The first time Sakura saw Itachi, she didn't scream. She wanted to, felt it rising in her throat like bile, but she held it in with the same force of will she used to make her first kill. She couldn't scream, because this Itachi had never murdered his clan and become a terrorist and the old Sakura would know that. Would trust him.

Well, Sakura wasn't going to go that far. Even standing on opposite sides of the weapons store she could tell he was dangerous, and Sakura would never trust anyone that had the ability to hurt her.

Tenten was also in the store with them, sharpening some kunai, but she didn't seem to recognize Sakura. She offered no friendly wave, no kunoichi discount. It had been jarring to realize that she couldn't rely on her previous interactions to guide these new ones. If Sakura didn't know Tenten, it's possible she hadn't even made it to the Chunin exams. Hadn't faced a legendary Sannin and lived, fought Ino and tied. It was bizarre here.

So the first time Sakura saw Itachi she didn't scream - but it was a close thing. Here, Sakura was the interloper, the snake in the grass. Itachi, along with the rest of the Uchiha, had a name that weighed more than she did. Any move against him would have her killed.

So she didn't scream, didn't react except for a stiffening of the limbs and a surprised blink. She was trained to be better than screaming at someone just because they were supposed to be evil (and dead). She had faced dead shinobi before and lived to tell the tale.

So things were under control before Sasuke entered the store.

Fuck.

Sakura used every single ounce of her ninja training to disappear behind the sword rack. She grabbed the nearest pointy edge and rammed it into her hand just to check but no, Sasuke was real and yes, he was talking to his brother peacefully in a store. Sakura healed it quickly and wiped off the sword as much as possible with her shirt. Seeing him hurt more than seeing the four-faced Hokage Rock.

Sakura debated just leaving quietly, avoiding any chance of confrontation. But she couldn't find any weapons in her house besides kitchen knives - no kunai or senbon or exploding tags. With her chakra the way it was (fucking weak) she needed weapons more than ever. So she stayed.

Sakura took another look, just to check, of course just to check, and found herself staring at the boy she had loved so long ago.

The last time she had seen him, though, there was no love between them. Just the aching void vengeance left behind. He had left her, left Konoha, and had gotten nothing for it but an early death and an unmarked grave somewhere in the Lightning Country. She had buried Itachi and Sasuke together, the last of the Uchiha, gone had last.

She could still feel the dirt under her fingernails. She had used an Earth Jutsu to dig the graves but she had lain down the last few feet of dirt herself. It was the only goodbye she could give.

"Stop staring at me."

Sakura was ripped back into the present moment.

Weapons store. Tenten behind the counter. Sword in her hand. Wound healing. Wrists itching. Hair brushing too low against her chest.

Sasuke was glaring at her from across the aisle, scoffing at the look on her face. Itachi was standing behind him, as pensive and unreadable as ever.

She shook herself and gave him a smile, practiced and fake. She had smiled like this hundreds of thousands of times - she had perfected it the same way every kunoichi had to perfect a smile. She showed her teeth, wrinkled her eyes, and acted like a girl in love. She had a lot of practice in the area.

She expected Sasuke to frown, of course. It was probably the same across every universe: Sasuke was an unsmiling bastard to everyone unlucky enough to interact with him. Let him think her annoying, irritating, unremarkable. Let him treat her like the Sakura Haruno was never reached chunin, never amounted to anything. Who she was before would become the best armor she could use.

"Sorry, sorry," she said with a giggle. It fell a bit flat in her throat. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed. Well, it likely wouldn't matter.

Except Itachi was there and Itachi was frowning. ANBU Itachi. Genius Itachi. Overprotective Itachi. Itachi who she had to avoid no matter what.

"I was lost in thought again." She giggled, again. It sounded better, more natural. Look at me, she said, a dumb little girl, an idiot in love. Look at my smile and not my trembling hands, look at my big eyes and not the knife strapped to my thigh. Look at what I want you to look at.

But Itachi and Sasuke knew how kunoichi worked, were raised by and beside kunoichi, and they didn't take the bait.

She couldn't rely on past history or inside jokes, she couldn't attack or run, and she couldn't pretend she hadn't tried to work them just a second ago. She had gotten cocky.

Fucking Uchiha; they always threw her off, made her weak. Even when they were dead.

It had only been a month working for Root, a month after Naruto had fallen, when she broke into the records room and found Itachi's file. Found the real reason for the massacre. She cried like a fucking child in the base of killers and liars. She cried for Sasuke, who hated and killed his last bit of family. She cried for Itachi, a child given a choice that would damn him for life.

So Sakura was understandably jarred looking at the two of them now, undeniably close and alive. It was stranger than Kabuto, then Tenten, then her fragile chakra. It was another reason this Konoha was so much better than the one she left behind. Another reason she didn't belong her.

She stopped smiling, forcing herself to be genuine. She could still do this. They didn't know her, not really, and she could still use that.

"Okay, you got me, I'm having a bad day Sasuke-kun," she demurred. Her voice was low and she brushed her bangs off her forehead with her still-shaking hands. I'm weak, look at me, fragile and breakable and not a threat in the least. I couldn't possibly do anything to threaten the great Uchiha family.

Itachi looked to her and seemed to soften. "Is this about what happened yesterday?" He wasn't smiling, of course, but he was as polite as she remembered, even more so now that he wasn't pretending to be a terrorist. She still couldn't look him in the eye.

Yesterday. The marketplace. The old man and the kunai. Hero Sakura, rejected from the hospital, managed to save the day.

Sakura laughed, faintly, because he was right, it was about yesterday for all the reasons he wasn't thinking.

"It was crazy. I can't stop thinking about it and I still feel panicked. I had no idea what I was doing." Too truthful by half, but Itachi looked kind and Sasuke looked like he was already bored and she would have said anything to make them leave. She would dance naked or trash the store or play with her own entrails just so she wouldn't have to look at the two brothers any longer. She had left that day, that battle, behind years ago but now she was still there.

Sakura, for one second and one second only, wished she hadn't healed her wrists. She gave herself that second, revealed in the despair she was allowing herself to feel, and then boxed that shit up.

She had a job. She would die when she was done.

Her other hand twitched towards her knife, a response to all the adrenaline in her system. Sakura normally would have taken care of her enemies by now, but this really wasn't normal and they weren't her enemies. Both brothers glanced down and their gazes stuck. The blood. Fuck.

"Mishandle a kunai?" Sasuke drawled, amused with some amount of sharpness in his eyes. Jesus, in the time he was dead she had really forgotten what a bastard he was. She missed it and hated herself for missing it.

"Yeah, well, you know me." That was a safe response, right? She was hoping his answer would be "yes," because then it would at least make one of them.

Sasuke reached inside one of his many pockets and withdrew a bandage. "Do something about it, and stop bleeding over merchandise you're not going to buy."

Yeah, he had worked with Kabuto. Same beautiful bedside manner. She laughed, almost uncontrollably. This was the first time he gave a shit about her in so long and it wasn't even for her.

"Save your bandages, Sasuke-kun. I'm sure you don't want to waste them on somebody like me."

She couldn't stop laughing. This boy still brought out every single one of her emotions like no other. The bandage hung in the air between them, a white flag. Sakura had been fighting for so long. She couldn't stop now.

She wiggled her fingers at him, the cut on her hand healed before they had even seen her.

"You healed it yourself, then? Impressive," Itachi said, appraising her in a new light. In his mind, she was on step closer to medic and one step farther away from one-time fluke.

But Sasuke got angry, for some reason, grabbing her wrist in a crushing grip that had to have been fueled by chakra. Sakura reflexively grabbed the knife from her thigh and struck at his hand. He dodged but she managed to graze him before she darted away. She couldn't go brute force, not without her seal, so she needed distance.

Except Sasuke wasn't going to attack again, wasn't reaching for his sword, he was staring at her like she was the crazy one, like he hadn't just grabbed her. She lowered the knife a bit but her grip was as tight as before.

Tenten had come by to see the commotion, of course, armed already and severely pissed off. "What the hell is going on here?"

Itachi, the only one calm in the situation, drew her back to the counter, muttering in a low voice. That left Sakura, armed, with Sasuke, wounded.

"Did you do it again?" he asked. His voice was low, dangerous, and he looked like he was ready to tear her apart. She had no goddamn idea what he was talking about. She decided shaking her head was the safest option but he just seemed to get angrier. "Don't lie to me, idiot. Is that why you came here? Is this because of yesterday?"

"I came to a weapon's shop to buy weapons. That's all I want to do." She pitched her voice low, soothing. She didn't know this Sasuke, didn't know how he knew her, and she was a bit scared. Itachi didn't seem to think they would kill each other, though, and that was a comfort.

"That's the fucking problem, Sakura. I can't believe you would insist on being an idiot like this, especially now," he hissed. He was holding his cut hand loosely, and it was an old instinct to take his hurts and try to make them better. He let her grab his hand and heal it, chakra dim and warm, but he kept hold of her hand when she was done.

"Why would you do this again?" He asked.

And it hit Sakura like a fucking freight train. Why Kabuto choose to stage her death like he did, why healing chakra came so naturally to this body, why Sasuke reacted to her bleeding and healed hand.

Because it made sense, didn't it? It made perfect sense, everything fitting together neatly. Sakura wanted to be a medic. Sakura didn't have a teacher. Sakura learned how to heal to only way she knew how - by herself. She had done the worst thing a medic could do.

Because once someone starts, it's hard to give up. It's the perfect practice, right? No one has to get hurt but her. Slowly, you lose the pain, the feeling, the fear. Tsunade had warned her time and time again never to go down that path.

But Tsunade wasn't in this Konoha.

Someone had found out, obviously, Sasuke or someone who told Sasuke, and they stopped her from being a shinobi for it. A shinobi who hurt themselves more than their enemies was as useful as a sword without a handle: no control and all sharp edges.

That's why she had "quit" being a shinobi - it was a kinder story to tell. And that meant that if Kabuto had succeeded, no one would have thought it strange. No one would have thought twice about the weak girl who couldn't help but hurt herself more than she could heal.

With sudden clarity Sakura realized that even civilians in Konoha had weapons in their homes. Not Sakura, though, she had nothing but blunted utensils. Did she remove the temptation herself, or was it someone else's decision? And then how exactly did she get that knife?

No matter what, she had to deal with the Sasuke problem first. He was still holding her hand, gaze dark. Was he worried or annoyed? Probably the latter.

"Sasuke, I didn't relapse or whatever you think. Why would I do that in a public store? No, I just wanted to look at some weapons and I was too clumsy. It's been a while, you know." She winked, smiled, drew her hand back before she could think about how long it had been since he had touched her kindly. Years. A lifetime.

Sasuke looked away, frowning. Well, the wink had probably been a bit much. Whatever, she would work with what information she had, and all she had right now was that Sasuke probably didn't want to kill her. It was a great foundation for a relationship.

"Look, Sasuke, I know what I did was wrong. It was the worst thing I could have done. But healing that man in the marketplace, just thinking about it makes me what to do things the right way."

He glared. Opened his mouth. Closed it with a snap. Looked at his hand where she had cut him, entirely healed, no scar remaining.

"You want to become a medic?" His voice was a bit disbelieving, yes, but she could work with it. In fact, telling him (and by extension Itachi) was perfect. She was laying seeds within Konoha that gave credence to her quest to find Tsunade. If everyone believed she was seeking out the legendary Sannin to become a better healer it wouldn't look suspicious in the least when Sakura brought her back. This was fucking perfect.

"More than anything," she said, looking at his face and blushing. He looked uncomfortable. Some things never change. "And I think I know what to do, which is why I need supplies."

"And that is?" Itachi was back, Tenten by his side. She looked less angry, more interested. She was glancing at Sakura, and her hands and her knife, a wary look on her face. Sakura, with great effort, put the knife away. Itachi kept his eye on where it had disappeared on her body. She had cut Sasuke. He wouldn't forget that.

Well, time to do this with an audience then. "I want to find Tsunade and ask her to train me."

Sasuke fucking laughed at her. Typical as shit. Tenten was holding it in, points for her, but Itachi did look like he was taking her seriously. That could be a bad thing - if he started to consider her a threat, she would lose the only card she was holding.

She grinned, scratched the back of her head, and blushed. A cute little genin chasing her dreams, even if she was nineteen and also an assassin. Semantics.

Sasuke gave her a look of complete derision, which she found more familiar and comforting than his previous expression of worry. "You think you can find Tsunade and convince her to train you?"

"Well, why not? Anyone could find her easily enough through her gambling debts, and I think she could take me on given the right persuasion. I'm from Konoha but no longer a shinobi, which means I'm comforting but not truly representative of what she left behind. On top of that, I already of some measure of experience in healing, excellent chakra control, and enough dedication to track her down. I think I can do it."

Well, Sakura hoped she could do it. She knew it would be easy enough to find Tsunade, Naruto had done it, but she didn't know if Tsunade would take her on or return to Konoha with her. And Sakura was still debating telling Tsunade the truth of her circumstances. It ran the risk of Tsunade thinking she was crazy, but if Tsunade ended up believing her than she would have a stalwart ally by her side. They could return to the village, fix whatever was happening in the hospital with Kabuto, and then Sakura could fuck off to live in the woods or under a waterfall. Perfect.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "And if you can find her, how do you expect to get to her with the skills of a genin?"

Itachi quickly brushed his brother back and stood in front of him with the ease of a man who has had to cover for his brother's rudeness many times. "What he means, Haruno-san, is that you might consider asking for an escort and hiring a few shinobi."

"I'm not going to make this a C-rank. I can go on my own. I don't have any obligations here to hold me back, and if I'm not even a shinobi than the Hokage can't declare me missing nin." She shrugged. Looking at the two Uchiha looking at her in disbelief (and Tenten no doubt listening in the background) Sakura decided that buying weapons just wasn't worth it. Not right now at least.

She ended up in the Hokage's office a week later.

She had more memories here than she could count, painful and sweet and heartbreaking. Tsunade and Sarutobi and fucking Danzo. But instead, Minato Namikaze was in the chair, his wife Kushina by his side. Sakura didn't know how to feel, staring at the man who had chosen to seal a demon in a newborn and had been her teacher's teacher, but she didn't think it was good.

Sakura was glad Naruto and his brother weren't in the room. Seeing Naruto after all this time, after what happened - she didn't know if she could keep her composure. And the little one was just annoying, so there was that.

Itachi was in the room, she could tell, hidden in the rafters and wearing an ANBU mask. She pretended not to notice him, but she could tell he was bemused by her request.

"You want to find Tsunade and bring her back? Really?" Kushina asked. She was staring at Sakura like they had never met before, which might have been true.

Sakura so far hadn't gotten much more information about her team days other than she had been on a team with Sasuke and Naruto but she had not become a Chunin like they did, leading her to eventually stop shinobi work entirely. Certainly an illustrious career.

In her own world, the exam had been the kick in the pants to apprentice herself to Tsunade, but if Naruto had never been tasked to find Tsunade after the death of the Third Hokage, then she really would have nowhere to turn.

Sakura was truly a flower that bloomed in war. Only in hardship did she become the strongest Kunoichi in the world, a brilliant front-line medic that could heal with one hand and kill with another. This Sakura apparently wasn't anything at all. In the end, it would be smarter to lay low, but Sakura was tired of being smart. She wasn't in ANBU anymore, she didn't have to worry about her own Hokage killing her, and she missed her shishou more than she could say.

Sakura was on uneven footing with everyone in Konoha due to a past she had to part of, but Tsunade and her had never met in this universe. Now, Tsunade would only know her, not the weak Sakura who had been ignored. Sakura would do anything to start fresh, even draw undue attention to herself.

"I do. I want to track her down and see if she will take me on as an apprentice, and as a loyal citizen of Konoha I would request the permission of my Hokage." She bowed low, etiquette she had been forced to learn for Danzo. She could physically feel the surprise of the people in the room, bar Itachi who was never surprised by anything, but she kept her head down. It was in Minato's hands now. Either she got his blessing and went with grace, or she had go on the journey more quietly and return with some degree of resistance.

Before he decided, the door behind her opened explosively. Fucking Naruto, she knew, without a doubt, along with two other chakra signatures as powerful as the ANBU agent above her. With her luck, it would be Sasuke and Kakashi - all the people she was trying to avoid in one room together; ANBU agents were at the ready to destroy her if she made one slip, and escape was not an option.

"Sakura-chan? What the hell?" Naruto exclaimed off to the side. To rise or not to rise? The Hokage hadn't given permission yet, which was a convenient excuse to hide the fact that she would burst into tears at the sight of her old friend. And also Sasuke and Kakashi.

"Haruno-san, please lift your head, there's no need for such formalities between friends," Minato eventually said, embarrassment seeping into his voice. A weak Hokage then, another reason for Sakura to fetch Tsunade.

She lifted her head only to find Naruto had joined his parents behind the desk and that Kakashi and Sasuke were now leaning against the walls on opposite sides of the room. Kakashi was inscrutable but Sasuke was openly sneering at her. Joy.

"Hokage-sama, if this is a bad time I will leave and come back at your convenience. However, I ask you to take my request seriously. I have already compiled information about Tsunade's last known whereabouts and habits, as well as information about her apprentice Shizune. I am determined to make this mission a success and bring her home." Sakura brought the file out of a sealing scroll and lightly dropped in on the desk, far away enough from the Hokage that the ANBU wouldn't worry. No need to alarm any Uchiha, though she doubted that they thought she was any threat.

Poor little genin Sakura, weak and directionless, in love with any boy that crosses her path.

Naruto was the one to grab the file, flipping it through it so rapidly that she doubted he read a word. His face became shocked as he realized exactly how much information she had compiled but the library, old records, elders in the village, traveling merchants, and her own experiences. Sakura never forgot her beginning as a paper ninja.

"Sakura-chan this is incredible! How do you know so much?" he exclaimed, still flipping through the dossier that weighed about as much as an academy student. He looked at her with a new appreciation mirrored by his mother standing beside him.

"Well, a good mission requires good information. I did a lot of research in the past week, and it will all be worth it if I can track her down," she laughed, scratching the back of her head. Sasuke scoffed, she heard, but she could tell that Kakashi was getting interested. Him and the ANBU agent still silently staring at her.

It must have been out of character; Sakura had only learned the true value of preparation after joining ANBU. Team 7 had always been punch first, immediately get beat down and have Sakura heal you. After she started to work alone she realized that was a good way to get killed.

Old Sakura would never have known that, though, but it's not she could take the folder back.

"Sakura-chan this is so cool! Let me take the mission, dad, c'mon. I can bring Jiraiya, just the two of us like old times. Thanks so much, Sakura-chan," Naruto gushed, stars in his eyes and voice booming across the room. Sakura did not flinch. She was better than that.

Ok, Sakura did flinch. Naruto had never tried to exclude her like that before - they were a team. Even as Konoha felt apart around them, even as Sasuke turned traitor, even when Tsunade died they were a team. Not anymore.

She wanted to hit him like she would before - that's how they talked. But now he was the son of the Hokage, a stranger to her, and she couldn't touch him.

"Hokage-sama, I am requesting this mission for myself. In the front of the file, I have listed the reasons she may respond well to my request." She bowed again to hide her face, her emotions spilling out like they only did around Naruto. She never had this problem alone. "If asked by the son of the Hokage and her old teammate she may run due to her skittish nature and her well-documented hatred of Konoha. However, I have shown the potential to be a healer and my status as an inactive genin makes me a non-threat entirely. There is a chance she will take me on as an apprentice and return with me."

Her voice was flat, calm. She forced her hands to relax. Sakura was professional, was the best goddamn shinobi in the world, and she wasn't about to lose her chance to find Tsunade due to a Naruto that wasn't even her friend. She put up with a lot of shit but she would not go down this road without a fight. And Sakura always won her fights.

Kakashi made a noise behind her, something questioning. She didn't look. (She did.)

He looked good. Less burdened than she remembered. Same mask, same hair, same orange book in hand. Back in her Konoha, their relationship had always been complicated. He had failed her as a teacher, but he had made a good partner when she need one. They had the last two members of Team Seven standing.

Now they were all in one room and it was better and worse.

He caught her eye and winked. She tried not to react, but she couldn't stop the flinch that shook her. Ghosts all around her, each more deadly than the last.

"Ah, well," Kakashi said, still staring at her with his one eye, "Apparently she did help heal someone last week in the marketplace."

Sakura turned away and went back into a bow. She couldn't trust her own face not to reveal her secrets.

"Ah, yes, my son told me about what happened. You really saved him." Kushina sounded like she was smiling. Naruto dropped the folder, judging by the thump, and started to furiously whisper about "That's who he was talking about?" and "No way it was Sakura-chan!"

It hurt, but he wasn't wrong. From the outside, the old Sakura had been a failed shinobi and a failed medic. She had few friends, few allies, and no influence in Konoha. Who was she to save lives?

"I believe that the panic I felt helped me access my chakra like never before," Lie, lie, lie in a room full of killers. "And I think that training with Tsunade can help me more than staying in Konoha would."

The scars on her wrist burned. She could feel them itching, rubbing against the bandages she wrapped around herself this morning. Sakura had been killed in the worst way possible. And no one would have cared, not her old team and not her village.

Sakura was angry. Sakura was going to drag Tsunade back here and then tear Kabuto apart with her bare hands, would destroy his heart using the techniques she had stolen from him in the last world.

This Sakura had died, alone and bleeding out and terrified. Barely a shinobi. Betrayed. It was made to look like she was a dishonorable coward. No fucking more.

Sakura dared to look up, met the Hokage's eyes with a burning glare. "I will do anything to take this mission, Hokage-same. I wish to help Konoha anyway I can and bring its princess home. Please let me do this."

It had been so long since she had felt that famed "Will of Fire" burn within her but now she did. She felt it from her long hair to her blank forehead to her weak arms to the scars on her wrist. She was burning alive in front of the most powerful people in Konoha and she knew she could burn them down with her. She could take down this tower with one hand behind her back and laugh. She was Sakura Haruno and she wouldn't die again.

Kushina and Naruto visibly gaped at her changed mood, sensing her chakra filling the room. She stopped trying to control it. Kakashi was tensed up, as silent as ever but hands out of sight, most likely gripping a kunai or two. Sasuke was silent, remembering the cut on his hand. Wounds she caused and healed. Sakura was a walking contradiction, one Sasuke was just discovering.

Itachi, still in his mask, landed on silent feet behind Minato, but the Hokage was smiling broadly. Sakura thought she could begin to respect the fourth Hokage she had never had a chance to meet.

"You certainly have changed from your early days, Haruno-san. I can tell that sending you on this mission can only be a good thing, though I know Konoha will miss you dearly." He smiled at the end but Sakura could only grimace. No, no it would not.

She turned her grimace into a smile with little effort, realizing that he had agreed to her request. She would find her shishou and save the hospital and kill Kabuto and prove herself as the strongest shinobi in both worlds.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama, I can leave-"

"But you won't be going alone, of course." He continued, smile fixed firmly in place. Right. Of course. She gave a short nod but it didn't look like he was looking at her anymore. "Would bringing together the old Team 7 work? They could deliver you and let you talk to Tsunade in peace. You might not know this, but Naruto can be quiet."

He and Kushina laughed at Naruto's outraged yells but Sakura was more focused on what he had said. Team 7? Fuck that. Fuck Minato. Fuck her life.

Calm, calm, calm.

Sasuke chopped Naruto in the back of the head and accepted the mission. It started a fight between them, but she knew Naruto would agree to come with. Just like she knew Sasuke was wondering what the fuck was up with her.

Kakashi had crossed the room, picking up the folder Naruto dropped. He hummed as he flipped through it, more carefully than Naruto, and also voiced his assent.

It was happening, then. For the first time in years, for the first time in either universe, Team Seven was back together again for one last mission. And they were strangers.