight. I have another study session with Naruto. Have fun you two."

Sakura nearly crushed me with her hugs, it was becoming a painful theme every time I saw her.

"How is it you get cuter every time I see you?" At least she didn't pinch my cheek like she used to, I have a feeling it would be more painful now. She went on to say how cute I looked with tiny pigtails, not getting on with why I was here.

"Good to see you too." Father cleared his throat, making her let go. I took a deep breath, wondering if I had turned blue from lack of air.

"Right. Why don't you stay out here, Kakashi-sensei. I mean…" Sakura quickly tried to correct herself.

"It's fine, I'm not used to the whole Hokage thing yet anyway. I'll wait out here." He waved as Sakura started leading me away down a half finished hallway. At the end was the only room that had a door, where Ino was waiting for us. She sat on the couch on the opposite wall, a chair near the corner was the only other thing in the room. What was this place?

"Hey cutie!" Ino didn't hug me at least. "I bet you're wondering what's going on." Ino patted the free spot on the couch.

"We know some are having trouble getting back to normal after the war, after waking up from the dream world. I hear you're having some trouble too. Ino is here to help sort out what is and isn't real in your mind. We're not here to punish you for anything, we just want to help." Sakura explained as I sat with Ino. "It only works if you allow us to continue. This is a safe place, you can say anything here." She took a seat in the chair, picking up the notebook and pen left on the seat.

"I can say anything?" Both of them nodded. "Then...if this is the real world, why does father look different?"

"Figures he didn't explain…" Sakura sighed. "During the war, Kakashi-sensei lost his eye, but Naruto used his sage chakra to heal him."

"Sage chakra?"

"Let's talk jutsus later, this is about you." Sakura tapped the pen on her chin. "Is there anything else different here that you need explained?" I shook my head, not wanting to explain how everyone had been different. "So, you do understand that the other world wasn't real?"

"Yeah, but it felt real. And there were people that I never met before. How can that happen?"

"Well, we're still working on that, but I have a theory. What is the one thing you have always wanted?"

"What I've wanted?" What does she mean?

"Something that you've always dreamed to have." It was hard to really choose, but what I've always wanted was something I couldn't have…

"I...always wanted a mom...but dad and father can't know that!" It would hurt their feelings.

"It's ok Aurora, remember, this place is safe. I won't tell anyone what you say here. So, your dream was about having a mom?"

"It was my mom, my real mom. Dad and father weren't together though...I didn't want that."

"Why don't you tell us about the dream. Ino, would you?" Sakura had Ino turn my head to face her, placing her fingertips on my temples.

"This jutsu will help you remember and allow me to see what you saw." Ino explained as the edge of my vision blurred. Everything from the dream seemed to flow around us like a film reel as I told them everything that happened. There was one part that I didn't remember that Ino revealed, one about my mother showing me an old book that held information on a clan, but what clan I couldn't remember. Ino could read that the book had a family tree in it, but the memory was so short there wasn't much to do.

"...and then we woke up."

"Interesting…" Sakura was writing things down when Ino let the jutsu go. "It seems the worlds are actually similar, but each experience is based on what they want." She seemed to be talking to herself. "You said everyone was different in your dream, can you elaborate on that? Did they look different as well as act differently?" I guess while under Ino's jutsu I had told her everyone was different.

"Yeah, they wore slightly different things." It was hard to explain, but Sakura continued writing. What was so interesting about a dream?

"Sakura, what is it?" Ino sighed. "I know you've figured something out, spill it."

"The entire world of the dream was basically the same, everyone acted different, except the one who was dreaming."

"And?"

"That's why the ones that are gone were alive there. It was Obito that explained it when Madara cast the jutsu, he told us what his dream was that he wished war never existed. If there wasn't war in the dream world, a lot of people would still be here."

"Including mom?" I asked, sort of understanding what she was saying.

"That's right. It explains why there were Uchiha clan members in your dream too."

"So, why wasn't my real father there? Was only one war taken away?"

"That I can't say." Sakura smiled softly. "Best guess I can give is, even in that world he might have had to save you and your mom. Don't dwell on those questions, ok? Just know that in this world, your real family is what is important."

Sakura just made me wonder what my past was, or actually the past of my real parents. If what she said was true, why did dad have to die for me and mom? Wasn't that world supposed to be perfect?

"Maa, how did it go?" Father asked when we returned to the waiting area. I listened to Sakura explain a shared theory between them, but I didn't understand some of the terms. "So, the genjutsu was what we thought. A big simulation of what your heart desired." Father looked at me weird again, like he was looking right into me.

Kakashi's View:

From the account Sakura told me, Aurora just wanted to know where she came from. She wanted to understand why her parents did what they did, but the truth might be too much for her. I couldn't hide it forever, I knew that, but she knew about the book with her family tree, the same book Gai found back in Mizugakure. Of course I had it, at least most of it, from copying it all down. That wasn't the problem, it was that damn note I found. Hanako was giving her away in this world. It would crush Aurora to know the woman in her dream had planned on giving her up. I decided I would show her the copy of the book when we got home, but I'd hide the note for a bit longer.

"What is it?" Aurora asked as I pulled a box down from my bedroom closet.

"You remember going to Mizugakure right?"

"Kind of?" Seemed those memories were fading.

"Well, when we went there, Gai found a book. That book told us the story of your parents." Her look of excitement weirdly hurt me as I opened the box on the bed. "At least, on your birth father's side. It's about his clan's abilities." The blue notebook that held the copy was buried on the bottom, allowing me to quickly sneak the note out of the cover before handing it to her.

"This isn't the book from the dream…"

"Let me guess, it was purple and old looking, right?" Of course it was, her dream proving that Hanako was in fact the last person to have a hold of the book. "This is a copy. It's the only copy. The original is in Mizu, but it was too damaged to travel with. Everything from that book is in here."

"Can...I read it?" She looked over the cover.

"Of course. Just know, some of the things were smudged in the original. I...had to fix a few things." Guessing what word came next in that book had been more like deciphering a coded scroll. "If something seems to be missing, it was missing in the original too."

Aurora spent the rest of the day in the living room reading over the book, looking over the jutsus of her birth clan. No doubt she would be trying some of them out as soon as she could. I read over her shoulder from the couch as she read at the coffee table, wondering if she actually understood what some of the jutsus were meant for. The original had small hand drawn depictions, which I didn't copy for many reasons, most of them depicting how their enemy died. I went with describing instead, with a little less detail on what the victim would feel. I was waiting for her to ask about them, but she never did, instead flipping through the ones she didn't understand.

It wasn't until she found the family tree she finally broke the silence.

"Who are they?" She held the book up for me to read.

"Clans men from the past. I don't know about any of them, except Mangetsu and Suigetsu." I had the pleasure of meeting Mangetsu during the war, though he was being used more as a puppet. I had figured he would be much older, but had been surprised that he didn't look much over seventeen. The information on his age was vague, just that he died young in battle, which was only partly true.

"So...Mangetsu is my father?" Why did I feel jealous of her calling him that?

"Er...yes. Your mother's name was Hanako and your name was…"

"Tsukiko. Mom called me that in the dream." I didn't know she knew her birth name.

"Hm, what else did she tell you?" I let her crawl into my lap to look over the family tree with her.

"She never met anyone else on the tree but them." She pointed to her birth father's name and to Suigetsu. "He's still alive, but mom didn't know where he went." Interesting, so his brother wasn't with him that night.

"Where did she last see him?" Aurora shrugged, turning the pages of the book again. "Did she ever say where your father was?"

"No...Sakura said he might have died getting mom here." Even in that world he didn't get a happy ending.

"Ah, you and Sakura talked about that? Are you upset you never met him?" She took a second to answer.

"Not really…" but it sounded like she kind of wanted to. "I have you." The way she smiled at me melted my heart. "Huh? No! The book!" She cried as it fell when I pulled her into a tight hug.

Aurora was opening up more and more about what her dream world was like after a few visits with Sakura. She was the first case to prove what the pinkette was doing was important.

I'd learned that Aurora had advanced her skills quite a bit in her dream world, but those kinds of feats were not as easy here as they were there. Aurora quickly learned this when she turned the classroom into a freezer, trying to prove to someone she could make ice mirrors. She didn't have finite details down to perform jutsus of the Yuki clan just yet, but she was close.

"So...how did you freeze the class?" Iruka had called me in after the incident. Aurora had to be punished for this, but she also fixed her mistake, clearing the ice when she realised her jutsu clearly went out of control.

"I wanted to prove I could do a jutsu…" Aurora was sitting at a desk in the front, clearly feeling guilty.

"At least there doesn't seem to be water damage…" Iruka crossed his arms at my comment. "So, punishment…"

"She already cleared the ice like I asked, but I was thinking of a lesson on chakra control." Iruka sighed.

"Not again…"

"You obviously need it, don't argue!" Iruka scolded her.

"Sounds fine to me." Aurora put her head down on the desk, annoyed she was forced to stay for another lesson.

Aurora's view:

I was told to keep a leaf on my forehead with my chakra and stand in the hall until dad finished grading. I was beyond bored. Just to prove I could, I froze and unfroze the leaf a few times, until it stuck to my forehead without chakra. I closed my eyes, sighing that I was stuck here.

"Seriously?" I opened my eyes, letting out yelp to see dad standing over me, the wet leaf in his hand. "I said to use your chakra to keep it there."

"I got bored and froze it…" I saw the vein on his forehead, now scared for my life.

"That wasn't the point at all! The point was to focus your chakra to keep it there, not freeze it to make it wet…" Thing was, I had kept it there for over an hour, I only just froze it. "Go, thirty laps around the track."

"I did what you said!" I just made it so much worse.

"After that scrub the chalkboard and mop the classroom. See you at home." I balled my fists as he walked away, angry he wasn't listening to me.

I only did two laps before realizing all the teachers were gone, deciding it was completely pointless to run laps if no one was here. I did the board and mopped before heading off to the training rounds.

The stump I chose now had bark missing from me punching it for so long. I figured out how to make some ice around my knuckles, allowing me to train longer without them bleeding too much. It also made my punches twice as strong, tearing the bark away. I let my frustration out, punching the stump hard enough to leave a large dent deep into the wood.

"Woh! That was quite a hit." I turned around to see Naruto on the stump behind me. "Hey...shouldn't you be home right now? Iruka-sensei must be worried about…"

"He doesn't expect me home for a while." I turned away.

"Did you get in trouble? Heh, I was trouble too, you know."

"Dad told me you painted the Hokage monument once and made fun of the Third."

"Er...yeah, well it wasn't as bad as it sounds, or the worst."

"Yeah right…" I was about to finish off the stump, but Naruto caught my fist with his new arm.

"You're mad about something, aren't you? I don't need my Sage Mode to feel that." Guess he could read people like I could too.

"Dad and father always say to control my chakra better, but I can control it. Just...not all the time. Whenever I try to do ice mirrors, I lose control and freeze everything."

"Ice mirrors? Huh...that sounds kind of familiar, but maybe it's 'cause you're not ready to do that yet. Ya know...it took me a while to do rasengan. There's not a shortcut to things." Naruto grinned. "Come on, let's go get ramen! That'll cheer you up, it always works for me!" Maybe Naruto-nii was right, I just needed to practice more before going all out.