Chapter Text
It happened by complete accident.
She hadn’t been trying to go back in time! That was the realm of madmen and dreamers, desperate lovers besmirched, lost men who spent days wishing by stones, unspeaking, adrift. Okay she made it sound like it was Kakashi’s fault there but no, Kakashi both lacked the capability and the will— he was a responsible former-Kage of a prosperous hidden village, no way would he time travel his way out of his responsibilities! Plus, the distant past didn’t have Icha Icha in it, so he’d not dare.
No, it was entirely by serendipitous accident. She’d been messing around with some seal on some random far-off island trying to make a better stasis seal, except she’d also (stupidly) used the Hiraishin as the base component. Also, for an extra serving of idiocy, she’d been experimenting with seals on Uzu , which… anyways, her space-time seal tripped some sort of space time trap , everything exploded really hard, and when she opened her eyes it was to the sight of her cute pink pillowcase.
Unusual, because even if she was Haruno Sakura , legendary medic, she was sure she’d at least be in the hospital after that. Then she realized that her bed was a lot smaller than she expected, and then, most damning of all, she realized that she couldn’t sense Sarada’s chakra signature.
Throwing off her sheets with a gasp of breath, she noticed a fourth thing— this wasn’t her room. Sure, it had a lot of the things she liked in a room— the cute pink… most everything, actually, though by the garishly pink walls she was a bit wary of what her childhood taste had been. Not everything could be pink! Maybe a nice light rose, instead…
Oh yeah, she also knew that it was her childhood room. From what she remembered, given that she still had that old duck-shaped green and pink stained glass pendant she’d got from her aunt, that meant she was no older than seven. Seven . Fucking… time travel. She was going to have words with the Sage of Six Paths. Or Kurama. Or, honestly, whatever god was easiest—
Sakura grinned, and it was not a nice smile. Now that was an idea.
She needed to write a note, pack a few lunches, some clothes… make some storage seals before her parents woke up, too… she knew where her parents kept their change, and given her kage-level-ness, nabbing that would be like taking candy from a baby…
………
Mebuki knew that something was wrong when she woke up, mostly because the kitchen was too clean. It wasn’t like she and Kizashi had a habit of leaving the kitchen messy, but it just kind of happened sometimes, and whenever Sakura woke up before them it usually got messier from whatever she’d been planning to do.
No, the kitchen was clean, and that was wrong. More obviously, the fact that Sakura wasn’t home was concerning. Maybe Ino-chan had dropped by? Kami knew those shinobi clans kept odd hours…
She made a light breakfast, steeled her nerves, and made her way over to the Yamanaka compound, only to learn that Ino hadn’t seen Sakura all day— and also that Ino was grounded after punching some boy, but that wasn’t important to Mebuki. What was important was that Sakura-chan, sweet, innocent Sakura, was missing.
She hated to bother the Uchiha usually, but this time she didn’t even wait to go to the station to flag down a passing officer (a rather young looking girl) on her way back home. Hopefully her daughter was alright. Who knew what horrible things they might do to her…
………
Not having large chakra reserves wasn’t actually as bad as a lot of people made it out to be. Sure, having six year old reserves sucked , but with all the effort she’d put into chakra control over the years, it didn’t really hinder her from doing most anything. With enough knowledge of chakra mechanics, perfectly precise control went a long way.
Her current physical condition didn’t help much either, but at least she’d been thrown back to before the whole dieting idiocy thing. So a normal six year old, not a weak ten year old. For her purposes, plus all her future skills, but without the strength of a hundred seal (yet) that more or less put her at about mid S-rank?
She pulled a fist out of the chest of the last missing nin-she’d been fighting, thoughtlessly letting them slump to the ground beside her. They’d seen a girl traveling alone… at night… through a seedy forest path… and thought ‘oh goodie, an easy target!’ Idiots. They deserved what they got.
Anyways, she wanted to at least make it to Rain country’s borders before stopping for the night. She’d need to be on full chakra anyways before continuing with her super epic, definitely not idiotic plan, and she’d already assigned a good half of her reserves for some… intensive physical therapy.
Being weak sucked majorly, she thought as she leapt up into the trees, leaving behind the cratered and broken bodies of missing-nin she’d killed with her bare fists…
………
Somehow, things had escalated. Mebuki had expected things to escalate— a missing persons case was a decently big deal, especially when it was a missing persons case pertaining to an academy student, but she hadn’t expected it to escalate quite so much . The effeminate Uchiha she’d dragged home— a sweet boy by the name of Itachi— had done a cursory investigation before kicking her and Kizashi out of the ‘potential crime scene’ before leaving to grab some more senior police members.
Not even three days later, she was sitting nervously in the office of the Hokage , eying the tea set before her and trying her best not to hyperventilate. The Hokage . The military dictator, the most powerful shinobi, the man on whose shoulders rested the entirety of Konoha’s myriad divisions and laws— a man who Mebuki knew just enough about to know that he was not to be crossed, in any way, shape, or form. She didn’t know the last civilian to have done something important enough to be called up in front of the man, mostly because that simply didn’t happen.
Here she was, though, nervously waiting for Sarutobi-sama to speak. “Haruno-san. Kizashi’s husband, if I recall correctly?” She nodded slightly, wondering if the tense pressure she felt was a ninja trick or just her nerves playing with her. “Don’t worry. I don’t mean you or yours any harm— I take a vested interest in the new generation, especially the future shinobi among them.” He smiled, and Mebuki was not put at ease. “The note your daughter left in particular was… somewhat concerning. Do you know what she wrote?” Hiruzen sighed when she shook her head, and for a second she was struck by the entirely rational fear that she was about to be disappeared, never to be heard from again. “Ikibi was too hasty, then… nevermind, this isn’t an interrogation— I have a whole department for that!” Then why was she here , talking to him ? “I agree with the Uchiha’s determination that Sakura was unlikely to have written the note, but… why don’t you take a look at it?”
It was the first chance she’d gotten to see her daughter’s maybe-last words, and she all but snatched it out of the Hokage’s hands.
Hey mom, dad, and whatever nosy shinobi decides to read this. Sorry for the short notice, but I’ve decided to take a new career path in life! I’m leaving Konoha a la Itachi to join Akatsuki, and I hope it’s not too much of a bother, but I wanted to get ahead of the inevitable ANBU hunter-nin team so I’m leaving you this note instead. Don’t worry too much! I’ll be perfectly fine, just… a little more distant than usual.
Uh, probably won’t get the chance to send many letters, so I better put some quick notes at the end of this one. The family diet sucks, eat more fruits and vegetables and include some more fish and less red meat. Keep making those cute lemon cakes for Ino-chan, she really likes them and Inoichi secretly loves spending time with you too. Talk to Aburame-sama if you get too lonely, he’s a blast and really smart about merchant stuff. Oh! Also, nosy-shinobi-san , make sure to tell Naruto that Kurama is secretly a softie who loves kids and hot chocolate, even though he can’t have it. Also plain ramen isn’t healthy and that he needs to eat more fruits and vegetables if he wants to become Hokage one day.
Love you lots,
Sakura
Mebuki felt like fainting. Inoichi secretly liked her? She thought they were distant acquaintances at best! Aburame-sama ? Sakura had never met the man in her life! Itachi wasn’t a missing-nin, and, and who the fuck was Kurama?
She felt like fainting, and the kindly smile her friendly neighborhood military dictator wasn’t helping her at all . “Mebuki-san, we’ll do whatever we can to get your daughter back and bring whoever left this note to justice. Konoha does not fail her own— I’ll keep you updated as the investigation progresses.” She’d been cursed. That was the only explanation— she’d stopped worshiping one of the kami or walked under a ladder or something and now she was cursed with the worst luck in the elemental nations.
She didn’t faint in front of the Hokage, but it was a close thing indeed.
………
Rain cascaded down around her, sheeting against her and running off muddy ground. Gray stormclouds rumbled overhead as the heavens wept, a vast and empty space of choking mud, scraggly trees— some half dying some dead, some struggling to survive against the constant inclement weather abutting a lake that stretched out serene.
Sakura stood on the shore, let the water rush down around her, and waited. Not for long, though— like an angel from sky she descended, purple hair catching the faint light and paper wings outstretched against the cascading rain, a raiment of origami beauty angelic as she looked down at her. A girl and the hand of a god. “State your business, interloper. Your trespass has not gone unrecognized. None may trespass upon the shores of Amegakure and receive remit to live.”
Sakura snorted at the display. “Damn I forgot how serious you were. Anyways, I’m here to join Akatsuki.”
The moment was broken, the serenity shattered as Konoan opened her mouth to respond, realized what she’d said, then closed it again. “You… what? Aren’t you a little young?”
“I’m six, that’s plenty old enough to kick ass.”
“...no?” Sakura didn’t respond with words— instead she just moved some chakra to her leg, picked up her foot, and stomped down with enough force to explode hundreds of meters of lake around her before leaping forward, grabbing a surprised Konan and throwing her to the ground—
An immense force shoved her to the ground, immobilizing her completely as gravity doubled and redoubled again. An A-rank shinobi who didn’t focus on taijutsu would’ve probably been straight killed by that, but Sakura was too good at reinforcing her body to let something silly like gravity do her in.
It did hurt, though. She couldn’t breathe either… “you’ve made your point, kunoichi-san. Akatsuki would be honored to have the support of a shinobi as strong as you. Swear to support our goal of world peace, to work tirelessly in all matters and support the organization no matter the background or… proclivities of your comrades, and you will have earned yourself a seat at the table of god.” A few seconds passed, and Sakura didn’t respond. “ Swear or die —”
Konan picked herself up out of the water, effortlessly brushing mud off her Akatsuki robes. “Nagto, I don’t think she can speak.”
“...oh.” The gravity vanished, and Sakura did so swear.
Perfect. Her plan was working just. As. Intended.
………
They’d initially relegated her to a secondary role— what with all the rings in use as they were— but that lasted about as long as the short flight across the lake to Ame proper. Apparently Orochimaru’s teammate had died on a mission, as had Kakuzu’s for… very mysterious reasons. Nagato offered her a choice of partner, and if she was a little desperate with how quickly she’d shunshined over to Orochimaru’s side.
It wasn’t widely publicized, but as Head of the hospital department she actually had a pretty good working relationship with future-Orochimaru. The man had been a delight to work with after he’d gotten over his manic homicidal phase, and she’d gotten over her saninophobia (yes that was a real thing, apparently)— very detail oriented, incredibly intelligent, knowledgeable about practically everything, somehow good in pediatrics of all things, which was a godsend because Sakura sucked at that… She’d learnt most everything she knew about sealing from the man.
Anyways, all that was to say that between Orochimaru, who she’d actually rather liked in the future, and Kakuzu , who was disliked by everyone she knew who’d ever met the man, was easy. Most of the Akatsuki members did display some sort of surprise at her quick choice, though, Orochimaru perhaps most of all. What?
They had their own little part of the main Ame base— actually rather nicely decorated as far as the standards of missing-nin went… though they weren’t really missing-nin in Ame, where Nagato ruled as god. “Nice to meet you! My name’s Sakura, I’m six years old, and I’m the best healer in the elemental nations.” Not even a boast, though there’d been pretty significant competition for that position in the future— twenty odd years of medical advancement and practice made her unmatched in the now .
Orochimaru gave her an almost wary look, as if trying to figure out what was up with her. “I know the world’s best healer. You’re not quite enough of a drunkard to match her.”
“Cha! She’s too busy having hemophobia. Once she gets therapy, then we can talk.”
Orochimaru blinked at that, then smiled wryly. “Fair. You seem… unusually eager to team with me. I assume you know my… reputation?” She nodded, fully aware that it was far more than even most people were willing to believe— “I see. For now, at least, I can suffer your presence.”
“Yeah! We’re going to have so much fun together, Uncle!”
Orochimaru suddenly looked like he was going to regret this more than her. “...uncle?”
Sakura just laughed.
………
Sakura didn’t know why they thought she’d been boasting when she said she was the world’s best medic nin. Maybe it was because she was about as chibi as chibi could get? Either way, that went away the first time she easily healed Orochimaru after he got disemboweled by a kinjutsu on a mission gone south, and further dispelled when Sasori started trying to wheedle something she didn’t know out of her. Something about how the benefits of his immortality offered him unparalleled knowledge of medical techniques?
Immortality her excessively pink hair, man had nothing on Orochimaru. She answered the questions until he reached the end of his knowledge, then told her that if he asked another, she’d kill her. He asked another, and— in a fit of animosity— she only shattered his puppet-body into more pieces than the number of puppets he could wield.
It was kinda funny seeing Sasori skirt away from her in fear whenever she went down to the common room, though. She was pretty sure Orochimaru agreed…
On the topic of Orochimaru— her master plan for him was going well. Unlike Sasori, she answered any question he had about medical practice without reservation, and though it took a long while he eventually did start to see her as his superior in medical skills. In turn, after establishing her knowledge and skill as invaluable, she moved onto the next step— cuddles. So sue her, she’d barely turned seven and she deserved a cool uncle figure in her life. Her biological uncles kind of sucked too— they’d never been quite as supportive about her whole ‘shinobi’ career until she’d become a kickass kunoichi, and then they’d been all too busy trying to get her sponsorship.
Orochimaru was a better uncle, that she was sure of, even if he was still kind of obsessed with his weird experiments. Medical ethics and beating the realization that he didn’t want to end up like Kabuto into his head was the third step, though, and for now she contented herself with some cute snuggling whenever she could get away with it.
She swore the man almost died from a heart attack the first time she hugged him. To be fair, they’d just turned a Iwa encampment into a bloody crater, so maybe he’d been surprised at that. Who knew? It was also one of her favorite pastimes to be be almost saccharinely sweet whenever they met with the others, because Orochimaru and his star-struck, adorable niece was hilarious and got even the more stoic amongst them couldn’t help but give her odd looks when she rode around on Orochimaru’s shoulders or treated him like any normal six year old would.
It was the funniest shit, and the best part was that after a few months Orochimaru didn’t even seem to mind. She knew he was a kids’ type of guy, shannaro!
She also met… Tobi. Obito. Yeah. He was… insane? Incredibly analytical, probably the best shinobi in Ame bar Nagato, and even if she knew there was more beneath his Tobi persona it was hard not to dismiss him.
Life with the Akatsuki was pretty good. She ate better than she had as a kid the last time around, managed to firm up her Strength of a Hundred seal continually impressed pretty much everyone who underestimated her, and even started scrounging together a deeper knowledge on sealing alongside the snake sannin!
She’d just wrangled Orochimaru into allowing her to snuggle with his snake summons when things went goofy. Weird, even, just a little… They’d been on a mission in the Land of Water, dealing with some sort of seek-and-destroy mission for a bunch of stolen Uzu seals they were totally going to steal and study together when they’d run into Konoha shinobi, apparently after the same thing.
Man, they didn’t know what hit them.
………
A famous anecdote in ANBU circles went somewhat like this— an ANBU team on a mission gone FUBAR returns to the village, thoroughly battered, maybe down a member or two, depending on the telling, and reports to the Jonin commander. The Jonin commander asks how bad the mission was, and the team responds— bad, the tale-teller inserting whatever silly cockup they wanted to make fun of. The Jonin commander asks if they fumbled into Orochimaru, and upon the negative response, laughs it off and says that they’re fine, and things going wrong is par per the course on ANBU missions.
From his hospital bed, Kakashi wondered how he was going to word that one now, what with Orochimaru actually coming out of the woodworks to beat them the fuck up on a random A-rank retrieval mission. Really, the C-rank curse got a lot of attention, but it’s bigger brother, the A-rank curse was less discussed. Mostly because Kakashi was one of the only ones to experience it.
Who knew that taking the hardest missions tended to end up leading S-rank predicaments?
He knew he’d been an unparalleled prodigy, chunin at six, but he was pretty sure that pink girl had to be one of Orochimaru’s experiments or something . She was simply way too good. Losing to a pink-haired brat less than half his size in a taijutsu match was going to haunt his memories forever.
Their whole relationship had been weird . The girl treated Orochimaru almost as though Orochimaru— the legendarily sadistic snake sanin— was some sort of father figure, and the sanin positively doted on her. Well as far as Orochimaru could dote on anyone, that was. That and she’d easily kept up with Orochimaru in the battle, even outstripping him as the threat at some points.
They made a good team, and that was spooky scary indeed.
Now, all he wondered was— who was the pink haired girl?
………
“Hokage-sama.” Mebuki bowed as she entered the man’s office, trying to disguise her nervous excitement. It’d been over a year, and she and Kizashi… it’d been hard for them, dealing with Sakura’s absence. From her association with Shibi, she was pretty confident Hiruzen’s involvement in Sakura’s disappearance was mostly due to how much the note discussed Naruto, the kid having a soft spot in the Hokage’s heart, but she certainly appreciated the man’s willingness to keep her in the loop.
“Mebuki-san, it’s good to see you again. Tea?” He passed her a cup, one she accepted this time around. “We might have a possible lead on Sakura’s position, though… you did say she wasn't particularly good with the practical aspects of shinobi life, did you?”
“She was the top of her class, but no, she was very much an academically minded student…” by the grim look on Hiruzen’s face, she had the premonition that she wouldn’t like what she was going to hear.
“Interesting.” The Hokage took a deep breath from his pipe, before sighing. “A member of the Akatsuki mercenary group matching Sakura-chan’s description was last seen in the company of my wayward student.”
It was a bit tactless, but she had to ask— “ which wayward student?”
Hiruzen didn’t respond for a bit, but when he did… “Orochimaru. Also a member of Akatsuki.” That was bad. Yeah, that was really bad. She could only imagine what terrible things Orochimaru was doing to her poor girl…
It was nice of the Hokage to comfort her while she cried.
………
Tobi was clearly planning the whole Uchiha massacre thing. He wasn’t even being subtle about it! And as much as she’d like Itachi around to be an emotional support Uchiha, she’d never forgive herself if she let ‘Madara’ kill Sasuke’s entire family again .
So— medical checkups. A surprisingly easy plan to enact, what with how screwed the Akatsuki members tended to be. Jugo’s filed teeth needed some professional dental care (yes, she could do that), Kakuzu just… oof, he was beyond helping, it was lucky he had an immortality jutsu. Orochimaru’s body was tearing itself apart, but she could help with that, and Nagto… the man actually had tears around his eyes as he walked for the first time in years.
So, with all that in mind, she managed to strongarm Obito into his own checkup, and… Madara might have been a lot of things, but a good medic he was not. “So. Tobi!” The man perked up all puppy-like as she walked back into the room, trying to look like a serious medic with a clipboard in hand and all, and mostly succeeding. “You remind me of a one-legged monk balancing on a branch over a sea of acid, hoping that the saw you’re using is going to save you. Your Hashirama cells aren’t integrated into your body well at all , and if it weren’t for the strange constitution of your pasty half, you’d be super mega screwed. I can fix… most of that pretty easily, probably. You’d feel a lot better afterwards.” And in the end, Tobi allowed her to try.
After all, she was a seven year old girl, not a secret mastermind time traveler plotting to dismantle his organization, after all. She had him lie down on a table in an operating room Nagato had built for her. Her chakra shifted easily to match his own, sweeping through his body with imminent ease, carefully fixing the edges of old wounds and using her future knowledge of zetsu to help integrate the two halves of his body together— and when her chakra ran across it, she erased the control seal on his heart.
Obito’s hand snapped up, grabbing her own in a vice-grip. “What did you do to me?” No longer Tobi’s excited drawl, but deadly serious . “I feel different — what did you do to me—”
“There was a juinjutsu on your heart that was messing with your Hashirama cells. I’m a doctor, and it wasn’t hard to remove it—” total lies, the lot of that. It hadn’t been affecting shit except for some chakra-hormonal thing that kept him emotionally imbalanced, and even though she’d made it seem easy, not killing Obito while she’d removed it was probably the hardest medical operation she’d done since returning to the past. Given she’d had to deal with what Orochimaru had done to himself, that meant a lot. “Honestly, did you want a juinjutsu on your heart? I’m happy to put it back?” Lies again, but Obtio quickly scrambled up and disappeared, thanking her on the way out.
Now, to strike while the iron was hot—
………
Kakashi wasn’t the only person at the memorial stone. That was already odd, given that no names had been added to it for the past week, but he didn’t recognise the person standing there. Not in the not knowing which name they were there for sort of way, though he didn’t, but more in the way that he didn’t recognize them at all . They were clearly a shinobi, judging by the whole… mask, getup, thing — but not anyone that Kakashi had ever seen before. Not in any bingo book or foreign shinobi registry…
“I feel… guilty. Rage and grief were my only companions for so long, that I think I almost forgot what guilt felt like.” His voice was… tired. A reflection of the weary voice he heard in his own head far too often. “Kakashi… what have I done? I… I must be the world’s greatest fool.” The man turned towards him, lone eye locking with his own, a sharingan swirling as it morphed into a pinwheel, and then— disappearing.”
Why did he feel so familiar?
Obtio’s eye ached .
He had to report this to the Hokage, didn’t he? Yeah. That sounded about what he’d expect with his luck…
………
Convincing Nagato that world peace couldn’t be achieved through violence was difficult. The man was set in his course, certain in his righteousness— but Sakura was confident in her ability to punch the fuck out of him. He thought his technique would save him, but after ruthlessly punching her way through his barriers— physical and emotional both— she sat in a restored Yahiko’s lap and gave him a Naruto Speech (™) about why his plan would never end well. She also revealed, with brutal logic and a rather lack of subtlety, how stupid the bijuu plan was, and how he was being played for a fool.
The craziest part was that it actually worked, which ended up surprising her to no end. Orochimaru berated her for being stupid , but… he was already better than he’d been in his past life. Having a kid to ground him did him a whole lot of good, especially when that kid wasn’t afraid to flatten him into a pancake if he stepped out of line.
The others…
It’d always been a possibility that an organization of S-rank nin would dissolve violently. Jugo fled. Sasori and Kakuzu tried to kill her, and she relished the feeling of smashing his puppets apart with her bare fists as much as she had the first time. The man knew she had the Strength of a Hundred seal, and still hadn’t expected it when her one-finger love taps sent his greatest works flying and flying apart.
Kakuzu tried to take Orochimaru, and Orochimaru totally wrecked him. The other three went after Nagato for… various reasons… and he and Konan showed them exactly why he was revered as a god . Or, in other words, S-rank nin pancakes were on the menu.
Tobi returned, looking worse for wear, and stood beside them as Nagato raised his hands to the sky and ended the rain. The sunlight over Ame felt like a premonition of things to come…
Now she just had to somehow get rid of Black Zetsu, then… somehow… achieved actual world peace. Somehow.
A thoroughly achievable set of goals for a seven year old.