AN: Yes, another project that I’ve started. For all those who thought Sakura should be a kick-ass kunoichi in the series. Maybe now she’ll win Sasuke’s attention…

If I Knew Then (What I Know Now)

We didn’t get to him in time.

Sasuke had managed to keep Orochimaru from taking his body for a year after he was ready. But by the time Sakura and Naruto had arrived to stop him, Orochimaru had transferred. The sadistic grin that had spread across their former teammate’s face when they had burst into the room had broken her heart. Everything they had worked towards, everything they had dedicated the past four years to…

Gone.

The Sasuke they knew was never coming back.

Orochimaru stayed in Sasuke’s body for a year. As a small favor to Sasuke, he killed Itachi, and Sasuke’s consciousness finally stopped fighting him. Technically, his objective was achieved, since it was his own body that had done it. But the strain had become too great. Exactly a year after the body transfer, both Orochimaru and the last of Sasuke’s remaining consciousness perished.

Sakura’s world came crashing down the day she heard the news.

She knew that once Orochimaru had taken the body, Sasuke was out of their reach. She knew that not even a forbidden jutsu could yank him away from Orochimaru. She knew this, and yet a small part of her had foolishly kept hope. That same naïve innocent faith she had cultivated over the years became her undoing. In the end, it was that that destroyed her.

Eighteen years she had lived, and already she wanted to end it. Naruto had been broken after the death of his best friend. Sakura’s own father and mother had been killed when she was placed on the hit lists of some powerful nins around the continent. Ino had died long ago, and the regret still burned inside of her at the fact that they had never made up. Their silly rivalry over “Sasuke-kun” had never halted. And now it was too late.

Sakura sat on her knees in the hardwood floor of her apartment, kunai in hand, mulling over the different ways she could put an end to her life. She hadn’t told anyone she was done; Naruto would not be able to stomach the thought. As much as Sakura hated to do this to him, he would find out sooner or later. In fact, he was the only one left here that she cared about. Everyone else had departed from this world. She smiled lightly, and her fingers closed around the kunai. At least joining them was an option.

There were several different ways to do it, she knew, and felt oddly calm. I could put the kunai through my heart or press it to my temple, she mused. Really, any way she did it would be somewhat painful. But she had noticed lately that pain had stopped coming. She would only stare blankly at a wound caused on a mission and the blood that dripped from it, and could then simply heal herself and continue. Why was it that she could no longer feel pain? She supposed that depression did that to you after a while.

“Sakura-chan, stop!!!”

Naruto burst into the apartment, the door actually flying off of its hinges. Sakura’s eyebrows lifted a little, surprised but unflinching. He had an odd knack for always knowing when something was going to happen to her.

Too bad she had already drawn the kunai across her wrist.

“Sakura-chan, NO!” he yelled harshly, the desperation evident in his cracking voice. She smiled slightly at him as she regarded his desperately panicked expression. Don’t worry; sooner or later you’ll do the same.

Naruto’s boots pounded the floor as he ran toward her, petrified that he would lose her. His now mature face was tight in terror, and his open jacket fluttered as he ran.

Step.

The Kyuubi stirred.

Step.

He bubbled with excitement.

Step.

The Kyuubi inserted his claws into Naruto’s stomach.

Step.

Ever so slowly, he began to pry himself loose.

The Kyuubi could sense Naruto’s weakness. Now was the perfect time to escape. Naruto could not let Sakura dominate his thoughts and keep the demon inside him at bay at the same time. If he were to strike now, Naruto wouldn’t stand a chance. Kami-sama knows he had been weakened enough by the death and destruction around him already.

“SAVE HER!!” Naruto’s voice rang through him, stopping his clawing. “I don’t care how you do it, just SAVE HER!!”

The Kyuubi grinned.

The immense burst of chakra that exploded from Naruto’s body swept through the room, rattling Sakura’s apartment on its foundation. Sakura looked up at him, confused but gazing at him with a tired, faraway expression. Damn, she was weakening fast, Naruto noticed.

Save her.

For the first time, the Kyuubi’s voice answered him.

You asked for it.

Sakura shrieked as the chakra swirled around her, encompassing every inch of her until she was surrounded. The pain was coming now, and it was excruciating. She bit her tongue to stop her screams, and she tasted blood. Kind of has a tangy taste, she thought bizarrely. As if her thoughts should be on something so trivial.

The light came then, a surreal glow that lit up every shadow of the room. Sakura peered through her eyelids for any sign of Naruto, but the light was too great. All she saw was the red and white of Naruto’s chakra, and the most uprooting sensation ripped through her. The feeling of being torn in two caused her inexplicable pain, and she writhed helplessly on the floor. She could not take this agony. In that instant, she knew that suicide could not have been her only choice. She knew because of that last thought that crossed her mind before she succumbed to the blackness.

I want to live.

Only dimly aware of the screams of “Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!!,” Sakura passed out.

“Sakura, honey, wake up,” Sakura’s mother said kindly to her as the warm smell of oatmeal drifted through the room.

Sakura’s eyes snapped open.

“There you go.” Ms. Haruno set the tray containing a bowl of honey oatmeal and milk onto her nightstand. “Remember: today’s Kunoichi Day! I’m so proud of you.” Ms. Haruno bustled out of the room, and as she opened the door Sakura could hear the faint whirring of her washing machine carry upstairs to her room.

I’d imagined the afterlife to be a bit different, Sakura thought, puzzled as she sat up. Instead of puffy white clouds floating gently around her, she lay on a strikingly familiar puffy white bed. The pillows were engulfed in her mother’s scent, as well as a few other warming aromas she hadn’t smelled in a very long time. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m back where I always wanted to be.

“Remember: today’s Kunoichi Day!” Ms. Haruno’s words finally caught up to her. Wait. That didn’t make any sense. There were no holidays specifically celebrating female ninjas, were there? She swung her legs over the edge of her bed and stood up. No feeling of floating. Just as she had been before, she was entirely human. Odd.

Deciding to just go with it, Sakura glanced around. She was in her old room, the one she hadn’t slept in since she was sixteen. Everything seemed just as it had been, and Sakura felt a warm tingly feeling spread through her chest. It took a moment for her to realize it was happiness.

When she walked over the handmade rug and made her way over to the mirror, she yawned. When she glimpsed her reflection in the mirror, she screamed.

“Sakura, honey?” her mother scurried into the room. “What happened?”

“Er, um…” Sakura placed a hand on her chest to soothe her racing heart. “N-Nothing, Mom, I’m fine. I just…almost tripped.”

Her mother’s grow creased. “Well, try to be more careful, will you, dear?”

“Hai, hai.” Mrs. Haruno shot her daughter one last concerned look, and vanished down the hall.

Sakura gazed back at her reflection, and took in the rounder features of her face and the lack of developed curves.

She was twelve again. But why?

Kunoichi Day? Could this be the day that she first became a genin? Her mother always did have odd names for things…

She pinched herself, and was amazed to feel the shoot of pain up her arm. When you’re dead, you don’t feel pain. This wasn’t the afterlife at all.

She was alive.

But nothing explained how she ended up like this. No jutsu she had ever known could send people back in time. She figured that if it were even possible at all, it would take a massive amount of chakra, and something with the ability…

Naruto.

She remembered the faint outline of what had happened the moment she tried to take her life. Naruto’s chakra had burst out of him, most of it surging from that part in his belly they all knew contained the demon. The Kyuubi must have done it.

Sakura’s confusion settled down somewhat as her logical mind took over. Of course it was the Kyuubi. In order for it to be sealed inside Naruto, it had to have the ability to fold space to fit in him. Why not be able to fold time as well? After all, the nine-tailed fox demon was the strongest out of all the demons. That was it. Naruto had wanted so desperately to save her, but there was no getting back a life. So in order to do the impossible, the Kyuubi had split her mind and chakra from her dying body and flung them through time. The result was her waking up as her former, pre-depression self, still a twelve-year-old girl.

But that meant…Sakura raced to her window. No damage from Orochimaru’s attack lingered on the buildings surrounding her house. The sky was clear and beautiful, as opposed to the dark and blustery gray it had been for months before. And her mother was alive…a slow smile spread across her face. Every one of the people she had seen die throughout her life would be here…waiting for her.

This was better than heaven.

Quickly she dressed in her standard outfit, that red thing she hadn’t worn in years. Her very-much-missed long hair swayed behind her, and she gave it a flip with her hand. None of this felt quite as real as it was yet, like it was all still just a hazy dream. Give it time.

She flew down the stairs and flung her arms around her mother. Mrs. Haruno, startled, jumped and smiled at her. “Honey, you scared me.” Sakura grabbed a bagel from the toaster and held it between her teeth as she put on her shoes. “What’s the hurry, dear?”

“It’s my first day as a kunoichi!” Sakura said with a wide smile. Mrs. Haruno beamed at her as she dashed out the door.

She arrived at class much too early, she knew. Somehow she remembered the trip taking much longer than it did this time. Of course, back then she hadn’t been jumping from roof to roof, instead hurtling toward the classroom with Ino in a battle to get to Sasuke-kun before she did. She had at least ten minutes before the others would slowly start filing into the room, ready to be assigned to teams. Everyone thought they were so powerful now that they were genin. Sakura had to smile. It was so naïve how they all thought, completely sheltered from the outside world until now.

Technically, she realized, she recalled everything from her “past life”—she was jounin status. Judging from the amount of chakra flowing though her veins, she contained the same amount that she had built up over the years.

She heard a shuffle of movement at the door, and her head rose. Uchiha Sasuke strode through the door, not bothering to close it behind him. He looked a little surprised to see her there, and she couldn’t blame him. He was always first to class. Oh, and she happened to be standing right next to the door, about a foot away from him.

Damn, a fangirl’s here before me? Sasuke muttered to himself. This was ridiculous. Moving to the other side of the room, he sat down in the seat furthest from her. His usual spot.

For a moment, all she could do was take in the sight of him. Sasuke was beautiful; his dark eyes glared at the world with the very opposite of rose-tinted glasses, obscured by his raven hair so adored by the female population. Now that she thought about it, Sasuke’s popularity was a bit insane. He was getting hit on by women well over his age, even at twelve. Tch. Cradle-robbers.

Sasuke was well aware that she was staring holes through him, and to make her stop his eyes shifted to meet hers. Usually she would look away hurriedly, flustered, but she knew him better than that. Or at least, she did. She merely held his gaze, until a deep frown etched onto his features. He was glaring at her. When she still determinedly looked at him, his expression changed to apathy and his eyes slid to the front of the room. Clearly intimidation didn’t work on girls anymore.

“F-Forehead Girl!” a breathless voice exclaimed accusingly, and Yamanaka Ino stumbled through the door. “How dare you get here before me? You only did it to sit next to Sasuke-kun!”

Sakura watched her with wide eyes as her ex-best friend made her way over, and slowly the other classmates came through the door behind her.

FLASH.

Ino lay in a pool of her own blood on the forest floor, her beautiful hair swirled in graceful circles around her head. Her brilliant blue eyes were opened, empty, the life sucked out of them, and Sakura could not stop her screams…

Sakura gasped.

“Forehead, what’s wrong with you?” Ino asked her. She waved her hand in front of Sakura’s face annoyingly, calling “Earth to Forehead! Come on now!”

Sakura snapped out of her trance and gazed up at her. Her eyes saddened, and Ino lowered her hand.

“I’m sorry, Ino,” she whispered.

“Eh? For what?”

“Sa-Sakura-chan!” Naruto yelled excitedly as he stood up from his seat. She hadn’t seen him enter the room. “Come sit over here!”

He had a large grin and an even larger blush, and Sakura froze. The inevitable guilt washed over her as she saw his innocently grinning face. The last time Naruto had seen her, she was trying to kill herself. She forced herself to smile at him; she at least owed him that much. Heh. She missed that outrageous orange outfit of his.

“Sure, Naruto,” she said quietly as she walked over to him. Predictably, Naruto’s skin flushed a cherry red, as his crush had not only smiled at him, but had spoken to him and acknowledged him. He would be euphoric for days; there would be no dealing with him now.

“Sit between me and Sasuke, all right?” he asked, on the verge of hyperventilating from happiness. “That way I won’t have to sit by him.”

Immediately, the entire female population of the class was on its feet, glaring heatedly down at him. Sakura wordlessly sat down, watching as Naruto gulped in fear. Girls sure could be scary sometimes. As soon as he was certain that the fiery-tempered kunoichis wouldn’t actually hurt him (yet), he leaped onto the desk and frowned at Sasuke in an attempt to stare him down. What’s so great about Sasuke anyway? He asked himself as Sasuke glared back, and sparks of rivalry flew between them.

Sakura jumped upright. She knew what was going to happen. That nameless boy behind Naruto would knock him forward, and…she shuddered. One way or the other, she had to save both her future teammates the trauma. Neither of their first kisses would be stolen today.

“Naruto, no!!” she shrieked, her hands thrusting forward and knocking poor Naruto forcefully off of the desk. The blonde boy’s face unfortunately hit the wall, and he slid slowly down it, moaning. Sakura, halfway on top of the desk, stiffened. Turning her head ever so slightly to the left, she caught Sasuke’s incredulous eye, and almost groaned out loud. Sasuke didn’t know her reason for doing that. Truthfully, Sakura realized that she looked ridiculous. Sasuke’s raised eyebrow was the topper on her mortifying moment; he was mentally labeling her “fangirl” already. Great.

“Sakuraaa,” a deadly voice growled from behind her. Sakura knew that voice, and it was daring her to turn around. Ino stood next to the desk, the dominant female amongst the crowd of faceless fangirls, cracking her knuckles. “How dare you make a move on Sasuke-kun…” Sakura gave a very Naruto-like yelp.

“Okay, class, in your seats!” Iruka bellowed over the buzz of disapproving murmurs. Whining, the twelve-year-old girls slowly trudged back to their seats. Sakura collapsed into her own, relieved. I’m saved…

Sakura wandered out of the classroom, and sat dazedly onto the concrete bench just outside the academy building. My, this spot had memories. It was almost like remembering a past life—and in a way, it was. She knew things that no one else n this tim period knew.

“Sakura-chan, want to have lunch with me?” Naruto piped up as he strode into view. “Since we’re teammates now and all…”

Sakura just smiled. “Sorry, Naruto, not today,” she said. Today had been tiring enough. She wanted nothing more than to go curl up and sleep.

“It’s because of Sasuke, isn’t it?” Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms. Sakura opened her mouth to deny it, but then paused.

“Yeah…” she said slowly, and nodded, hating the way Naruto’s face fell. Some things were just better left unchanged.

“I still don’t see what’s so great about him,” Naruto muttered angrily, and stalked off. Sakura nburied her face in her hands and breathed deeply. She would make it up to him later somehow.

She sat there silently as the minutes passed by in a lazy haze, until Sakura could no longer tell how much time had passed. When she finally rose her eyes from the cobblestones, she nearly fell off the bench.

Sasuke stared at her from across the road, his dark eyes smoldering. It was funny how years ago her heart would have stopped beating at the sight of a gaze like that from him.

Her eyes suddenly narrowed. Years ago, she also would have been easily fooled by a simple bunshin. Thanks to Tsunade and her jounin-level skill, however, she would not allow for that this time.

“Naruto, what do you think you’re doing?” Sakura asked tiredly, resting her back casually against the stone bench. Sasuke’s image reddened, but eventually it twisted into a forced expression of confusion.

“Wh…what? I don’t see Naruto around anywhere…” he said as he nervously fidgeted in a very un-Sasuke-like manner. Sakura smirked. He always was a bad actor.

Raising her arms in an “X” position, she cried out, “Kai!” and Sasuke suddenly emitted a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, a guilty Naruto stood there, slightly cowering.

“Sakura-chaaan, how’d you know it was me?”

Sakura raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Your chakra is entirely different from Sauke’s,” she explained. “Your aura is obvious.”

Naruto scowled, puzzled. “I can’t feel any auras,” he admitted. He barely even knew what auras were.

Sakura laughed. “Go home, Naruto.” Still bewildered, Naruto ambled away, the confused tilt of his eyebrows still stuck in place. Sakura smiled after him.

“Oi,” a prematurely deep, masculine voice called. Sakura turned. Ugh, could no one give her a moment to herself? Annoyed, she faced the real Sasuke as he stopped in front of her. “Have you seen Naruto?”

The girl fought back a grin. “I don’t know,” she lied, shrugging carelessly. Sasuke’s face remained impassive as he continued his search.

“Oh, and Sasuke,” Sakura added before Sasuke was completely out of earshot. Impatient, Sasuke glanced back over his shoulder. “When you do find him, tell him that he’s not a very convincing bunshin.”

For the first time, Sasuke showed surprise. Deciding he didn’t even want to know how she knew, he disappeared from view.

Excitement curled in Sakura’s stomach. Her depressed mood had somewhat lifted, and now she was only apprehensive about the meeting with Kakashi later. She had the power to change whatever she wanted! If she played her cards right, she just might be able to stop…all of her close people from dying…

As only one person, Sakura wondered how much she could actually affect Konoha. What were the consequences of messing with the future? She ticked off just a few things to change, and vowed to set a plan as soon as possible.

Stop Sasuke from ever going to Orochimaru.

Prevent Naruto from ever feeling lonely.

Not hit Naruto so much this time around.

Not be the weakest at all…

She knew, with her jounin skill level and Tsunade-strength, that she would not be the one standing in the background. They could watch her back.

If you had the chance to go back and undo everything, what would you change?

AN: Promising beginning? Not? Let me know! Come on, you all know that you wanted to see a stronger, less childlike Sakura in the series. This is going to be completely Sakura-focused, and will not stay too closely to the storyline. If it was too predictable, there would be no point in reading, would there?