Sakura was sent home just as the leaves began to turn in the 37th year since the founding of Konohagakure.

Despite being physically capable of it, her status as a shinobi on medical leave meant she could not run home; instead, she sat alongside the edge of a wagon filled with the other, far more injured shinobi who were being taken home after weeks spent waiting.

Many had limbs missing. Others were burned, or paralyzed, or twitching uncontrollably.

Some, like her, were bent against the wall, but their minds were fractured to the point that they stayed there for the duration of the trip, huddled and waiting for the magical cure that the largest hospital in the world seemed to promise them.

Her situation—no longer capable of coping with the stress of the front but still perfectly able to function in the rear—was an odd one, and usually only seen in children. Their minds, it was argued, were more elastic than adults; they could better and more permanently recover, when an adult with the same symptoms might have to be permanently sidelined.

That she was already doing much better by being off duty, by being made to rest—she still couldn't sense, not without all her symptoms coming back in full force, but she could move around, could talk, could go about her life as normal.

She wondered if Arden's world had any analogous ailments.

She didn't dare check.

The ride itself was… bearable.

The medic-nin who came along to tend to the wounded throughout the journey mostly ignored her, except to ask that she refill the canteens of the immobile shinobi at every stop.

She was happy to—it gave her a chance to stretch her legs, to move about.

Those she aided weren't so lucky.

Otherwise, unfortunately, her time was spent much as it had been in the hospital.

Thinking.

Even now, she still couldn't understand how everything had fallen apart so fast. Dipping into Arden's memories had clearly had a negative effect, but it hadn't seemed that bad, and the rest of her life was actually becoming rosier all those months ago.

The shinobi' and samurai's combined efforts to re-indoctrinate the locals looked promising, the food was so abundant variety had been added back into her diet, Research—a career and pastime which had always stoked her interest, even when it was just her in her backyard finding out how substances had interacted—had finally been added back into her life with genuine fervor, and yet.

The wagon creaked as it moved.

It was a regular sort of creak in time with the trotting of the two horses pulling it.

Before the samurai had arrived, it had been genin ahead and behind the carts, dragging it forward.

Horses were much more efficient.

The creaking was a steady sort of thing that only worsened when it rained but was otherwise incredibly consistent.

They hadn't even left the Land of Mushrooms yet when the noise faded to her periphery.

That was new, too.

Or, well, not new, exactly, but a significant portion of her sensing training had been training out the brain's natural impulse for sensory adaptation; to be constantly alert to even the most mundane of sensations.

It had been months since she'd had to sense, however, and she'd been on numbing medication for at least half of it.

The instinct, though a constant worm in her mind, aching to get back to work, was asleep.

Instead, Sakura found herself watching the birds and other animals as they lived their lives in the wilds surrounding the road.

The Land of Mushrooms, when not slogging through knee-deep mud, was actually fascinating in its biodiversity, and even when they made it into the Land of Fire proper and acres of forests were only broken up by the irregular village and surrounding farmlands, the birds and rodents and larger mammals that skittered about, watching their caravan wearily, made for a fascinating sight.

She stayed inside when they passed through the villages—they all did; an attack on a medical caravan two months ago meant any nearby humans put the wagon on high alert.

They would not go south enough to see the Land of Fire's Great Plain.

She wondered how the cattle folk were doing.

The creaking of the wagon, for all that it had faded into the background before, was brought back into sudden focus as Sakura noticed its absence—they'd stopped at a collapsed bridge.

She shuffled to the front of the wagon.

"…no, the bridge to the North is too small." The chuunin driver said, gesturing at the map. "And the one to the South is far to the South."

"Besides that," a medic-nin said, leaning against the braces of the wagon, "we can see other wagon tracks—wet wagon tracks—going straight through the river. It is possible?"

The driver frowned. "Risky, but possible. You're right that others have done it, but it's never an easy thing to do. I hope they fix the bridge soon—I'd hate to go over twice."

"So we're going over it now?"

"Not much choice, I think. Brace everyone up—get them tied down, if possible. The wagon bed should be waterproof, and if it's not we have bigger concerns."

The two medic-nin nodded, then ducked back under the wagon's bonnet, setting to work.

"Do I have to be tied up?"

The medic closest to her, a Nara named Yui, glanced up. "Can you swim? Well?"

"Yes."

That made her eyebrows rise. "Really?"

"It was part of my genin training."

"Huh. Okay, then we'll let you go free. If you get thrown out of the wagon you'll have to get yourself back, though."

"Understood."

"Just to warn you—it's not going to be fun. I've had to do this once before, with the river we passed yesterday on a trip a couple months ago, and fording a river—even when we know the best place to cross, and that we're shallow enough not to need a raft—is… unpleasant."

"Will the horses be able to manage it?"

"Alone? No. We're going to get out of the wagon and pull the wheels along, holding them in place too."

"Should I—"

"You can get out and walk alongside us to lighten the load, but you can't help. Rules."

"I'll do that then." With a plan in mind, Sakura ducked out of the wagon and worked her way to the bank of the river.

The horses had seemingly become aware of the imminent danger, which meant that the driver was already busy trying to calm them. With the nin busy too, the only shinobi keeping an eye on her was the Hyuuga sensor pacing the cart. (Usually, there were two guards, Sakura knew. A single Hyuuga sensor did the job of both. She wondered at the strain that put on them, given the strain a far easier position had put on her.)

"You're going to walk, then?" He asked.

"Yes. Is there anybody…"

"I'd be raising the alarm if there were."

"Yes, obviously. Sorry."

He smiled. It was a measured smile—the Hyuuga were not a clan particularly known for being emotive—but it was there. "Trust me, Yamanaka. Take your break."

Sakura shivered.

It still felt wrong, after so long working, to have nothing to do.

"I just—"

"You're still young. You will recover."

"Yes, but—" Sakura paused, expecting to be interrupted again, but the Hyuuga stayed silent. "I don't know how to take a break, not anymore."

"I'm sure it will be easier once you reach Konoha. Anyway, it's not like it's forever."

Well, that was true; after she reentered Konoha's gates, she was only given three weeks of no work, and then it would be Research again, with a weekly check-in from her supervisor that she was functioning well.

"No. Still feels unnatural."

That, for better or worse, was true.

After months of not accessing any memories of her own, Sakura no longer felt like anyone but herself. Of course, that meant that Arden's expectations—no child soldiers chief among them—no longer applied.

In Sakura's mind, her every bit of education and indoctrination told her that at her age, she should be working, and so this nothing was beginning to take its toll.

"Get a hobby, then."

"I have—"

"Unrelated to work. Work hobbies… they're fine, I suppose, but it clearly hasn't worked for you."

Sakura knew better than to question how he knew so much about her. Sensors, being a rather small and selective community, were rather prone to gossip.

That was the only reason she knew Yasuo was okay, actually—he'd been transferred to a job much like the Hyuuga's some months before, after Sakura had been placed in the medical tent, and (according to the grapevine) was not particularly enjoying his removal from the frontlines.

"So what do you suggest then? Origami?"

"Why does everyone believe every Hyuuga likes origami?"

"Is it your hobby?"

The Hyuuga kept silent. Sakura dismissed the point.

"If not that then what?"

"I am not you, Yamanaka. I do not know what you would find most beneficial. But find something. Stressors are constant in this world, I'm afraid, and coping mechanisms wholly necessary." His hand twitched, almost imperceptibly, towards his forehead.

She could thank her clan training for catching that. Before she could parse the significance, however, the two were interrupted.

"It's time!" The driver shouted, and the medic-nin hopped out of the cart, moving to its sides to push it forward. Sakura moved some way away from them, upriver, and began her own half-trudge half-swim forward as the Hyuuga jumped on the wagon, eyes fully open at this, their weakest point.

Hobbies were a good idea, perhaps, but it didn't really address Sakura's underlying issue.

When she had been going into Arden's memories, she'd been too disgusted with the world, leaving her incapable of living inside it and resulting in her brain's main coping technique of 'ignore the issues' to collapse under its own weight.

Now, after months spent in the hospital, shoving all of Arden's thoughts, memories, and experiences back out of her own consciousness, Sakura no longer felt like she couldn't manage this world, but she also didn't really feel like herself.

More than anything, she felt like her indoctrination.

That happy balance she'd had before, living her life while aware of its problems but being able to put off solving them, that was gone.

And she didn't know how to get it back.

.

Being home was nice.

Being back in Konoha was good enough by itself, but being home… being home was just plain nice.

After the first few days of awkwardness between her, Kohana, and Himari as they adjusted to her presence, it just…

Worked.

It wasn't all pleasant, of course.

There was, for instance, how Kohana and Himari operated their daycare service out of the house.

Sakura hadn't yet bothered to count them all, but the throng of children who arrived at least every other morning and didn't leave until evening sounded easily several hundred strong. They probably numbered in the dozens, including the babies, but still.

It took less than a day for Sakura to realize why her sisters so treasured their days off.

More actively pressing, at least for Sakura, was how busy everyone was. It wasn't a surprise, of course—with most of the shinobi outside the village's walls, everyone had to work double time to keep everything functioning, but a week in and she'd still only seen Aiko once during a fifteen-minute lunch break, her sister-in-law Yui twice between her various shifts, and her brother Kamui three times—he'd been grateful she was back home, but warned her that it would take some time to put the celebratory feast together, what with the ongoing food shortages in Konohagakure proper.

Even the children were busy—Academy days had lengthened to shorten the time it took to get kids battle ready, and besides that, the dearth of available workers left the Academy scheduling D-ranks for current students so that those just graduated could jump straight into C-ranks.

The only ones who weren't busy…

The only ones who weren't busy were the ones like her.

The wounded.

Konohagakure's hospital—the largest hospital in the world, by a not insignificant margin—was actually more of a complex than a single building, though roofed walkways connected all the pieces together such that, once you entered one of the buildings, you didn't have to expose yourself to dirt or rain until you left the complex entirely.

The main hospital was just that (and was also the building the Research annex was built off of, and therefore the one Sakura had entered most routinely prior to the war), and the west wing—which had been built on several years after the initial construction—was more of the same, but was specifically built to cater to shinobi patients.

The west building, on the other hand, held almost every single non-surgical/emergency doctor's office in the city. The north building—which was behind the main hospital—was built as an expansion for pediatric care (Sakura still had memories of some of its rooms), and the building Sakura headed to every morning, the east building, was better known to all as the Returning Shinobi Ward.

Sakura, and every other shinobi, was taught to hate the returning shinobi ward.

Oh, it was great that Konoha had it—there was a reason her Hidden Village was considered the premier for medical care—but.

Well, to be in the ward something had to have gone wrong.

At least Sakura didn't have to live there.

Instead, she arrived every day at eight sharp, checked in, did her moderately difficult physical therapy exercises (she'd been more or less bedridden for several months, and while she wasn't necessarily out of shape, she was also not in the physical condition that a shinobi was expected to maintain), and then went to the psychiatric floor.

She wondered, every time, whether her continued omission of Arden would prevent the techniques for mental recovery -still in their infancy, still being vetted by the Research Department—from working.

She also wondered why she had to go all the way to the ward when she was being treated by a Yamanaka.

And she wondered if there was any point in going at all if, from what she could tell, Konoha's idea of treatment—a respite from the frontline, a (relatively long) period of rest, having the patient (her) move chakra throughout their body in a controlled way, and telling the patient every day that they would recover, wasn't…

Well, it wasn't something that screamed 'effective!' in her brain.

Of course, that might be because Arden's world, the world without chakra and with two livers and the internet and rods and cones in eyeballs, did it differently. She couldn't quite remember Arden having any memories of war stress, much less war stress treatment, but it was entirely possible that she did, that Sakura had once known that she did, and that Sakura had once also known that the treatments were different than what was prescribed here.

Of course, what medical-related memories of Arden remained didn't note any of them as 'curable in youth, not in adulthood,' and, again, no chakra, so…

And then there was the hospital itself.

Sakura didn't care how many years it had been; she didn't even care that the months of torture hadn't even taken place on hospital grounds.

She'd always hate the hospital.

But Sakura needed the effort to work, so she kept doing as she was told.

Every morning she'd go to the hospital, every afternoon sit and do as little as possible to 'rest her brain', and in the evening do breathing exercises until she fell asleep.

Every.

Single.

Day.

And after a week Sakura knew she was very close to going mad from boredom, and she told Doctor Yamanaka so, and he told her that she could—if she had to—look for non-strenuous, non-stressful entertainment every afternoon.

Sakura did just that.

The roof of the office building that she and the rest of chinmoku used to watch Training Ground 16 from was much the same, if quite a bit dirtier for the years it sat empty.

She took up her position, alone, and looked down.

No one was there.

She waited.

Almost half an hour later, her patience was awarded.

"I just think it's stupid!" Uzumaki Kushina said, pushing her hair into a ponytail as she talked to an Uchiha who already had her hair in a braid.

"I don't understand why—your hair has gotten in your way during spars routinely. I know you like it down, but you know it's a hindrance during battle."

Kushina snorted. "I can win with or without the hindrance." Then, after a pause to look around, she turned to the Uchiha curiously. "Where's everyone else? Hey! You made us arrive early, didn't you?!"

The Uchiha smiled. "Well, given what happened last time…"

Within seconds the two were engaged in a half-playful half-vengeful game of chase, darting up, down, and across the training ground as fast as they could.

And then the next batch of kids showed up.

Sakura almost snorted at the thought.

Kids.

Kushina was eleven now, or thereabouts, and the Uchiha girl looked to be about Sakura's age, maybe a bit younger.

Both, by their forehead protectors and lack of uniform, were genin.

So were the other Uchiha, Akimichi, Inuzuka, Onikuma, Ino-Shika-Cho, Sarutobi, and other non-kekkei genkai clan ninjas who quickly began populating the training ground.

One such ninja, a blond Sakura vaguely recognized, clapped his hands to get everyone else's attention after a couple minutes with no new appearance had passed.

"Alright, who's ready for the first grand tournament royale?!"

Sakura, whose interest had already been piqued by the sheer number of genin who had gathered—clearly someone had put a lot of time and energy into putting this together—leaned forward.

The crowd roared.

"Over the past couple days I, with the help of my esteemed colleagues," here the boy gestured to a few others in particular, only one of which—the Yamanaka down the block who'd kicked one of Himari's bullies in both shins once—Sakura recognized. "Have come up with the rules for this grand display!" The boy proceeded to parrot, almost word for word, the Academy rules, with the only exception being the allowance of weaponry.

And then he called the first match: Kushina against a very muscular member of the Lee clan.

Most taijutsu techniques have one main goal: make the other person more hurt. Some didn't; some focused on incapacitation of preservation of energy or minimizing injury or something else entirely, but most did. Kushina's style most assuredly did not fit into that category. Sakura watched as the young girl's arms turned black and blue under the power of the hits, as possibly incapacitating strikes to the torso were allowed to hit mere inches from the danger zone… Sakura watched as Kushina used each attack as an invitation to attack back instead of dodge or block. Gradually her opponent, at least two years older than her and undoubtedly with actual combat experience to boot, began turning black and blue himself, began to become wearier and wearier of the power in front of him, and at the same time, Kushina's own bruises began to fade away as if their existence had only been an illusion.

The Uzumaki won. Handedly.

And then it was time for the next bout.

This, Sakura decided, was an excellent way to spend her recovery time.