We had only been training for a few hours when Gai-sensei called a halt, gathering our teams together. He announced that he was taking the other Team 7 members and one of his own on their first mission together. Lee, unsurprisingly, volunteered to join them first. With great enthusiasm.

I smiled sympathetically at the boys' retreating backs; something told me they might struggle with accepting Lee as their team leader. Especially given how, from what few glances I gave their spar, Lee had been kicking Naruto's ass.

Yeah, he wasn't going to be very happy.

With only Ten-Ten, Neji, and myself remaining, the training field was left significantly quieter. It was almost lonely, in a way. We trained together for a good while; Ten-Ten had convinced me against my better judgement to use Neji as a throwing target to help him work on his dodging and blocking. I felt significantly better after the two demonstrated and Neji proved her earlier point correct in that he could see anything.

After that, the two begged off, and I was left alone. It seemed Team Gai normally spent more time on missions than training. A look at my watch showed it to be only barely after noon.

I considered staying and training on my own, but without anyone else around it felt strangely pointless, even if I knew it wasn't. I couldn't be certain when Naruto, Sasuke, and Lee would be finished with their mission. For all I knew, it could be another multi-day one. It looked like my initial plan to walk home with Sasuke wasn't going to fly; I'd have to just find my way to his place on my own in the morning.

I slung my pack over my shoulder and left, deciding to use the unexpected free time to get my head on straight. I'd been spending my time trying not to think about everything that had happened, which I knew damn well was a good sign that I really needed to.

Instead of going straight home, I stopped in a small park in town; a patch of grass and trees barely larger than any of the stores themselves. Perhaps Konoha didn't see much need for actual parks within the town proper, given the immense amount of trees and greenery that naturally occurred. It probably wouldn't take long for any given person to find a much larger park if they were willing to walk just a little farther.

It wasn't that I couldn't have just sat in the training ground, but… I enjoyed having people around me even when I didn't want to speak to them. Though I didn't consider myself a terribly social creature, a part of me felt strange without some liveliness around. Perhaps it was from living with a younger brother. We may have mostly signed at home, but he was noisy. It had gotten to the point where I felt uncomfortable studying if he wasn't running around or watching television in the background.

I smiled faintly at a group of small children throwing large paper shuriken at one-another while their mothers looked on. I wondered if they would go on to the ninja academy or a civilian school. I wondered how they decided.

I sighed and dug a notebook out of my pack, setting it on my lap only to stare down at it blankly. After some thought, I began scrawling.

Tuesdays, Thursdays – Tsunade (2 weeks) 3:30 PM

Wednesdays – Therapy (indefinite) 4:00 PM

Frowning, I added a note below.

[What if missions? Ask Tsunade tomorrow.]

I spun my pen idly in one hand. Maybe it had been Kakashi-sensei who had decided the time our training would begin. He had almost certainly looked at the scroll Tsunade had prepared for me, if not heard from her directly. And he knew how long we tended to train for; perhaps he wanted to make sure my evenings were free for it.

I loved my wayward Sensei deeply, but I wished he'd talk to me about these things.

I pursed my lips and looked up from my notebook, thinking. A teenager had arrived at the park and was painting in a sketchbook under a tree nearby. The kids had moved on from paper shuriken to simply shrieking and chasing each other.

Even if the teenager was wearing a Konoha headband, I still doubted anyone here would be interested in peeking at my notebook. All the same, I decided to switch the language I was writing in to a combination of English and Dutch for the next section. They didn't seem to be known languages around here, but mixing them might keep me on the safe side if some expert-level cryptographers got their hands on it.

Paranoia, thy name is Shinobi.

What was the other chakra Tsu. found? She said another ninja? Who? Why? Is it likely she knows? That she will tell me? Will I be allowed to talk to the therapist about what happened?

How can spiritual chakra be any different from mental? Brain = self.

I furrowed my brows on the last line. Unless this world was much different than mine in ways other than chakra... Spirit just wasn't a thing. Metaphorically, sure, but not an actual physical entity. There was no observable evidence for the existence of spirits, souls, or anything like them. After all, if there was some sort of afterlife, I wouldn't have cared quite the same way about people dying.

So if physical, mental, and spiritual chakra were supposed to be different, wherein lies the difference?

Absently, I rubbed at my head.

Furthermore… whether it was a genjutsu that replaces memory, or I magically just took over this girl's body… Brains simply could not do that. Not so quickly, anyway. It didn't matter that magic was involved. Brains were a physical object. The personality didn't lie in some mystical soul. It wasn't an ethereal liquid that you just dumped into someone's skull.

… Wasn't it?

If you looked at a brain closely, sure, it was physical… but what was physicality? What was the nature of the mind? At the end of the day, axons and dendrites, chemical and electrical signals… molecules, then atoms, then quarks, and so on.

I groaned internally, wishing, not for the first time, that my focus had been physics instead of medicine.

Is chakra some quantum bullshit? I scrawled into my notebook before snapping it shut. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

One thing was certain: I was looking forward to meeting Tsunade-sama again much more than I had been an hour ago.

I tossed the notebook into my bag and stretched, looking around the park. The kids were still running around, but the teenager I had seen had vanished. I hadn't even heard him move. I looked around uncomfortably, but the streets hardly looked any different; I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting.

Paranoia, indeed.

Just once hearing from Ino about being tailed weeks ago, and I was already assuming it was a constant. I scoffed lightly to myself, starting my trek home. You're not that special, lighten up.

Surprisingly, halfway to my house, I ran into Ino herself.

"Oh, hey!" I exclaimed. "I was just thinking about you. How are you? Still winding down from the mission?"

She beamed at me ecstatically, a much stronger reaction than I would have anticipated. "Ooh. I was going to visit you tonight! I didn't think I'd catch you this early, I thought you'd be at training for hours. It's nice to see you relaxing a little! I was beginning to worry you never took a day off."

My smile turned awkward.

She narrowed her eyes. "You'd better be taking days off, Sakura! Especially if you're just getting out of the hospital!" She huffed. "But fortunately for you, I've got plans to make you relax. There's this barbecue place my team likes to eat at; you're going tonight."

I raised my eyebrows. "Am I?"

She smiled, grabbing my hand to scribble an address onto it. "Yes. You are."

I blinked at her in bemusement but shrugged. "Well, I can hardly argue with that logic, can I?"

"No, you can't. Make sure you're there at six." She clasped her hands together. "If you're free now though, want to go shopping with me? We hardly get to see each other during the day!"

I smiled. "Sure. I was thinking of picking up some new weapons."

"Oh! What kind? I know a really good place," she chattered, grabbing my hand again and dragging me down the street. "Were you thinking of a sword? A bow?"

I shrugged. "That wasn't the plan, but now that you mentioned it I might like a bow." It had been a long time since I had tried one out, after all, and I'd been planning on getting arrows anyway. It would probably surprise an enemy if I lost my bow and the arrows kept flying…

"Ooh, that's an evil smile. What are you thinking?" she asked.

"Pretty flowers and sunsets," I said dryly.

I had never been one for shopping trips before, but shopping for weaponry was fun. It was kind of hilarious to think about what it must have looked like from the outside; two girls running around an armoury cooing over knives.

"You should have told me you were learning about poisons!" Ino chided. "We work with a lot of herbs in the shop, you should come by sometime if you want to start making your own."

It was definitely not a scene I'd expect to see in my old world, even given my siblings' love of weaponry.

We eventually walked out of the shop weighed down with bags and boxes, wallets significantly lighter. So much for saving up for a house, I mused. Though having weapons for more dangerous missions would pay for themselves.

After I had decided on getting a bow, Ino had decided to get one as well. "It's a weapon suited for a kunoichi, isn't it?" she sighed. "Something so delicate and deadly. It would work well with my jutsu, too, I've always been the long-range type." She grinned. "And since we got senbon too… Maybe Haku-kun will help me work on my throwing if I ask him. He's incredibly accurate! That's how he does that near-death trick of his, he blocks off certain chakra points in the body..."

I grinned. "He should meet Ten-Ten." I'd already told her the gist of my experience with Team Gai.

She wrinkled her nose. "My Haku-kun is already perfect, he doesn't need help."

I poked her shoulder. "You're just worried they might get along too well, aren't you?"

She huffed indignantly. "He isn't like that. Don't be ridiculous."

We dropped off our respective purchases at home, hers first followed by mine. As we were parting at my front door, she crossed her arms and gave me a serious look. "Don't you dare skip out on dinner tonight!"

I waved a hand airily. "I won't, I won't. See you later, Ino."

I threw my purchases in my room and collapsed onto my bed, feeling more exhausted than I ever did after training. It had been a fun day but draining. I wished I'd argued with Ino more about dinner with her team; I wasn't going to have much time to rest before I'd need to leave again. By my rough estimation, I'd have just enough time to lay in bed and regret my decisions, plus or minus five minutes.

A far shorter time later than I'd have liked, I found myself leaving home and walking down to the barbecue place, stopping frequently to ask for directions. By the time I found the place I was already a couple of minutes late. I hoped I wasn't turning into Sensei.

The interior of the restaurant was warm and relaxed, filled with many low-lying tables with cushions. I looked around curiously but couldn't find any sign of Ino. I was beginning to worry I had come to the wrong place after all when I caught sight of Shikamaru in the corner.

I breathed a sigh of relief and walked over to where he was sitting. "Hey, Shikamaru. Nobody else is here yet?"

He looked up at me with raised brows. "I'm assuming Ino invited you?"

I nodded, taking the cushion across from him. "Yeah, I ran into her after training." I swivelled my head around. "Are they usually this late? I never took Ino as the type."

He frowned. "No, they're not. But we usually come here straight after missions, so it's not like they'd get many opportunities." He furrowed his brows. "But they're never late for anything else."

"Huh. If it's not for a mission, was dinner today supposed to be a special occasion?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Not that I know of. We already celebrated Choji's birthday. Ino just told me to be here tonight, so I showed up. It's too troublesome to ask questions with her."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." I scratched my cheek absently, looking out the window. "I hope they're okay."

He grunted, reaching over to dig around in his pouch. He procured a small unfolding game board. "If it's a last-minute mission or something, they'll know where to find me. We can wait another fifteen minutes and see if they show up." He started setting up the game board between us. "Want to play shogi?"

I shrugged. "I've never played, but if you explain the rules I can figure it out as we go." It looked fairly similar to a chessboard, with a slightly different setup and some changed pieces.

It was an interesting game. I lost the first round quickly, but the second round went on long enough to last the fifteen-minute wait and then some. I still lost, but it hadn't been quite as embarrassing.

He cracked his back and started putting the pieces away. "Looks like they're not showing. How troublesome..."

"I'm sure they had a good reason," I said, swiping up my bag around my shoulders. "I guess I'll just pick up some food to take home so the staff doesn't get annoyed..." I shrugged. "Either way, good game."

He and I both ordered food for our families and went our separate ways. I considered stopping at Ino's house before heading home, but if it was something serious she probably didn't need me bothering her right now. I'd just check in on her before my appointment the next day.

Mebuki was more than a little surprised when I'd arrived with food; I'd left her a note saying I'd be out for the night. She seemed content with my explanation, and dinner with her and Kizashi was a pleasant, relaxed affair.

All the same, I was very happy to finally get to sleep that night. Fortunately, my alarm clock wasn't completely broken from my rough treatment of it that morning; it would be able to wake me again.

I rolled over on my side, and for the first time in a while, fell asleep without thinking of much of anything.

Note: Sorry for being late; I was lost on the road of life.