I want to make a note right up here before you all read this chapter. I understand that some of you guys aren't happy with how I portrayed Sasuke, and neither am I. Honestly, I don't like making him act how he in his most recent appearance in this fanfic, but this is how it needs to happen.

I like to think that I understand his character and how he is willing to do whatever it takes to get the strength he needs to take on his older brother, the man that practically took his life away. Because of his loss and his high status, people began to tend to his every whim, exaggerating his power to make himself think that he was stronger than anyone. People were in love with his name, Uchiha, and and because of the pampering he received, he used that as his trump card to get what he wanted. This made him arrogant, and made him believe that just because he had Uchiha blood and the Uchiha name, he could do whatever he wanted. It was the villages fault for making him like that. I am a bit rusty on Naruto to be honest, but I do believe that the Sasuke who existed before the Uchiha massacre was the true Sasuke Uchiha, and not the arrogant teen that he became.

I can't speak on personal experience, but I do believe that it I had an older brother who killed everyone I knew and loved, and people started to kiss my ass and treat me good because of my name and past, I probably would have turned out a lot like Sasuke did, and I'd like to bet that a large number of you would as well.

Also, I would like to note how someone pointed out that Sakura got the tree walking exercise on the first try in canon. I touch on it in this chapter, but I'll talk a bit about it right now. If you've watched Dragon ball Z at least up to the end of the Namek Saga, think about captain Ginyu. When he switched bodies with Goku, he wasn't nearly as powerful as Goku was. This was because he was in a different body, and the same thing could be applied here. While it isn't as drastic as going to a whole new body, Sakura's body is drastically different in the future (Future Sakura's present) than how it is where we are now (Her past, but our present). It might have been a week, but it'll take a bit longer to get used to her different body.

A last note, I kind of went overboard with the youthfulness in the last chapter. I'll tone it down in chapters to come.

Now, onto the story!

It was currently two thirty in the morning, and a certain silver haired jonin was watching his students from a distance, still thinking about the same thing that had been bothering him for most of the week.

Sakura's attitude.

He had heard that Sakura was one of Sasuke's biggest fans, always doing her best to look good in front of the Uchiha. Apparently she had 'an undying love for the last of the Uchiha clan', but just about everything he had seen from when he met her up until now told her otherwise.

She had never even once mentioned Sasuke ever since he was sent back to the academy, and she even worked well with the one person who constantly got into fights with him. She trained hard every day, even when they didn't meet as a team, and would usually bring Naruto along so that he could train as well.

She was never like that in the academy. She hardly ever put any focus into the physical aspects of being a ninja, always talked about Sasuke or Sasuke-related topics, and had a deep hatred for Naruto. He knew that it wasn't some sort of henge, but maybe some sort of mind jutsu like what that Yamanaka clan had? He didn't know, but he needed to know.

He followed the two back to Sakura's house, and then left after deciding that he had seen enough for the day. He was glad for Naruto, but he was more focused on Sakura for the time being.

The Sharingan user used a simple Shushin to get back to his own home. It was far too late for him to talk to the Hokage about it, so he would wait until morning.

"I'll see it I can get Inoichi to come with me to tomorrow's practice, or the one after that. Hokage-sama is being too lax about the situation, but I can see why. His surrogate grandson is finally actually happy, and he doesn't want to take that happiness away from him. If Inoichi sees something wrong with Sakura, then I'll confront the Hokage about it. If not, nothing happened. There have been full body transformation jutsu before, much more powerful than a standard henge, but my gut is telling me something like that would be pretty unlikely."

Kakashi began to go through all of the possibilities as he lay down in his bed, trying to think up of every possible scenario. Right now, only the henge Theory seemed feasible, but he continued to think about it until he eventually fell asleep.

The next morning, Sakura woke up a bit later than she usually did now. As he eyes opened, she instantly recognized the area as her room. Her eyes widened as she continued to walk around, making sure that it was in fact her room. She knew that she fell asleep in the woods nearby the training field, so she wondered how she had gotten home. It didn't take her long to figure out that had happened.

Looking out the window, the young woman knew by the position of the sun that it was early in the day, but still later than when she usually woke up. She said nothing as she rolled off of her bed and fell onto the ground, landing on her hands and toes, making a small thud as she hit the ground.

This was her warm up before the warm up. She still needed to work up her body, and by doing a few sets of push-ups and other exercises every morning, she could get a good warm up work out before she went to meet with her team. She needed to be stronger even more so now because Lee was on her team. Naruto might have had the Kyūbi inside of him, but Rock Lee was a complete training nut. Lee was most likely the strongest person on the team right now, as Naruto was still young and inexperienced. She wasn't in the same league as her two teammates. Her lack of training was even more obvious when standing next to the two people who could train for hours without stopping. She knew that she couldn't get on their level even with all the time in the world, so she was just needed to make the difference in skill less noticeable.

She wasn't really pushing herself at the moment. She couldn't tire herself out only moments after she got out of bed. They were just warm up exercises to wake her up and get her ready for the day.

Several minutes later when she was done, Sakura got up from the ground and looked at the window again. A little more light filled up the room, but it wasn't all that much due to the fact that only a few minutes had passed. Only now she noticed that she was still in the same clothes that she was wearing the day before. Her eyes widened as she realized that she never walked back home.

The young woman searched her memory and found that she had fallen asleep soon after Naruto had completed the tree exercise. She also remembered how it had taken her longer for her to complete the exercise due to the fact that what she was experiencing was similar to what a Yamanaka would feel when using someone else's body. While it was her body, it felt like a completely different one.

She wanted to know what happened and how she got back home, but she knew for sure that her mother was going to chew her out for coming home so late. She just had to clean herself up, make breakfast, and get out of the house before her parents woke up so what she wouldn't have to deal with them at the mome-

Knock knock

In her brief time of panicking, she didn't notice that she was making quite the ruckus by pacing around her room frantically.

Her eyes quickly snapped over to her door, and down to the open space at the bottom where she could see someone's feet. She couldn't tell whose shoes they were, but she was almost absolutely sure that they were her mother's.

"Sakura? Are you okay?"

That was her mother's voice. She had heard it for so many years and the tone that she was using was unmistakable.

She wanted to talk about something.

For the first time since she had arrived to this younger version of her body, she was scared. She could think of how her mother would chew her out so badly that all of her ninja training would be forgotten and she would snap, telling her everything about the future she was trying to prevent. Her training was slipping already, and with shaky hands, she moved over to open the door.

Just as she suspected, her mother was at the door. However, she didn't have a stern look on her face, a look of slight concern and worry in its place. Sakura visibly relaxed upon seeing her mother look the way that she did. She was about to say something to the elder Haruno until Mebuki put a hand on Sakura's shoulder.

"Are you okay? I heard a thump not too long ago, and also heard something moving around. Not to mention that you're usually out of bed by this time." She paused to let Sakura know what was on her mind, but didn't allow the girl to speak as she spoke again.

"Get ready for the day quick. We have company over for breakfast." She told Sakura, turning around and heading back into the living room to talk to the guest in the Haruno household.

While Sakura was relaxed about Mebuki not talking about the previous night, her fears returned when the elder Haruno mentioned company. That meant that while Sakura still did have some freedom, it would only last until their guest or guests left. After that, all hell would break loose.

Sakura spent little time in the shower, leaving no time for relaxing with the warm water hitting her skin and sore muscles. She simply cleaned up and that was that. Afterwards, she picked out a new, but practically identical dress to the one that she wore the day before. She wanted to get a new change of wardrobe as soon as she could, something that would be similar to what she wore before she traveled back. She had no problems with what she wore now, but it wasn't really the most battle ready gear in the world. Still battle ready, but focused more on appearance than usability.

Walking into the living room, she was quite surprised to see who was talking to her mother at a rather early hour. Directly across from Mebuki was her sensei Kakashi, but to the left of him was one third of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, Inoichi Yamanaka. They seemed to have been having a pleasant conversation, but all heads turned as Sakura walked in.

Mebuki smiled at Sakura, but it wasn't the dangerous smile that the girl had been expecting. It was an honest smile that told her that whatever she had done was forgiven. Sakura's fears were washed away by that smile, and smiled as well before looking at Inoichi and Kakashi again. The Yamanaka clan head also smiled at Sakura around the same time that Mebuki did, but didn't get any kind of response until a moment later when the girl had noticed his presence for a second time. Kakashi simply sent the girl a lazy eye smile and a wave of the hand.

"There you are Sakura. Kakashi-san and Inoichi-san came by asking to speak with you." Mebuki said to her daughter. Something was wrong with that sentence, Sakura assured herself. Why were her sensei and a clan head coming to see her out of all people? It didn't take long for her to think that a possible reason for them being here was because of her change in attitude. Although the three people in front of her couldn't see it, she was mentally scolding herself for not being better at trying to make a subtle change.

"You idiot! How could you have been so stupid to have brought the attention of a mind walker to you!?"

"Hey! I thought that I was doing pretty well! I'll just have to be more careful for now on."

"Yeah, if Inoichi doesn't crack our head open like a nut and look at all of the memories that have yet to happen."

She knew that other voice in her head anywhere. She thought that she had abandoned that alternate personality long ago, but it seemed like it was like a virus, and can never truly go away. She didn't have time to argue with that other voice, and even if she did, she was right. She should have been more subtle.

She didn't know for sure that he was going to look inside her head, but it seemed like the most possible outcome. She was lucky that she knew how to defend herself from Yamanaka techniques. Since she refused to take Ino's teachings, Ino insisted on at least doing something for her best friend, and instead taught her how to defend herself against a mind walker; How to keep memories away from mind walkers, as well as how to temporarily repress memories against stronger mind walkers. She just hoped that she could pull it off without Inoichi noticing, as he was much better with the techniques than Ino was.

Inoichi nodded and kept his gaze on the pink haired girl. "Yes. We wanted to talk to you about a mental health exercise. Naruto and Lee will both be taking it, but me and Kakashi have decided to start with you since you're the brains of the trio." He said with a small chuckle. "I'll just be taking a look into your mind to see if there's anything holding you back from being at your best, or if something is troubling your mind in a way that you force yourself to become better. Like how Sasuke wants to get stronger to take on his older brother."

Sakura didn't believe the first part of his story. She couldn't believe that her mother fell for something like that, but she couldn't blame the woman. She hadn't seen the things to come, and she didn't travel into the past to right wrongs. Mebuki simply saw that Sakura had been acting different this week, and that Kakashi and Inoichi were doing something related to what she had been seeing of her daughter. There wasn't any reason that she wouldn't say no.

The last part though got Sakura to look down at the ground with sadness. She didn't want for Sasuke to end up the way that he did. This would only make his situation worse and hungrier for power. It was only a matter of time before one of Orochimaru's agents snuck him out to give him the power that he wanted.

Looking back up, and nodded at Inoichi and began to prepare her mind for the Mind walker. It took a bit longer than she would have liked, but she had dug those memories away from the important areas that he would most likely look at. They were all tucked away in smaller areas of her mind that she and only she would be able to access. As she walked over to her mother, she sat beside the older woman and took another moment to make sure that she was ready. If things went well, he would only see what she wanted him to see, and hopefully it would look normal enough for him to let it go.

Inoichi nodded back at Sakura and watched as she sat down in front of him. Kakashi was watching with a seemingly lazy eye, but in reality he was as keen as ever.

The only Yamanaka in the room then made the appropriate signs for the Shintenshin no Jutsu , or the Mind Body Switch technique. However, he wasn't using the complete jutsu. He was only entering her mind, and not taking over her body like the Shintenshin. This was useful as the user could attack the victim mentally, without any physical force. Inoichi enjoyed calling this technique the transfer mind technique or the Tensō Kokoro no Jutsu. He wasn't entirely sure if it had an actual name, but that's what he called it.

As he activated the jutsu, his body slumped over, giving Kakashi enough time to grab and reposition him so that he wouldn't fall over while his mind was in another body. Soon after, the same thing happened to Sakura, and the young woman was caught by her mother. Kakashi saw this as strange. Usually just the user became unconscious, not the victim as well.

Inside Sakura's mind, Inoichi and Sakura appeared in a clean beige hallway, which had multiple branching hallways all over the place. The branches had branches, and so on.

Inoichi look at Sakura with curiosity, and was met with a similar curious look. She shouldn't have been unconscious as well. The victim would stay conscious, but susceptible to attacks on the mind. Her being in the mind with him signified that something wasn't right. He also noted that she had a different aura around her than in the physical world. Standing next to her, he could tell that this wasn't the Sakura that used to hand out with his daughter. This was a Sakura that had seen people die in front of her, who had lost people close to her, and who knew when it was time to be a human and when it was time to be a ninja who devoted their life to the job that they picked.

Sakura believed that she had done a good job of masking herself to keep Inoichi from seeing who she really was, but she couldn't mask the air that surrounded her. She had changed her mindscape appearance to look like she did now, and not how she would look several years in the future.

He knew that something was wrong. She knew that he was at least somewhat aware, and decided to break his concentration by talking to him. "So, what are you going to look at in here?" She hoped that her inner self didn't appear to screw things up; because Sakura was well awayre that her inner self would throw all rules and requirements out the window if she could.

Inoichi's focus was broken by the works spoken by Sakura. She wasn't that loud, but this was her mind, and anything she say would be projected to any being that was also there. It was like he could hear her both in his mind and through his ears, and it was hard not to bring his focus to her.

"Well, I'll just be looking through your memories to see if I can see if any memories are holding you back. I doubt it since you're a kid, but that's what your sensei said for me to do."

Inoichi began to walk forward, and not long after Saukra began to follow him. The two of them were off to find her memories, which didn't take all that long to find. Sakura was silent, but not in the way that he assumed that she would be. She didn't seem to be trying to hide anything from him, and it almost seemed like she wanted for him to go through her memories to see if that there was anything wrong with her.

When he did look at her memories, he didn't see anything out or the ordinary. Most of the things that he had seen were told to him by Ino, who, before becoming infatuated with the Uchiha boy, was Sakura's best friend. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but he still wanted to see more. Kakashi had asked him to do this because he had believed that something was wrong with Sakura.

Not long afterwards, Inoichi decided that he had seen enough and left Sakura's mind, going back to his own. Sakura stayed in her mind for a little longer though, moving the hidden memories back to where they were originally. If they were tucked away for too long, she could forget about them.

About a minute later, the two of them returned to the physical world, and Inoichi flashed a smile at Mabuki.

"It seems that Sakura here is all good and ready for taking on missions. Nothing was wrong with her, but she does seem to have a knack for genjutsu and mind related ninjutsu, if her being in her mindscape was of any significance."

Sakura wasn't thinking much about those words, and neither was Mebuki, but Kakashi knew what Inoichi was saying.

As lazy as always, Kakashi slowly stood up and watched as Inoichi did she same thing. "Well, practice starts at noon today, so spend the rest of the morning however you want." He said to his student before walking out, leaving the two Haruno women to themselves.

"Well that was certainly interesting." Mebuki spoke up, not entirely sure what to say on the sitation.

Sakura remained quiet for a moment, thinking over what to do. Because of what just happened, she knew that she had to be more careful of how she acted, as it seemed that at least someone had caught on to her ruse. She sat still for several minutes, and Mebuki eventually stood up to continue with her day. It was obvious that her daughter was thinking about something, maybe about the previous night where she was brought home by a certain young blonde boy.

Sakura stood up and headed for the door, saying goodbye to her mother for the moment just as she opened the door and headed outside. Of course she wanted to see how Naruto was doing, but she had someone else on her mind.

Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Well, I was hoping to have this chapter exceed five thousand words, but I just couldn't do it. I think that this is enough for that chapter. I know, Naruto didn't show up in this chapter, but I just want to get through this part of the story. In all honesty I didn't really like how this chapter turned out, but whenever I started to make changes to it, it would always come out shorter, and only a bit better. Now, I'm off to go work on the next chapter of my other Fic! As well as a few surprises…

Until next time!