Chapter Text
The war is over.
That was what Sakura kept repeating to herself as she healed both Naruto and Sasuke, her palms glowing green against torn skin. The smell of blood clung to the air—metallic, heavy. The wind carried dust and ash across the silent battlefield, the kind of silence that doesn’t bring peace, only emptiness.
The war is over.
She whispered it again as Sasuke’s hoarse apology left his lips.
It’s over. Over. Over.
So why—
Why was she standing in an oh-so-familiar classroom?
Why was she wearing a red dress that felt wrongly comfortable, almost nostalgic?
Why was her body smaller, lighter, her hair longer?
Why was she fucking twelve again?
Her heart pounded in her chest as she turned her head slowly. To her right—Naruto. Talking animatedly about something, though his voice sounded distant, muffled, as if underwater. She couldn’t make out a single word.
There was a ringing in her ears, sharp and relentless, nothing compared to the dead silence of the battlefield—but unbearable all the same.
She turned to her left.
Sasuke.
Fucking Uchiha.
His face was calm, unreadable, and that calmness shattered something inside her. The realization hit too fast to process.
And then—something inside her snapped.
A cosmic rush, months of exhaustion and bottled-up fury, heartbreak and relief, and grief twisted into something violent—and she lunged.
The ringing in her ears spiked.
In a blur, she tackled Sasuke to the floor. Chairs scraped, desks rattled. Gasps filled the classroom as Sakura’s fists met his face—once, twice, again.
She punched.
And punched.
And punched.
She felt Naruto’s hands grabbing at her shoulders, pulling her back, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
Anger. That was all she felt. Anger, and the wet, hot tears spilling down her cheeks.
Sasuke was beneath her. Twelve again.
Sasuke was here. Under her fist.
Sasuke—
“Sakura! Stop!”
Naruto’s voice finally broke through the ringing.
Her breathing came in ragged gasps. The world slowly came back into focus.
Naruto’s voice cracked when he spoke again. “Please… stop.” He sounded tired. So tired.
“It shouldn’t hurt that much, right, Sasuke?” she sneered, voice trembling with something between fury and heartbreak. “I’m weak, aren’t I?”
Sasuke said nothing. Just breathed, shallow and slow, staring at her like he was seeing a ghost.
She heard Ino yelling—words sharp and furious.
She heard people debating whether to call a sensei or not.
She heard the whispers spreading through the classroom.
Sakura’s hands trembled. She unclenched her fists, fingers aching, and formed a single hand sign.
Nothing.
No illusion. No trick. No genjutsu.
This was real.
Her gaze met Sasuke’s again.
Those eyes.
The same eyes he’d given her when he said “sorry.”
This wasn’t twelve-year-old Sasuke. No. She would recognize that look anywhere.
Sakura stood slowly, ignoring the stares that followed her. Her legs felt weak, her stomach sick. She walked back to her seat and sat down.
“Have you lost your mind, Billboard Brow?!” Ino shouted, furious, her voice cracking slightly at the end.
Sakura turned her head, eyes soft. Yeah. That was twelve-year-old Ino. The voice, the hair, the fire—exactly as she remembered it.
Sasuke sat down beside her again, silent. His face was expressionless, but she saw it—the flicker of recognition, the quiet panic in the corner of his eyes.
She turned back to her right. Naruto.
He looked so, so tired. Like he’d lived a hundred lifetimes already. Sakura almost felt bad. Almost.
“Sakura-chan,” he muttered.
Yeah. That was not twelve-year-old Naruto. Not with those eyes. Not with that voice that carried years of war and loss.
“It was supposed to be over,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said softly, his fingers tracing the smooth metal of his hitai-ate, still polished, still whole.
The classroom was quiet. Painfully quiet. Nothing like before. No laughter. No chatter. Just the weight of something impossibly wrong.
Then Iruka-sensei entered, smiling that same warm smile that once made her feel safe.
“Starting today, all of you are real shinobi,” he began—then hesitated, his smile faltering when he noticed the tension.
The silence thickened.
“Huh… I thought you’d all be more excited.”
“We are,” some kid offered weakly.
“Sure doesn’t sound like it,” Iruka muttered under his breath, scratching the back of his head. “But you’re still genin—the hard journey ahead has only just begun.”
Sakura barely heard him. Her pulse hadn’t slowed. She could still feel Ino’s glare on her back, but her eyes stayed fixed on Naruto, who seemed deep in thought.
“Everything okay?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t look up. “It’s only us.”
“Huh?”
“It’s only us—being weird. No one else.”
“Oh…” Sakura exhaled, her voice small.
“And Kakashi?” Sasuke cut in.
“Kakashi?” Naruto echoed.
"Do you think Kakashi's being 'weird' somewhere else ?" Sasuke asked, eyes narrowed.
Naruto shrugged helplessly.
Sakura frowned. "He was the closest person to us, when we just suddenly just..." She didn't finish her sentence
“Maybe it’s a genjutsu,” Naruto suggested.
“Not possible. I’m immune,” Sasuke replied curtly.
Sakura pressed her fingers against her temple. “So… time travel’s one of our options now?”
“Time travel?” Sasuke repeated flatly.
“We defeated Kaguya,” she said, voice low. “ So it’s not one of her dimensions. And it’s definitely not genjutsu.”
“Yeah, but still, time—” Naruto started, but Iruka’s voice cut through the classroom again, his tone bright and oblivious.
“Okay! Next up is Team Seven!”
The trio froze.
If this was the past, if they had really been thrown back in time, then this would confirm it.
“Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke,” Iruka announced proudly.
The class went silent. Dead silent. You could have heard a kunai drop.
The earlier fight replayed vividly in everyone’s minds
And for the trio, time travel was starting to sound less and less impossible.
“Hell yeah?” Naruto said weakly, trying and failing to sound excited.
______
Sakura was this close to losing it.
With every passing second, the impossible was turning into reality.
Time travel — that had to be what this was.
“The past” was unfolding exactly as before: lunch, Ino arguing with her, and now, Team Seven being the last ones in the classroom.
She inhaled deeply, trying to steady her breath, then started pacing the wooden floor.
“So?” she asked, glancing at Naruto.
Naruto blinked back into focus, the faint remnants of his mindscape fading from his eyes. “We might actually be in the past,” he said quietly.
Sasuke’s brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”
Naruto looked between the two of them, both standing at opposite sides of the room like strangers who’d shared a war. He exhaled. “Come on, you guys."
They ignored him
"The seal, my dad’s seal on Kurama, it’s back.”
Silence.
Sakura laughed, but it was sharp and humorless. “Oh, that’s just great.”
“I mean, reanimation jutsu’s a thing,” Naruto added. “Why can’t time travel be too?”
“It’s like we’ve been Edo Tensei’d into our twelve-year-old bodies,” Sakura muttered.
Sasuke’s voice dropped low. “I can save Itachi.”
“We can save Jiraiya. Obito.” Naruto’s tone grew hopeful.
Sakura stared at the floor, her voice barely above a whisper. “We can change so much... It’s like a second chance.”
“Wow, you guys sure are ambitious. I like that.”
A lazy voice came from the doorway.
They all turned.
“Don’t get your hopes up, though.” The man’s hitai-ate gleamed as he tapped it. “This isn’t yours to keep, yet.”