Technology is an incredible thing. With current technology, scientists can use artificial-intelligence programs to take the signals from the brain and reconstruct the image the mind sees. This is doubly impressive, considering all of the "noise" our mind piles on top- emotions, related memories, etc. On the flip side, attempting to image something the brain imagines or remembers is a little messier. If you close your eyes and try to imagine the face of a relative, for example, you're not going to get a pixel-perfect image. There's going to be many layers to it; different expressions competing to be on that face, misremembered fractions, and the mind just plugging the holes in a way that you frankly don't notice. Even imagining something simple, like your hand, your mind's eye is likely going to jump around and try to imagine little pieces at once, or else just imagine a blurry, distorted object.

It's fortunate that even the vaguest memories and dreams don't present to us that way, isn't it? That our mind fills in the blanks? Wouldn't it be very unfortunate if you could separate yourself and see directly into someone else's memory, like the Pensieve from Harry Potter? Realistically, it would look horrifying. Good thing that never happens!

Anyway, guess what happened to me?

As soon as the chakra from my hand absorbed into the seal and my brain, I knew I'd messed up. It wasn't like healing the flesh of my leg. Where before there had been a calm separation, now there was chaos. My chakra tried to feel to "fix" both seal and mind, while my mind and the seal tried to- well, honestly, I couldn't tell what it was doing. I felt like I was being pushed and pulled at the same time, both physically and mentally, and then the world around me went dark. Not just visually, but all physicality: I couldn't feel anything, hear anything, smell or taste.

And then with something like an electric shock and a strange tugging sensation, I was in my bedroom. My old bedroom.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like home. Smell is one of the strongest types of memory we have; have you ever smelled something that sharply brought up a memory of somewhere else?

I hadn't even realised how much I'd missed that smell, or that it was gone in the first place. It made sense, in a way; I'd been living in a different body, in a different life. Of course, I and everything around me would smell different.

The next thing I noticed was that I wasn't in control of my body; it was moving on its own. I could still sense; I could smell, and I could feel. But the feeling was strange; it was the memory of feeling. A shadow of pressure, and the slide of my bedsheets as I sat up in bed. The dull thud of someone knocking on my door.

And everything around me looked wrong. It was definitely my room, but strange and disjointed, with features that seemed to shift. I couldn't focus my attention myself; the eyes moved on their own accord to focus on the door. Whatever the eyes fixed on became less disjointed, more solid.

Without any input, I sat up and shuffled over to the door to open it, the light behind the door flaring strangely. And then I saw my sister, my real sister. The image held a dreamlike quality; disjointed as everything was. My eyes flickered automatically to her eyes. Dark brown iris, thin eyebrows, gentle concern.

My hands flashed up and I could feel myself signing. [Hey, I'm awake.]

My eyes flickered to her smile, to her hands. [Good,] she signed. [I have the day off today. I made breakfast, and I thought I'd help you study this afternoon.]

I wanted to smile, to thank her, but I felt my mouth twist into a scowl. [I don't need help studying.]

Her expression didn't change from her gentle smile. [I know, you're very smart. But you still need help getting yourself organised. You haven't turned in any homework-]

I snapped the door shut in her face. I put my back to it, sliding down to the floor to put my head between my knees, ignoring the next gentle knock.

Before I had a chance to process anything that had happened, I found myself sitting in my desk at school. The classroom was empty, and my homeroom teacher was sitting on top of another desk in front of me.

"I'm only saying this because I'm worried about you," she said, her voice sounding far away.

I had my chin on one fist, my eyes fixed firmly out the window. The image was blurry; a memory of light, some green, but no solid details stored away. "What does it matter if I talk to them? They're all idiots anyway." My voice sounded weak. Whiny. Harsh.

"You just haven't gotten to know them better. I'm sure if you tried, you'd find yourself more friends than you'd expect."

"They're all idiots and a waste of time. This isn't affecting my grades, so why does it matter?"

Her next words were soft. "It isn't healthy to isolate yourself like this. Wouldn't you be so much happier if you learned to understand your peers?"

I shook my head. "What's there to understand? They're shallow, pointlessly cruel, and willfully ignorant." I rubbed a hand against my eye. "I already tried to understand them. I want to understand them. But I just can't."

And then back into the darkness, and then onto another scene. And another. And another.

My brother asking me to play with him, and me telling him to piss off, that he was annoying. Even though he was eight years old and of course he was annoying, he was just a kid, why on earth would I say something like that?

Refusing to go with my siblings to Japan for my grandfather's funeral, still enraged at him for not helping my sister more when my parents died. Eventually giving in and staying in the guest room at my great-aunt's house, staring out the window to the rain while everyone else left for the wake.

It went on and on. One scene after another. I began to wonder if I were dead, and if this is what people called the afterlife: nothing but your memories repeating. Heaven or hell, depending on who you had been while you lived. And mine would be hell.

It went on and on until, finally, it stopped.

I woke up crying in a Konoha hospital bed. Where before I had been a mere observer of my memories, my guilt and horror trapped inside, now my feelings had room to come out physically. I wanted to scream, to curl up in a little ball and just die, but all that came out were choked little sobs.

I didn't remember any of that. How could I forget any of that?

No wonder I had been so much happier in this life. I hadn't been me. I thought I had woken up here with all my memories and personality, but it simply wasn't true.

I'd been a terrible person.

And the worst part was, I didn't even know how I'd felt about it in my previous life. Only my own horror at the memories, looking back. It was no wonder I'd been depressed, if my previous self had felt any measure of the pure guilt I was feeling now.

Why couldn't it have been Sakura's memories? But maybe hers weren't any better. From what I'd remembered, she hadn't been much nicer, had she? But then again, who could say if any of my previous memories were real?

I wanted them to not be real, but… The last thing that happened before all this, I had put healing chakra up against my seal and my mind. And the next thing I knew, I had access to memories I hadn't had before.

If someone had used a Genjutsu on me, they wouldn't have bothered hiding them away. Hadn't one of my first doctors said that they couldn't find any Genjutsu blocks in my mind? Or was that Inoichi-san?

If, on the other hand, one mind had been combined with another, wouldn't the effect feel something like this?

That's when I noticed I was strapped to the hospital bed.

Tsunade's earlier words to me came pouring back in. When I'd asked what would happen if I'd become chakra-exhausted. "I don't know who you'd be when you woke up, but I don't want to find out." It had been something like that, hadn't it?

God, I wish I hadn't found out either.

The door to my room swung open, and a doctor entered. His eyebrows darted up when he saw me and he hastily paced over to my bedside. "Sorry, Haruno-chan. We just finished going over your scans, we hoped to get you out of these restraints before you awoke."

"Hello, Migaki-san," I mumbled. "And it's okay, I understand why they were there." I swallowed thickly. "How long have I been out this time?"

He quickly and expertly unbuckled the restraints. "Only a few hours. How are you feeling?"

I reached up and rubbed the old tears away. "Terrible. Is Tsunade-sama around?"

Migaki ducked his head and walked to the other side of the room, pouring a glass of water. He brought it over to me and helped me sit up so I could drink. "She's… occupied. She said she'll be in later to see you. Could you describe to me a little more clearly how you're feeling?"

I sipped slowly at the water. "Physically normal. A little tired. The seal stings a bit. Emotionally exhausted. I got… some of my old memories back. Not from this life. The other one."

He nodded slowly, staring down at a chart. "I suppose I can see that. Jiraiya-sama himself had to come in to re-balance your seal. We were thinking that the ulterior chakra's purpose may be to re-cast the genjutsu on you." He looked up to me, eyes firm. "You're a very lucky young lady."

Re-cast the genjutsu? That was something that I hadn't even considered. I didn't enjoy having more variables thrown into my identity-crisis.

Misunderstanding my scowl, Migaki chuckled softly. "Yes, I'm sure you don't feel very lucky now, but it's true." He completed a few notes on his chart and walked toward the door. "Tsunade will come in later, but for now, your sensei would like to visit. Should I let him in?"

Sensei. I swallowed past a lump in my throat. "Yes, please."

It was only a few minutes before Kakashi entered the room, his single eye crinkled up in a bright smile. "Hello, Sakura-chan. Are they charging you rent for your hospital bed yet?"

I rolled my eyes. "Nice to see you too, Sensei."

He folded himself into the chair next to my bed, still smiling merrily. "So, do you want the bad news or the bad news?"

I scowled. "People in the hospital only want good news, Sensei."

He thought about this for a moment, rubbing his chin. "Well, they might be naming a new law after you?"

I curled my knees up to my chest. "Please tell me you're joking."

He shrugged. "I don't think they're actually putting your name on it, but..."

"Oh my god." I chugged a few gulps of water, setting the empty glass on the table. "Okay, forget good news. Please tell me what's going on."

Sensei's smile faded. He scratched the back of his neck uneasily. "Lee is also in the hospital. He's in a coma."

My breath caught in my chest. "What? Why?"

He let out a slow sigh. "Tsunade will know more, she's with him now. From what I understand, whatever kind of healing you did on him was… different."

"Different?" I parroted blankly.

He nodded slowly. "As you know, Rock Lee is very limited in the chakra he can use. He can manipulate it through his body for water-walking and strength, but he can't recombine and mix his chakra to produce jutsu. The chakra pathways in his body are simply weaker in those areas, despite his training."

I fiddled with the edge of my blanket. "What did I do?" I didn't remember manipulating anything in particular when I healed him; I just let my chakra do what it wanted since it seemed to know what it was doing.

Sensei scratched his neck again. "It seems like your chakra was attempting to 'heal' the chakra pathways, to make them more like your own. It's caused a disturbance in his chakra flow. There were no immediate effects, but by the time we got to the hospital, Neji noticed the distortion and Lee was admitted instantly."

I felt sick to my stomach. "I didn't mean to." I hugged my knees closer to my chest. "What's going to happen to him? Can Tsunade fix it?" Here I'd been, so worried about myself.

Sensei shrugged. "We'll know when we know." He hesitated for a moment, before reaching over to ruffle my hair gently. "That's why I wanted to talk to you first, before Tsunade."

I let my face drop onto my knees. "She's going to kill me. And I deserve it. I already knew you're not supposed to heal people without training."

"I wanted to tell you that you did the right thing."

My head darted up. "What?"

Sensei stared at me firmly. "It was a field decision, and the right one. You knew you couldn't get him to the hospital in time and used the tools you had at your disposal, even if it was against the rules. You made the right choice. Lee is still alive."

I shook my head. "What does that matter now? I messed up his chakra, Sensei. He could die!"

His gaze was unwavering. "If he dies, then he will have lived several hours longer than he would have otherwise. It was the right call." He stood up and put a bracing hand on my shoulder. The reassuring weight seemed to push through my whole body. "Being a ninja isn't easy. This isn't going to be the first decision of this kind you'll make. You have the spark of leadership, Sakura. You make decisions when other people would waste time thinking and talking themselves in circles." He sighed. "I wanted to talk to you before anyone else because there will still be consequences. I want you to accept them and move on, without giving up. Will you?"

I took in a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes, Sensei."

After he left, I found myself curling into a ball on the bed, lost in my thoughts. Going over everything.

I may have killed or maimed Lee from being too confident in my skills. But if I hadn't tried, he would have bled out.

In my old life, I found my brother and sister annoying and constantly pushed them out. But I loved them and wanted them to be happy.

I'd hated my peers, found them completely incomprehensible, yet I wanted to become a medical researcher, to help people just like them.

No matter how much distaste I held in my heart, and no matter how lost I'd felt, I had still been hoping for a future where I could help them. Where I could see people smiling back at me.

Was that so very different to who I was now?

I don't know.

A/N: Thank you everyone for your patience; this was a difficult chapter to write, for many reasons. I hope to have the next chapter out to you more swifty this time around. Thank you again for your continued support.