Once they had made it back to Konoha it took a week for Sakura to recover. At her request Itachi took her to the little house he and Shisui used as their home away from home. Sakura loved her parents, she really did but they weren't shinobi and there were a lot of things about her life that they would never understand.
Shisui and Itachi made for good company. One or the other was always around, making her laugh or bringing her books to read. They would come have dinner with her most nights and a new norm settled around her. When it was clear that she was almost fully recovered a sadness could be felt, they all knew their happy little home would soon go back to the way it was before. She would be the first to admit, she would miss it.
They sat at the table eating breakfast on the last day of her recovery, Shisui teasing Itachi that he couldn't cook eggs worth crap for someone who never failed at anything. Itachi grimaced and claimed he only needed more practice.
"I'm going to miss being here all the time but I guess I should get back to my parent's house, I'm sure they miss me." Sakura sighed as she ate her less than perfect egg.
"Yeah and Sasuke has been driving us mad, claiming we stole you and hid you away on purpose just to spite him." Shisui grinned at her.
"I feel bad but I just couldn't deal with everyone and everything after that mission. I feel a lot better now. I assume I will need to clear a few things up for everyone as soon as I get home." She sighed, this wasn't going to be easy.
"It might make it easier to bear the burden, whatever it is. We could help you if we knew what it was you were facing or doing." Itachi reminded her.
"I'd like to go to the memorial stone today, do one of you mind going with me?" She asked as she finished her rice and set her chopsticks down.
"I'll go with you," Itachi told her setting his own empty bowl down on the table.
They stood there side by side both staring at the stone. Again, the names of her fallen from her other life were not etched on there but she ran her hand over the names engraved there and closed her eyes, seeing the names of her own time set to stone and tears slipped down her face. Itachi stood silently by her side and let her cry, he just wanted to be there for her, so she knew she wasn't alone.
"I'm ready Itachi, can you get the others? I'd like to tell them who I am and what I know," She laid her head against the cool rock as the tears flowed down her cheeks.
"I will be right back Sakura." He left in an explosion of crows, one black feather floating down over the top of the rock to land at its base. She picked it up, so much had changed, and so much more needed to change. Asura, Indra, her boys, and their world.
Shisui came with Itachi, Sasuke, and Kakashi shortly after. They stood behind her and waited till she turned, tears still in her eyes trails of wet down her face.
"My men" she smiled at them, "I love you all so much, more than I can say." She bowed to them.
"I wish Naruto were here so I could tell him but it can't be helped." She motioned to the memory stone behind her.
"In my time, in another life, this stone had many many more names on it than it does now. I come here, as you all know and pay my respects, but the names of the loved ones I pay that respect, are not on it this time. I hope to never see them on it, and that is why I killed Danzo, why I will try to find Obito if he is still alive, to change his plan, his mind for the infinite Tsukuyomi with a Madara Uchiha brought back to life, that is why I will hunt down and kill Orochimaru one of the three legendary Sannin, I do it for them, for you, for all of us." She held her hand up to them as they started to speak.
"Please, let me finish, many of your questions will be answered by my telling the truths I am about to tell you, and it is the truth." So she told them. She told them who she was, where she came from, how she came back, what she had done, what she will do. She told them about Obito, how he was found by an elderly Madara, what they had done, their plans for the future.
She spoke to Kakashi when she told him how Madara had set it up for him to kill Rin with his Chidori for Obito to awaken his Mangekyo, how it was all part of one man's aspiration, lust for true peace, a peace built on death, blood and manipulation.
Sasuke's eyes grew wide as she explained how she used to be infatuated with him, loved him with a silly schoolgirl crush that she realized later was shallow and meaningless. How she annoyed him, how he loathed and despised her. How he had tried to kill her and she him. Sakura told them about the massacre, with tears flowing freely, what it did to him and his relationship with Itachi.
She told Itachi how he had fled with the help of Obito claiming to be Madara and the Akatsuki. She explained how she had killed Sasori with the help of his grandmother in her other time and how she had helped bring back the Kazekage Gaara. She told them everything about the war, about Madara, about the reanimated Hokages and nin of all nations, she told them of the allied nations and then she told them of Naruto and Sasuke's deaths and how she was left alone.
How everyone she had known and loved were gone, Ino, Kakashi, Hinata, Neji, everyone.
She hugged herself and fell to the ground, she told them how Kaguya had looked around the battlefield, how she had looked upon the faces of the Hashirama and Madara, how she had touched the faces of Naruto and Sasuke and how she had let her tears fall on Sakura, and how she had sent Sakura back to look after her boys for her sins, and how she had never wanted this, any of this to happen.
Sakura collapsed then, in on herself huddled on the ground in her pain and despair, for those she had lost, for the life she had, she cried and couldn't stop.
Gentle hands pet her and lifted her up to a sitting position. She clung to them sobbing, whoever it was. Her shoulders shook, she had been keeping it in for so long, she hadn't realized how it would feel to let it out, to tell someone.
"Sakura." Shisui held her close to his chest, "Sakura, why didn't you tell us sooner, I realize you couldn't tell us right away but surely you could have told us these past couple years?"
"You didn't need to go through this on your own. We owe you so much, for what you have done. We knew that night you killed Danzo, we didn't know how you knew, but we knew you saved our clan that night." Itachi was by her side now petting her hair while Shisui held her.
Kakashi hadn't moved...Obito might still be alive? He had been manipulated into killing Rin?
Sasuke stood still watching his cousin and his brother comfort Sakura...she had loved him and he had scorned her, tried to kill her? Betrayed the village and became one of Konoha's most wanted missing nin?
It was a lot to take in. Whatever they had been expecting , they hadn't expected this. Well, Itachi and Shisui seemed to have guessed it. For Sasuke and Kakashi, it was still a shock.
"Your skill with a sword?" Sasuke said after some time.
Sakura lifted her head, "Was taught to me by Kakashi Sensei, from my time."
"You bowed to the north, that day I saw you practicing the blade in the woods" A Hatake family gesture.
"Yes." She said simply.
"Your seal of a hundred strength" Sasuke asked.
"Tsunade Senju is my other Sensei, I also learned my healing prowess from her and my monstrous strength." She smiled then, "And how to burn alcohol from my system and gamble, but I have a bit more luck with that than her."
"What about the second seal in the back of your neck?" Sasuke asked her.
"A gift from the Rabbit goddess." She told them.
"Obito, is alive?" Kakashi asked her.
"Yes, he is probably alive and posing as Madara Uchiha, he is the leader of the terrorist missing nin faction called the Akatsuki, in my time they tried to capture all the tailed beasts and started the 4th world war. I have done nothing to change that outcome here except stopping the Uchiha massacre, which Obito helped Itachi carry out in my time, and then took Itachi with him to the Akatsuki. I do not know what impact that had on their plans. Obito is a pawn though, make no mistake. Madara is the one pulling the strings and Zetsu after that but I don't know if Zetsu still exists because he was created from Kaguya's will. Her black will is gone now, so I imagine he is gone now too, but it is unwise to assume. There is a small chance Obito died though, if the will of Kaguya is gone, so is the curse that made Madara manipulate Obito, so...he might have died."
She turned to Itachi and Shisui, "Which might explain why Madara keeps coming to me, maybe his hate is gone. There is too much unknown, I don't know what I have changed more than what I know I have."
"Madara comes to you? Madara Uchiha?" Sasuke asked his eyes wide again.
"Yes, since the land of waves, that night after I killed Gato, was the first time, when I cleaned Gato's blood off of myself in the ocean." She told him.
"How often does he come to you, to see you, does he talk to you?" Sasuke asked her.
"Not as often now as he used to, not since Itachi and Shisui have been around, I am no longer alone as much, but it has only been a week since we have been back, he came to me on the mission and wanted me to go with him into a cave, but Shisui came and he disappeared." She said thoughtfully. "I don't think anyone but me can see him clearly.
"He was just a shadow when I saw him but you said you could see him clearly and I never heard him speak to you," Shisui confirmed.
"I don't like that, what the hell does he want with you?" Sasuke was getting angry now, the stress of the revelation and the news that a ghost Madara was stalking her, he was getting angry.
"I don't know Sasuke." She wished she knew.
"I think the real question is, what do we do now that we know all of this?" Kakashi looked at her, she was a whole different person to him now.
"Yes, but the other question is, are you really 15 or are you 15 plus 16 making you 31 years old and totally legal now." Shsisui winked at her and she laughed while Sasuke and Itachi glared at him.
"I think we need to tell the Hokage. I want to hunt down the Akatsuki and find out if anything has changed if they are still planning on world domination. I will need his permission for a long term mission. Do you think he will believe me?" She looked around at her boys.
"I think we will all go with you, it will help. But if he says ``no?" Kakashi asked her.
"I have to go anyway, I need to make sure. Pein decimated the Leaf, there was nothing left, over half the village's population died that day, there was no building left standing in the whole village." She told them.
"We will go with you to speak to the Hokage Sakura," Shisui said.
"Thank you." She smiled at them.
An hour later they were in the Hokage's office, Sakura retold her story with more confidence and fewer tears. Shisui and Itachi were there, Sasuke and Kakashi behind them. Shisui and Itachi told the Lord third about the night with Danzo, Lord Third had already been involved and knew a lot of it already.
She went over everything she had told the others by the monument. When she was done she stepped back beside Shisui and Itachi and bit her lip. The Hokage nodded a few times asked a few questions about Tsunade and Jiraiya that only he knew to prove her legitimacy. Finally, he said that he could not make such a weighty decision with these facts and called for Inoichi Yamanaka.
Inoichi showed up shortly after and was told why he was needed, Sakura smiled in relief. This would cast aside all doubt if there had been any from her friends.
The Hokage saw the relief in her eyes and smiled. "This will help everyone I think, be at ease Sakura."
"I'm ready." She sat down in the chair provided and closed her eyes.
Inoichi smiled kindly at his daughter's best friend and placed his hand on her head. Images flooded his mind, two lives, lived at the same time, in different times circled round and round. He saw the graves of the Uchiha clan en mass, he saw Danzo die by Sakura's hand in this time and the busy Uchiha clan roads filled with the current Uchiha. Event after event, the Chunin exams of Sakura's time, the Lord Third's funeral, he saw Madara in all his manic glory, the reanimated Hokages. Every event that happened and didn't happen in the current time until they walked into the office moments before his arrival.
Inoichi took his hand from her head, tears slipped down his seasoned, veteran nin face, emotion filled his eyes. "Sakura, you poor girl, what have you been through, the war alone, my child." He wept and he hugged her to him and they cried together in front of everyone.
"She tells the truth then, I thought so, forgive me Sakura, but I had to know for sure." The Third Hokage spoke beside her.
She pulled herself gently from Inoichi who loved her like a second daughter, "I understand Hokage Sama, but now that you know, do you understand why I need to go and find out if I have changed the plans of the Akatsuki, and if I Haven't, why I need to find them and hunt them down one by one?"
The Hokage looked at her then at Inoichi, "For Konoha Lord Hokage." Inoichi said.
"You may go Sakura, but I will choose the team you will take with you. Let me think on it, I will let you know by the end of the week. All of you are dismissed." The Hokage waved them out of his office.