A/N: This chapter brought to you late by: Me playing Don't Starve Together instead of writing, with a side-flavor of post-vacation depression!

(my sisters visited me for a couple days and then LEFT like EVIL PEOPLE and when people leave I just wanna give up on life for a while until I feel better)

Also may or may not have discovered a fanfic author who writes AWESOME Dabi-centric fics and totally captivated all my mind with their glory and awesomeness.

It's okay though.

I'm back! For now.

ANYWAY, thanks for reading! And please know that I totally thought about being absolutely evil and timeskipping to the next day and not letting you guys see Inner and Natsu's dialogue, but then I remembered that my roommate actually likes my fic, AND knows where I sleep at night.

And she'd murder me.

Isn't that so rude of her?

Hopefully Inner turned out alright here! I know exactly where I'm trying to go in this chapter, just not too confident in how I'm getting there (…might regret not time-skipping. Just a little).

Sakura collapses and Natsu leaps forward, catching her desperately. "Are you okay?" he asks, looking her over, but he can't see any issues, and she's so different- almost as tall as him, her hair so long he feels like his arms are gonna get tangled in it, and her eyes so serious-

"You're not going to ask who I am?" she asks with a weak grin, and Natsu can't help the disbelieving stare he levels at her.

"Sakura-chan is Sakura-chan. But why are you so old?"

He regrets the question as soon as he asks, well-learned lessons about girls and ages flickering through his mind in the time it takes Sakura to try and punch him in the face.

"OLD?! I'M THE SAME AGE AS YOU, SHANNARO!"

"WHICH IS LIKE SIX YEARS TOO OLD!" he yells back, dodging Sakura-chan's exhausted attempts to cave his skull in, panicking internally as he tries not to pull her hair.

"THAT'S RICH, COMING FROM YOU!"

"Huh?" Natsu freezes, confused, because he's exactly the right age, thanks, and her fist collides squarely with his cheek. He stumbles back a step as Sakura-chan bends over, panting and swaying on her feet, face completely obscured by a curtain of hair.

She straightens up after a moment, breath evening out, and shakes her head. "I'm not Sakura." She says, looking him in the eye.

"Wha- you totally are!" He makes a sweeping gesture with his arm, and Sakura-chan laughs.

"No, I'm not. I never really had a name, though Sakura herself would often think of me as Inner. We've always been different, just…"

Natsu squints at her, trying to make sense of that. "So you're like… her twin sister who died and then got stuck in her head instead of passing on?"

"What?" Sakura blurts. "Of course not! How'd you even come up with something like that?"

"Well, it makes sense!"

"It does not!"

"It's okay, if you're sad about not having a name we can totally ask Kizashi-san and Mebuki-sa-"
"That's not it!" Sakura's… inner, yells, trying to hit him again, and Natsu lifts his hands, backing away.

She doesn't follow, just glaring at him for a moment, before she sighs. "Just… think of me as a second Sakura-chan, if that's easier for you-"

"So I can call you Sakuni?" he interjects, and she groans.

"Fine. Now, as I was going to say," she crosses her arms, cocking her hip slightly, "because I exist as part of Sakura's mind as a second entity, things got a bit… shuffled around when you showed up. That second locked door in Sakura-chan's Heart is mine, because I have my own room. It got locked when I got trapped in your Heart. With me?"

Natsu nods slowly. "You were… the one back then, who warned me away? Why can't I go over there? I'd get back to my friends, right?" he turns to look at the bloody path, but Sakuni shakes her head.

"It's not as easy as that," she says, following his gaze toward his path. "Haven't you even wondered why it looks like that?"

Natsu shrugs. "A little, I guess. But it's not really important, right?"

He's pretty sure Sakuni's better at Kakashi's, "what, are you stupid?" look than Sakura is, which is weird because he's almost certain she shouldn't know what that looks like.

"Not important," she scoffs quietly, and Natsu gets the feeling he's being mocked. Even though he's fairly sure it isn't important, what his path looks like, as long as it's there.

Sakuni continues to mutter what sounds like insults against his family under her breath, but they're so specific and targeted that he finds himself confused by them.

He must have made some sort of noise, because she eventually turns to look at him, face somewhat surprised.

"Look," she says after a moment to collect herself, "that path? Very bad." she points for emphasis. "And even if I'm somehow wrong! If you go down it now, while Sakura is still trapped inside the Heart, that means I'll be in control of our body. Possibly forever, if we can't get the main cabin door unlocked. I don't want that. Sakura doesn't deserve that. And I can't even guarantee you'd end up back in control of your body if you did that anyway. If you try, I'm going to do my best to stop you. For Sakura's sake, if nothing else."

She's dead serious, meeting Natsu's eyes with fierce determination.

"We're… connected, aren't we?" he muses as he stares at her. "Somehow… the bridge won't just go away even if I went back down the path. And this could just happen again."

Sakuni blinks, taken aback, but she nods. "I think so."

"Do-?"

Sakuni vanishes in an instant, before he even has the chance to finish his question, and the mindscape rattles around him.

She reappears a moment later, on her knees and panting.

"What was that?" Natsu asks, kneeling next to her, and she falls against him, leaning heavily on his arm.

"Inoichi-san…" Sakuni says after a moment. "You'll need to go back down Sakura's path… he can't see this place…"

"What? Why not?"

Sakuni gives him Kakashi's are-you-stupid glare again. "Because this is the bridge," she says with quiet emphasis. "And if he tries to destroy it, we'll all be in trouble."

"And that would be… different from us separating it?" he asks, a little confused, and a whole lot out of his depth.

Sakuni shakes her head. "This connection existed long before we ever met each other. That's why you ended up here, instead of somewhere else. What do you think will happen, if he destroys a bridge we've all had all our lives?"

Natsu doesn't know, which is the problem, but he's pretty sure 'nothing good' is the right answer regardless. He slowly stands up, giving Sakuni a moment to get her weight off him.

"So… I just go back down Sakura's path? Won't I get stuck in her Heart though? Last time Inoichi-san dragged me out…"

Sakuni shakes her head, disbelieving. "This bridge is mostly sub-conscious. So, once the trees are thick enough that you can't see this end anymore, just climb. You'll end up in the lake again... eventually." She says 'eventually' with an ominous finality that makes Natsu pretty sure he's gonna have that weird nightmare-haunting experience again.

He shifts his weight back and forth, taking a step forward before turning around again.

"You'll… be okay, right?"

Sakuni grins, wide and sharp. "Worry about yourself! Shannaro!" she pumps her fist in the air, and that doesn't exactly make Natsu less worried, but… at the very least, she looks tired, and he probably shouldn't make her kick Inoichi-san out again. So he turns and walks away, and doesn't look back.

Inner collapses fully onto the ground as Natsu walks away, eyes closed. Everything hurts.

"You didn't say anything."

She doesn't open her eyes at the voice, merely offering a non-committal hum.

The bridge trembles as he steps off Natsu's path and onto the neutral ground, and Inner hopes Natsu is too far away to feel it.

There are some demons, she knows, that he just isn't ready to face.

But that's alright.

She'll face them for him.

She lets an exhausted smirk creep across her face.

"Neither did you."

Inoichi shows up in Sakura-chan's mindscape just as Natsu breaches the surface of the lake, trembling. He throws himself to the shore desperately, stumbling up the sand and shaking off the water as he walks with too-quick strides towards Sakura-chan's window.

Inoichi is right behind him, patiently quiet as Natsu collapses just beneath the sill panting.

"Are you quite alright?" he asks, as Natsu's breath begins to slow.

The pinkette nods. "Subconscious isn't any less scary the second time," he mutters afterward.

"I did say it was dangerous." Inoichi offers, and Natsu shrugs. It's weird, being afraid but not really sure why.

He doesn't like it.

Remembering just makes it worse, because the fear feels even more stupid when he knows why, but it won't. Go. Away.

He shakes off the experience as best he can. "What're you here for?" Natsu asks, cracking an eye open to look at Inoichi, and the man levels him an exasperated look.

"I'd like to talk to both you and Sakura-chan, but she doesn't seem to be in."

"What?!" Natsu bolts to his feet, turning to face the glass.

Inoichi's right, Sakura is nowhere to be seen.

"Oi!" Natsu drops to his knees, pressing close to the open part of the window as he shouts. "Sakura-chan, you in there?"

"One minute!" the voice that shouts back is distant and strained, and Natsu finds himself pacing back and forth as he waits for Sakura to show up.

Inoichi waits patiently, watching.

"Sorry," Sakura gasps, stumbling to the windowsill a couple minutes later. "T-the door kept trembling, and I thought maybe I could do something with it, but everything was so erratic… I didn't want to leave it alone until it stopped though, just in case… oh! Inoichi-san!"

Sakura-chan blushes, dipping quickly into a polite bow even as Inoichi waves it off. "It's alright, it's alright," he chides gently, smiling. "I just came to see how you both were, after what happened."

"Oh." Sakura smiles fleetingly, then glances away. "I'm fine." Her eyes meet Natsu's, and he tilts his head, confused.

"Are you sure? What do you remember?" Inoichi asks, before Natsu can ask why she's looking at him like that.

Sakura shifts her weight a bit, not looking at Inoichi, and he smiles in reassurance. "I saw your second personality. You aren't in trouble, Sakura-chan." He offers gently, and she jerks her head up, wide-eyed.

"B-but the psychological assessments before the Academy-!"

"Are there for your own protection." he finishes for her, still smiling. He continues at her disbelieving face. "Some children, especially among the civilian-born, simply aren't suited for shinobi life. The pre-Academy assessments weed out the most unsuited, and certain lessons over the course of your time there weed out the others. The jonin-sensei given test is usually the final marker, though it's up to the jonin in question whether a failed student just needs more time studying, or if they're actually not cut out for the work. While you shouldn't have lied during your assessment, and I'll be having words with the instructor who monitored it, if I can find them, having two personalities is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Especially not when it's natural."

"Natural?" Sakura asks, shuffling closer. Inoichi nods.

"Sasuke-kun gave me the privilege of watching his memory, which he had captured with the Sharingan. I saw you, Natsu-san, and your second personality, and it was quite obvious to me that she must have been with you since your birth. Can you even remember a time without her?"

Sakura-chan shakes her head slowly, and Inoichi offers her an encouraging smile.

"While I'd like to ask you more about that, purely from a place of intellectual curiosity, that's not quite what I'm here for. Could you explain to me exactly what happened, from your perspective, Sakura-chan?"

"Well…" Sakura starts hesitantly, glancing at Natsu again, and he grins encouragingly. She turns back to face Inoichi. "I was just in my room, dozing a little I guess, when someone grabbed my hand? But somehow, I just knew it was Inner, so I let her, and then I was just there." Sakura shrugs, clearly unsure how to explain it. "We were on the bed, and Naruto was sleeping, and so still, and somehow I could tell Natsu-san was really really worried, and there was all this energy, and it sort of hurt a little? I didn't like it, but Natsu was worried about Naruto, and Inner was too, and I figured that meant something was really wrong, since I haven't even seen Inner at all since Natsu showed up. But then everything just exploded in pain, and I got thrown back in here so hard I swear it hurt, and I went to the doors because that's always what I do when something weird happens. Voices were coming from one, and then a little bit later everything started trembling, and then you showed up…"

Inoichi turns his patient look onto Natsu, who shrugs a bit. "Even for me, it's mostly like how Sakura-chan said. Those doctors took Naruto away, and then he was just laying there, way too still, ya know? So I had to make sure he was okay."

"What about that energy Sakura-chan mentioned?"

Natsu grimaces. "I don't really know. It… didn't feel exactly like mine, but it didn't feel not like mine either, y'know? It definitely wasn't Sakura-chan's, cause it hurt both her and Sakuni a lot-"

"Sakuni?!" Sakura interrupts, outraged, and Natsu grins.

"She said to think of her as a second Sakura! So I needed a name for her, and so I called her Sakura Two! Sakuni!" Sakura narrows her eyes sharply, looking a bit like she wants to hit him, so Natsu offers his friendliest grin before changing the subject back to Inoichi's question.

"-but anyway, Sakuni was the one who gave it to me. Or, I guess, I ran into the door and it wouldn't open, right? And that made me angry, and then Sakuni was there, like, talking in my head I guess, and that's when the energy showed up. I got through the door just fine after that, but when the power started fading away Sakuni said she didn't think we'd be able to do that again, though she didn't really specify what she meant…" he trails off, considering.

He's still not sure if she meant the power, or her being actually present like that, with Sakura-chan too apparently!

He wishes someone like Lucy-chan had been there to help him ask Sakuni questions. He's pretty sure he didn't ask any of the important ones, which would have been easier to do if he even knew what the important ones were.

"Do you know where she is right now?" Inoichi asks, interrupting his thoughts, and Natsu leans back, resting his weight on his hands as he answers.

"Not right now, nah. She looked pretty tired, from all that stuff she did, so I figure she's resting somehow. She did say the other locked door in Sakura-chan's Heart is the door to her room, and that it got locked and left her stuck in my mindscape when I showed up here, so maybe she's sleeping over in my head? I didn't really have the chance to ask her if she was controlling my body like I'm stuck controlling Sakura-chan's though, before I had to leave…"

"Hmm." Inoichi studies him and Sakura with a contemplative look on his face. "If either of you speak with, ah, Sakura-chan's second, could you let me know? I get the feeling that if I could just speak with her directly, we'd be closer to figuring this out, now that I know she exists."

"O-of course!" Sakura stutters, looking a bit embarrassed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you! I should have said something sooner, but I didn't want to get in trouble, a-and I didn't even- I mean, she always felt like a real person, to me, but I asked Ino once, indirectly, and Ino said it was actually really rare for second personalities to have their own manifestation so I thought maybe I was just wrong…"

"It's quite alright," Inoichi says with a comforting smile. "We know now, and hopefully this will help us find a solution. No need to regret past choices."

Sakura smiles tremulously back, casting an uncertain glance towards Natsu.

He offers his own reassuring grin to her. "It's alright, really! Sakuni's pretty cool, but I got the feeling that whatever happened is something she did. Even if you'd told us before I don't think it would have helped much, yeah?"

Sakura-chan nods in response, more confident, and Natsu's grin widens.

"I promise Sakura-chan! We'll definitely figure this out!"