A/N: Sorry it took a while, but here's the next chapter! Someone in the reviews asked why this Sakura wasn't made a chunin yet. Honest answer, I didn't want to diverge from canon too much, although Tsunade was already Hokage when Shikamaru was promoted to chunin. Tsunade would have received Kakashi's personel report and learned about Sakura's kekkei genkai. While Sakura showed enough skill to be promoted in this story, I don't think she would have been until she had better control over her kekkei genkai, because of the danger her reactions pose to herself and her team, and the threat level increase on chunin-rank missions. I hope that's a satisfactory reason.

"Inner Sakura..."

"Sakura's thoughts..."

memory...

"Writing..."

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Sakura had a very rare day off. It was a Friday, so it was her day off from training with Tsunade, but neither Kakashi nor Kurenai were in the village, both out on missions, so she couldn't train her kekkei genkai. Teams Gai, 8, and 10 were also all out on missions, so she couldn't train or hang out with any of her friends. She'd only just yesterday filled another commission for Ikehara and the beauty boutique, so she didn't need to get started on more product for them just yet. She'd had a graveyard shift at the hospital early that morning, but now that she'd finished, she found herself with nothing to do for once. And as she had discovered through her many interactions and shogi games with Shikamaru, Sakura was particularly bad at doing nothing.

It was when she had nothing to do with herself, like today, that she really felt her teammates absents. If they were there, she, Naruto and Sasuke would probably be at training ground three sparring and working on their jutsu. Or they'd be out on some escort mission that Naruto would probably whine about and while Sasuke insulted him for his immature behavior. Or they'd be coming up with new plans to catch Kakashi without his mask. Or Naruto would have dragged them to Ichiraku and Sasuke would order for her, ensuring that she wouldn't just get the cheapest, smallest, thing on the menu, and then pay for her without even thinking about it, even though she now had enough money to pay for herself—at least on occasion. Or maybe she'd have made them all bentos, so on a break from training, they'd eat her handcrafted lunch for them instead, and Sasuke's bento would include several tomatoes, since they were his favorite, and he wouldn't say anything about it, but he would give her that soft, warm, look that made her heart race, while Naruto would chatter loudly about how good everything tasted—almost as good but not quite, as ramen.

Her heart ached longingly, thinking of all the times that could have been, if team 7 hadn't fallen apart. She felt the emptiness of the apartment acutely, and found herself wandering into Sasuke's room, as she always did when she felt this lonely. She hadn't relocated into Sasuke's room permanently, still opting to sleep on the couch in the living room. Sasuke's room was Sasuke's and she wanted it to remain as such, so that when he came home, he'd have a place to go—he wouldn't feel like he'd been kicked out or his space had been taken over. But there was also a selfish reason to it for her. Sasuke's room still smelled like him—a raw woody scent that calmed her and reminded her of all the times Sasuke protected her, stood near her, or held her close in his arms. She hadn't even realized she'd clocked his scent all those times, but the memories didn't lie…Sasuke appearing right in front of her to take the hit for her when the hidden mist chunin were coming for her and Tazuna. Sasuke leaning close to her to tell her she should charge for her medical advice before the first exam, bolstering her self confidence. Sasuke holding her closely against his chest as he ran for their lives during her first chakra reaction in the forest of death, refusing to leave her behind even though she was an active detriment. The brief awareness of his scent as her consciousness faded after the sound trio attacked their injured team. Sasuke again holding her close, protecting her from the chaos around them, during Gaara and Naruto's battle. Sasuke comfortingly playing her her hair after they'd found her mother dead. Sasuke's shirt that he lent her when he first brought her to his apartment. Sasuke curling his head into her hair when she'd hugged him after he first woke up from his coma. Sasuke sitting close behind her, stitching the wounds on her back in the Land of Tea…his was a scent, much like him, that made her feel comfortable, safe, and stable—three feelings she'd profoundly lacked for a long long time. She didn't want the traces of his scent being replaced by hers.

She curled onto her side at the foot of his bed, staring at a picture of him and his family resting on one of the dressers. Both he and his brother resembled their very beautiful, slightly familiar mother, more than their father. Although based on the expressions they all wore, the two boys had taken after their father in demeanor, appearing more stoic and hard…actually, based on that one picture alone, that was true of Itachi and not Sasuke, who was smiling almost as warmly as his mother, his dark eyes bright and lively. It was only her knowledge of him as he'd grown older that allowed her to say he was more like his stern looking father. She wondered what Sasuke would have been like if the Uchiha Massacre hadn't happened. Would his warmth and care not be as hidden and private as it was now? Would he have still seemed more mature than the rest of their classmates? Would they have connected so deeply with each other? Would they be together? If they were, would his family approve of her?

"Probably not. They're the head family of a prestigious clan and I'm a clanless civilian raised shinobi. Even if they loved me as a person, my status isn't even a little near theirs, and they probably would have thought I was unworthy of him. Even if they were fine with it, I doubt clan elders would have been, and unfortunately, when it's the head family, the opinions of clan elders count."

Sakura stared at Sasuke's young smiling face. She couldn't imagine him actually caring for the opinions of clan elders. If they were together, if he loved her, she doubted anything the elders may have said would have effected him…but his mother and father, if they didn't approve of her, she wasn't sure what Sasuke would have done. After all, Sasuke must have loved and respected them dearly to want revenge so singularly now.

Sakura blinked and shook her head. It was no good thinking about things that couldn't happen in the first place. Her focus shifted from Sasuke's smiling face to Itachi's stoic one, her gaze growing hostile.

"If it wasn't for you, Sasuke-kun might still be able to smile like that, you asshole!"

Her mind shifted back to the one and only time she'd met Itachi, at the inn. He'd been there that day because of Naruto.

"Itachi said that he was after Naruto by order of the Akatsuki, which implies there are several more members and that Itachi is of a low or middle rank within the organization, able to be ordered around. They're after tailed beasts, and Naruto's got the nine-tails…i don't know much about tailed beast lore…does it work like there's a consecutive number of beasts with tails—at least 1-9? Or are there fewer than that?…Either way, based on what they said at that inn, there are more Akatsuki than just Itachi and Kisame, and there are more tailed beast carriers than just Naruto…"

Sakura's lips pursed tightly, her eyes narrowing on the young Itachi in the picture.

"They must be trying to divide and conquer, otherwise there probably would have been more Akatsuki members there that day. But since it was just Itachi and Kisame, that must mean that Naruto is their specific assignment…What are the extent of his abilities? What's he after? Why join this organization? Why kill his family?…I just don't get him!"

Sakura sat up suddenly. She didn't understand Itachi. Didn't know enough about him. And he was one of the top threats to her team…he was her enemy. And if there was anything she'd learned from Shikamaru, it was that the more information you had about your enemy, the higher your odds of being able to form a strategy to effectively counter them.

Sakura had a new project. She had research to do.

Her first stop was the abandoned Uchiha district. No one went in here…outsiders rarely went in even before the Massacre. After, the place was considered to be haunted and cursed without a doubt, and everyone steered clear.

The district was on the outskirts of the village, like Sakura's old apartment, though where her apartment had been on the eastern most outskirts, the Uchiha district was along the western outskirts. The area was remote and out of the way, though it at least had clear well trodden roads between it and the rest of the village. The main road to her old apartment had stopped seeming like a road at a certain point and became more of an overgrown path.

She stared at the entrance to the district, an unsettled feeling in her stomach. This felt like an invasion of privacy. Like this area wasn't meant for her and she shouldn't be there. She wondered what Sasuke would have said if he ever caught her there…it would probably be a tongue lashing on par with their very first interaction when he told her she made him sick. But if she wanted information about Itachi, what better place to start than the scene of the crime, which also happened to be where he'd grown up.

Sakura steeled her nerves and entered the desolate district, the unsettled feeling growing with every step. She didn't generally believe in things like ghosts, but this place had her questioning that disbelief. It felt like if there was anywhere for the restless dead to be, it would be here. Unwillingly, her imagination painted the image of bloodied bodies lying dead throughout the street.

"Sasuke-kun…That must have been so horrible for him…he was only eight. Something like that would be terrifying for an adult…for a little kid it must have been…Why the fuck would Itachi do something like that?!"

Sakura continued down the road, examining the decrepit apartments and the few abandoned shops until she reached what was obviously the house that belonged to the head family. Sasuke's old house. She paused outside once again debating whether she should go in. The feeling that she shouldn't be there only increased the further in she got to Sasuke's clan's territory. But this whole trip would have had no point if she stopped now. She needed information on Itachi. On his motives. He'd killed his entire clan with the exception of Sasuke. So it stood to reason that his motivation had to come from some sort of contention with his family and clan…and there had to be evidence of that somewhere, most likely there'd be some sign of it within their old home. She took another deep breath before stepping into the dusty, eerily silent house.

She stole through the long outdoor hallway, stopping when she reached a tatami door and sliding it open. There was a soft looking, beautifully made futon along the wall, the floor around it covered by a rug. There were several bookshelves filled with academy work books from different levels and years, text books, short novels, poetry books, mythology, and fairytales. A box of toys was tucked neatly under one of the shelves. A low desk with a lamp sat opposite the futon. A green dinosaur plushy sat on the desk, as well as a pen and a journal. It was a room well suited to a smart, organized, little boy. This must have been Sasuke's old room.

Sakura hesitated before stepping in and kneeling at the desk. She switched on the lamp though nothing happened.

"They must have cut power to this area ages ago…"

She glanced down at the hard cover journal in front of her, hesitating again. If this was a diary, she was way out of line by reading it. In there were Sasuke's personal thoughts and feelings. But many of them must have been about his brother, and Sasuke may have made note of it if there was some sort of confrontation or falling out. And she was trying to put more pieces in place about Itachi's behavior, because it simply didn't make sense to out of nowhere just up and massacre his whole family.

Sakura opened the journal to the first page and took in the handwriting. It was neat and precise even back then, though bigger than it would become in the future as he got older. He'd dated the top of the pages, though he'd left out the year, which made this sightly harder…she didn't know how much time this diary spanned or when it was started. It may be from when he was much younger than 8. She'd have to try and place the years from context clues instead.

"I'm really sorry about this Sasuke-kun, but if I'm gonna help you, I need more information." She whispered, before taking a deep breath and starting in on the first entry.

"Tomorrow's the entrance ceremony to the academy. It's the first step to achieving my dream to join the police force! Niisan said that only the most excellent ninja can weed out the criminals hiding among their brethren. It makes sense. Ninja have the power of chakra, and if they abuse it, a civilian wouldn't be able to stop them or defend themselves. The only way to maintain peace and serve justice is to have powerful ninja policing, that way ninja won't think to commit crimes and abuse their power, because they know they'll be consequences. It's amazing that father is the head of the force! He's so cool! I don't understand why Niisan doesn't want to join though. He's been a bit…distant recently. Although, if it weren't for Niisan, I don't think father would have attended the entrance ceremony tomorrow. He wanted to go on Niisan's mission with him instead. Honestly, I don't think father even remembered about it…I don't think he likes me very much, or at least, I think he likes Itachi-niisan more than me. Niisan sort of cornered him into going, and I'm happy he'll be there I guess, but…I don't know. He'll only be there because Niisan forced him into it…why does he have to be so cold to me?"

Sakura closed her eyes for a second gathering her thoughts.

"If this was from the day before the entrance ceremony, then Sasuke-kun would have been seven. So by the time he was seven, Itachi was already starting to seem distant, and it's clearly something Sasuke-kun perceived as a character change, since he commented on it. He's mentioned Itachi seven times in this one entry alone, so clearly Sasuke-kun really loved him. Did Itachi feel the same way? Is that why he cornered their father into going to the ceremony instead of attending his mission? Or was it because of the animosity he felt towards their father that he didn't want him on the mission with him?"

"Poor Sasuke-kun! He thought his own dad didn't like him?! That's horrible!"

Sakura turned the page to the next entry.

"I have the same sensei Niisan had! He said I looked just like him, while father was thanking him for teaching us. Sensei kept saying how much of a genius Niisan was, that there's never been another student like him. Father seemed really proud. He's not wrong. Niisan is a genius. He graduated the academy when he was seven. That's how old I am now and I'm only just starting…he's only twelve and he's already a chunin, and father thinks he'll be promoted to the ANBU soon. I'm only just starting when he was already finishing…I don't know how I'll ever live up to him. Will I be able to make father proud of me?"

Sakura remembered that day. All the newly entered students had been standing in rows, their family members standing near by, also in rows, in front of the academy building. Sakura had been so excited that day—she was finally on the path to becoming a ninja! But she also felt a bit sad…her mom hadn't been able to be there because she couldn't miss work. She was working two jobs and they barely had enough money just with that. Taking off wasn't an option for her. And her dad was dead. She was alone in representing the Haruno's that day. She remembered the other kids breaking off to find their parents and receive their congratulations at the ceremony's conclusion, a bit jealous and unsure of what to do with herself, until Ino had grabbed her and pulled her over to her parents. That was when Sakura had first met Yamanaka Inoichi and Noriko.

"Itachi was twelve when Sasuke-kun was seven, so he's five years older…that means when we met him in the inn, he was seventeen. He's younger than Kakashi-sensei but easily put him in a coma for a month and some…what was it sensei said in the Land of Waves? Get used to there being ninja younger than us and stronger than him…well, Itachi's older than us, but still…"

"Who's genius idea was it to stick a twelve year old in ANBU?! Shannaro, are they nuts?! It'd scar him for life!"

Sakura couldn't help but agree with her inner self. "Maybe it did. Maybe he saw something that was too much for him to handle and he snapped. Maybe he went after his dad for having pressured him into it…but why not just him then? Why the whole clan? And why spare Sasuke-kun?"

It wasn't adding up to her. She shook her head a little in bafflement and skimmed through the next few entries, most of which were Sasuke expressing his frustration that he wasn't good enough, no matter how hard he tried, and that his father favored his brother.

"I don't know what's going on. Something's wrong with Itachi-niisan. He disobeyed father and missed some clan meeting and then today he…I've never seen him that angry. He just attacked those members of the police force, he even had his sharingan activated…they suspect him for the murder of Shisui…he and Niisan were really close, niisan looked up to him like a brother. But they think he killed him. And Itachi-niisan threw a kunai at our clan symbol. He said something about how the Uchiha clan's pride has limited us and that we've become pathetic…he doesn't sound like himself at all. It's so different from when he told me about the police force…it was scary. I didn't know what to do, so I shouted at him that he needed to stop, and he did. He bowed and apologized but…I feel like it's not over…niisan had a weird look in his eyes…it wasn't an ordinary sharingan."

Sakura leaned closer rereading those words. It wasn't an ordinary sharingan. She quickly pulled out her notes on the sharingan, doujutsu, and how to heal the eye, staring down at her diagrams of the sharingan as per what she'd seen on Sasuke, Kakashi, and Itachi.

"So Itachi's sharingan isn't normal…and he'd already achieved it back then. Sasuke-kun grew up in a clan of sharingan wielders and he didn't recognize this pattern as normal. He doesn't know what it is either. But it implies that Itachi has a normal sharingan that can turn into this abnormal one, so it has to be some sort of evolution."

Sakura returned her attention to the journal, hoping Sasuke at some point gleaned more information. The next several entries were about the tension that now existed between his father and brother, his boredom with the academy classes he found too easy, his joy at his father teaching him the fireball jutsu, his frustration as he struggled to get it down, his gratitude towards his warm and loving mother who put aloe and ointment on the burns on his face and gently bandaged it, and his immense accomplishment at finally having earned his father's praise when he succeeded. Two of these entries stood out to Sakura, though they had absolutely nothing to do with Itachi.

"The girls joined our class today. We've been training separately, apparently since they're girls, there was special kunoichi training they had to do. Now they're a part of the our class unfortunately. They're loud. They keep staring at me and squealing and giggling and I don't like it. I don't get what they're so worked up about or why they're so focused on me. They should pay more attention to their ninja training! When I told mom about it, she just laughed. She says it's because they think I'm handsome and they like me. I don't get how…none of them have really tried talking to me, so how would they know if they liked me? Mom asked if I thought any of them were pretty or cute. I don't really. Mom's the prettiest, and none of those girls come close…There is one who's distracting, but that's just because her hair color's weird. She's the only one in the class with pink hair. Everyone else has brown, blond, or black hair—there are two girls with dark purple hair, but there's two of them. There's only one pink haired person. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with that hair color…she seems quieter than the others, at least. I'll be able to ignore all of it soon, I hope. They only just joined, so it's new and I haven't gotten used to it yet. Not that I want to get used to it. They're so loud, they give me a headache. But maybe they'll get over it and just stop. I hope they do at least."

Sakura let out a small giggle. "Poor Sasuke-kun. They definitely didn't stop."

"Aw hell yeah! We were distracting!"

"That's not a compliment."

"Are you kidding? Do you know how hard it is to distract that boy?! The fact that we did is one hell of an accomplishment!"

"Because our coloring is weird. In fact he explicitly says none of us came even a little bit close to his mom—which is actually super sweet."

"Why are we still debating this when he obviously likes us?"

"He fucking left! In what way is it obvious he likes us?!"

"…Then what was that thank you? You know he doesn't say stuff for no reason, and that he often has double meanings to what he says."

Sakura…thank you…for everything…

"You just had to remind me…" she muttered to herself, feeling her heart break a little before turning her head back to the journal.

"I helped mom carry her bags from the market today, when we saw something different on the way back. This girl looked a little older than me, and had long red hair, and bells on her feet, and she was dancing. She had a collection tin near her. I didn't recognize her, she's not from the academy. Mom stopped to watch her and said she was really good. I don't know how she could tell though…I don't know anything about dance so I couldn't tell. She moved pretty well, so she probably wouldn't have made a bad shinobi. Mom went up to her and talked to her a little while. I kept hearing mom laugh, so the girl must have been saying something funny. Later mom told me the girl reminded her of her best friend. Then mom gave her a bunch of money. When I asked her why, she said that girl was obviously desperate to put herself out there like that. Mom said it's harder for people without clans or who aren't shinobi at all. We have a lot of money, but some people don't and they have to do all sorts of stuff to make money, like dance in the street. It seems difficult. I'm glad I don't have to do that."

Sakura stared down at the page in shock, as the words jarred loose a memory.

Sakura felt truly stupid. She'd been thinking her mother looked a bit pale and tired for awhile now, but since Mebuki always acted so cheerful and normal, she brushed it off. But no, Mebuki hadn't been alright, she'd been sick. And she felt like a terrible daughter for not noticing until it was too late, not that Mebuki shared her sentiments. Her mother thought it was ridiculous for her to feel guilty, given that she'd only just turned eight…what was an eight year old supposed to do for an illness?

Her mother insisted that she was fine and it would pass, but Sakura wasn't having it. Her mother worked too hard—two jobs with insanely long hours. Sakura rarely even saw her, she left so early and got home so late. Mebuki couldn't keep working like that, not if she wanted to get better. She knew it too. She'd have to quit at least one of her jobs, and she did. But that greatly cut into their already very tight budget. Sakura knew she'd just have to step up and find ways to make up the difference. The first thing that came to mind was the traveling street performers she and her dad had seen when she was younger.

She knew she couldn't do this looking like herself. If any of her classmates caught her, she didn't even want to imagine what sort of horrible things they would say. They bullied her enough as it was. But they had recently learned about the disguise jutsu in class. If she could pull that off…

She focused hard on a different hair color, eye color, age, and outfit, painting the image of this new person in her head. "Henge no jutsu!" There was a puff of smoke that surrounded her, and when it cleared, she glanced into the river to check her reflection. An eleven year old red head in a dance costume with bells on her feet stared back at her. The only thing she hadn't quite gotten were the eyes—they were still green, but the shade was different. Darker, more like her moms. It would do though, no one would recognize her, so she set off for the main street.

The first thing Sakura discovered, was that street performing was hard. She'd never danced for anyone but her mom, and it was nerve wracking to now do it for a bunch of random people in the hopes they'd give her money. On top of that, if she was too in the way of the road, people got mad at her for blocking the path. If she was too out of the way, no one paid attention. She had no music nor musicians to give her something to dance to, which not only made the dancing itself harder, but also made it more difficult to draw people into the performance. It took a lot of uncomfortable trial and error to find the perfect placement that would help her draw in a few passersby, and by that point she was already starting to get tired from maintaining the henge.

Even then it wasn't enough. People would stop and watch for a while, but then would walk away without dropping any money. It made her want to scream, which would definitely not get her better results, so she doubled down her focus on her dance. In doing so, she didn't even notice a beautiful woman with long dark hair, and her classmate Sasuke, stop and watch. Sakura managed a final beautiful leap, landing in an unstable pose she only just barely managed to hold before finishing, doubling over breathing hard. She'd only been at this an hour and a half, but that was an hour and a half straight of dancing with a henge up, which she wasn't used to. She could tell she was running low on chakra. The transformation would drop soon…she had maybe ten minutes at most. And she'd made…7 ryo. She wanted to cry. So when she looked up, she wasn't expecting to see a beautiful woman with long black hair walking towards her, a warm smile in place.

Sakura straightened, staring up at the woman, wide eyed, as she drew near until she was right in front of her, and knelt so she was at eye level.

"That was beautiful!" The woman said, smiling warmly. Sakura flushed.

"Y-You're beautiful!" She answered immediately before realizing that what she should have said was thank you. The woman laughed, making Sakura blush harder. Even her laugh was pretty.

"Thank you, so are you. You remind me of a dear friend of mine—that long red hair…" The woman's smile faltered, her dark eyes growing sad and far away. Sakura's eyes widened. She didn't want to make the nice, beautiful woman sad!

"Oh, I'm sorry. Are you ok?" She asked, concerned.

The woman's smile was back in place. "Now, why would you be sorry? Even if it can be sad, being reminded of a precious friend is never a bad thing."

"But, I'm sure your friend would probably want you to be happy when you remembered her." A brief image of her father flashed through her mind, though it was tinged with bitterness. Maybe if her dad had been there, her mom wouldn't have overworked herself and made herself sick.

The woman stared at her for a long moment with a look of surprise, before she smiled again. "You're absolutely right," she chuckled. "I should introduce you to my eldest son. He's close to your age, and very smart too. I think you two would get along."

"If he inherited any of your looks, then he's very lucky." Sakura smiled, before freezing, a look of horror on her face. What on earth did she just say?!

The woman burst out laughing. "You really do remind me of her. She used to blurt out whatever came to her mind too." The woman smiled and leaned in closer to Sakura, her voice dropping conspiratorially. "I guess both my sons are very lucky then. They are pretty handsome if I do say so myself."

"Mothers always say that." Sakura smiled, thinking of all the compliments her mother would whisper to her when she'd finally come home from her second job and thought Sakura was asleep…Sakura never went to sleep before her mother came home though, not that she'd ever let her know, or she was sure she'd get scolded.

"Well what do you say? My youngest son is over there." The woman gave a small tilt of her head, her dark eyes shinning brightly. Sakura shifted her weight slightly so she could subtly glance behind the woman, and she thought her heart might stop. Sasuke was standing a little ways away, holding a few shopping bags of groceries, watching his mother's back curiously.

She was Sasuke's mom?! Did this mean Sasuke had just watched her dance?! Sasuke—the village boy she'd liked for the past three years, along with the rest of the girls their age. He'd seen her here, out on the street dancing for money?! And this lovely, kind, woman was his mom?!

She quickly brought her gaze back to the woman, trying to maintain what little composure she had, reminding herself that she wasn't Sakura right now. She was a nameless red-headed eleven year old. Sasuke wouldn't recognize her. Everything was fine, she just needed to keep it together.

"Y-Yeah, your sons are definitely, very lucky." She managed. If she could keep her composure in front of Ami, she could do it in front of Sasuke and his mom. She had too!

The woman laughed again. "He's actually in the academy with you, though a few years younger. My oldest graduated already…"

"Oh actually, I'm not in the academy." Sakura lied quickly. That should help cover her.

The woman paused, glancing at the nearly empty collection tin next to her. "May I ask what brings you out here?"

"My mom got sick recently, so she's had to stop working one of her jobs…I wanted to try and help a bit…" She didn't see any point to lying about that part.

The woman smiled warmly, though her eyes looked a little sad. "You're a very caring young lady…and a really good dancer. It's a shame you're not in the academy. With the way you move, you'd be an excellent ninja."

"O-Oh, y-you really think so?" Sakura flushed again, feeling a little ashamed of herself for lying to such a nice woman.

"Yes. And I should know since I am one." She answered with a light laugh and a wink, before reaching into her pocket and withdrawing a string of fifty ryo. "This is all I have on me right now, but I hope this helps." She said gently, setting it into the collection tin, as Sakura's wide eyes followed it. Her jaw dropped.

"A-Are you sure? That's a lot…"

"It's only fair I pay well for such a beautiful performance." The woman said kindly, rising to her feet. "I have to get going now. Good luck!"

"Thank you, so much!" Sakura cried, bowing deeply.

The woman just smiled before rejoining Sasuke, who was looking at her with confusion, and the two set off down the road.

Sakura stared at the entry wide eyed. She'd met Sasuke's mom. She'd completely forgotten…so much happened after that—she'd had to learn so much, worry about so much, everything else from that time just sort of blurred and faded.

"All those times I stared at his family picture…I thought she looked familiar but I just figured it was because of the resemblance between her and Sasuke-kun…" That must have been where all of Sasuke's kindness, warmth, and consideration came from. He must have learned it from his lovely, beautiful mother. It hadn't just been Sasuke who helped her out a lot. His mother had helped her too. Fifty ryo may not have been a lot to them, but for her, that fifty ryo had been huge. Not just as an amount of money, but it had given her the hope and confidence to keep trying.

"Ok. I need to focus. This is supposed to be information gathering about Itachi. I really need to do it now, not just for Sasuke-kun and Naruto. But for Sasuke-kun's mom too. I owe her. And she clearly loved her sons. So I need to figure out what happened back then, for her too."

She closed her eyes, trying to draw up what Mikoto's expression had been when she was talking about Itachi. Had there been concern in her eyes? She thought there may have been, but…

"No this is no good. I might be projecting, or just confirming my own bias. I need to be objective."

Sakura turned her attention back to Sasuke's old journal, skimming through the next few passages until she reached an interesting one.

"Father doesn't hate Itachi-niisan! I finally managed to get myself to ask him about it today. Mom always said that father was just a bit awkward and bad at talking about how he feels…I see what she means. But he doesn't hate Niisan at all! He's just…confused. Like me. He doesn't really understand Niisan. According to father, niisan's always viewed others from a distance, and never really cared for what people thought of him or making friends. He has no idea why that is…it seems like it frustrates him, that he doesn't understand niisan. This whole time I've been so scared to ask about niisan cause I thought it would upset father…I thought that father hated him. But he doesn't. It's a relief…maybe one day niisan and father will stop their fighting and coldness and come to understand each other! I hope so at least…I was able to ask father about sharingan too! He said there was a visual jutsu a level above the sharingan. The Mangekyo sharingan. He said it's a legendary jutsu that only a few of our clan have been able to awaken and master. He said that it can only be called forth under very specific circumstances, but he didn't explain passed that. Still…I wonder if Niisan actually managed to awaken it…"

Sakura bit her lip, rereading the passaged three times before turning to her own notes.

"That has to be the difference. Itachi must have used the Mangekyo Sharingan that time…"

She labeled Itachi's sharingan "Mangekyo Sharingan" and copied what Sasuke said about the mangekyo under it. She leaned back studying her notes.

"So based on this, Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-sensei's sharingan are both considered ordinary. Sasuke-kun had two tomoe, and Sensei has three…so that must be a level or power marker of the sharingan itself. The Mangekyo is a different visual jutsu, built as an extension of the sharingan. In other words, you can't get the Mangekyo without having the sharingan first, but it's power and ability is completely different—since you need the sharingan first, you'll likely keep the sharingan's standard abilities but the Mangekyo allows you to do more…or something entirely different…like that nightmare genjutsu. It was completely different than anything Kurenai-sensei's used on me…I'm not even completely sure it was a genjutsu at all. I couldn't even break it the normal way—if my chakra hadn't reacted, who knows what would have happened."

Sakura leaned forward, flipping back through several of the entries and rereading them.

"That last entry was made already several months after Sasuke-kun first noted something different with Itachi's sharingan. So by that point, he must have already gone through the specific circumstances needed to awaken the Mangekyo…but what are they? Is it some sort of battle condition?"

She reread the entry about the mangekyo before reading the last few entries in the diary, but they presented no new information, mostly being about his progress at the academy and with his shuriken jutsu, It was heart breaking how unassuming the last entry was, because she knew the following blank pages were post massacre, when traumatized and grief ridden Sasuke had forgotten all about his journaling.

Ignoring the pang of sadness and returning to the entry about the mangekyo, another fact stood out to Sakura.

"According to Sasuke-kun's father, Itachi was always distant and didn't care about what people thought or making friends…so what was all that earlier about Shisui. Sasuke-kun said that those two were really close and Itachi looked up to him like a brother. And those police force members thought Itachi murdered Shisui…did Itachi attack them because they thought that?…I can't say. By the tone of the entry, Sasuke-kun was clearly freaked out, so he didn't necessarily report the events in the accurate order they happened."

Sakura stared at the wall in thought, but there was no way to draw conclusions from this journal alone. What she really needed was to check out Itachi's room, and Sasuke's parents room.

She stood up, her eyes falling on the green dinosaur plushy. It was well worn with tears here and there. It seemed like Sasuke must have really loved it, to keep it out instead of putting it in the toy box. It wasn't her place and it probably wouldn't do her any good, but she felt like she couldn't just leave it there. Sakura collected her notes and closed the journal, leaving it neatly as it was before, but grabbed the dinosaur plushy, bringing it with her in her continued search of the house.

The next room she looked in was Itachi's. Like Sasuke's it was incredibly neat. There wasn't a lot in it that would allow her to make any sort of personality assessment…it didn't seem like Itachi was big on photographs, artwork, or memorabilia hanging up in his space. Sakura carefully checked under his futon, in the drawers, under his pillow, and at his work table for any sort of diary, but she found no such thing. He did have a paper crane on his work table, but that didn't tell her much…she had no way of knowing whether it was him who folded it or someone else. The only thing she could glean some kind of information from was his book shelf. His bookshelf was completely filled, with mostly history books. Not just Konoha history either, but other villages as well. There were a couple books on politics, both for the village and the world, a few Konoha law books, a few poetry books, a book on world art, one book of mythology, and one book of folklore. By far the most predominant genre was history.

"Ok, so he's a history buff…and his interest wasn't just in Konoha either."

"Please don't tell me we have to read all this, history is boring!"

"…No. We don't need to read it…some of these I've read already anyways. I want to know why he snapped. That information won't come from any book except maybe a diary."

"Or a behavioral disorder manual."

"Maybe but even so, I don't know enough about him to make any sort of diagnosis, so for now we're not gonna go there…But he may have hid something in the pages of the books."

Sakura carefully opened and thumbed through each book one at a time before returning them to their place on the shelves, though she found nothing. There weren't even any notes in the margins or underlined passages. Determining that Itachi's room wouldn't get her anywhere further, she stepped out and made her way to the master bedroom.

Sakura stopped in the doorway, her eyes on the dark stain on the floor a few meters away. Her mind immediately conjured an eight year old, scared, Sasuke standing where she stood, staring horrified at the two bodies of his parents on the ground. She shook her head, clearing the image, and stepped further into the room, scanning every inch of every surface.

Nothing was disturbed, there were no signs of struggle or combat, no evidence of ninjutsu. The only sign anything bad had happened were the blood stains on the floor and wall. She supposed no one ever tried to clean them.

"It doesn't seem like there was any cleaning, reorganizing or rebuilding that happened. It seems like everything has been left the way it was that night…Based on the blood spatter on the wall, Itachi slashed across them with some sort of blade, using his left hand…but Sasuke-kun's parents were both jonin level ninja, and there's no evidence that they tried to defend themselves even a little. Nothing nocked over, nothing broken, bed's neatly made, no burns from fire jutsu…Sure, Itachi was a genius, but could he have really taken on two jonin—one of whom was the head of the clan and police force—at once? At only thirteen? Even if he could, it shouldn't have been so easy that there are no signs of struggle, unless Sasuke-kun's parents just let him do it…but why would they do that? Maybe if he was their only son, they might choose to die rather than fight him and potentially hurt or kill him, but they also had Sasuke-kun to worry about. There should have been more defensive effort, if nothing else than to try and keep Sasuke-kun safe…so why? Why would they just go along with it? Did they somehow know he wouldn't kill Sasuke-kun? Maybe they made a deal with him…they'd surrender peacefully if he let Sasuke-kun go…but why would they trust him to keep his word?"

Feeling more confused then when she got there, Sakura left the house and made her way out of the Uchiha district, green dinosaur in hand, plotting out how to get into her next stop: the ninja archives.

Sakura stormed up to the guard stationed outside the archives, looking put upon and exasperated.

"Hey, Tsunade-sama "requested" that I bring her," Sakura pulled out a sticky note, squinting down at the scribbled writing, "files 012618, 012573, 012625, 012587, and 012604."

The guard gave the frazzled apprentice of the Hokage a quizzical look. "What's she want those for?"

"She's trying to put together some B/A-rank escort mission but I think she and the client have some gamboling history cause she's a bit…violent today."

"Isn't she always?" The guard huffed.

"Well, she doesn't always shatter the wall next to my head when she asks me to do something."

"Yikes…well, you got a signature? I can't let you in without her written consent." He said, somewhat apologetic…he felt bad, the kid looked pretty strung out.

Sakura let out a put upon sigh, covering half her face with one hand as she stared at the messy sticky note in her hand.

"I mean…I don't have her stamp, but she signed this…it's not exactly legible though…" She muttered the last part as she handed him the sticky note.

The guard looked down at the alleged signature. He could see what she meant by "not exactly legible." But he did a fair amount of checking signatures when people wanted to get into the archive, and he felt about 87% sure that was the Hokage's signature. And given who was asking and how stressed out she seemed, he deemed it okay to let her through.

"Yeah, you're good, go on in." He said, opening the door for her.

"Oh thank you gods! You're a life saver." She heaved in relief, immediately heading in and down an aisle. She stopped when she heard the door bang shut behind her, her whole put upon front dropping completely, a smirk on her face.

"Wow, I can't believe that worked!"

"We're such a good actor! We totally could have gone into acting!"

"It's a good thing I've filed so much of Shishou's paperwork. I could probably copy her signature in my sleep…oh fuck, I hope forging the Hokage's signature isn't treason…"

Shaking the discomforting thought out of her mind, and quickly began her search. She didn't have a lot of time before the guard got suspicious. She quickly hurried down the rows and aisles until she reached the archives from Itachi's graduating year, and immediately began fingering through them.

"Ah, found it." She murmured quietly, pulling out a file labeled 012110 — Uchiha Itachi.

Sakura opened the file and resisted the urge to audibly groan. Next to a picture of a seven year old Itachi was the following information:

"Name: Uchiha Itachi

Ninja registration: 012110

Date of Birth: June 9th

Clan: Uchiha Clan

Blood Type: AB

Academy Graduation Age: 7

Chunin Promotion Age: 10

Team: 2"

And the rest of the report was completely blacked out. She couldn't see any of the reports from his team captain or senseis. None of the personality, behavior, or skill assessments…everything was completely redacted.

"Is this…is this because he was ANBU? Maybe his full file is in ANBU archives instead…but I'll never be able to bluff my way in there. I don't have the clearance for it. Ok, so Itachi's a bust, but what about…Shisui?"

Sakura scanned over the other names in the archive from Itachi's year, before moving through the few years before Itachi, until she finally located his file. Unfortunately, it was also mostly redacted.

"So they were both ANBU…"

Sakura let out a real exasperated sigh. She wasn't going to get any more information this way.

Sakura pushed open the door, of the archive, striding out muttering under her breath.

"Where are the files you needed?" The guard asked, surprised to see the girl empty-handed. She stopped and gave him a flat, dead eyed look.

"Mission's canceled."

"Huh?"

"Shishou sent her summons to deliver the message…there's no way in hell I'm ever helping that gutless, money grubbing, bastard. Missions off. And if you so much as mention the walking turd in my presence, you'll be on enema and chamber pot duty for a month. Now get your ass back here." She recited the fake message she never received tonelessly.

The guard gave her a look of deep sympathy. "That sounds…you better get back then. Good luck, stay strong!"

"Thanks." Sakura trudged down the path from the archives until she was out of sight of the guard, her demeanor shifting from put upon to pondering as she headed back the apartment.

Sakura sat on the couch, carefully mending the rips in Sasuke's dinosaur plushie, mentally going over what she'd discovered.

"Alright, what did I learn?"

"That Itachi's a gemini and his blood type's AB."

"What useful information did I learn?" She growled, out loud.

She mentally recounted every fact she picked up, but there were too many gaps in the puzzle to complete the picture.

Sakura sighed resignedly, staring out at one of Sasuke's family pictures, of just his father and mother. Her eyes lingered on Mikoto's smiling face.

"It's probably been a while since anyone visited and cleaned their graves…"

Sakura set the fully mended dinosaur plushy on the table and walked out of the apartment to visit the graveyard.

It was nearly dark by the time Sakura had finished cleaning off the Uchiha family graves…there were a lot of them. She lit some incense at the graves of Sasuke's parents, Uchiha Mikoto and Fugaku. She fixed her gaze on Mikoto's grave.

"Hello Ma'am, Sir…my name is Haruno Sakura. I'm Sasuke-kun's teammate…or well, was. Our team's sort of disbanded at the moment." Sakura shifted awkwardly for a moment before continuing. "Actually, Mikoto-san, we've met before. I was that street dancer with long red hair. You gave me fifty ryo that day. I'm sorry for lying to you…that wasn't what I really looked like—I was using a disguise jutsu—and I actually did attend the academy, I was even in Sasuke-kun's class…everything else was true though, I just didn't want any of my classmates to recognize me. I have a history of being on the receiving end of bullying and I didn't want to give anyone more to pick on me for." She cleared her throat a little, wondering what Sasuke's parents may have said about what she was about to say next. "I'm sorry. I trespassed in your old home today. The Uchiha Massacre…you may feel it's none of my business, but it's important because it's pushed Sasuke-kun into darkness. And I'm in love with your son. I'm in love with Sasuke-kun and I want to save him from the darkness he's in. So I need to figure out why Itachi killed you. I hope you understand and aren't offended. I promise you, I'll do everything I can to bring Sasuke-kun back from Orochi—"

"Shit! Why didn't we look into Orochimaru while we were in the Archives?!"

"Seriously! Am I stupid?! That was a prime opportunity to get more information about that creep too! I probably won't be able to sneak in there again—not without a legit reason, at least! Damnit Sakura!"

"Did all that dust from earlier make us lose braincells or something?!"

Sakura cleared her throat, her face twisting a bit as she re-centered herself and focused back on the graves of Sasuke's parents.

"Orochimaru." She managed to finish her earlier statement. "…I guess I just wanted to formally introduce myself and let you know…" She bowed deeply to the two graves, before straightening and looking at them again. "I'll stop by again to keep your graves clean."

Sakura bowed once more before heading to visit her own mother and father, a new goal in her mind. In addition to training hard under Lady Tsunade, she'd dig up as much information as she could on Itachi and Orochimaru.

"What do you know about elemental release?" Tsunade asked, as they stood in the training grounds behind the Hokage tower, her arms crossed over her large chest.

"Elemental release is necessary for using elemental based ninjutsu. To use it, the shinobi must first externalize and shape their chakra, and then transform their chakra into the element in question. The primary chakra natures are water, fire, earth, wind, and lightening."

"That's correct. Do you know what you gravitate towards?"

"Kakashi-sensei actually tested this. My chakra gravitates towards water nature. But Kakashi-sensei and Kurenai-sensei said I wasn't an elemental ninjutsu type." Sakura shifted uncomfortably. It felt like admitting weakness. And she hated feeling weaker than she already did…and she'd been really feeling it lately. She couldn't explain it. There wasn't a real reason for it, but recently everything about her just felt off. Her skin felt wrong, her body felt wrong, her chest had finally begun developing and it…hurt. She felt like her breasts were growing in weird? Were they uneven or was she imagining things? Ino had already hit her growth spirt in more ways than one, she looked like a full and real teenager. Hinata too—though she'd started developing much earlier than Sakura and Ino…her breasts were big. Sakura was older than both Ino and Hinata by several months, but they looked like proper teenagers well before she did. Things that had absolutely no correlation began linking themselves in her mind. Maybe her lack of physical growth meant her skills and abilities wouldn't grow either. Again, there wasn't a good reason for it, but it made her self conscious and completely shot her already fritzy self confidence.

"That aspect won't be a problem for what I'm about to show you. That being said, you still might not be able to do it."

"Do what exactly, M'Lady?"

Tsunade suddenly lunged at her, striking her forehead quickly. Sakura felt a shock, and then a slight ache in her head. "What—" She attempted to step away from Tsunade, but instead of her left foot moving, it was her right ring finger that moved. She tried to step back with her right foot instead, but it was her left wrist that moved. After experimenting with a few more body parts, none of which moved the way she hoped but instead caused other parts of her body to react, she looked up at Tsunade.

"My body's not reacting the way I want it to."

"And why is that?"

"…You scrambled my neural impulses."

Tsunade smirked. "Very good."

"How'd you do that?"

"I fuse lightening chakra with medical chakra to rewire your electrochemical signals. It's a very high ranking medical ninjutsu that currently, I am the only one skilled enough to use. It's called Body Pathway Derangement jutsu."

Sakura looked down at her hands, attempting to get them to move, though only succeeding in moving other parts of her body. Her brows furrowed.

"If only Shishou is skilled enough, then what hope do I have. Shizune-senpai is still kilometers ahead of me…"

"Will I really be able to do this? I can't even use a regular elemental ninjutsu, and I'm not naturally a lightening type."

Tsunade regarded her critically. "No. You probably won't."

Sakura twitched. "So you just like using your jutsu against me?" She asked sharply.

"No. I showed you this jutsu for a reason. You're going to learn it."

"You just said I probably can't do it!"

"Quit whining, brat! Are you gonna give up that easily?!" Tsunade barked. Sakura stiffened.

"She has a point…but how am I supposed to do this?"

"I haven't trained you just to back down when something seems beyond your means." Tsunade growled heatedly. Sakura had never been the type to quit before trying before, so this wishy washy insecure behavior she was recently displaying was both frustrating and mildly concerning.

"You're right. I'm sorry Shishou…How do I do this?"

Tsunade nodded. "That's better. You do what you always do and adapt it."

"How long does it last?"

"Depends on how much you rewire the impulses. Yours should be wearing off soon. Under normal usage, it lasts at least a few hours, assuming your opponent doesn't figure out their new neural commands."

Sakura stared straight ahead in thought. "I have to adapt it to work for me…but how do I scramble neural impulses without any sort of lightening chakra…?"

Tsunade raised a delicate brow at Sakura's troubled look. She'd never seen the girl stumped before.

"Want a hint?"

"…yes please."

"What's the main point of the jutsu?"

"To interfere with the nervous system."

"That's what it does, but why do it? What's the theory behind it?"

Sakura attempted to flex her fingers, happy that her body was finally obeying her commands again. She could move normally again, without a disruption to her body's ability to function.

"That's it! That's the answer!"

"The point of it is to disrupt the opponents ability to function." Sakura answered, but now her mind was racing as she began working out the problem. "Your version of the Body Pathway Derangement jutsu disrupts the opponents body through their nervous system using medical chakra charged with an electrical spark from the lightening release."

Tsunade waited, standing over her student with her arms crossed, interested in what conclusion she would reach.

"But the nervous system isn't the only way to disrupt an opponents ability to function…the brain is made up of neurochemicals, and the chemical compounds within the body are predominantly in liquid form—the brain is 73% percent water. So…if I can mess with my opponents hormone balance, or maybe the chemical aspect of their electrochemical signals…"

Tsunade smirked, closing her eyes. "Taking that approach actually gives you more avenues to work with. You have hormones, blood, water, and electrochemical signals to choose from for what you want to mess with."

"How do I train it though? Something like that…"

"Is too risky to train on humans. Normally I'd let you practice on me since I can heal any damage you might do. But brain stuff's a bit of a risk. I can't have you turning me into a vegetable. Unfortunately for Naruto, the Hokage needs a brain." Tsunade muttered dryly.

"He'll grow one!" Sakura defended—pretty poorly—before refocusing on the problem at hand. "So than how…"

"You're not gonna like it, but you need to practice on an animals."

"Not fish, I'm guessing."

"No. Mammals."

"That feels cruel…"

"It's not ideal, but there's no good way for you to practice this."

Sakura gave a dejected nod. Tsunade uncrossed her arms, a hand going to her hip as she glanced around the area. "Start with squirrels. They're having a population boom anyways…"

"Alright." Sakura agreed.

Tsunade nodded and began walking her through the chakra processing necessary, before sending her off to work on it, with Katsuyu as a monitor.

To Sakura's immense relief, at no point did she kill any of her test squirrels. Her skill with medical jutsu and chakra control had grown so much that even in her first several failed attempts to disrupt the squirrels ability to function, her chakra didn't do anything to harm the animal. The elemental aspect of the jutsu, which she had been dreading, came surprisingly easy to her this time around. She already tended to visualize her chakra as water, so having it interact, shape, and flow with actual liquids felt almost natural. She wondered why elemental release worked for her this way but not standard elemental ninjutsu. Still, that was a puzzle for later. For now, her focus was on messing with squirrels.

At first, she focused on attempting to disrupt the squirrel through hormone manipulation, but to her immense frustration, it was incredibly difficult to recognize behavioral changes in squirrels. And after sinking two weeks into this adaptation attempt with minimal progress, Sakura decided to reevaluate her options.

"I'm not quite ready to give up on this track just yet. If I can figure it out, I'd be able to increase my opponent's melatonin production enough to knock them out, or at the very least make them too drowsy to fight effectively. Or I could block their cortisol transmitters to kill their stress response and slow their bodies reflexes…More than that, if I can effectively manipulate and carefully regulate hormones, I might be able to stop my reactions on my own without a sedative…but I'm not getting anywhere testing this on squirrels, and hormone manipulation might not be enough to stop an enemy from attacking. They could power through the drowsiness, and just because they don't have a cortisol boost doesn't mean they can't continue to fight…"

Sakura pursed her lips tightly, staring down at the jittery squirrel she'd been working on as it shoved an acorn into its mouth.

"For now, I'll table this method and try to keep the jutsu similar to Shishou's version— messing up the nervous system by focusing on the electrochemical signals. I'll just focus on the chemical aspect instead of the electro part."

This was easier thought than done. It took Sakura another three weeks to even scramble one neural passage way. In the meantime, Tsunade taught her several other offensive jutsu which she picked up on much faster. One of them was another elemental release, though not an elemental ninjutsu. When using her chakra enhanced strength to punch the ground, she could focus the release of her chakra into the earth to gain a small amount of control over the ensuing fallout, ensuring none of the dirt particles or shrapnel hurt her, and even gave her a small ability to aim it or confine the damage to one direction. Sakura nicknamed the ability Cherry Blossom Impact, since the dirt would fly around her like petals did in spring.

Tsuande also taught her how to make and use chakra scalpels, but they were highly chakra consuming, so while Sakura could see how immensely useful both medically and offensively they were, she determined this particular technique was one she'd have to be careful with. Her chakra weights still only allowed her to battle with half her chakra, so she couldn't afford jutsu that drained her energy too quickly. Especially if there was a patient who needed healing after the battle.

Still, Sakura kept working at the Body Pathway Derangement jutsu. Since choosing to shift her focus to messing with the electrochemical signals, she was making slow progress with it. After two months, she'd done it. She managed to rewire a squirrel, and fix it again so the poor thing could go about its acorn gathering life.

"I did it, M'Lady!"

"Good. Do it on Shizune." She said nodding at her assistant, who smiled at Sakura like she saw nothing wrong with this.

"Um…but…" Sakura didn't have the confidence her mentor and senior seemed to have in her.

"Tsk. If you're not confident, then walk away." Tsunade admonished sternly, while Shizune gave her a pitying look. "Listen to me Sakura. You already know that you have to appear confident in front of a patient. And you've managed that. The battlefield is a little different. Confidence can be wielded as much as any jutsu. It's fine to not appear confident as a way to trick the enemy, but that's what it has to be. A trick. You can appear unsure of yourself, but the second you believe you can't accomplish the goal you've set for the battle, the second you doubt your abilities and think you can't pull it off, you lose any ability and skill you have. And you lose the battle."

"…but, just because I can do it on a squirrel…human brains are more complicated…what if I—"

"The reason I'm telling you to practice on Shizune, and the reason she's agreed to be your opponent for this, is because we both know any damage you do, I'll be able to repair."

"That's right, Sakura-chan. I have complete faith in you and in Tsunade-sama." Shizune readily agreed. "You're far more skilled than you seem to think. You're already able to perform the Healing Resuscitation Regeneration Technique on your own. That normally requires several medics, a large jutsu formula, a medium to accomplish. You've only just turned fourteen and you already have the skill and clearance to perform surgeries on your own. Have some faith in yourself!"

Sakura fingered her necklace unsurely. She could already hear her mother's voice joining their lecture, agreeing with everything they said. Well…she hadn't given up back then when her mom was sick, so she shouldn't give up now. And They were right. She was skilled enough to not make any hugely life threatening mistakes, and whatever mistakes she did make, Tsunade was skilled enough to heal. She'd never killed or severally damaged any of her squirrel test subjects. She had to try.

"Okay."

"The human brain is different than a squirrels, but I've done a lot of reading. I know all the major structures, the cell types, the functions, the neurochemicals…there are adjustments I have to make, but I should be able to do it."

Shizune charged her, senbon in hand, but Sakura's training kicked in immediately, as she dodged all of her senpai's projectiles. She danced around the older woman, until she finally saw her opening and thrust her palm against Shizune's forehead. Sakura pushed her chakra into Shizune's nervous system, focusing it into the electrochemical signals and pulling them to cross each other.

Shizune jerked sharply. Her body moving in a spastic, disjointed way that seemed to make no sense. Tsunade stepped forward, placing a hand on Shizune's head and doing a quick scan.

"No additional damage. How you feeling Shizune?"

"Fine, other than not being able to move as I'd like." She answered, sounding more proud than frustrated. Sakura was her junior, and she felt very proud of her accomplishments, especially when they were accomplishments she hadn't managed to pull off under Tsunade's tutelage. She knew what Tsunade's training was like, how grueling it was. Far from jealous, she was amazed at how hard Sakura was working and how well she managed. It was hard to feel jealous of the girl's accomplishments when she knew it usually came after Tsunade breaking nearly every bone in her body and expecting her to carry on none the less. There was a reason she never desired to have Tsunade train her in combat techniques.

Tsunade looked up at Sakura. "Without intervention, her nervous system will remain scrambled for a few hours. You managed to copy the jutsu more precisely than I thought. I was expecting you to come up with something else entirely."

Sakura shifted a little, her eyes dropping to the ground. "The execution's different even though the results the same, since it focuses more on the chemical aspect of the signal instead of the electrical aspect. It takes a bit longer to use than yours does…there is something else I'm thinking about, based off of this jutsu, but I'm still working it out, so…" She didn't know why she felt so unsure, but she felt like she could't meet Tsunade's eyes.

Normally, Tsunade would smirk. Sakura had accomplished this feat as well. There was only one thing left for Tsunade to teach her. And she was certain Sakura could do it. But there was one problem.

"What's with you lately?" Tsunade asked, her eyes narrowed, as she fixed Shizune's nervous system with a brief pulse of chakra. Sakura had never been someone with abounding confidence, but lately she seemed even less sure of herself than usual.

Sakura and Tsunade always seemed to inherently understand one another, so Sakura didn't need to ask her master to clarify. She kicked at the dirt unable to meet her mentor's amber eyes, letting out a frustrated sigh.

"I don't know, I just feel…wrong. My chest is sore and I think my breasts are growing in uneven and Ino-pig and Hinata-chan already have pretty big chests—well Pig's a B cup but Hinata-chan's huge—and they're so pretty and look like they're sixteen and I—am I pretty? I look like a child next to them and what if my skills never develop past a child's level?! And I know it's irrational and that none of this is actually important but—fuck, am I pretty?!" Sakura gave a particularly hard kick to the ground, sending a small dirt clod rocketing into a tree and exploding into dust on impact.

Tsunade and Shizune exchanged glances, Tsunade doing a horrible job of hiding her amusement.

"As a medical ninja, do you know what your diagnosis is?"

"Diagnosis?" Sakura muttered, not entirely sure where this was going. This wasn't a medical problem, she was just feeling weird and insecure.

"You're going through puberty, Sakura." Shizune explained lightly.

"I know that!" She snapped, unintentionally harsher then she meant to be, though neither her senpai nor shishou seemed in the slightest bit surprised or offended.

"All right then, we'll just have to disprove each of your claims one by one, and it might not mean anything to you at the moment, since I'm sure you already cognitively know all this, but emotionally you don't, and it'll probably take a bit to click." Tsunade said brusquely, though amusement danced wildly through her eyes, making them seem younger. "Why is your chest sore?"

"Because my breasts are growing." Sakura answered automatically. She knew that. It was basic female development.

"As a medic, I'm sure you're aware that no two breasts are exactly the same."

Sakura nodded. She knew that too. Nothing on any human was ever completely perfectly symmetrical. There were always at least minor asymmetries—they may have been so small that they were impossible to identify just looking, but if you did the math, they'd be there none the less. Breasts were no exception.

"Additionally, you grew up malnourished, which has only very recently started to change. Malnutrition, as you know, can delay your development or contribute to an uneven rate of growth."

Sakura nodded once again. She knew all this…but still, she didn't want to look like a frontal hump-back.

"All of that being said, the asymmetry you noted isn't perceptible."

"That's right, Sakura-chan. You see it because it's your body and has become your insecurity, but we really can't tell by looking at you. Even after you said it, I still don't see it. That means the unevenness you're perceiving is well within normal ranges, and nothing to be concerned about." Shizune agreed, her tone gentler than Tsunade's.

Sakura shifted uncomfortably. She knew they were right. And this whole weird little breakdown she was having felt unbelievably stupid. She had bigger things to worry about, like getting stronger, and learning as much as she could about Itachi and Orochimaru—something she hadn't had much time for since her first attempt. It frustrated her that her emotions didn't seem to be on the same page as her mind…

"As to your next point about Ino and Hinata, you already know everyone's development rate is different. Hinata started much earlier than you and Ino. Ino's started earlier than you. You're still well within the average age range, and the fact that you're even feeling this way means you've started as well. And even if you hadn't and you didn't start until you were already sixteen or older, it has no bearing on how big your chest may grow." Tsunade continued.

"It's true. You probably won't believe it, but Tsunade-sama was a late bloomer. She was completely flat until her late teenage years." Shizune supplied helpfully. Sakura looked up at the two older women in shock.

"Really? I can't picture Shishou with a flat chest at all!"

Tsunade's eyes closed, a vein throbbing in her temple. "Shizune…" She growled, warningly. Shizune took a quick step away from her, laughing awkwardly. Sakura held in the laughter that threatened to burst out, as she watched the interaction…she didn't want Tsunade's wrath turning on her.

Tsunade took a deep breath before opening her eyes, much calmer, returning her attention to Sakura, her eyes softening.

"Moving on, age and appearance has no relation to power level. Naruto could forever look like a goofy twelve year old brat, but that wouldn't change the fact that he's capable of some very impressive jutsu. He could walk back into this village in two years and look absolutely no different than he did the day he left, but it wouldn't mean he hasn't gotten stronger during his training with Jiraya." Tsunade fixed her apprentice with a stern gaze. "And don't tell me you think your skills are comparable to that of an untrained child, or I'll take it as a personal insult as the head of the hospital and your master!"

"N-No, of course not!" Sakura answered quickly, her eyes wide. She hadn't meant to imply she thought Tsunade incompetent—it was quite the opposite actually! Tsunade may be a gambling drunk, but as a Hokage, she really wasn't doing all that badly. And as a teacher…Sakura had learned so much in the past ten months, she'd gone from no knowledge of medical jutsu to being skilled enough to perform surgeries on her own. That was all Tsunade's teaching.

"Good." Her gaze softened again. "You said none of this is important but you're wrong. Feeling confident, capable, beautiful…that is important, especially as a kunoichi. Beauty is often an important tool for us. Yes there are other things going on that are much bigger, but that's always the case. Somewhere something will always be life or death. That doesn't mean it's always on you to worry about. There's a time and a place for it. On a battlefield, no. Those thoughts aren't important and focusing too much on them will be a distraction that gets you killed. But you're not on a battlefield right now Sakura. For the moment, there's no war or immediate threat to the village. This is the time to have and work through those thoughts, so don't be so quick to dismiss your feelings as nothing."

Sakura blinked up at her, a warm feeling spreading through her. It felt like something the two people she loved the most would have said to her, her mother, and Sasuke.

"Well, Sasuke-kun probably wouldn't have said any of that first part, but the last part about not dismissing my feelings…and mom would have agreed with all of it—this could have been her lecture verbatim…"

"As for your last question…well I would think the amount of boys you've got pining for you would be evidence enough, but yes Sakura, you're pretty…pretty might even be too weak of a descriptor."

Sakura's head shot up to Tsunade. There was no hint of humor, disbelief, or lies in her words. She'd meant everything she just said, with full sincerity.

"…But—"

"If you're about to try and use your chest size as evidence to the contrary, just give up now. For one thing, you've only just started growing. For another, even if your breasts never grow bigger than they are right now, it wouldn't change the fact that you're beautiful."

"There are plenty of gorgeous women who are flat chested." Shizune agreed.

Sakura looked between the two women, immense gratitude bubbling through her. It wasn't exactly that she believed their words, nor did she magically believe in herself now. But since her mother's death, she'd been preparing herself mentally to have to go through big moments and changes by herself. She hadn't thought there would be an adult who would help guide her. She knew Kurenai would have readily offered—she already did, Kakashi too, as would Shizune should she have asked. And she supposed after everything, Tsunade should have been a given as well. She knew all of that, but in the tide of imbalanced hormones and bodily changes, which snuck up on her so subtly she hadn't even realized, she'd been overwhelmed by it and had forgotten that there were people she could ask, people who cared.

She smiled gratefully up at them. "So when does it end?"

"Puberty? It usually takes about three to four years. That being said, it's not so much that it ends as it is that your hormones stabilize and you adjust to them." Tsunade said with a smirk.

"So I'd better buckle up than, huh?" Sakura asked dryly.

"It'll get worse before it gets better." Shizune answered sympathetically.

"At least as a medic, you'll actually know what's happening when you get your period. Some girls don't." Tsunade added.

Sakura sighed. At least she wasn't going through it alone…she just had to make sure she remembered that.

Sakura stared down at her okonomiyaki in thought, chewing at the corner of her lip.

"It's not exactly a team dinner if you don't eat, Sakura." Kakashi pointed out calmly. It was their first "team" dinner in a long time. Tsunade was keeping him very busy.

"And how is it you manage to eat without me ever seeing it? Do you actually ever enjoy your food if you're eating that fast?" Sakura countered, before her look became pondering again as she stared at her sensei, debating.

"He used to be in ANBU…and I'm pretty sure the timing would have overlapped. Did he have any interaction with Itachi or Shisui? If he did, was it just in passing, or did he actually somewhat know them? But…would he tell me?"

"Care to explain what about my face is so interesting that you've felt the need to stare intensely at it for the past minute and a half?"

Sakura blinked, quickly dropping her gaze back to her food. "Well I guess I wouldn't know since you always wear that mask…" She muttered, embarrassed at being caught.

"Sakura…" Kakashi said in a warning tone, "out with it." Honestly, he was a little relieved to hear her start talking back to him, even if it was simply dry wit. She sounded more her age…and this was around the time she should start mouthing off—puberty and all. But he could see something was on her mind that she was holding back, and he'd thought they'd progressed passed this point.

"Well, let's see where this gets me I guess."

"Kakashi-sensei, you used to be ANBU right?"

"Yes."

"Were you…were you there when Itachi was?"

Kakashi froze, staring at his pink haired student, shaken to his core. He never thought anyone would ask him about that, least of all her. Maybe Sasuke, in a hypothetical future where he hadn't left, but not Sakura. How did she even…?

"What makes you think Itachi was a part of ANBU?"

"Do I be honest or lie…I feel like if I tell the truth, he'll tell me to stop digging, but could I even lie to Kakashi-sensei so blatantly?"

The two sat locked in a staring match for a long minute. Sakura was weighing the pros and cons of letting Kakashi in on her side project, while Kakashi's mind was racing to put together whether Sakura was going off of real information or one of her scarily accurate deductions, and if it was real information, where she may have obtained it.

Sakura sighed. "Honesty it is. What's the point in lying anyways?"

She trusted Kakashi. He was her sensei. He cared about her and looked out for her. Besides, he wasn't in the village enough recently to really stop her.

"I was thinking about who my two biggest enemies are—the two people who are the biggest threat to my team. One of them is Itachi. Knowing and understanding your enemy is important, so I started thinking about it more, and I just don't understand him. The massacre doesn't really make sense. So I went to the Uchiha distrinct—"

"You what?! Sakura! That district isn't a place for you to play around in! People died there!" Kakashi hissed.

"It's not like I'm hanging out there for fun! I'm not vandalizing or anything. I just wanted some answers."

"And what answers could you have possibly gotten from a five year old crime scene?" Kakashi's tone was stern and admonishing…the only other time he'd ever used that tone with her was when she took off her weights during the Chunin exam finals.

Sakura leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms in a fit of obstinance. "He killed his parents using a blade—likely some form of sword, with his left hand. The condition of the room was intact. There were absolutely no signs of struggle, but the blood stains are on the floor and wall, not the bed. He didn't kill his parents in their sleep. They were awake. Which means two jonin Uchiha, one of whom was the captain of the Konoha Police Force, made no attempt to defend themselves or escape, despite having a young son to look after and protect. That makes no sense, from a parent's mindset. Even if they didn't want to fight or hurt Itachi, at least one of them would have made some attempt to escape for Sasuke-kun."

Kakashi didn't look away from her. He didn't even blink. He couldn't believe she'd gleaned that much information from some blood stains—assuming it was true. They had no way of confirming at the moment. But he had to admit she had a point. If she was right, Mikoto and Fugaku's lack of resistance didn't make sense.

"There had been growing tension between both Itachi and his father, as well as Itachi and the clan, for several months prior. They even accused him of murdering his best friend, which enraged him. At that time, his Sharingan was notably different." Sakura withdrew her notes on the sharingan and handed it to Kakashi, who scanned over it wide-eyed. "This different Sharingan is an evolved form of the normal sharingan, called the Mangekyo Sharingan. This is a legendarily powerful doujutsu a level above the standard sharingan. Very few of the Uchiha have ever been known to possess it, as it only awakens under specific circumstances."

"You can't have learned all that from some blood stains. Where did you get this information?" Kakashi breathed, rereading her notes over and over again.

Sakura's gaze dropped to the table in shame. "Sasuke-kun used to keep a diary…"

Kakashi's gaze finally lifted from her notes back to her, his brow raising. "You read Sasuke's diary?"

Sakura shrank more into her seat, her expression loaded with guilt and shame. She couldn't even look at him. "I really don't feel good about it…" she muttered.

Kakashi's eye softened slightly. Even now she cared for, and respected Sasuke so much. It was obvious she hadn't read the diary for anything other than information on Itachi. One look at her notes made it clear how much she loved him—the majority of it was about how to heal eyes that contained doujutsu.

"So it was in Sasuke's diary that Itachi was a part of ANBU?"

Sakura shook her head slowly. "No. He only mentioned that his dad thought Itachi would be promoted soon."

"So what made you assume he got the promotion?" Kakashi knew that Itachi had, after all, he'd been on his team. But Sakura wasn't one to draw a conclusion from such a weak piece of evidence. She cleared her throat, shifting a little, again not able to look him in the eye. "Sakura…" He said, with the same warning tone from before.

"I snuck into the archives to check his file." Sakura said quietly.

"You what?!" Kakashi leaned in, his voice dropping to a hiss. "That's illegal."

"I was let in!" She defended, before shifting a little again. "…It was just under false pretenses."

"You lied your way passed a high ranking chunin guard?" Kakashi confirmed flatly.

Sakura nodded.

Honestly he was pretty impressed. Of course some people were more gullible than others, but in general high level chunin, who were put on guard duty for important intelligence hubs like the archives, were well trained to spot lies. Sakura must have been quite the convincing actress, and that in and of itself was a valuable skill for ninja to have. She'd be pretty well suited for intelligence missions.

"Aside from the basic information, everything was redacted…I figured that must have meant he was ANBU and his file had been transferred to ANBU headquarters…it wasn't just his either. The friend he was accused of killing, Uchiha Shisui's file was also mostly redacted. He must have been ANBU too. And you were ANBU as well. Did you have any interaction with either of them?"

Kakashi sighed. He supposed it was his turn now. "Not Shisui. I saw him around here and there. He was powerful. Hailed to be one of the most powerful in the clan at the time. I knew about his existence. But I didn't know him personally. Itachi though…he was placed on my team."

Sakura's eyes shot wide as she leaned in closer. "He was? What was he like? What was your impression of him? Did you see any signs of homicidal tendencies?"

Kakashi recognized the light dancing in her eyes as the same she had whenever she was working out a puzzle or experiment.

"Homicidal tendencies? Sakura, you do know what ANBU does, right?" He asked, amused.

"Right, ignore the last part then."

"Itachi…he was very withdrawn. It wasn't like he couldn't work with others or anything, he just preferred to carry things on his own. And he had the skill to back that preference. I was worried about it though. I told him he should rely more on others and that friendship was important."

"So you also thought he was a loner."

"Yes. Why?"

"According to Sasuke-kun his father felt the same way. He said Itachi had never cared for what others thought of him, or making friends. But Sasuke-kun also said that Itachi and Shisui were really close, and that Itachi viewed him as a brother. The insinuation from other clan members that he may have killed Shisui infuriated him to a degree that scared Sasuke-kun. None of the other entries sounded nearly as scared and confused as that one."

"So the implication of his closeness to Shisui is what has you questioning everyone else's distant loner impression? I'd consider Sasuke a distant loner, but it's still indisputable that he was close to you and Naruto."

Sakura took a bite of her food sadly.

"He has a point…but what is it? Why is it bothering me so much? There's something about all this that just feels…"

"What exactly doesn't add up to you?" Kakashi prodded, as if reading her mind.

"I don't know…" Sakura sighed. "Why do it? Why kill his entire clan but leave Sasuke-kun alive? I can picture Orochimaru wiping out a whole clan to obtain power, but when I met him at the inn…Itachi didn't come off as power hungry. Everything points to him being a distant loner, but he chose to join an organization of people who operate in pairs. And he's lower rank within that organization, since he's following someone else's orders. He doesn't come off as proud—I said some pretty offensive stuff to him and he barely reacted at all…at most it was just with passive curiosity. He was ruthless enough to kill his whole clan, including his parents who showed no signs of resistance in a single night, but he never actually attacked Naruto at the Inn. And he only attacked Sasuke-kun after Sasuke-kun kept attacking him."

"He put you in the Tsukiyomi Sakura." Kakashi deadpanned. It was like she'd forgotten the nightmare jutsu had been used against her as well…maybe she had, since she didn't experience the same mental trauma from it that he and Sasuke did.

"Oh that's what that genjutsu's called?" Sakura shook her head slowly. "I kind of think that was accidental. He used it on Sasuke-kun and I tried to separate them…I think I drew his attention away and he caught me accidentally. Once my reaction started, he just kept evading until he knocked me out. He could have easily killed me. He had the skill too, but he didn't. If massacring his whole clan wasn't a problem for him, why did it seem like he was trying to avoid confrontation, and end things quickly and non-lethally. The only one he came close to killing was Sasuke-kun…he was choking him, but if he intended to kill him then, he wouldn't have put him in the Tsukiyomi…"

Kakashi sat silently, trying to reconcile the merciless boy who'd been on his ANBU team, with the character inconsistencies Sakura highlighted. She made good points. But not enough to reach any sort of conclusion about Itachi. They only had his actions to go on, and so far, minor behavioral anomalies aside, his actions were still wholly damning.

"You're not giving him too much benefit of the doubt are you?" Kakashi asked carefully. Sakura and Naruto were both the types to see the best in people. Naruto tended to forgive everyone of their sins the second he found those spots of goodness. Sakura was different. It depended on the situation and person. She never forgave Zabuza or Haku for the threat and near death of her teammates. But she had completely forgiven Gaara despite him having nearly killed her—even as he did so. It was hard for Kakashi to guess what her feelings were towards Itachi at the moment.

"Not at all. I'll never forgive him. Not after he put Sasuke-kun through so much pain. Not when he treats Naruto like something less than human because of the nine-tails…I just think he's inconsistent and he's hiding something and I want to know what."

Kakashi stared his student down before sighing. "I've learned to stop doubting your intelligence and your judgement a long time ago. But listen to me Sakura. Don't under any circumstances attempt to gather more information by breaking into the ANBU archives. Not even your status as the Hokage's apprentice will protect you if you do."

"…Then can you do it?"

"No." Kakashi answered flatly.

"Fine." Sakura pursed her lips looking away. "Can I see your bingo book, then? He's in there, right?"

He withdrew the book from his vest pocket, handing it over to her without any resistance. "You won't find anything of use in there. It's only what you already know: His appearance, age, country of origin, crimes, rank, last known sighting, orders incase of contact…"

Sakura skimmed over the entry before leafing through quickly trying to find Kisame. After skimming over his entry, she leafed through the bingo book again, looking carefully over every listed criminal's rank and list of crimes.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to see if there are any commonalties between Akatsuki members crimes or rank…maybe the overlap is a key aspect to membership."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. In theory it was a good idea, and a smart move to try and determine other potential members. But the problem was, there were only two data points.

"As smart as that is, it unfortunately won't get you anywhere with only two known members. You need three to establish a pattern, if there even is one. Plus as you pointed out, the Akatsuki seem to work in pairs. Overlap in crimes or rank may be how they pair off, but have no relation to joining on the whole."

Sakura let out a whine of frustration, her head falling on the back of the booth as she stared up at the ceiling, much to Kakashi's amusement.

"Ugh! Why does everything have to be a dead end?! Where am I supposed to look next?!…Well at the very least, maybe I can try looking more into the Mangekyo. It won't tell me anything about motives, but knowing his skills can't be a bad thing…he's also not the only enemy. Arguably that snake bastard is the bigger threat, so I should also start trying to dig up information on him…"

Kakashi's eye softened. It was endearing, seeing her so lively and openly expressive.

"How are you doing, Sakura?"

"Hm?" She looked up, a little surprised by the question. "I'm alright sensei. Shishou and Shizune-senpai keep teasing me about how I'm going through puberty now, but aside from that, my training's going well. On all fronts. I've learned a lot. I even have clearance to do surgeries on my own now! And I've got ways to manage my curse too. Shishou even said she thinks I have enough control over it to be able to go on missions without you or Kurenai-sensei."

"I'm glad to hear that." He said, smiling softly.

Sakura hesitated before adding, "I went to Sasuke-kun's family's graves not long ago. I cleaned them off. I think I'm gonna try and go back once a month."

Kakashi's brow furrowed. It was an incredibly caring and sweet thing to do, and a testament to how deep her feelings for Sasuke were…but she really didn't have to do that. And he couldn't help but think it would only hurt her the more she loved him. But how did he tell her that when she was willing to go so far…it was a double edged sword, the amount of empathy, love, and compassion she had. On one hand it made it hard not to love and respect her greatly, but the flip side of that was now that she'd given her heart to Sasuke, and he'd ignored it and went off to Orochimaru, the love she carried for him would become more burdensome than anything else. What was he supposed to do about it? He debated on trying to redirect her love, but he had no idea who he'd try to encourage her to look at, for one thing, and for another…Sasuke needed it more. A boy like him needed to be loved, strongly and unendingly if there was any hope of saving him. Besides, no matter what it might look like to anyone else, Kakashi had the front seat to their relationship. It wasn't one sided. Sasuke was just as good and necessary for Sakura as she was for him. He had opened her up, got her to trust and connect to others, gotten her to ease up on herself a little and share her burdens. He'd been one of the first people to put her needs and feelings first, when she was so used to shelving them for other's sakes. And it wasn't just what he had done. She needed someone who was strong and steady. Someone whose presence made her feel safe, like things were going to be ok. The only person her own age he'd ever seen have that effect on her was Sasuke.

"Are you sure about that, Sakura?"

"They should have someone visiting them while Sasuke-kun is away. Their memories shouldn't be neglected."

"And your mother and father?"

"I visit mom once a week, now. Even though he's right next to her, I didn't really include dad before…I don't have many memories of him, and I started to resent and blame him for dying a little when things started getting bad for us. But I've started trying to talk to him more, now that I get how his final moments must have been…" Sakura gave a sad smile, fingering her necklace. "As for mom, I fill her in on everything, even though she probably already knows."

Kakashi stared at her for a long moment, with deep respect, then he smiled behind his mask, reaching across the table to gently tussle her hair. "You really are a strong one, Sakura." Maybe even strong enough to withstand the burden of loving someone like Sasuke.

Sakura once again stood in the training ground behind the Hokage tower, facing her master, who stood eyeing her in deep thought.

"…Shishou? Was there a reason you wanted to meet here?"

Tsunade closed her eyes, her arms folded over her chest. "Do you remember my cardinal rules for medical ninja?"

"Of course M'Lady! (1.) No medic ninja shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end. (2.) No medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines. (3.) No medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon." Sakura recited.

Tsunade's eyes opened, amber clashing with sage. "It's time for you to learn the last rule."

"Last rule?"

"Rule number (4.) Only those medic ninja who have mastered the Strength of a Hundred Technique or the ninja art Mitotic Regeneration are permitted to discard the first three rules."

"Strength of a Hundred? Mitotic Regeneration? Obviously they're jutsu…I wonder how many medic ninja are allowed to break the first three rules…"

"I'm going to teach you the jutsu to revive all the organs, the entire system. Ninja art: Mitotic Regeneration jutsu."

"There's a healing jutsu that powerful?"

Tsunade nodded. "It's not a jutsu that revolves around healing skills. It's the same kind of regeneration jutsu that the first Hokage used."

"This is a Kage level jutsu?!" Sakura's eyes widened.

"The First Hokage had such an enormous amount of chakra that he could activate it without weaving signs."

"M'Lady…I don't have that kind of immense chakra!"

"Which is why I'm going to teach you one more jutsu. It's called the Strength of a Hundred technique, also known as the Hundred Healings mark."

"The Hundred Healings mark?" Sakura question, her eyes resting on the purple diamond mark adorning her masters forehead.

"Even I don't have the kind of chakra the First Hokage had. So I developed this Jutsu, based off of theories dating back to the time of the Sage of Six Paths. By using it, you can keep a huge amount of chakra in reserve. By combining these two techniques, the body will continue to regenerate from any damage sustained, and you will not die while it's active."

"A-Amazing…" Sakura breathed. "These two jutsu make the user combat-immortal—the user won't be able to be felled in battle. No wonder this is rule number four. The other three are all about keeping the medic ninja alive so they can keep their comrades alive, but if there's no risk of the medical ninja dying, those rules become obsolete. But a jutsu this powerful…"

"M'Lady, a continual regeneration like that…there are only so many times the cells in the body are able to divide."

Tsunade nodded gravely. "That's why the Mitotic Regeneration should only be used as a last resort, when there is no choice but to battle. Each time you use this jutsu, you shorten your natural life span."

Sakura considered this thoroughly, her eyes darkening in thought. "Honestly, that's worth it for me. My life expectancy is already pretty short. It'll be a miracle if I make it to 30. That downside isn't as horrible for me as it might be for others…"

"Well, that's the downside for the Mitotic Regeneration, but there's a problem with the Hundred Healings jutsu as well. Not only does it require extremely delicate chakra control, you must amass chakra continually for three years."

"Th-Three years!"

"I don't have that kind of time! Orochimaru might—Sasuke-kun could be—!"

"You have to keep a constant amount of chakra infused, even while you sleep, and you must maintain that state for three years."

"Is there anyway to speed that up?"

"Tsunade-sama, what's the constant rate of chakra I have to store?"

Tsunade huffed a little. "Trying to figure out if you can speed up the process at all? Just forget it. Three years is the minimum, storing 80% of your chakra. You could infuse less, but it'll take longer to reach capacity. Infusing more would be idiocy."

"Incase of attack." Sakura clarified.

Tsunade nodded. Safety was never a given in the ninja world, and having anything less than twenty percent of your chakra available was asking for death.

"This jutsu…"

"I know you're worried about Sasuke. But remember, the mitotic regeneration should be a last resort, and as a medical ninja, your focus should be on keeping comrades alive. Whoever faces Orochimaru is going to need healing. As a medical ninja that always has to be your first priority."

"Yes M'Lady." Sakura murmured seriously. She hadn't forgotten what her purpose to learning all this was, but she had forgotten that she wouldn't be facing Orochimaru alone…it was easy to do when Naruto was away without sending so much as a letter, and Kakashi was often absent, being sent out on his own or with other teams. "Is there a set size for the reserve?"

"It is called the strength of a hundred seal for a reason. At minimum, it needs to be large enough to store what would amount to 100 times your strength. Once the seal is complete, you can make the reserve larger by continuing to store your chakra. When you tap into the reserve, you do need to refill it."

"How many people can use this jutsu?"

"You're looking at the only one."

"So…Shizune-senpai…?"

"The chakra control required was too delicate for her. She couldn't do it. I have no doubt that won't be a problem for you, though."

"Why…"

"Those chakra weights you've been wearing. Constantly focusing a specific percentage of your chakra into them…it's a similar level of chakra control. Though this will undoubtedly be harder. And unlike your weights, you can't tap into the chakra percentage reserved for the seal under any circumstances."

Sakura glanced down at the cuffs on her wrists. "Even if it is harder than using chakra weights, even if it takes three years…I have to do this! This is the power of a Sanin I'll be inheriting. Tsunade-sama is the only person alive with this power, and she thinks I can learn it. I have to do this!" Sakura's fists clenched, her eyes burning with determination as she looked up at her master.

"How do I do it?" She was ready.

"There is one more problem, one that is unique to you."

"Huh?"

"Your Kekkei Genkai. For this seal to work, you have to keep the same amount of chakra constantly infused at the same rate. Any change to rate or amount, and the seal formation breaks. Inherently, your reactions are a threat to this."

"So then…" Sakura thought over what Tsunade said, biting at her lip. "Can we test it? Have me start on the seal for two weeks or a month, and then trigger me. If I can maintain the seal through it, then we'll know I should be able to do this, but if not, it won't be like I've lost years of effort, at least."

Tsunade smirked. "My thoughts exactly." Her face turned serious again. "First, your chakra weights. You won't need them anymore."

She wasn't able to enjoy the fullness of her chakra or lightness of her limbs for long. As soon as the weights were removed, Tsunade had her performing the hand signs to begin the jutsu. She'd been right. It was much harder than weights. As soon as eighty percent of her chakra was siphoned away, it didn't matter how light her limbs felt, she was exhausted. The feel was entirely different. It wasn't like her weights, where the chakra was set aside but she still felt it there…it was like that eighty percent of her chakra was completely gone. Plus it had to be a continuous infusion, which meant she had to constantly be producing more chakra, which almost immediately had to be siphoned away.

It took her fifteen hours before she could finally successfully start and maintain the seal without immediately breaking its formation. Tsunade had left her with Katsuyu after her second hour of failure, but finally having succeeded, a sleepy Tsunade made her way back out to the night soaked training grounds.

"You finally got it started." Tsunade yawned, before studying Sakura closely. It was hard to see in the dark, but when she got close enough, with the help of the moonlight, she could make out the sweat on Sakura's face, along with the girl's heavy breathing. "Are you able to talk and move, or is it too much focus?"

"No, Shishou, I'm fine." The girl gasped out. "I won't be able to go to sleep tonight though. My body's not familiar enough with this to maintain it in my sleep, yet."

Tsunade nodded, glancing at the sky. "It's late. Stay here tonight. I'll have Katsuyu continue to monitor you."

Sakura nodded, pushing herself off the ground where she'd been sitting, and staggered a little, not used to the lightness in her limbs, nor the severe lack of chakra. Tsunade's arm immediately shot out, helping stabilize her, the woman's eyes softening.

"Come on, kid. You're in for a rough few weeks." She said gently, leading her into the Hokage's residence.

Tsunade didn't immediately take her to a guest room or the Hokage's office. She instead brought her to a dining room, sitting her in a chair at a large table.

"It's important you eat a lot during this training, to help increase your chakra production." She disappeared into a kitchen, coming out some time later with a large pot of Chanko Nabe. "Eat up." She ordered setting the food down in front of Sakura, along with a spoon and chopsticks.

"I can eat all of it?" Sakura asked, excited by the prospect. She was starving. She'd been working on successfully starting her seal the whole day, she hadn't eaten anything.

Tsunade nodded, taking the seat across from Sakura, leaning her head on her hand as she watched the girl dig in, a small smile on her face. Was this what it would have felt like if she and Dan had had a daughter?…It's what Sakura had become to her. In her mind, at some point, Sakura had become her child.

"Sakura."

"Hm?" The girl hummed, around a mouthful of shrimp and mushroom.

"For the next two weeks, filling your seal will be the entirety of your training. I'll take you off the hospital rotation for now."

Sakura swallowed another mouthful of food and looked up at her master. "What about my stipend?"

"You'll still receive it. Don't worry about it."

"Even if I don't do the work for it? That's not right…"

"You just love making your life difficult, don't you?" Tsunade sighed. "Fine. Until you're able to maintain your seal for a week, even in your sleep, you're to only do hospital paper work, filing, cleaning, manual bandaging and giving IVs. No chakra usage. Trying to use chakra now, before you're able to habitually maintain your seal, may mess up your focus."

"What a backstep…" Sakura sighed…but she understood. And she knew Tsunade was doing this because it was in her best interest. She said it wasn't forever, only until she managed to store her chakra habitually. Besides, it would take some time to be able to train her muscle memory enough to do this in her sleep, and a severely sleep deprived medic could be dangerous to their patient.

"Okay."

She and Tsunade continued to chat about the hospital, gossip overheard from the nurses, and how she and Ino had become friends, while she devoured the Nabe. Once she finished, feeling warm, full, and more a bit more energized (thought not by a lot), Tsunade lead her into a large bedroom. It was even bigger than Sasuke's room, all dark wood furniture and floors. A large fully made bed, protruded into the center of the room, much like Sasuke's did, though this one had night stands on either side, a large bookshelf along one wall, a low table next to it. There were two arm chairs on either side of the tall window, which had a window seat built into it. The little seating area was complete with a round throw rug. The only feature it lacked that Sasuke's room had was the large balcony.

"Is this your room?" Sakua asked curiously. It was rather empty and lacking in personal touches…

"No, mine's down the hall. The Hokage's residence was built to accommodate not just the Hokage, but their family as well. There are many spare rooms for other family members." Tsunade's tone grew a little sad. If Dan had still been here, if he'd achieved his dream, she'd be living here with him as his wife. This bedroom may have belonged to their child. Or maybe Nawaki would have lived with them. Maybe Dan would have passed on the Hokage's mantle to Nawaki when he felt ready to retire, and they would have continued to live there as Nawaki's sister and brother-in-law.

Sakura didn't miss the way Tsunade's tone had saddened. Tsunade had never openly talked to her about it, but she knew the deep connection she felt to her master didn't come from nowhere. The look in Tsunade's eyes often resembled her own. She knew she had lost a lover, and a family member, and had a teammate turn his back on her. She and Tsunade's experiences were very similar.

Sakura abruptly whirled around and threw her arms around Tsunade's middle, making the woman jerk and blink a little in surprise. "S-Sakura…"

No one could replace her mother. No one would ever replace her mother. But right now, Tsunade was the closest…

"Just because…you seemed like you need it Shishou…" Sakura murmured, her arms tightening around Tsunade's middle.

The older woman stared down at her students pink head, her thoughts taking her to when Nawaki used to hug her like this. But Sakura wasn't Nawaki. If anyone resembled her brother, it was Naruto. Sakura…Sakura was her but better, kinder, stronger. Sakura was the daughter she'd never have. She placed a hand on her student's silky hair, with a soft smile.

"You're a good healer."

"I learned everything from you shishou."

The woman chuckled, shaking her head. Sakura was usually so observant of syntactic choice, but apparently the girl didn't seem to know the difference between a medic and a healer…medics fixed peoples wounds. Healers fixed their souls. And that was something that couldn't be taught.

"I have to maintain this condition for three years?!" Sakura grit her teeth, sweat beading on her brows and cheek. She was onto her third day of maintaining her seal, and she felt completely drained. The amount of focus the strength of a hundred seal took was greater than anything she'd ever done before, and it was giving her a headache. If her forehead was anything to go by, she was now perpetually running a low grade fever, which made sense, given that chakra was energy, which meant it gave off heat, and was now being hyper focused into a point on her forehead.

She sat leaning against the table in the upper level of the fish market, mainly because it was quiet up there and very few people ever popped in. There'd been too much activity in the Hokage's office and even the training grounds were too hard to focus in, with the sounds of nature, and the chance her friends could find her and attempt to rope her into training.

Even her menial tasks at the hospital were exhausting, though she figured it was just because she wasn't used to being in such a constantly drained state overall. So, she was glad that by four days in, her body had grown used to it enough to finally be able to sleep without risk of losing her progress. She was exhausted, so the sleep was definitely a relief.

The positive byproduct was that she'd begun eating more. She already had been eating a healthy amount before, but it was still on the lighter side to keep her costs down. She ate three times a day, but it was always small and minimal. Now she'd begun truly eating a lot. Her meals large and full.

By the time two weeks was up, Sakura had begun adjusting to the sealing process, and was finally able to go about her day to day life despite the perpetual exhaustion. She really hoped she was able to maintain it through her reaction.

Tsunade had her and Kurenai meet far outside the village, incase Sakura needed to cause another seismic event.

"Do you think you can do this, Sakura?" Tsunade questioned, concern peeking out from her stern demeanor.

"It's muscle memory at this point, so I should be able too." Sakura answered, though her insides fluttered nervously. She had a feeling this was gonna hurt a hell of a lot more than usual.

"Where are your weights?" Kurenai asked, her worry far more obvious than Tsunade's.

"We're doing this to see if she still needs them."

Sakura wondered about Tsunade's evasive answer. She apparently hadn't told Kurenai about the strength of a hundred seal. But the more Sakura thought about it, the more it made sense. Tsunade deeply trusted very few people, and this was her power they were talking about. Assuming she passed this test, it was better people didn't know about the seal she was developing, lest she become a target of those who might be interested in the root Tsunade's power. If she didn't succeed…well, then what was the point in telling?

"Do it." Tsunade ordered. Kurenai looked as if she wanted to protest, but she did as was ordered, and the genjutsu was cast.

Sakura stood in the clearing alone, or at least she thought she was alone, if it wasn't for Sasuke standing behind her. Inwardly she sighed, already guessing as to what sort of genjutsu this would be. Apparently this was now the easiest way to trigger her—it was getting to hard through fear or rage. At least it wasn't in front of Kakashi this time.

"Sakura." His voice was deeper than Sakura remembered, sending a shiver down her spine.

"Sasuke-kun…" She didn't turn around to meet his gaze, but she could feel it bearing down on her, a force stronger than gravity. She could feel his height increase, he now stood ate least a head taller than her. She could feel the heat radiating off of him, like he had fire under his skin—he sort of did in a sense. Most of all she could feel his breath against the back of her hair.

Then it wasn't just his breath she felt against her it. His fingers moved against her locks, running through it once, before gently pushing it to one side. Sakura's breath caught in her throat, her heart thumping erratically.

"It's not real…" She chanted in her mind, trying to get a grip on herself.

She nearly jumped when she felt Sasuke's lips brush against her neck.

"I missed you." His voice vibrated through her, his woody scent encompassing her, clouding her mind. His lips pressed into her neck with more pressure, teeth scraping against her skin gently.

"Y-Your voice got deeper, Sasuke-kun." She managed out weakly. Honestly she was proud of herself for not completely losing it yet.

"That's not all that changed." He murmured, one arm wrapping around her waist, pulling her firmly against his body, while the other tenderly angled her face up towards his.

She felt her breath catch again. She knew it was only a vision, but he was as beautiful as ever. Sasuke was scanning her face as well, before his eyes locked with hers.

"You still want me…" He breathed with something like wonder, which faded into something confident bordering on cocky. "Good." His head dipped, lips crashing into hers, kissing her deeply, his hand stroking lightly over her hip, and then down toward her thigh.

Her heart hammered so hard she thought it might explode, and the illusion shattered.

She was on her hands and knees, her head pounding with the pressure of maintaining the seal. It felt like the neck of a bottle—the pressure building, trying to break free, but only having one small narrow pathway to go down. She didn't even process the rest of the pain her body was in—the pain in her head from maintaining the seal was more overwhelming than anything else.

She grit her teeth so hard it felt like her jaw might shatter, tears welling in her eyes as she started trying to concentrate her chakra into her shoulder.

"Shannaro!" She didn't gather as much as she had the first time she tried this, but it still burned down her arm none the less when her fist slammed into the ground, the earth around her shattering on impact. It wasn't as big as the ruinous explosion the first time she did this, instead, the wreckage only extended through the clearing. She charged another punch, and another, deepening the crater and offloading her chakra in a way that didn't completely eviscerate her arms.

The pressure in her head lessened a little with each punch. When her chakra reached the stage she mentally started referring to as "activated"—where the reaction hadn't stopped, and her chakra level and speed were still heightened, but within functional parameters—she keeled over, breathing hard, her head feeling feverish.

A pair of heeled sandals, and a pair of standard sandals appareled in her line of vision, and then she was being cradled against the large chest of her shishou. She breathed heavily, feeling completely exhausted, but she met her mentor's amber eyes as her chakra continued to calm.

"I did it…I think I'm hungover…"

Tsunade's smirk bordered on an actual smile. "You've never been drunk."

"If it's half as bad as this, I'm never drinking."

"Let's revisit those words when you're older." Her smile turned genuine. "You did well. Your arms aren't in too bad condition either. Some muscle tears and bone fractures, but they're not the flayed mess they were when you first tried this."

It was Sakura's turn to smile. Her eyes felt like weights too heavy to lift, and her head ached intensely.

Kurenai glanced around the clearing. "If this fills with water, it'll be a lake…you controlled the damage perfectly, Sakura. It doesn't extend pass the boundaries of the clearing."

"Cherry Blossom Impact…Earth release." The girl murmured tiredly, her head lolling against Tsunade's chest. "So…I passed?"

"You pass." Tsunade agreed. Pride and a touch of awe etched on her every feature, though Sakura really didn't see any of it with how her eyelids kept pulling shut. "Rest now, Sakura. You'll probably be out longer than usual."

Sakura didn't even get the chance to nod before her eyes closed, the world fading to darkness around her.

"Well, you're definitely making them faster, I'll give ya that. But there's no change in size, and you've only managed to increase the number you can perform by one." Jiraya sighed, as Naruto heaved, his hands resting on his knees.

"This isn't exactly easy y'know Pervy sage!" The blonde shouted.

"Are you gonna keep yapping, or are you gonna do it again?"

Naruto growled, glaring up at the Sanin. He'd already hit his five-a-day limit, he was tapped out! But he had to try! He had to get stronger, so he could save Sasuke!

"Shadow clone jutsu!" There was a pop as his clone came into existence, and immediately attempted to form his rasengan, but it was tiny. The clone popped away and he barely managed a step before he fell face first into the ground, the rasengan dispersing.

"You're not tapping into the fox's chakra!" Jiraya snapped.

"I don't want to use the stinking fox's chakra!"

"Then you can just forget about saving Sasuke. The Akatsuki will kill you before you get the chance."

Naruto glared at the ground, his fist clenching tightly. He pushed himself up with shaky limbs.

"If you want to have a shot at surviving long enough to save your friend, you need to start integrating and using the nine-tails chakra with yours. You can do it. You've done it before. But at this point, you've only called it up in life threatening situations. If you want to increase the amount of times you can use your rasengan, you need to start getting better at calling up that chakra."

He didn't want to. He didn't want to use it. The nine-tails was a monster, and he didn't want to rely on a monster's chakra. But it was undeniable. He got stronger when he used it. That chakra let him beat Neji when his chakra was sealed. It let him fight Gaara when Sakura and Sasuke were in danger…it let him go toe to toe with Sasuke, at least for a while, before that curse mark changed Sasuke into some kind of demon…maybe he did need the nine-tails chakra. Maybe only a demon could square off against another demon…

"Fine. You've made your point! I'll use the damn fox's chakra!" He tried to call it up, but it wasn't coming to him the way it did before.

Jiraya raised a bushy grey brow. "Better try harder kid. Get used to demanding the nine-tails chakra without your life being on the line."

"Working on it, Pervy Sage! Believe it!" Naruto shouted.

Jiraya sighed. This would take a while.

Sakura woke up in one of the spare bedrooms in the Hokage's residence. She sat up slowly, rubbing at one of her eyes, glad that there was no lingering damage. Anything she'd done to her arms, Tsunade must have fixed because there were no signs of the muscle tears of bone fractures she'd mentioned before Sakura passed out. She slid out of bed to go find Tsunade.

She wasn't hard to locate. Tsunade was in the Hokage's office, begrudgingly filling out paperwork. Sakura and Tsunade were long passed the point where Sakura was required to knock. Unless others were in the room, Sakura and Shizune were free to come and go as they please. None the less, Tsunade seemed a bit surprised when Sakura strode into the room.

"You're awake. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Shishou. Thanks for healing my arms. How long was I out for?"

"Eighteen hours."

"Eighteen hours?!" Sakura's brow furrowed. That was longer than she was normally out after a well managed attack.

"Maintaining the seal during a reaction must have caused a greater strain, requiring a greater recovery time. I'm not surprised. Honestly, I expected you'd be out longer than that." Tsunade said, her tone its usual brusque.

"That makes sense." Sakura nodded, pulling out her journal and plopping onto the floor in a butterfly stretch to make note of the recent reaction in her journal. Tsunade made no comment—this was normal behavior for both of them—and returned to her paperwork. But she couldn't miss the opportunity to tease her adorable apprentice.

"So, that must have been some genjutsu vision. What were you and Sasuke doing, exactly?"

Sakura's entire face and neck completely bypassed the shade of her hair, turning a bright tomato red.

"Shishou!"

Tsunade roared with laughter. "Sorry kid, gotta get my kicks where I can, being Hokage isn't exactly a laugh, you know?"

Sakura groaned, pressing her face into her journal. Tsunade's laughter turned kinder.

"When you're done, go to the kitchen and heat up what's in the fridge. I had Shizune save some food for whenever you woke up. Make sure you eat it all. You need to refill your energy. Did you want to stay here tonight?"

Sakura thought about it for a brief moment before nodding her assent. Despite the eighteen hours of rest, she still felt very tired. It was late. And that genjutsu was still too fresh in her mind for her to handle returning to Sasuke's empty apartment right now.

"Yes, please. Thank you Shishou." She gave her master a warm smile before returning to her journal, missing Tsunade's scrutinizing gaze.

There was something the Sanin hadn't considered when she taught Sakura the Hundred Healings. When she herself was forming it, her chakra levels had significantly dropped over the course of those three years. It hadn't mattered at the time. There weren't any wars, she'd left the village, and she was still suffering from her fear of blood, so she wasn't healing anyone. At the time she hadn't needed much chakra anyways. But Sakura was currently an active ninja. Even if she hadn't been sent on missions recently, she was still on the mission roster. Even more than that she was an active medic, one of the most skilled in the hospital. If she or Shizune was busy, difficult surgeries were now handed to Sakura to handle. At this point, Tsunade would say that Sakura had at the very least tied with Shizune in medical skill, if not surpassed her. But with the reduction to her chakra reserves…well, it wasn't a given. Maybe she could still manage, but it'd be something she had to check.

"Sakura, you have a morning shift tomorrow, and then evening training, correct?"

"Yes, M'Lady. Why? Did you want to change the schedule?"

"No. But you're still only cleared for paperwork, cleaning, maintenance, and manual care. Got it?"

"What? Still?" Sakura whined, her cheeks puffing out in a pout.

Tsunade eyed her with some amusement. If the Uchiha ever regained his senses and took the stick out of his ass, he'd be so in for it. That boy would be whipped, he'd never be able to say no to her. She was way too adorable. It was no wonder so many guys fell for her, and it was pretty astounding that Sakura herself didn't see it. If she ever figured out how cute and beautiful she was, and used it, it would be game over. She'd be one hell of a spy, that's for sure.

"Still." Tsunade confirmed adamantly. Her cuteness might melt most, but Tsunade was Hokage, and her will was iron forged in the hottest of fires.

"Fine." Sakura caved. Before she could say anything else, her stomach gave a loud rumble.

"Go eat," Tsuande chuckled, "you can finish your notes after."

Sakura didn't have to be told twice. She leapt up, excited about the prospect of a meal.

It was as Tsunade had feared. She and Sakura stood on the training grounds behind the Hokage tower, working on her chakra enhanced punches. Sakura took aim at the boulder she faced, powering up her punch, but as she took a step forward to let her fist fly, her chakra moving with it, she suddenly pitched forward, the world going dark around her.

"…what?"

The last thing she was aware of was Tsunade shouting her name as she fell, the rock she was supposed to be demolishing now supporting her weight.

She awoke in Tsunade's office, her master looking down at her with concern.

"…Shishou? What happened?" She muttered sitting up.

"I was afraid of this." Tsunade sighed and paced to her desk, taking a seat heavily. "Due to the effects of the hundred healings, your normal chakra level has become extremely low. It will be a hindrance in both healing and battle. At this rate, I cannot allow you to perform any surgery or go out into the battlefield."

"No! I can't back slide that much! This'll take three years and Sasuke-kun doesn't have that long! I can't be completely useless to Naruto! Not again, Shannaro!"

"But I—" Tsunade cut her off before she could finish her protests.

"I haven't been sending you out on missions anyways, but I'm officially taking you off the active mission roster. From now on, you'll only be allowed to do minor chakra based first aid, give scans and diagnoses, and perform any manual non-chakra procedures."

"No wait, Shishou please! You did it before so if I just—"

"No Sakura. When I developed the seal I was out of commission both as a shinobi and a medic. I wasn't going on missions or healing anyone. The effects of the seal never got in my way, because of the life style I was living. I didn't take that into consideration when I had you undertake this. And I will not endanger you or risk your training by putting you on the battlefield or having you perform high chakra consuming medical procedures."

"I can't accept that, Shannaro! What do I do? Think, Sakura!"

"What if I find a way around it?"

Tsunade raised a delicate brow. "And how do you intend on doing that?"

Sakura remained silent for a long time, her lips pursed. "If only I had more chakra accessible when I need it…chakra accessible when I need it…? Chakra accessible when I need it! That's it!"

Sakura's eyes widened. "Gonna go try something, bye Tsuande-sama!" Sakura bowed hastily, fleeing the room before Tsunade could call her back.

Sakura sat in a butterfly stretch under a large, thick, tree in the middle of a clearing in the woods to Konoha's west.

"If I create a secondary smaller reservoir to the hundred healings…"

She took a deep breath and formed the same hand signs Tsunade had taught her for the hundred healings, forming a secondary reserve to store chakra.

"I've already established the rate and amount of chakra going into the hundred healings. If I take any away from that, I'll break the seal. But if I add another five percent to that flow, but siphon it off into the secondary dam, it shouldn't disturb the hundred healings reservoir at all."

Sakura carefully upped the amount of chakra flowing towards the focus point for her seal, immediately redirecting the flow of the added chakra to the smaller dam, the concentration to do so causing beads of sweat to form on her face.

"At a constant rate of five percent, that small dam should fill within twelve hours, which will give me a quarter of my normal chakra levels, plus the fifteen percent of my chakra not going to either seal. I should have forty percent of my chakra available for use. So long as I maintain both dams, and am careful to pull chakra only from the smaller one when needed, I should be able to perform surgeries as well as fight in battles."

But god was it hard. She was growing used to having a perpetual minor headache from the strain of it all, as well as a growing, ever present exhaustion. Sakura didn't move from that spot for the whole day, and remained there through the night as well. She didn't sleep, sinking into a deeply focused trance as her body grew accustomed to filling both seals. It was only after the sun broke the horizon, casting a warm glow on her face, that she blinked back into awareness of the world around her. Determining that her body had grown accustom enough to maintaining both reservoirs, she decided to go back to Sasuke's and get some sleep before her afternoon shift at the hospital.

Sakura didn't tell Tsunade about the second dam. Not right away at least. She wanted to make sure she could at least maintain it for a week before she said anything. On top of that, maintaining both seals gave her a perpetual headache and ever present fatigue, and she figured maybe for once in her life, she'd take the easy assignment that didn't exhaust her more, just for now.

Due to her seal, Tsunade no longer had strenuous training sessions with her, opening up some time in her schedule to do more research into her other project: gathering information on Itachi and Orochimaru. She'd hit a dead end for now with Itachi, but Orochimaru used to be a leaf ninja as well, so she hoped she'd be able to find more on him this time around.

She got lucky. Tsunade had taken to having Sakura serve as an extra pair of hands and eyes on her paperwork in place of her usual training sessions, and while her master was in a meeting, Sakura happened upon Orochimaru's file while putting some paperwork away in her master's desk drawer.

She sat silently for a moment, casting her senses as far as they went to make sure no one would burst in. Sensing no one of risk, Sakura slipped the file out of the drawer and opened it.

Tsuande must have had it brought over from the ANBU archives, because his rank was listed as ANBU, though there were no redactions as there had been with Itachi and Shisui.

"Name: Orochimaru

Ninja registration: 002300

Date of Birth: October 27

Clan: Orphaned/Uknown

Blood Type: B

Academy Graduation Age: 6

Team: Hiruzen

Orochimaru is one of the most promising young ninja I've seen. The boy's a genius. His talents, knowledge, and determination are a prodigy level the likes of which are only seen once a generation. Orochimaru has expressed the goal of learning all the world's jutsu and secrets, an admirable goal, albeit ambitious. If anyone could accomplish such a feat I would not be shocked if it was him. However his behavior is worrisome. He has displayed cruel, merciless, and downright sadistic tendencies on multiple occasions, and he is but young. I fear the path he might turn down should these tendencies be nourished."

Sakura's heart picked up speed a little as she shuffled through the file to find more of his behavior reports.

"So he was a sick bastard even as a child. Doesn't seem all that surprising honestly. I guess Lord Third's fear came true. That part of him wasn't just nourished—it was overfed!"

The next report she read through was from an ANBU captain he served under.

"He's truly an ideal ANBU member. Assassination work doesn't bother him in the slightest, though, he does seem to enjoy playing with his food, rather than ending them quickly…I guess it just goes to show there's always room for improvement I suppose. Lord Danzo has taken an interest in him, and he's only just joined. I doubt it will be long before Lord Danzo recruits him personally."

Sakura's brow furrowed. She didn't know who Lord Danzo was, but clearly he was related to the ANBU in some way. And Lord Danzo seemed to have his own section of ANBU that he oversaw personally, if he'd been looking to recruit Orochimaru—recruitment required some branch, team, operation, or organization that this Danzo must have been the head of. Sakura moved on, skimming through the reports. All she'd really learned from the last one was that his sadistic tendencies were even a little shocking to a black ops captain. Then she came upon a packet paper clipped together: the cover page of a police report labeled Missing Children Incident.

"Sixty children from Konoha and other small villages within the Land of Fire had been reported missing for over seven months. The case has finally been closed. The children were discovered in a basement laboratory in Konoha. The children had been forced to undergo experimentation using the First Hokage's DNA in an attempt to recreate First's wood release, all at the hands of Lord Third's pupil and ANBU member, Orochimaru. He was discovered on the scene among the children, having pronounced the experiment a failure, before escaping and defecting from Konoha. All but one child died. Orochimaru had been pronounced a missing nin with orders to kill on sight."

Sakura went white, her eyes wide. She kept re-reading the words, her heart rate mounting with her horror. With shaking hands, she put the folder back in its place, and closed the drawer. She moved out from behind the desk and to the center of the office numbly, feeling her panic rising into her throat. A shaky hand made its way into her hair while she paced back and forth, attempting to keep her hysteria at bay.

"Holy shit! Just who the hell did we leave Sasuke-kun with?! Three years?! He may not have survived three months with that maniac! Holy shit what if Sasuke-kun's dead alr—no! Sakura, stop you can't think like that—Orochimaru wants him as his next host body, he won't let him die that easily, but fuck! What if he's being tortured and experimented on?! Sixty kids! That monster kidnapped sixty kids, murdered fifty-nine, thought he murdered all of them, and couldn't have cared less about it!"

Sakura grabbed on to the desk's edge to steady herself. Her stomach roiled tumultuously, like the sea in a storm.

"DNA experiments on humans...on children...that's a complete misuse of medical and scientific knowledge! He used human beings as lab rats! That's-it's sick! completely sick! That knowledge is supposed to be used to treat people, and make them better! Not-not torture and kill them slowly and painfully! We need to get Sasuke-kun out of there now, Shannaro! What the hell have I been doing just sitting here?! Sasuke-kun could be—He could be—"

Her thoughts were becoming more disjointed, her breathing becoming less measured, as her mind raced with all the sick possibilities of what Orochimaru could be doing to Sasuke. She was bordering on a panic attack and didn't have the presence of mind to stop herself.

"I need to get him out of there! I need to do something!"

She was on the window's ledge, seconds from jumping out when Tsunade opened her office door.

"Sakura? What are you doing?" The girl turned abruptly to face her mentor, and Tsunade's eyes widened with concern. She was unusually pale, visibly shaking…she looked like she did when Sasuke had first left…no, maybe even worse. At that point, she'd at least been attempting to calm down and keep herself together. But this Sakura didn't seem to be trying to calm down at all. What could possibly have set her off like this?

Reality slammed in to Sakura all at once, making her remember where she was—the Hokage tower, at the center of Konoha—and who her master was—the Hokage herself. She couldn't just go running off. Not without her master's permission, or else she'd be a missing nin too.

"Shi…Shishou…" She took a shaky breath, her heart hammering against her ribcage. Her hand passed through her hair as she tried to calm herself down. She couldn't go having a reaction right now. Not right here at the heart of the village.

"What's wrong?" Tsunade questioned, concern coating her tawny gaze.

Sakura swallowed tightly. She couldn't tell the truth. She couldn't say she'd read one of the classified files that had been in the Hokage's desk drawer. She'd get in so much trouble for that. Maybe even locked up in jail. But Tsunade was better at picking up when she was lying than Ino was…the only living person better than Tsunade at spotting Sakura's falsehoods was Sasuke. Lying to her would be hard. She needed something believable. Something true…just not this particular truth.

"I…I realized shishou…this seal…three years not being allowed to fight or perform surgeries…Orochimaru may have taken Sasuke-kun over by then! Three years…one of those years is already used up and I only just started my seal and…" This hadn't been the reason for her current near-panic attack, but it was honest and truthful and the more she spoke the more she began to panic about it. Needless to say Tsunade bought it.

"So you thought you'd go now?!" The woman shouted, her worry making her angry at her apprentice's attempted recklessness.

Sakura didn't move. Didn't flinch. She stared her master down, big eyes glassy with tears, shaking, pale.

"He could be…Orochimaru could be…if it were the man you loved, what would you do?" Sakura whispered. Though it did bring up another point…she wouldn't even know where to look for the slimy bastard.

Tsunade softened. It hurt, because she really did understand. She wouldn't have been able to just sit still either…especially if someone had told her that she wouldn't be able to help or heal Dan when the time came. Tsunade walked right up to Sakura and pulled her into a hug, one manicured hand stroking through Sakura's silky hair. She only tightened her grip on the girl when she felt more than heard Sakura began to cry.

Neither spoke for a long time. There really wasn't anything to say. The reality sucked. That's all there was to it.

Sakura appreciated it. She was grateful Tsunade never tried to feed her empty words of comfort. The woman only ever dealt her truths, and if she thought they may be too hard for Sakura to take, she opted to just say nothing. Tsunade's comforting always came in a physical reassurance that she wasn't alone, that Tsunade understood and would be there for her. That she believed in her. It was a far more effective comfort strategy on Sakura than any sweet words that lacked evidence to back them. Sakura's shaking slowed to a stop, her tears finally ceasing.

"You remember my conditions for allowing you to stay at Sasuke's?" Tsunade asked after a long while, when it was evident Sakura had begun calming down. Sakura nodded against Tsunade's chest.

"You're going to stay with me tonight. I have a lot of work to do, but I'll get you a book. You can hang out in here and read, or stamp some paperwork for me."

"Yes Shishou."

"We can have anmitsu tonight after dinner." Tsunade added, a small smile creeping onto her face. Sakura was by no means a picky eater. She'd eat anything, with the exception of spicy food—and she'd even choke that down if it was medically beneficial to a party member. But she had a special love of sweet foods, anmitsu in particular, though she loved dango as well. She never got the chance to eat them often growing up since they were a luxury item she couldn't afford. But especially since starting her seal, Sakura craved sweet foods more. The seal took a lot of energy, and she was more susceptible to hypoglycemia while undergoing the process, so her body naturally craved sugar more now.

Sakura's small laugh was evidence that she was indeed calming down.

"Thank you, Shishou."

Sasuke staggered, his vision blurring. Orochimaru paused in his attack.

"It seems it's finally starting to take effect."

"What is?" Sasuke growled, his breath coming out ragged. He stabbed his sword into the ground, holding on to it for support with one hand, while the other braced itself against his knee. He felt nauseous.

"Poison is a very common weapon among Shinobi. I have no use for a body without immunity to it. You'll be immune to this poison if you survive the night. This one is much stronger than the last three…you barely had a reaction to any of those."

"You've been micro dosing me." It wasn't a question. He honestly wasn't surprised. It seemed perfectly in character with Orochimaru—god he hated this snake asshole.

Orochimaru stabbed at Sasuke, though he dodged at the last second. His reflexes felt slow.

"Enemies take advantage of weakness." Orochimaru hissed, sending a jet of water Sasuke's way.

Sasuke used as powerful of a fire jutsu as he could muster in his condition, evaporating the water. He doubled over and vomited, his hand tightening on his sword's hilt.

Orochimaru's neck elongated, his head shooting towards him the way it had when he'd given Sasuke the curse mark. "Still too weak!" He hissed as his head neared Sasuke's face. Suddenly, his head was knocked off its course, a throbbing in his cheek. Sasuke had slammed the hilt of his sword into Orochimaru's face, with a shocking amount of force given his weakened state.

"This training session is over." He snarled darkly, leaving the Sanin as he staggered to his room.

He lay in his bed, sweating, his chest heaving. Everything hurt. He felt a cool hand on his overheating forehead, and opened his eyes, meeting life-green, full of love, care and concern.

"…Sakura." It had been several months since he'd dreamed of kissing her in that field. He thankfully hadn't dreamed of her since. He couldn't decide if this fever dream was merciful, or cruel, in bringing her to him again.

"Don't strain yourself so much, Sasuke-kun. That bastard poisoned you." A pained expression crossed her face.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was quiet and raspy, barely there.

Sakura shook her head slowly. "No, it's not that…Seeing you hurt I…" Sakura swallowed and looked away, a sad smile on her lips. "I already told you Sasuke-kun, it hurts me when you're hurt."

Sasuke opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a pained groan. Sakura's mercifully cool hand was back on his forehead, her other hand coming up to gently cup his cheek.

"Based on your symptoms, I think this poison is…" Her voice grew fuzzy as his focus seemed to fade. "…Sasuke-kun."

"Hn." His focus returned hearing his name slip from her lips, always soft and gentle…loving.

Sakura stood up from his bedside. "I should be able to make an antidote. I'll be right back."

Sasuke grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. "Don't go." It wan't like there was actually an antidote she could bring him, she wasn't really there. This was all a vivid illusion brought on by his unconscious mind and his fever.

It was a bad idea, but in this moment, he was too weak to resist the comfort she gave him, even if it was only a dream. Everything always felt better when she was around, pain always seemed more bearable with her touch. The poison was making his willpower too weak. At the moment, loving Sakura, letting his mind linger on her like this, would only put her in danger.

…But if she left, who knew what nightmare his fever would bring him in her stead. Orochimaru said "if he survived the night," and he wasn't sure he would do that without Sakura's soothing presence.

"Don't go." He repeated. The irony wasn't lost on him. Him asking her not to leave after he'd so cruelly left her. But Sakura wasn't him. Unlike him, who'd steeled his heart and callously left, she turned back to him, her eyes softening with a look so unfathomably tender that he felt an ache run through him, completely separate from the poison.

She sat down on the edge of his bed. "Okay, Sasuke-kun. I'll stay with you."

Everything in him relaxed. He opened his mouth, knowing that what he'd say next was crossing lines he shouldn't cross, but he was too far gone to care. Orochimaru was a fucking prick of a teacher who'd been poisoning him without his knowledge to build up his immunity. Once he got enough power, he was so fucking out of here. There was no way that asshole was getting his body. He was feverish and nauseous and in pain thanks to that jackass, and he simply didn't care how many bad ideas he gave into dreaming up this time around.

"Lay down." He'd meant it as a request, though it sounded like an order. Sakura flushed prettily.

"S-Sasuke-kun…? Y-You want me to…are you sure?" She glanced away shyly, her face vibrantly red. "…that's a little…intimate." She murmured.

"You don't have too if you don't want to." He answered equally as soft, but it was his dream and he was pretty sure she would.

"No! I…I want to." She said, unable to look at him. She took a deep breath, and then shifted so she was lying on her side, facing him. He turned onto his side as well, enfolding her tightly in his arms.

"My presence still helps you?" She asked softly, her small hands fisting the sides of his shirt.

"Yeah." Any other night, he'd have the willpower to lie to himself, or at the very least not respond, but not tonight. She always helped.

"Mm. Good." She pressed herself even closer against him, and he felt his breathing ease ever so slightly.

Sasuke awoke on his side with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, his hands fisting the sides of his shirt. His fever had broke and the nausea and disorientation passed, though his body still ached. But the anger, guilt, and hatred he felt towards himself for giving into weakness and dreaming of her so freely were overwhelming. And he couldn't wait to take it all out on Orochimaru during their training session that day…after his meal which was probably laced with a new micro dose of poison. That vile snake made him sick. He couldn't wait until he had enough power to kill him, kill Itachi, and go home.

Author's note: Bit of a shorter chapter this time. I hope the timing wasn't too confusing with this. The first scenes at Sasuke's old house and sneaking into the archives and stuff all happen in one day, but time passes between most of the other scenes, namely the dinner with Kakashi. I think that scene is sandwiched between two training scenes with Tsunade, and they don't directly follow each other.

This is the second half of Sakura's training and it's a lot less eventful than the first. I hope it's not boring. Sakura never uses the Body Pathway Derangement jutsu in the anime or manga, but she does have it in some of the video games and I can't imagine why Tsunade wouldn't teach her it, so I had her learn it in this. I figure Tsunade taught her everything and then had her learn the Hundred Healings last since the seal takes so much out of her. I can't imagine Tsunade continuing to push Sakura's training once she begins working on the seal. So this chapter became more research time for Sakura, since I can't imagine her doing much else aside from hospital shifts while working on the seal. I also really wanted to show Sakura's bond and trust with Tsunade growing. She doesn't have any interactions with her friends this chapter and that's because everyone's constantly busy with training or missions. The other teams are still active-only team 7 disbanded. And because they're short handed, they're probably all busy with missions more then they're not. So Tsunade and Shizune are really the only people Sakura consistently has around at this point. By this point Sakura's fourteen and squarely hitting puberty. In the manga, Sakura is drawn to have breasts, though not as big or obvious as Tsunade and Hinata's. In the anime she's always drawn flat and this becomes the butt of many jokes, which is unfair and offensive. I'm going with the manga version, since it's less offensive, but currently she's in the development stage, so they're still growing in. For me, puberty was a lot of hyperawareness of myself, and heaps of insecurity, and not so much crazy mood swings. I still got mood swings but they weren't as overblown as people usually show or talk about. I've written Sakura's puberty to be more like my experience cause I think it's more in line with her character so far. I do think she'd react very strongly to discovering Orochimaru's human experimentation. Up until this point, she knew Sasuke was with someone evil but she didn't know the extent of his sadisim and what he was willing to do. I don't think human experimentation had really occurred to her as a possibility because she's too moral and ethical to even consider it. So realizing that that was the person they just agreed to leave Sasuke with for the next three years really shook her, and almost put her over the edge.

Naruto's a slow learner and improver, everything's a struggle for him. That's part of the point of the early series. Also, Jiraya really didn't teach him too many new things during the time skip, so he's still working on that rasengan at this point in his training. It's stated that Orochimaru made Sasuke immune to almost all known poisons...the process of doing that isn't painless or fun, and some of it had to get to Sasuke sometimes. I fully think Orochimaru would make Sasuke spar with him while suffering the effects of poison. His training was probably a nightmare. So that's what I'm showing. He hasn't dreamed or thought about Sakura since the last chapter's dream, and at least five months have passed since then, if not more. But Sakura was the most recent and most consistent person to give him comfort, so that's who his fevered, poisoned mind conjured up to help him tough it out. I tried to do this in the last chapter as well, but Sasuke and Sakura dreams/visions of each other are supposed to mirror slightly. I hope that came across.

Thank you so much for giving this your time! I hope you liked and enjoyed it! Next up will be the second chunin exams arch, and then Naruto comes back and we're back to canon plot. Thank you for all the reviews! Please keep them coming, they keep me writing!

Thank you for reading this far! :)