A/N: If you came here from Two Heads - hi there - and if not, then welcome to this mess. This is a time-travel and body-sharing fic that's more or less a fix-it. The same concept with Two Heads, although a lot of the details were changed, like Sakura's sanity (whoops). Not in the bad way. Maybe.

Also Saeko is not an OC. Really. I needed to distinguish baby Saku somehow. And the few OCs here are literally just for this chapter and not major characters.

BY THE WAY - I initially used the wrong file, what the hell. If you read that one, ignore it. I literally did this twice, I should really get some sleep.

Yeah, well - kicks canon far, far away - I don't own Naruto or the characters, this is a fan-fic and you knew that.

Sakura was two years old, nearly three, when she first met them.

She was in a dark, dark space and her mama and papa were missing. Sakura thought about screaming, about crying, because she was two years old and the dark scared her. That was when a boy appeared behind her. He was pale, like the pretty paper her papa would draw on, and his eyes were black like the darkness but they're warm, like her woolen blankets. There was a girl with pretty pink hair behind him, like candy, having come out from the darkness, and she smiled at Sakura. The girl looked like her papa – the girl looked like her.

The wrongness went away. Sakura reached up towards the boy with pretty skin. Obligingly, he picked her up and held her close. He was much shorter than Sakura's papa; Sakura could see the world from her papa's shoulders. She could only see the top of the boy's head from her perch. Beside them, the girl with pink hair did a funny thing with her nose, making it crinkle, and Sakura saw the boy smile at her. "Well, it looks like she likes me more, Ugly."

It was obvious that 'ugly' – the mean word that mama said to never use for a person – in this case was meant for the girl with pretty hair, so Sakura shouted, "No! She's pretty! Like candy!" More petulantly, she said, "You're mean and I don't like you more!"

The boy hummed, seemingly thoughtful. "I'm sorry," he said, not sounding very sorry at all. "Would 'Lovely' be a better name for your nee-chan, then?"

"My nee-chan?" Sakura asked. She didn't have a nee-chan… did she?

"Because I'm your secret nee-chan," the girl with candy hair said. "I'm your secret nee-chan and mama and papa don't know it, but I'm here to keep you safe. I can read your mind, like a superhero."

"Or a ninja," Sakura added.

The girl nodded, "Or a ninja."

Sakura stared at the pretty girl for a long, long moment. She certainly looked like she was Sakura's nee-chan; she had pink hair and green eyes and fair skin, too. And she had a pretty diamond on her forehead—

"Your forehead's just like mine!" There was awe in every word she said. She had a secret nee-chan and she looked just like her! That was wonderful!

"It is," her nee-chan said, smiling, "And he's going to be your new nii-chan." Her nee-chan was looking at the paper-pale boy holding her. Sakura wanted to pout at him, but she stopped when she saw the boy smile at her. He had a pretty smile, like a cat or a fox. "I suppose he can be my nii-chan."

"I'm honored, Sakura-chan," the boy, her new nii-chan, said. He said this so sincerely that it made Sakura smile up at him even wider. Bouncing a bit, Sakura grabbed his cheeks, and his skin was so soft that it was simply wonderful. "Can you read my mind, too, nii-chan?"

Her new nii-chan nodded.

"Wow," Sakura said, because what else was there to say? She had a mind-reading nii-chan and nee-chan! "Do other kids have a nee-chan and nii-chan like you, too?"

Her nee-chan shook her head. "No, Sakura-chan. Only you do."

"Why?" she asked, honestly curious.

This time, both her nii-chan and nee-chan smiled, and Sakura was too young to realize how sad their smiles had been. "Because you're special," they said, and their hug felt like coming home.

Her nee-chan's name was Saeko, her nii-chan's name was Sai.

Saeko-nee told her stories of a girl and her friends. Her stories were all about the same girl – a kunoichi, like her mama, but the girl in the story had been weak and unprepared when she first started and couldn't keep up with the demands of her job – and they had lessons like 'valuing your friends'. Sakura's favorite part was when the girl realized how weak she was, but instead of giving up, she decided to pick up her weight until she became the best frontline medic – which is a doctor who fights, according to Saeko-nee.

When Sakura told Saeko-nee that she wanted to be like the girl in the story – strong – Saeko-nee said, "Sure, as long as you learn from her mistakes."

Sai-nii drew animals for her, from cats to elephants and birds and dogs, and he made them rise from the paper and come to life. Sai-nii told her stories, too, but they were about a boy – a shinobi – who was taught to hurt people. The boy grew up knowing nothing but how to hurt others, until he discovered the wonders of friendship. It was a sad story, but it was also a little funny, and Saeko-nee said she thought so, too—especially when the boy got hit for being too blunt. Sai-nii just sighed.

But he smiled, close-eyed, and promised to teach Sakura how to draw when she asked if he would teach her.

Sakura learned to listen to her siblings while she was awake even though they didn't talk to her a lot when she was. They said that they didn't want to distract her, but Saeko-nee would scold her when Sakura threw tantrums while Sai-nii just kept quiet, but it was the sort of quiet where Sakura could feel the disappointment coming off in waves, like how her papa does it. It wasn't always easy to understand why they scolded her, but soon Sakura learned that they did it because they loved her. And she loved them.

She grew up to be a quiet girl, effectively shattering her mama's fears of having a rowdy child but also feeding her fears about having a friendless, unhappy daughter. Sakura wanted to tell her mama that she wasn't friendless; she had her nee-chan and nii-chan! But they told her that she couldn't let mama know about them. If she did, they would have to go away, because they couldn't be her secret siblings if she told mama about them.

"But she has a point," Saeko-nee said one night. "So please try?"

When Sakura was four, her mama took her along to the park in the hopes that she'd make friends and Sakura saw her chance to make her nee-chan and her mama proud. Mebuki set her down by the swings and cheerfully told her that she would be 'around' before vanishing in a puff of smoke, drawing the gazes of other civilian parents and their children to the spot where Mebuki had been. Sai-nii made an offhand comment about 'unexpectedness' and 'civilian outfits giving a civilian impression'.

Noting Sakura's confusion, Saeko-nee sighed and explained how the civilians thought her mama was a civilian, too. She is, in essence, but she was a shinobi once.

If the circumstances were different, Sakura might have ducked her head the moment the other children spotted her. But the circumstances weren't different and Sai-nii and Saeko-nee have spent what seemed like forever for Sakura, telling her story of boys and girls and the power of friendships. So with confidence in her chest and supportive siblings in the back of her head, Sakura stood from the swing and approached a boy and girl playing in the sandbox.

"Hi!" she chirped, wincing just a little with the volume of her voice. "Can I play with you?"

The boy – black hair, freckled face, and brown eyes – looked at the girl with him. When she nodded, the boy looked back at Sakura and said, "Sure!" and then he stuck out his hand, "My name's Taki!"

Take it, Sai-nii's voice flitted through for a second before disappearing again. Sakura did as she was told and placed her hand in his, "I'm Sakura. Can I call you Taki-nii?" The boy looked a bit surprised, but he nodded in the end.

"And I'm Mitsuha!" the girl said from beside Taki-nii. "You can call me Mitsuha-nee if you like! We're going to play tag now though, will you be okay with that?"

As Mitsuha-nee stood, Sakura noticed how much taller the girl was and how much shorter she was than both of them. She thinks you can't keep up, Sai-nii whispered in a rare mischievous tone. For a moment, Sakura felt fear, especially when it felt like Sai-nii was telling her to prove them wrong. She felt Saeko-nee place an invisible hand on her shoulder and so she pushed on. She nodded and the two older children smiled. She smiled back.

And then her smile dropped, just an inch, when she was 'it'.

Ten minutes into the game, Sakura was fuming and huffing but silently hoping the other two wouldn't take notice. She couldn't catch them – they were faster than her – but she also didn't want to complain. What if they wouldn't play with her anymore? So she went on, running around and coming so close to snatching Mitsuha-nee's sleeve—

When a new voice asked, "That looks fun! Can I join?"

They all stopped at the same time, Sakura nearly slamming her face on Mitsuha-nee's back.

Standing a few feet away was a pretty blonde girl with seafoam eyes, watching them with a wide-eyed expression. Sakura immediately beamed at the new girl by the moment she saw how the new girl was almost as small as her – still slightly taller, but not by much. That meant they were the same age!

Or that she's really short, Sai-nii said amusedly and Sakura thought about batting his smug face away.

"Sure," Taki-nii said, "But this is tag and you're it, okay?"

Predictably, the new girl pouted, but for reasons completely different, "I'm not an it – my name is Ino!"

Sakura giggled, "They mean that you'll be catching us, Ino-chan." At her explanation, the new girl's – Ino's – puffed up cheek deflated and pink dusted her cheeks, ever so slightly.

"Oh." She grinned.

"I'm Mitsuha, and this is Taki, we're older than you so you gotta call us 'nee-san' and 'nii-san'," Mitsuha-nee said with all the finality of a five-year-old, "and that's Sakura," Mitsuha-nee added from somewhere behind Sakura. "Are you ready to catch us now, Ino-chan?"

Sakura, still looking at Ino, watched as she nodded determinedly. She looked back and saw the smile on Mitsuha-nee's face, "Okay, on the count of three – one, two, three, go!"

They sprinted off into different directions.

That was how Mebuki found Sakura that day, running around and chasing a girl her age while making roaring noises. When Sakura spotted her mama by the tree, she grinned and waved, and Saeko-nee hummed in approval in the back of her mind.

Sakura visited the park more often to play with Ino, Taki-nii, and Mitsuha-nee. Her mama and her papa took turns watching her, even though Sakura had her siblings to watch her, but she supposed it was alright that they were there. The routine continued on for three weeks, until one day, Taki-nii and Mitsuha-nee arrived really, really late and said that they wouldn't be allowed to play anymore. Apparently, they were going to study in the ninja academy next year and their respective parents wanted them to prepare because they were civilian kids.

"So what if you are?" Sakura asked.

Mitsuha-nee looked thoughtful, "Well, it means that we have a disadvantage. There are clan kids, you know that, right?" Sakura nodded and silently asked her siblings what clan kids were.

Clan kids are children who belong in a special family with special ninja skills was Saeko-nee's clipped explanation.

"Why would you have a disa—disav..."

"Disadvantage," Mitsuha-nee giggled, Sakura pouted, "And think of it like this: the teacher gave you a picture to colour and you brought a pack of crayons with twelve colours. But some parts of the picture needed different colours, colours that you don't have," Mitsuha-nee paused to see if Sakura was still listening, which she was, "And then you looked around to see if your classmates were having trouble colouring that item, too, only to find that some of your classmates have sixteen coloured crayons and didn't have the trouble that you had."

"Oh, that's not fair."

"It isn't," Taki-nii said for the first time. "That's why Mitsuha and I have to train early; we don't want to have only twelve crayons while the others have sixteen."

"You understand, don't you?" Sakura nodded and Mitsuha beamed, "I knew you were smart."

When Ino arrived, Mitsuha-nee and Taki-nii told her the same thing, but they shortened their words, not that Sakura particularly cared why. They're not going to play with us anymore, Sakura thought sadly, will you leave someday, too?

She didn't know if she was asking her nee-chan or her nii-chan, but they both replied. We won't leave, Saeko-nee said.

We can't even if we tried, Sai-nii added, only to receive a mental kick from Saeko-nee, and Sakura felt a little bit better.

She felt better, but it wasn't enough.

"I don't want to have only twelve crayons either," Sakura stated that night while Sai-nii was teaching her how to draw. Saeko-nee, who had been watching from across the expanse of darkness, lifted her head at that moment and met Sakura's eyes. "I want to have, like, twenty-four crayons."

"Give the metaphor a rest," she said as she stood. "Sai, remember what we talked about?"

Sai-nii stopped guiding Sakura's hand. Curious, Sakura turned to look at her brother. He didn't look at her like he usually did when he felt Sakura watching. Instead, he was staring at Saeko-nee, lips thinned and eyes narrowed. There was a sudden pressing feeling that made Sakura want to puke.

Saeko-nee's voice was frigid when she said, "She's four, Sai."

"Exactly, Ugly, you were a crybaby at four." and oh, Sakura knew that would result in a lot of fighting that made her head hurt, so she shouted shrilly, "Explaaaaiiiin! What are you two talking about?!"

Simultaneously, her siblings winced. Sakura knew that her voice made their head hurt when it was loud, and usually she would feel bad about causing them pain, but Sai-nii and Saeko-nee were about to start fighting and Sakura couldn't have that. Her day had already been pretty bad; she didn't want to have to listen to her siblings fight while she could see them. They didn't know it – or maybe they did, they just haven't said anything – but Sakura could hear them when they fought while she was awake. Their arguments had only started recently and Sakura didn't know what they were all about, and neither her brother nor her sister would tell her when she asked.

"Remember who we are," Saeko-nee finally said, still not looking at Sakura. In turn, Sakura stared at her brother, hoping he would give something away from his expression. Sai-nii only stared down at his pale feet, eyes eerily blank, and finally, after a long while, Saeko-nee added in a sadder voice, "Remember what we're here to do."

Sai-nii breathed out. "Alright, fine."

Once Sai-nii said this Saeko-nee smiled so brilliantly that it was almost as if she and Sai-nii weren't fighting just a moment ago. Saeko-nee knelt in front of Sakura – she was still shorter than them, even after two years, and Sakura thought they were growing up inside her head, too – and took her hand in hers.

"Sakura-chan, do you remember why you're the only one with siblings like us?" Saeko-nee asked with a kind and gentle voice. Sai-nii moved to sit beside her – Sakura could see him out of the corner of her eye.

"Because I'm special," she repeated.

"Have we told you why you're special?" Sai-nii asked, voice evenly measured, and it made Sakura wonder if her brother was scared of something. Sakura did the same thing to her voice when she was scared. Silently, Sakura shook her head.

"Now that you're older, we're going to tell you a truth. It's one of many, many truths and you have to keep it a secret from mama and papa, okay?" Saeko-nee was pleading, Sakura knew, and the way she did it made her nervous. It was the same tone of voice her mama used when she was about to tell Sakura something disappointing, like how she couldn't go out to play because she was sick or it was raining.

Sakura, at four years old, knew at that moment that her siblings were about to tell her something important.

"Your brother and I are old, Sakura-chan. We're much, much older than we look. Do you remember my stories about the weak kunoichi who became strong to protect her precious people?" She nodded slowly. Saeko-nee's hold on her hand tightened slightly, "That's me, Sakura-chan. I'm the weak kunoichi. Do you remember how that story ends?"

Sakura blinked, startled by the revelation that the kunoichi in her sister's stories was her sister herself, "I... no, I don't," belatedly, she added, "You never told me. The last thing you said is that the kunoichi went off to war to fight for and save her precious people," with a touch of fear, she said, "You never told me whether she went back home to Fish Cake Country."

Fish Cake Country was the fictional country the kunoichi in the story comes from, but if the kunoichi was real…

"Fish Cake Country isn't a real place, Sakura-chan, focus," Sai-nii interrupted. Right—mind-reading. "But the kunoichi is real – it's Saeko."

Her sister was the kunoichi in her story. Her sister has gone off to war. Sakura has seen the faraway look her mama sometimes gets when Sakura asks about her days of active duty. Her papa had said that her mother has gone off to war, long before Sakura was even born. Her papa said that war was awful and it's never won without the cost of something great.

"Did she win? The kunoichi, I mean."

Saeko-nee smiled bitterly, "Her side didn't win, Sakura-chan. They fought – the kunoichi and her brothers, together again – against their common enemy, an evil moon goddess and her greatest weapon: the moon," Sakura's face must have done something because Sai-nii huffed out what might have been a laugh, and Saeko-nee said, "I know, the moon sounds ridiculous. But it's what happened."

"The moon goddess and her evil moon cast an illusion over the whole world. The people who saw the illusion felt happy but they didn't notice that none of that was real, and they didn't notice their chakra being fed on."

Sakura was four and she knew what chakra was, so all she did was nod to show she understood so far.

"Only four people were left uncaught, Sakura-chan. That's me," Saeko-nee jerks a thumb towards her own self and then to their brother, "There was Sai, the kunoichi's fox-brother, along with the one-eyed demon teacher."

Sakura was quieter the next morning. She didn't even greet her mama and papa 'good morning'. She sat there, by the kitchen table, eyeing her empty plate and listening to the sound of eggs frying on the pan, accompanied by her papa's humming. Saeko-nee and Sai-nii were silent in her head, in such a way that they have never been for as long as Sakura has had them.

"Sakura-chan, is there something the matter?" her mama finally asked.

Sakura turned to look at her mama, at her messy pale blonde hair and sky blue eyes, at her fair skin marred by scars on the oddest places. She let her gaze linger on her mama's right leg, eyeing the large gash that went from the middle of her mama's thigh and an inch above her ankle. The medics could only close her wound and lessened as much of the scarring as they could, but it was too late to save the nerves of her leg. It had been infected. Her mama walked awkwardly now, like she wasn't wholly certain if her feet were moving along.

We're here to save the world, Saeko-nee had said, eyes blazing and words determined.

We didn't choose you, Sai-nii's voice echoed in contrast. Something went wrong and I'm not even supposed to be here.

You're not supposed to be here, Saeko-nee added. But you are. So we have to ask, Saeko-nee had said, as if her words left Sakura with much of a choice, we have to ask you to help us save the world.

How? Sakura asked.

You have to listen to us and do as we say.

Sakura ducked her head and, with a doubtful heart, she murmured, "I want to be a shinobi."

Clearly surprised, her papa dropped a plate.