A/N: I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO INNER!SAKURA!
So, fun fact, I haven't seen/read Naruto in literal years. We're talking since highschool. I literally, at the start of this story, forgot Inner existed. I remembered like, two chapters in, but at that point I had to figure out what to do with her. And I've been tossing out ideas, mostly to myself, endlessly, trying to find the perfect way to include Inner in this 'verse. I didn't want to just leave her out, since she is a part of Sakura, but I already missed my first opportunity to introduce her by the time I remembered she existed.
And I have now come up with an idea. An idea I like. An idea that even justifies why she's been pretty much absent up til now. Even my roommate approves! Which, of course, means I can start introducing her! Though we won't see her again in this book I think, I promise, she will be back~
And, incidentally, in my quest to figure out the perfect idea for Inner, I also figured out what I think is a rather perfect reason for Natsu ending up possessing Sakura! Like, obviously, if we're being meta, Natsu possessed Sakura because they're both pink-haired, I saw a stupid meme, and decided to go for it with copious encouragement from my little sister. But I never really had a good in-story justification for, "Why Sakura?"
WELL I HAVE ONE NOW. ALL THANKS TO INNER.
And I think I'm even getting close to deciding a good series name! So maybe by the time I upload the next chapter, it'll have one!
Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you guys like where I'll be heading with Inner! As always, enjoy! And feel free to take guesses, I love guesses~
Naruto's scent doesn't stray too far from the reception area of the hospital, and Natsu barrels into the door without hesitation. It rattles, but nothing more, and he stumbles back, shoulder throbbing.
No, he thinks, lips curled back in a snarl.
Of course not, a voice agrees, feminine and furious, and it nearly sounds like Sakura. And then there's power, wild and dark and his, somehow, and it feels as familiar as it does foreign - the door crumples like cheap plaster as he barrels into it, pushing aside the doctors near the bed and clammering up to sit next to Naruto.
He's not hurt.
Natsu sighs in relief, and then pain explodes across all his senses.
The power vanishes as quickly as it came, and that soft voice fades with it. We can't do that again, she breathes, and Natsu barely understands, convulsing and trying not to puke as every nerve in Sakura-chan's body shrieks in agony.
Hands grab at him, pulling him away, and he snarls as he tries to shake them off, but everything's spinning and he overbalances, tipping off the edge of the bed.
Other hands catch him, smaller, and he has a brief glimpse of spinning-red-and-black, and thinks, safe…
He isn't even sure when he closes his eyes, but between one breath and the next, he finds himself in that odd nothing-place, a road of blood and bones to his left and a tree-lined path to his right.
And straight ahead, a pink-haired girl smiles weakly.
Sasuke is tired of people thinking the dobe is stronger than him, so tired of it he nearly misses it when his idiot of a pink-haired teammate bolts out of the room. Kakashi's eye idly tracks as Natsu's hair disappears out of sight, and then the man turns back to Sasuke, tilting his head.
"I'll handle these," he offers mildly, and Sasuke hesitates.
He'd rather impress their stupidity onto them himself, but Kakashi reaches forward and drags him toward the door in a smooth movement he can't even track - he reactivates the Sharingan nearly by default, but Kakashi easily turns his pull into a push and Sasuke's standing in the hallway, door closed behind him, quite before he realizes.
He scowls, glaring at the door for a moment, before turning to stalk after his idiot teammates.
He hears Natsu before he sees him, the solid thunk of a body slamming into a wall, and scoffs.
Of course he'd barge straight through. Sasuke turns the corner, comments about seals and morons on the tip of his tongue, and actually catches sight of his teammate.
There's a single moment when everything looks normal, and then there's haze. Not quite a heat-haze, but so close Sasuke has no idea how else to describe it, and Natsu rips through the door as though it isn't even there, barrelling into the room without hesitation.
The two nurses standing next to the bed get thrown into the wall so hard Sasuke sees one crumple to the ground, unconscious, and the other gapes, dazed and horrified, as Natsu clambers onto the bed to look down at Naruto.
The scene is burned into his memory, as Sasuke steps into the room. An odd layer of people, Sakura-chan as he knows her, and Natsu as he appeared in that henge, and another woman he's not sure he recognizes, all layered on top of each other in a blurry conglomerate, their physical body with arm outstretched, fingers seeking Naruto's pulse, posture fiercely protective, as dark wisps of something curl over their form, mimicking the appearance of horns and claws.
It looks nothing and everything like Naruto in the throes of the Kyuubi's control. There's no presence, no blinding supernova of chakra, Sasuke can't feel anything, and he's fairly sure if he deactivates his Sharingan he won't see anything either.
He gets the feeling though, that whatever Natsu's done, Sakura is fully present and aware of it.
He's not even sure who's in control, everyone he sees so thoroughly tangled into each other.
He's pretty sure he's physically seeing why Yamanaka-san hasn't been able to separate Natsu, and he peers closer, squinting nearly on instinct before he catches himself, because this is something new, and he needs to know, even if only because it's something that man certainly never knew-
And then everything disappears in an instant, as though it were never there, and it's just Sakura sitting at Naruto's bed, half-leaning on him, before she chokes down a scream and crumples, barely holding herself off the dobe.
The one conscious nurse reacts quickly, darting forward to pull Sakura off and she fights, snarling and struggling despite clear exhaustion, and Sasuke corrects himself absently because only Natsu fights like that, even as he steps forward.
He plans to make the nurse back off, if only because Kakashi will likely be done soon and for all that Sasuke isn't happy with the man, he doesn't want to piss him off and ruin what chances he still has of getting something useful out of this fiasco, but Natsu writhes, throwing himself out of the nurse's grip and straight off the bed.
Sasuke catches his teammate nearly without thinking, glancing down to grimace at the smear of blood Natsu leaves over his shirt because the idiot couldn't be bothered to wait for the wound to be closed before he rushed off, then turns his gaze up to glare at the nurse.
Natsu falls limp in his arms, but he refuses to react, refuses to show weakness, and even though exhaustion creeps through him, too much training and then that fight with Natsu and his chakra is straining even with the minute cost of his Sharingan, but he doesn't deactivate it, waiting with forced calm until Kakashi strides through the doorway.
He lets his dojutsu fade away, refusing to sigh in relief, though he doesn't break eye-contact with the nurse.
Kakashi strides forward with an easy grace that makes Yamanaka's comment of him being one of Konoha's best assassins so much easier to believe.
"Take your coworker to one of the other rooms for treatment," Kakashi says idly, though the firm undertones of the order are unmistakable.
The nurse stutters out an agreement, darting over to pick up his unconscious companion, and he doesn't look back as he bolts out the door.
Kakashi takes a moment to survey the room, noticing everything with a casual grace Sasuke envies, before suddenly making eye-contact.
And it's like a genjutsu breaking, how the professional assassin vanishes as though it never existed, and their annoying, sadistic sensei returns in full force. Sasuke scowls on reflex.
"Maa, Sasuke-chan, if you keep holding Natsu-chan like that, people might get the wrong idea~" he says brightly, and Sasuke glances down, confused. Natsu's just curled in his arms, body still tense despite being unconscious, smearing blood all over his shirt, and it's not like he doesn't know how to clean off bloodstains, but the idiot could have some consideration! Said idiot lets out a pain-filled whimper, as though responding to Sasuke's chiding thoughts. On the bed, Naruto stirs slightly at the sound.
He looks up to offer Kakashi a deadpan stare. He has no idea what the man's seeing.
"Kids these days, what are they teaching you?" he sighs, moving forward to scoop Natsu out of his arms. Pain Sasuke didn't even realize he was ignoring from his half-healed wrist fades with the absence of Natsu's weight, and he sits back, leaning against the wall in subtle relief.
Perhaps not subtle enough, as Kakashi gives him an amused look. He turns to settle Natsu on the bed, and the pinkette curls into a tight ball as soon as he's released, causing Sasuke to look away.
Kakashi leans against the foot of the bed, eye tracing back and forth over the crumpled remains of the door.
"What happened, Sasuke-kun?" he offers, voice serious. "To start all of this," he clarifies after, as though he realized Sasuke was about to start with the hospital.
Sasuke shrugs. "The dobe and the idiot showed up in my family compound. They hopped over a wall, I guess, since some of the old alarm seals activated. And then the idiot said they'd broken into the compound just to start a fight with me. So we fought. The dobe stayed out of it, and dragged us to the hospital after. And then everyone overreacted." He shrugs then, not sure what else to add.
"I see." Kakashi offers after a moment. "Natsu-kun does prefer to solve his problems by fighting, so I shouldn't be surprised that he responded to your anger at the Exams in such a way. Though, it does seem the fight went a little too far…" Kakashi glances pointedly at Natsu's face and Sasuke's wrist.
Sasuke scowls. "This wasn't my fault. He broke my wrist first."
Kakashi stares at him for a moment, and tilts his head. "So you decided to stab him in the face? Tsk tsk, Sasuke-chan~"
Sasuke glares, snapping back, "I was hardly going to ignore that!"
Kakashi shakes his head. "And I'll talk to him about that. But stabbing people in the face is a little extreme, ne~?" his voice lilts in amusement, though it fades away as his eye alights on the ruined door again.
"What happened in here?" he asks quietly, and Sasuke honestly wishes he knew.
"There was… something unusual," he starts hesitantly, trying to decide how to explain the heat-haze. "It didn't look like chakra to my Sharingan, but no one else could see it. A bit like a heat haze at first, and then smoke later, but thin and wispy and dark. And I could actually see Natsu and Sakura, like hazy imprints over their physical body. They were really tangled together, and I tried to follow all the threads, but it disappeared too quickly."
Kakashi's eye widens. "Sakura-chan was…" he trails off, looking toward the bed, and Sasuke gets the uncomfortable feeling that despite only knowing the girl for a couple hours tops, even Kakashi misses her. He grimaces, crossing his arms, though he takes care not to put pressure on his wrist.
"I'll have to tell Inoichi," Kakashi mutters after a moment. He turns to glance at Sasuke again. "He'll likely have questions for you." He brings his hands together, and two shadow clones pop into existence. "Let's move to a different room, so Inoichi-san can have privacy."
He and the clone scoop up Sasuke's teammates, and then hustles Sasuke to his feet and out the door.
Before leaving the room entirely, Sasuke glances at the ruined door one last time, and wonders where Natsu's strength even came from.
He only has a moment to ponder, then he's whisked away, off to a new room with three beds and one of the Hokage's ANBU standing ready with medical supplies. The masked man trades nods with Kakashi, and turns to check Naruto first, then Natsu with quick professionalism.
He checks Sasuke over last, and makes a few signs at Kakashi that have the sensei's eye narrowing sharply in worry, before slipping out the door.
Kakashi's clone disappears after a moment, and the man looks back towards Sasuke. "Yamanaka-san will be here shortly. ANBU says you're medically clear to go, though I don't mind if you stay. Inoichi can question you later."
It's an offer. Sasuke knows this, and he glances at his teammates. Naruto, whose eyelids are twitching in the way that comes with someone who's about to wake up soon.
Natsu, who had curled into a tight ball again the moment the ANBU stepped away, clearly in agony even though Sasuke has no idea why.
He should leave. He doesn't need people holding him back, and that's all teams do. That man didn't need a team, didn't need any help. He got strong all by himself, and if Sasuke wants to match him he will too.
He doesn't move.
His fingers dig into the mattress of the hospital bed, and he tells himself to get up and walk away, but he doesn't move.
He tries to convince himself that it's just curiosity about Natsu that stops him.
By the time Inoichi steps through the door he hasn't quite succeeded, so he settles for carefully watching the man.
He might at least be able to convince someone else of it.
Though, judging by the look the Yamanaka greets him with, Sasuke doesn't think his chances are very high.
When Kakashi's shadow clone came into T&I wearing Hatake's old ANBU uniform and specifically requesting him, Inoichi was worried. ANBU masks are only put back into circulation after an agent has died, so it's not surprising Kakashi still has it, but for the man to wear it despite being officially retired, without special orders from the Hokage…
It could only have something to do with Sakura and Natsu. Anko takes over from him smoothly, as though it were a planned transition, and he spares a moment to be glad he's not the messy sort as he quickly heads over to the clone. It walks silently with him to his office, and starts speaking as soon as the door's closed, while Inoichi puts everything away to leave.
"There was an incident at the hospital, Natsu displayed an unusual degree of strength, which Sasuke witnessed with his Sharingan. He claims it looked nothing like chakra, but that the other people in the room acted as though they couldn't see it at all. He also saw an apparition of Sakura and Natsu, in their respective forms, tied together with threads of chakra, anchored to Sakura-chan's body. It's possible that whatever happened, Sakura herself was actually aware and possibly, at least somewhat, in control. I'd like you to take a look immediately, before whatever traces might be left disappear."
It's more than Inoichi might have hoped for, though Uchiha-kun has never been receptive to being mind-walked. And asking a Dojutsu user to replay a memory they captured with their kekkei genkai is always a sensitive scenario, but it's a bigger break than they've had since the situation started.
He finishes packing up his belongings swiftly, and leads the way out of T&I without hesitation.
"Which room?" he asks as they step outside, and the clone gives him the number immediately, before disappearing in a shunshin, likely to take off the uniform before dispelling.
He shunshins himself as well, appearing before the hospital in a flurry of leaves, and turns to walk straight towards the described room.
Sasuke sits on the bed nearest the door, visibly annoyed. Naruto stirs slightly at his appearance, clearly not fully awake, and on the bed furthest away Natsu lays curled in a tight ball, face scrunched in pain.
Keeping Natsu and Sakura separate in his mind has never been terribly difficult for him, having only ever seen Natsu while he was awake and in control, and everything from body language, to posture, to the way he lilts and accents his words is so different from Sakura-chan that it's never been a problem.
Now, he glances away from Natsu before he can get his hopes up that perhaps it's Sakura in control under the veneer of sleep, and turns towards Sasuke, pulling a chair over as he does so.
"Would you permit me to study the memory of what you saw earlier, Uchiha-kun?" he asks politely, already braced for rejection.
Sasuke surprises him with his consideration. "Are you going to try and use it as an excuse to look at other memories?" He says, lip curled, and oh Inoichi would like to, because Itachi's snap is nothing like what he expected from the man's profile. He expected suicide, honestly, when he cautioned that going into ANBU at 12 was too young and too fast, for Itachi especially. And Sasuke was the only one to see Itachi, the only one who might have any explanation other than Itachi himself. The chance to see the memory, and study all of Itachi's actions, to possibly understand how he could be so wrong is as much a siren's call today as it was five years ago.
He shakes his head anyway, stamping the urge away. There are more important things than his curiosity. "You have my word. Only the one memory. I will not touch anything without your permission."
Sasuke nods then, terse and tense, though he doesn't close his eyes, instead choosing to meet Inoichi's gaze head-on.
Inoichi doesn't hesitate, makes the hand signs smoothly, and focuses.
The transition into Sasuke's mindscape is seamless, and Sasuke blinks into awareness right across from him instantly.
Everything surrounding them is blurry, an amateur's attempt to keep him from seeing the form of the mindscape, and with less than a thought Inoichi could banish it, make both the Field and the Heart visible.
He suppresses the urge.
Sasuke holds so little trust for the village, perhaps rightly so when he thinks about how none of the patrols noticed or responded to the crisis in the compound that night, and Inoichi must not destroy what's left of that trust.
So he waits, tamping down on all his instincts and lets Sasuke keep his surroundings blurry. Eventually the Uchiha's mental avatar relaxes slightly, and turns aside with a curt, "This way."
They walk a few moments, before Sasuke comes to a stop and picks something up off a… table? Or a des-
Inoichi cuts the thought off, refuses to look any closer, and Sasuke eventually hands the object to him.
It, at least, is perfectly clear. An image, in higher quality than anything Inoichi could ever hope to perceive with his own eyes, an image so clear that even here, mind to mind, he can't recollect it perfectly if he looks away from it.
Just the picture, the Memory Object, not even the memory itself, is already so clear he can nearly understand why so many Uchiha called their dojutsu superior. To be able to see the world so clearly, so much he can't even fully commit the picture to his own memory, everyone else must look blind by comparison.
He wants, again, to dispel Sasuke's weak attempts to keep him from seeing anything more, but shakes off the urge.
He came in for a reason. Taking a deep breath, he focuses on the Memory Object in his hands, calling out the memory, until it crystalizes around them.
People don't remember things perfectly. It's a fact of life, even if they think they did. Inoichi has mind walked multiple witnesses of the same event, and sometimes ended up with entirely different sets of information from both despite them standing side-by-side.
He never had a chance to see a memory recorded with a Sharingan before, but as he watches Sasuke walk down the hall, he knows beyond any doubt that what he sees is perfect.
He can feel an echo of Sasuke's thoughts as they progress through the memory, the knowledge of exactly how many tiles are in the hospital, the number of scratches and scuff marks and bloodstains that aren't half as clean as the hospital staff thinks, every pock-mark in the walls, processed and recorded in a distant manner that barely even brushes Sasuke's conscious mind.
The first sound he hears, Sasuke's thoughts tell him, is Natsu slamming into the seal-reinforced door.
And how unusual, that in a busy hospital, that's the only sound that exists in the memory. Sasuke's hearing, he knows, is as sharp as any clan-raised shinobi, so it must be more about how he saved the memory - visually perfect, but the only audio contained is what he decides is important enough to remember, perhaps.
Sasuke in the memory turns the corner then, and Inoichi catches a litany of numbers flitting through Sasuke's mind - the exact length of Natsu's scar, the number of droplets of blood that flew threw the air, it's a memory-in-a-memory and he nearly follows the thread on instinct before he pushes himself away.
It's interesting though, he notes, that Sasuke's first thought on seeing Natsu is the memory of Natsu's injury.
Though perhaps it's just the recentness of it, he muses.
And then he sees what Kakashi mentioned before.
He's not sure what chakra normally looks like to the Sharingan, but he doesn't need to, because Sasuke's thoughts, imprinted in the memory, tell everything clearly enough anyway. The shimmering haze that surrounds Natsu is not-normal-not-chakra, and then the door crumples.
He knows exactly how many cracks and tears exist in it now, exactly how Natsu's hand looked as it tore through, exactly how many steps it took to reach the bed - 8 feet, nine inches, 6 centimeters away from the door-
Sasuke's gaze follows the two nurses thrown aside, and Inoichi does as well. Passively, Sasuke's thoughts decide one as unconscious and one as dazed, and then he turns back to Natsu.
And then Inoichi sees.
Sasuke had no idea what he was looking at, but his eyes captured it in perfect, painful detail and Inoichi can only stare.
He never knew Sakura had a second personality. She stands in the middle, as much as a middle exists when they're overlapping the way they are, but Inoichi understands the threads he's looking at, can see how the second personality both holds onto Natsu and also drags Sakura forward so she can be there, how they all check on Naruto, how their threads all tangle with each other.
The memory is captured in such perfect detail, and there's so much to see, he can't help but stare in awe at the threads.
Sakura and her second personality are so entwined that it's natural, and that's truly surprising, because most split personalities are trauma-based but he can tell, perfectly, that this one was with Sakura from birth.
Natsu ties deeply to the second nature first, and to Sakura herself second, though his bonds to both are tighter than any Inoichi's seen before.
He can't make sense of it.
Some threads tie like a family's might, others don't, everything is so mixed up-
And then the sight vanishes, Natsu screaming, and Sasuke's thoughts grow confused about who's in control, but it's obvious to Inoichi that it's still Natsu.
As the memory ends, Inoichi lets himself go with Sasuke's weak attempt to throw him out, the details of the memory already fading but his own realizations kept with him.
Natsu Dragneel may not be related to the Harunos in any way that could be genetically traced.
But Inoichi would bet his life that somehow, he has a connection to them.
Especially, somehow, to Sakura's second personality, to the point that it eclipses his bond with Sakura's primary.
Inoichi stands up, thanking Sasuke distantly as he turns to walk over to Natsu.
He's not sure whether entering their mindscape is a good idea right now, but, well.
Inoichi didn't end up in T&I because he lacked curiosity, that's for sure.
He takes a deep breath, and performs the hand signs one more time.
And for the first time, someone throws him out before he can even get his feet under him.
What?