She had gotten good at hiding her worry and surprise.

It was like when Ibiki told her Shizune had appeared—she didn't tense or make a face near relief but had accepted it with a curious and interested facade. Or it was when she learned Tsunade was still alive and well. Her heart filled with the thought that her mentor was off living her wandering life, but she kept her face at its most neutral as she kept her pulse to a normal beat.

The one thing she couldn't hope to hide was her fear. It was most apparent the days she spent on that examination mission. She knew Obito would never hurt her and that he was as innocent as they came, but everything was too overwhelming and it all fell to pieces with the snap of one's fingers. She couldn't control it. She let herself go.

And look at where it had brought her! That one slip up earned her weekly therapy sessions and offered everyone a look at just how bad she let her trauma take over. Now...

Sakura folded her hands in her lap as she inspected a spec of dust on the table. Ibiki sat on the other end, arms crossed and a blank look to his features. There were no stars in the sky that night, only clouds that took their time to crawl over the country for the extremely rare chance of rain. Chance. It didn't always mean it would happen.

"So," Ibiki began, "do you want me to ask questions or are you willing to tell me everything yourself?"

She didn't raise her head. "Ask me. It's easier for you to find out what you want to know that way."

He nodded in agreement. Ibiki then reached into his overcoat to dig in the many hidden pockets he had. Finally finding the thing he'd been searching for, he pulled it out and set it on the center of the table.

Clink.

"First, how about you tell me what these are?"

Sakura's hand clasped around her eyes as she let out a strangled sigh. The glass bottle he placed in front of her was half filled with circular blue pills.

How many times was she going to fuck up? Just how many?

"Those are my sleeping pills."

"Highly potent and very much illegal. How did you get your hands on these?"

"From a friend."

"Who's your friend?"

Sakura stared at him, tight-lipped. There was no possible way she would ever rat Sasori out even for the sake of possibly being prosecuted for having unregulated substances. Ibiki had most likely taken a sample and ran it through various tests at the lab. She imagined that they hadn't gotten very far in deciphering the medicine's blueprint—it was made by one of the most infamous poison experts of their time. She could only hope the ingredients he used didn't come from only one traceable area.

Ibiki sighed inwardly. "At least tell me your friend isn't in any way a danger to Konoha."

She crossed her arms. "They aren't. They know how important the village is to me," she said. Her voice was even and didn't show any discomfort or nervousness that was clearly present in her physical being. But he knew better. Her tone may not have given anything away, but there was no underlying sincerity when she talked about the village. Yes, she was strong and yes, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Did her fierce loyalty apply to the system and the village as a whole?

No. It was obvious that it didn't.

"What makes you so sure?" he questioned. "By the looks of it, your friend isn't our normal branding if they're able to get their hands on pills like those, civilian or shinobi. And if I had to guess, they're not a part of Konoha."

There was no change in Sakura's face, so he prompted her further.

"Isn't your friend afraid of the consequences that come with these actions?"

"If I'm not, what reason would they have to be?" she countered. Her eyes met his for a brief moment before she looked back down at the table's surface. Ibiki glanced at the pill bottle. Sometimes she was a contradiction, acting fearless in any situation but holding a horrible, unconquerable fear away from prying eyes. He believed that she truly would stand for herself no matter the circumstances that came her way, but the panic attack that bore her soul said otherwise.

He cast the topic aside and brought up a new one.

"Tell me why you've resorted to using illegal drugs," he said. Ibiki wasn't a man to beg and couldn't remember a time when he'd actually done so. He certainly wasn't doing such at the moment, but there was an underlying plead in his voice. He'd known Sakura for a long time now, nearly five years. An interrogator he might be, but it didn't mean he took pleasure in seeing people he was acquainted with drowning in their pain.

"... I can't sleep. You know that," she murmured. "What else do you want me to say?"

"I want you to say why you chose pills over Yamanaka's help. He wants to see you get better with every session you've had together, but you won't let him You're distant, closed off, and because of it you're hurting yourself. How long do you think it'll be 'till this eats you al--"

Sakura slammed her fist on the table, the sound resonating through the rest of the house. She was on her feet with teeth flashing and eyes pulsing with years of suffering and unshed tears.

"Don't talk about me like you know me! Do you know how hard it is? To live with what I've been through?!" she hissed. "Do you know what it's like to live every second of every day remembering the things that happened to me? Every time I try to forget and close my eyes, I see him laughing. He's laughing because he knows he's won and I couldn't do a damn thing about it no matter how much I tried!"

Her fingers curled to press into the calloused palms of her hands. "I know it hurts. I know what it's doing to me. How many times do you think I've tried to..." She let the words die on her lips as she sat back down. "I wasn't strong enough, so this is my punishment for what I couldn't do."

She looked like an empty shell of a person, perhaps a sinner accepting eternal damnation without a wish for redemption. There was no hope in her being and her mind was warped to the point where she was becoming more of a danger to herself than to others.

But she was broken. Horribly so. That was the only way he could describe it. Perhaps she was thinking of her parents. They had been the most recent death to her, after all.

Unbeknownst to him, he was far off the mark. Sakura's mind filled with a single scene: her older self stood in the snow beside an inn, tears frozen on her cheeks as she peered through the window as it gave her a perfect view of the crib across the room and the quiet, black-haired baby sleeping inside.

"Why does not being strong enough mean that you're unworthy of getting better?" he asked. He didn't expect the hollow chuckle that slipped out her lips.

"Look at me," she whispered. Her head raised, a completely miserable smile complementing the agony threaded through her irises. "Do you think I deserve something like that?"

She did. She, out of everyone he knew, deserved all the help and happiness she could get. But when she looked at him like that, Ibiki couldn't bring himself to say a word.

::

Iruka was surprised at how responsible Naruto was, or showed himself to be. They spent most of the day packing and cleaning the apartment, then moving it across the village to the much better housing districts. There wasn't much to pack, Iruka noted with slight distaste, and made a note to buy more clothes and school materials for the boy.

That wasn't the only strange thing about the apartment. He noticed the protection seals at every window and doorway, Naruto affectionately dubbing them "Sakura-chan's stickers!". Of course Sakura had been taking care of him even before the Academy. He'd be more shocked if she didn't.

"Sensei! Sensei!" Naruto called. Iruka set down the box of the boy's recent birthday gifts and walked into the kitchen. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the dining room table set up with two plates of curry rice steaming and waiting to be eaten.

"You... made this?"

"Yeah!" the blond exclaimed. He scurried to stand in front of Iruka, then shyly glanced to the side at the astonished look on his new caretaker's face. "I, um... I-It's a thank you. For, you know, adopting me and stuff. Is that okay?"

Iruka smiled, knelt down and brought him into a hug. "Oh, Naruto... there's nothing you need to thank me for."

::

Sixteen years he'd been here. Or at least, that's how long he counted.

At this point, he accepted the fact that he was stuck in this gray-blue place he'd never get out of. It didn't matter how much he searched or how far he walked, he never got anywhere and he never got tired. An impossibility. But an impossibility that had all this time to seep into his mind and make it known that this is where he'd be for the rest of his life. Or what remained of it.

Once he figured out that much, he was livid.

He fought his wars and he battled the demons that were ferocious shinobi and kunoichi-- what more was there to this? Wasn't it his time to die? What more was there to this?

"SIXTEEN YEARS!!" Sasori screamed, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!"

And so he screamed and screamed towards the world that trapped him, his throat not getting any wearier, his lungs not losing a single breath, and his rage seeping into every part of his undead being.

Sasori blinked away the memory and went back to fixing one of his puppets. He and Orochimaru had just finished a joint mission with Kisame and they were on their next few days of rest and recovery. Orochimaru was down in his research lab and he and the ex-Kiri nin were in the kitchen, Kisame leaning against the fridge and he working on the table.

He was also aware of the pair of eyes that drilled into the back of his head.

"Something you need, Kisame?" he questioned airily. Sasori heard something shift behind him and heard maybe the sound of a glass being set down on the counter.

"If you really were from the future, hypothetically, of course, just what are you trying to change?"

"Preventing a war and the death of half the shinobi population. And stopping people from making wrong decisions, sometimes steering them onto a different path than before. Hypothetically speaking," he answered. There was more uncomfortable shifting.

"So hypothetically, you know about what's going to happen."

"This world's different from what I know, but there are some consistencies. We're looking at individuals rather than the bigger picture at this point, and it's working as far as I know," he said. He placed his work down before he tipped his head back, smiling at the gravely serious expression on his associate's face. "Hypothetically."

Kisame looked away. "Yeah... hypothetically."

::

"Don't leave me here," Sakura growled under her breath. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Dying isn't on my to-do list today. I have a schedule."

Genma blinked at the shuriken shot in his direction, mildly thankful that a thick two-way mirror stood between him and the currently occupied interrogation room. He sighed and toyed with the senbon in his mouth. "It ain't my fault, kid. She found my apartment and raided the place clean before hauling me off to find you. I don't like leaving you with her, but Hokage-sama gave me a mission today."

"A whole day with Anko-san?"

"Morino-san already confiscated her explosive tags so you won't have to worry about it like last time."

Because last time she was with Anko for a whole twenty-four hours, the jounin decided to train her by planting explosive tags all over the training grounds and having her dodge each blast to come out unscathed. What Sakura didn't think to account for was that Anko was truly, honestly, crazy, and that she'd actually use over two-hundred tags. Needless to say, the resulting blasts mutilated the training grounds and took out part of Konoha's surrounding walls.

Dan was sure to give them a stern reprimanding, additionally assigning Anko guard duty for a month and barring her from taking any mission above a C until he saw fit.

Sakura groaned. "I guess I don't have a choice."

"Good luck kid. You'll need it," Genma bid. He gave her shoulder a firm squeeze before heading out of the building. Sakura opened the door and walked up beside Anko, where she was hoisting up the woman being interrogated. Her painted lips were stained redder with the blood she coughed up, and her fair skin burned at the places that were bound to the chair.

"Sakura! Had enough gossip?" Anko grinned. She let the captured Kiri-nin slump down, the exposed green eye of the prisoner void of feeling. The eye was trained on Sakura, though a flicker of curiosity appeared before fading as quickly as it came.

"Ah, shit. Right. Well, stay with the captive for a few minutes while I get a few things. 'Kay? 'Kay."

Sakura watched her go with a raised brow. If Ibiki caught wind of her being left alone with a dangerous kunoichi under Anko's watch, then he'd definitely kill her. Absolutely. She cast her stare back at the woman bound to the chair and took a step closer.

"I heard something snap earlier. I think your arm is broken."

The kunoichi merely stared. After waiting a few more seconds for a reply and getting nothing, Sakura let her hand glow a soft green as she placed it on the woman's forehead. She was awarded a surprised glance for the action and a slightly agape mouth when she started to feel the internal damage start to repair.

"She can go a little overboard sometimes," the girl said. "I read the file. You shouldn't be interrogated this bad for what you did."

She withdrew her hand a second before Anko burst into the room, a maniacal light in her eyes. "Alright, let's go! We gotta get a move on for training!" she crowed. Her eyes then went up to the kunoichi whose ankle-length auburn hair still looked neat despite the earlier torture. "I'm done with you for today. Be sure to thank the gods for that one."

Inoichi made his appearance and entered the room, nodding to Sakura in greeting before laying his tools down on the table to have his turn at interrogation. Anko began to babble as she and her student made their way out, the girl not listening to a single word she said. That sole green eye was still on her back, watching her until she disappeared from view.

Sakura didn't mind. That kunoichi in particular could help her in the future some way, somehow with her particular skill set. She was formidable in the old timeline and held a rare chakra nature that was found in only a handful of shinobi across the nations.

Terumi Mei.

Sakura wondered how much longer she would humor the interrogators until she made her escape.

::

Anko prided herself as someone people generalized without realizing just how much she was capable of. For example, people said she was loud, crude, and reckless. And it was true. But what people didn't think to describe her as observant, and it was probably the last thing people ever thought of her.

They all seemed to forget that she was a pupil of Orochimaru back in the day, so he would make sure she knew how to act as a normal shinobi should. Quiet, stealthy, and vigilant were only some of the things she was capable of but didn't care to show on a normal basis, hence why many didn't think she knew what the meaning of those words were.

When she trained Sakura, she had to abandon her usual persona sometimes. The girl was just so serious and dangerous that she had to keep herself on high alert just in case things went South. That, and she was on the suicide watch list. Anko couldn't afford to take her eyes off her.

Plus, this training wasn't the normal kind. They were going to be one of many shinobi "training" in those fields as a Clans of Konoha meeting took place near their general area. Her and the girl were going to be part of the guards for the day and wouldn't leave their post until each one of the clan heads returned safely to their home.

"Is the meeting in the Nara Research Facility?" Sakura questioned. Anko looked at her and saw that the girl's gaze was pointed to the general area. The tokubetsu jounin gave a sharp grin as she barked out a laugh.

"What meeting are you talking about, pipsqueak? We're here to train."

Sakura wasn't supposed to know what was going on, much less where it was taking place. Anko abruptly shunshinned to the far end of the path, leaving Haruno to stop in her tracks to look ahead suspiciously. "Anko-san?"

"Training starts now!"

The woman held wires in her mouth as her hands went through four distinct seals: snake, dragon, rabbit, then tiger. Sakura very suddenly became aware of the chakra wire encircling her, as well as the tens of kunai that were lodged into the trees to hold them taut.

"Katon: Ryuka no Jutsu!"

Flames surged along each of the wires before converging and erupting where Sakura stood. Before the attack could even finish, a bandaged arm ejected up from the ground and made a grab at Anko's ankle. She leapt away before it could latch.

But it only had been a clone, and the real Sakura was above her with her left heel driving downwards. The assault broke ground, causing Anko's grin to widen.

"Not bad! Ibiki teach you that?"

Sakura's fist launched towards her face. "Learned it myself!"

Anko moved to the side, narrowly avoiding the blade that shot out from underneath the bandages. Those damn things! She always forgot the brat had those on 24/7. She kicked Sakura towards the ground and jumped away to take refuge on a high branch.

"Really?" the woman mused. "You're a real handful, you know that? What else did you learn between now and the last time we fought?"

A strange light passed over Sakura's face before she grit her teeth and dug her feet into the loose dirt beneath her.

"Something that's probably going to hurt like a bitch."

Anko wanted to smile at the comment until she saw what was happening. No, not saw. Felt. An abnormally large amount of chakra swirled within Sakura's small body before it expelled all at once—in waves of pure, uncontrolled chakra.

The nine year old's eyes fluttered shut just as she fell into a heap onto the ground.

::

The meetings were as boring as ever. The clan heads, the council, and the Hokage talked about village economics and relations with other villages. They also spoke of politics, budgets, promotions, rankings, and notable people within the system.

Then they felt it.

A ripple of chakra passed through the room, strong but troubled, that made the Nara Research Facility grow silent just before inquiring murmurs fluttered around. Hiashi activated his byakugan and directed towards the source of flood of energy.

'Haruno Sakura?'

Anko was knelt down beside her, gazing at the prone figure in an awed stupor. He didn't understand why she couldn't be a normal person for once and send the child to the hospital as quickly as possible until he saw just what the interrogator was gawking at.

Sakura's forehead.

...

There was a diamond on it.

"Hyuuga-san?"

Hiashi let his doujutsu fade, refacing the group with his same stoic expression. "... Just one of the guards. She tried a new jutsu, made a mistake, and discharged her chakra instead of harnessing it."

He couldn't raise alarm, now could he?

::

EDITED 2/3/18