I'm back. With an old story, of course, because what would I be without making yet another work on Sakura Haruno?

Chapter 1

[Cauterize: To burn or sear with fire or a hot iron, or with caustics, as morbid flesh. To burn or sear with a cautery. / To deaden, as to feelings or moral scruples; callous.]

Sakura had some strange tendencies that he admittedly would not have noticed at first.

Kakashi watched her carefully, attempting to piece all the evidence together before he jumped to any solid suspicion. Their previous sensei, Iruka, had noted her excellent marks on tests, her bright and energetic personality, but her taijutsu was sorely lacking. He always did try his best to find the best in his students before writing his descriptions, he mused.

When he'd met her, the first thing he noticed was that she had tensed minutely, favoring her right side. That was where she kept her medic pouch and her kunai. Furthermore, she stood in between her teammates rather than behind them, equal in distance and acknowledging both with intelligent and assessing eyes. She seemed less than inclined to fawn over the Uchiha as it had been written about, but she did stare at him sometimes with a gaze far deeper than just adoration.

She did it to both of them, he realized, as she switched her glance over to Naruto. There was emotion there, but it swam there without purpose, strangely fitting on her solemn face. It was as if she were truly blank in her emotions, and that scared him the most. He'd only seen that gaze in ROOT. That was when he realized she was now staring at him: her gaze seemed to go right through his, he thought when she didn't look away. He recognized that stare.

She had the eyes of someone who'd lived through war.

And then he'd let the chalk eraser Naruto had placed up above the door hit his head with a quiet thump, and her mouth twitched upwards.

"I hate you all," he said cheerfully, and he flashed over behind the window to see her trail steadily behind her classmates before heading up to the balcony. He'd really gotten the odd bunch.

There were several more instances where he'd seen her act out of the norm, generally unlike a student fresh out of training - she checked her weapons regularly, she made sure to complete her rounds when camping, she was always up and ready by the time her shift was up. If anything, she looked like she was still one foot in an unknown battle, preparing for a war that was nonexistent.

So he continued to watch her, wondering if it had been something a friend had told her. War stories, perhaps. Maybe a nightmare that had gotten a little too imaginative. Surely, he thought, she had never actually experienced it herself and she was reacting a bit.

But then it continued.

Sakura slept on her back, always. She never moved once and was deathly still, even when comparing to Sasuke's even breaths. She was the first to wake and the last to fall asleep. She ate as if every meal would be her last. She moved silently, like a snake. She carried poison and antidote with her at all times.

He wondered how far her insecurities went. And, more importantly, where her worries had stemmed from.

He visited her parents. They were not shinobi, of course, and they had never understood their daughter's passion in becoming a ninja. They guessed that it was her just being a kid and hanging around the jounin too much. (That fact surprised him; sure, he never went out to drink with the others much, but he should have seen her at least once or twice then. Was she lying? Who did she talk most often to?)

They informed him that other than that, there were no new or surprising changes to her schedule. Kakashi dropped the topic entirely, feeling pensive.

He did not worry too much about it afterwards. He chalked it up to Sakura being more enthusiastic about her training and he just took it in stride, pressuring her bit by bit to carry the same workload that Naruto and Sasuke did. Of course, Naruto was still a blockhead and did everything clumsily, but he always made sure to complete his rounds around the track and keep up with his rival.

He knew both Naruto and Sasuke had noticed the change in their sparring partner, however much they may pretend not to. When Sakura went to bring medicine they also made sure to point out if she had any calluses or open wounds, superficial cuts that needed to be sterilized. They were growing closer together from that one strange reason - they cared for each other.

That was yet another difference, too, the sparring: Sakura normally faced against Kakashi himself, and if she was feeling too skittish he did not ask her to spar at all. There was no use in attempting to coerce an unwilling student in the end, and honestly he did not know how to.

His ninken often told him that he was pushed around too easily, but that was only because they attempted to suffocate him to death if they didn't get their morning run on time.

So he adapted to her wishes. He trained her more seriously now because she handled herself that way as well, keeping close quarters with the other two, making sure they were not running off all the time. In a way, she was the second teacher, scolding them whenever one of them did some overconfident and stupid move. He approved immensely, and in the back of his mind he wondered if this change was not a bad thing.

With her intelligence keeping them from falling into their reckless deaths, Sakura began to form the central foundation to their unstable team, and her tactics more often than not kept them all out of trouble.

Kakashi saw her looking off at times into the distance, mind casting off far away into the horizon, and he questioned her past while wondering what in the world had made her become so serious. It was as if there had been a switch going off in her brain, letting her assess everything with a far keener eye that a girl her age should not be able to wield.

But he knew how badly one bad experience could scar a person's mind, and so with a bit of reluctance he kept silent. He did not want to pry into her life affairs, and she never offered the opportunity. Out of all three of them, it looked like Sakura would come out the most changed from their childhood.

So when it ended, he did not have anything to say to her. She watched her world die around her with shadowed eyes, the lifeless corpses of her parents the only thing she could make out from the rubble, and from the ashes of her home she'd once lived in and through blood-stained soil she fell to the ground and drew the labors of her work.

Sasuke had already left the village by then. Naruto was out to help quench his thirst for vengeance, and even with all her hard effort Sakura was left behind and alone once again. Kakashi felt his throat contract.

Tears stained the dirt as the sky cried in remorse, but Sakura felt nothing but an emptiness when she lay there and reached for the heavens.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi whispered, but the promise was empty. "I am so sorry, Sakura."

There was no response.

Ino watched as the girl moved towards the kitchen. Even as she stepped on the part of the floor near the stairs that always creaked, her footsteps stayed as quiet as the dead. Her mother took one glance at the kunai and the wire scattered on her bed before following after.

She moved differently now, Ino could see that. She had seen it the very first second she'd noticed how she didn't glance over at her or Sasuke anymore, how she sat with back less straight, leaning back more often. She fidgeted less. She stared.

There were a lot of changes to her that hadn't been thought of until she was slapped in the face with it. Sakura had grown tremendously even before the death of her parents, and now that she was sitting in Ino's room gazing vacantly at a wall she could scream at her younger self for being so blind.

What had happened to Sakura then?

"What happened to you?" The question came out as more of a whisper than a demand. Sakura continued to idly stare, blankly looking back at a wall without answers. Ino could start crying at that look. Out of all the people, she had not expected loss to come to one of her closest friends.

What good she had been as a friend. Ino had not noticed anything until after the terrible event had passed, and so Sakura did not mention her woes. She could still remember the crinkling smile on her father's face, the kind gestures Sakura's mother gave her when she stayed for the night.

And then they had drifted apart, slowly but surely. Ino had always wondered why. She supposed there was no need to learn that answer anymore, either.

"Sakura, please," Ino begged. Still Sakura's head did not turn. Nothing in her eyes showed that she had noticed Ino's plea.

Even in her own home Sakura did not even give some semblance of noise. Ino found that those quiet footsteps seemed to agitate her more than anything, especially commentating that with notices such as 'you seem like a ghost' or 'don't scare me like that, jeez!' She had the brief urge to collapse onto the bed as soon as the door closed behind her, feeling not for the first time some pain that Sakura could not relax even when sleeping over at her place.

Ino's father had been considerate. "Give her time," he consoled her, although his brow furrowed when she walked in, baring no weaknesses but jerking back at the slightest of touches. It was as if she were living alone again and they were the trespassers instead.

(She messed up with the cabinets sometimes. Ino had caught her before staring into a drawer, holding a bowl in one hand and a fork in the other, wondering why the utensils were in the wrong place. Ino's mother made her lunches more frequently so that she didn't have to worry about feeding herself.)

Ino saw her in the room they'd lent her, leaning over her weapons as if possessed and assessing what else she'd have to keep in stock. "More senbon," she could hear Sakura muttering to herself as she began writing on her arm with an ink brush. "Poison and antidote. Borage oil I'll make myself. Yarrow and comfrey I'll look for later. The forest out south should have some."

To her discredit, Ino began following her everywhere. Just to keep her out of any trouble, she told herself, but this had basically begun her new form of stalking and she would not acknowledge that fact. Sakura picked the herbs quickly and with skill, her fingers prying apart the stalks as they searched. Ino could see her shift suddenly and quickly ducked, hiding behind a tree and praying that she hadn't been caught.

The moment passed. Ino looked to see Sakura heading out back to the village, running back without turning to see her. It seems that she hadn't been noticed.

Sakura hadn't told her very many things. After their friendship ended and their argument over Sasuke began, Ino had thrown herself into fighting Sakura rather than helping her. And now that she was already steps ahead without anyone backing her, now that she had learned to stand on her own all this time, Ino wondered if she had made the wrong choice.

The thought then made her feel lost and quite alone. Ino stopped in her tracks, hands tightening in her fists, silently asking herself why she was going this. "What am I doing?" She said to herself, putting her head in both hands. "What good am I doing? Sakura, I..."

She briefly remembered a time when Ino had stood by while Sakura had done something, and for the first time she looked at her friend with awe. That moment would have been sickening otherwise. She knew that now.

There had been one day when Ino had been younger, looking for various fruits to buy in the shopkeeper's stands before heading on to school. She had been eyeing some blackberries when she saw Sakura in the distance looking as if she were searching for someone. Incensed by the thought that she had found Sasuke and was watching him, she quickly marched up to give her a piece of her mind and also see what Sakura was looking at.

Instead of seeing the Uchiha, her sights lined up to spot a shock of spiky blond hair as she spotted the child running eagerly from a couple of yelling villagers. Ino blinked in surprise - she knew that Naruto was a troublemaker and that he did many pranks, so this sight wasn't too strange to see. Her eyes darted left - there was an old woman seething, wringing a wet cloth with both hands as if she wanted to strangle the kid with it.

This animosity also was not uncommon, and Ino had always wondered if it had meant anything more. She did not wish to pry into other people's pasts, however, and continued to watch while hiding from Sakura. Not hiding. Observing.

Naruto ducked under a tarp. Sakura moved to follow.

"Get back here, brat!"

Before Naruto could say a word, Sakura grabbed him and promptly disappeared. Ino blinked, utterly bewildered. The assailants stopped as well. "Wha-"

A flicker. In the corner of her eye Ino saw a head of pink hair just peeking over the rooftop before the shopkeepers turned the bend, eyeing the surrounding area in ire. "Where'd he go?"

She withdrew with a slight smile, shuffling around in her pockets as if searching for something. The remaining villagers looked around and also came up with no sign of the two. Ino backed away, then darted up to the top of the nearby buildings to check on them.

"Naruto. Eat." She could see Sakura withdrawing a loaf of bread from her bag before putting it into his hands. "I saw you were eyeing it before they accused you of stealing. We should go now, or we're gonna be late."

Naruto ate without question. Noticeably his face lit up, and he spoke openly through a mouthful as Ino cringed. Ew. "This is so good!"

Sakura nodded briefly, acknowledging his appraisal. "You're welcome." She stood up and aligned herself with the next roof. "Come on, let's go."

Naruto was clumsy, which was understandable since he did not have a clan's upbringing. Tree climbing had been beaten into her since the very beginning, but she knew that Naruto's abundant energy forgave him for his mistakes. It was Sakura that she was shocked about - she had flickered up to the roof so fast that none of them had seen it, not even her. Had she been training? Ino had never seen anyone do that other than jounin, and even then nobody moved as fast as she just did.

Who taught her how to do that?

Naruto was running alongside her in no time, dodging loose shingles and other miscellaneous items. Ino felt adrenaline course through her as she kept pace while hiding from their eyes, eager to get to the Academy on time as well. She had remembered how freeing it felt, trying to run without caring if her hair got messed up or if her face grew flushed. They all arrived right on time, scrambling into their seats just as Iruka walked in, and Naruto hopped eagerly as Sakura avoided meeting his eyes.

Naruto wilted. Ino preened. And Sakura turned into that walking soldier that she had never really noticed until then, becoming that shell once again.

The thought stung. Had Ino really been that blind?

"Sit here, Sakura!"

She paused, and so did Iruka. The whispers stopped, and Ino realized that their entrance had been noticed by many people including Sasuke. Instead of becoming embarrassed, however, Sakura got up from her seat and took her place next to him. "...Okay."

A few students did have a double take as she moved up to take the spot next to him. Naruto looked as if he didn't believe this was real. And Ino, for some reason, felt a sharp spike of dislike for the boy. There were plenty of other seats open, and none of them were spots that were too far away from Naruto either. Why did she have to sit directly next to him?

Ino closed her eyes seconds before the lesson started, knowing she would focus on Sakura instead of concentrating. Shikamaru glanced at her with some concern, but she ignored that. She could taste blood in the back of her throat from the exertion of exercise.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She kept her eyes on the teacher and ignored the gaze burning into the back of her head. "I'm just a bit tired."

She could still hear the thunder.

Sakura felt the shaking deep in her bones, the feeling of something hitting her with far more force than she'd expected, and then she had woken up, years younger, in a bed that was no longer hers.

She had trust issues. She was afraid of seeing her parents again. She remembered, and she was angry. So she fought like an animal.

But she was ready to take the world by storm, and not even this slight miscalculation would change that.

It pained her a little when Naruto looked at her, finding no familiarity in his gaze when she checked over his wounds. She guessed it was a bit convenient, but when she closed her eyes she kept going back to the older Naruto, the one she'd fought and struggled and laughed with, the one who could mention anything wrong with her before she even realized it herself. He was her partner and her friend. But not anymore.

Sakura closed her eyes. "Wake me up when the silver-haired jounin arrives, okay?"

The years passed. Sakura grew. And nothing changed.

Well, a couple of small things did, here and there. Kakashi started looking at her more, once she had expressed her interest in training and realizing that the other two were too busy yelling at each other to notice. Ino started talking to her again, but for what reason Sakura could not fathom. Naruto was just Naruto. And Sasuke...

Well, he was always a constant. Honestly, Sakura was sort of glad for that part of him. He was stubborn to a fault.

When she was old enough to remember it, she had seen the way the Ten-Tails had razed the village down before Naruto had come to save it, trying in vain to speak to the person who had orchestrated this mess. She had not seen the aftermath. She had known how this would end long before he did.

It hurt to attempt to reopen herself again, because she had fought to accept their death for so long that it was like tearing apart a scar by the seams just to aggravate something that was supposed to have scabbed over. And she could not bear to see her parents' faces again because she had gone through this once and not again, please, she couldn't suffer through this again-

And so she watched the world with sharper detail, listened in on conversations nearby the market, and she realized why she was so afraid.

She had known the old world for too long to see their upstanding patience, that general amity that was so often correlated with peacetime. She could not stand it. Her hands itched to do something, to maim or to heal, and she growled with the sheer frustration.

Nobody suspected anything, and so she let it continue, keeping to the shadows with the skill she'd accumulated, everything she's worked so hard for. And so the Will of Fire blazed on.

She trained hard and without fail: she covered the curtains of her window, watchful of any assessing eye that might think she was training a bit too hard for a civilian academy student. Her katas were unbalanced but gaining tract. Her body began to move naturally again, to her relief.

Concerning Naruto - no abbreviation, no suffix, because he had always asked and it was time that she returned - she had gone by the playground two or three times, no more or less than she would usually come by. He usually sat by the swings, watching people just as she had learned to with weary eyes, aching with longing and a crushing loneliness. She did it too, for she had grown so used to watching the trees for movement, the ground for tremors, that she had forgotten about the people around her.

And she still had some ways to go, to tell the truth. She had not seen them for a very long time, and she opted for just looking. It pained her less.

Naruto came up to her after the Academy ended, extending the olive branch as a truce. For what, Sakura had no clue. She had only come to give him bread once and here he was, following her like a lost duckling. Sakura told him that.

"Hey!" He shouted, affronted, until he realized that she wasn't poking fun at him seriously and she smiled back when she spoke those words. She had only opened up to him more once they were on the same team together.

The best girl and boy in the class, paired up with the weakest student. That was what Team 7 was for. And it turned out that they were both powerhouses, becoming far more than Sakura could ever hope to reach. She decided to help aid his progress by sparring with him, teaching him how to rotate his body for the least impact, moving with momentum so that the blow struck less hard. "Woah!" He cried when she performed the act herself, falling back in a feat of acrobatics. "How did you do that?"

Sakura blinked. "Well... I practiced."

Technically it was true: for the first several days since coming back, she had tested her chakra control to see if there were any miniscule changes she would have to make to accommodate for her form. Her balance was off, and she, embarrassingly, got her hair tangled in literally everything. She cut it all off and tied it up ever since, reminiscent of her time as a field medic.

He eagerly chose to put himself as her disciple, something that she had never dreamed of being one day. Both of them were clanless, apparent civilians without a teacher to guide them. Kakashi was a good person, but Sakura knew that he was not as good of a teacher. So she helped.

Sakura could see the first grain of sand beginning to shift in the hourglass. She could only pray that this time it was for the better.

He taught her some other things, as well. Even though Naruto rarely ever did it, he had learned how to pickpocket. He had also learned how to do sleight of hand, which surprised her more than anything. "Why don't you ever use it while fighting?" She asked him. He looked confused.

"What good would that do? You just gotta punch someone and win, right?"

Sakura promptly put her face in her hands. Naruto fretted over her worriedly. "Sakura? Was it something I said?"

She taught him other things that weren't related to his training. She told him how to administer poisons, how to coat his weapons with them, and how he should keep the related medicine with him as well. "Well, I'm sure that even if you accidentally poisoned yourself you would still be fine," she mused, ignoring his cry and wondering when he would know about his true heritage and the demon within him.

She knew that Kabuto had worked in the hospital for a brief period of time, but she did not know exactly how long and when he started. She did not know where Danzo currently resided and when the stealing of children from the orphanage to turn into his minions would linger within their home. Orochimaru was an entirely different story. She wanted to plan.

She was distracted as she left the training grounds with Naruto, her mind shifting somewhere else. She knew all of Sasuke's quirks after being around him for so long. This Sasuke, the one from this world, still retained this bitter hatred. Perhaps it was for the best. She would be overstepping her bounds if she tried to face Uchiha Itachi head-on and would likely die in the process. Sasuke fixated on something when he found that they were stronger than him, deeming them worthy of his time and following them without fail. Besides, this was his older brother, the one that cared for him so much that he would betray Konoha and defect for him.

That dedication was admirable. Itachi would surely die without medical treatment, of course, and his eyes would not last him much longer. Sakura wondered how strong he would be if he were completely healthy.

She trained. She helped Naruto. She trained some more.

She wondered how stupid she must have been to have come home one day and find her house caved in, fire still burning as she lost both her home and her parents on the same day.

She had never expected her parents to be the next ones to die. She had guessed, of course, that Itachi may come early to try and harm Naruto. Perhaps Orochimaru would attempt to kill the Hokage at a different time. So to come back unawares and face the brunt of two deaths that were not even remotely related to battle stunned her senseless. She felt her knees giving way as she fell to the ground, motionless.

She had tried so hard not to lose anything anymore, only to be blindsided by an accidental fire. She was still standing at the edge of the apartment, looking into the fire as she felt herself disconnecting from her surroundings, and she heard muffled voices in the background. Kakashi's apology. Ino's cries.

Sakura felt a part of her mismatched heart breaking.

Listen to my aching heart

Will you keep this record on

We are human after all

And we don't stay for long