Preventing The Inevitable

Chapter 14

She couldn't communicate with her—because calling her a 'it' didn't feel right when she was the foreign intruder in this situation. The sphere of energy would dissolve as soon as she reached out, reappearing days later in a corner of their mindscape.

Because, really, this body wasn't this Sakura's. Sakura, the twenty-four year old war veteran. Sakura, the Slug Sannin's student. Sakura, member of Team 7. Sakura, the shinobi.

Sakura who had lived and died once already.

No, this body she was occupying belonged to Sakura-chan, the civilian girl with rose-colored hair and a too big forehead. Sakura-chan, the daughter of a librarian and a merchant. Sakura-chan, the young child whose older brother was a Shinobi. Sakura-chan, who had lost her father at age four.

She—the other Sakura—had no right to be here to rob a girl of the rest of her life.

Sometimes, like right now, she'd let her Inner Child take over. 'Take over', as in Sakura, let the influence the girl exuded on her completely determine her actions. During that time, Sakura would back off into their mindscape and only observe the events outside, if at all.

A part of her was always on guard, of course, but it'd only alarm her if anything endangering happened. Other than that, Inner had free control.

Essentially, she'd turn into a four-year old.

And Sakura would use that time to think. She had plans for the future and goals to reach.

Konoha wasn't built in a day. (Well, probably only a few months because of the Mokuton.) But Sakura was nowhere close to achieving any of her goals, let alone the main one, in a time any shorter than 'at least ten years'.

Planning. That was what she did, every day, all the time. It was always in the back of her mind, and on these occasions, it would be pulled into the forefront of her thoughts, the sole focus of her thinking.

Technically speaking, she could do all of that while motionlessly lying down on her bed. And, honestly, that'd be more efficient and less taxing on her—it wasn't exactly child's play to fully remove one's mind from a body that is actively moving and doing things—, not to mention that 'Inner' wouldn't need to be another variable for Sakura to worry about (because she couldn't afford to simply ignore things she didn't know enough about, like Inner's existence).

Sakura felt as though she owed a debt to the little girl in their mindscape. A debt she could probably never fully pay off, for the favor she had been granted, was that of a whole life left to live.

This girl had been stolen of her life, all in order to allow Sakura to try to compensate for the mistakes of another lifetime.

She didn't know if Inner knew that she was trying to pay her back or if she was still here at all.

She wasn't Ino. While she could precisely list and explain the workings of every part of the human brain, she didn't understand the human psyche like Ino did. And she hadn't wanted to, hadn't needed to.

Ino had been there for that, after all.

Sakura couldn't tell what the being in her mindscape was. Just that it was the original Sakura and that it had somewhat of a consciousness, judging by the way it would always wait for Sakura to not pay attention before reappearing.

Sakura didn't know if it was better for Inner to be conscious or not.

After all, who but the person concerned could judge if a fate of suffering was worse than being ignorant to it all, existing without any kind of awareness?

—

Sakura blinked back into consciousness, the last shimmers of the almost trance-like state she had been in fading out. She was back in her room, sitting on the ground, the lights were off. Her hands were gripping two dolls tightly.

In her left hand, she held a hand-made doll depicting a small child with pink yarn for hair and two green buttons as eyes. Sakura's thumb was pressing down where the mouth of the figure would be. She placed the doll down on the carpet. The stitched thread of the doll, acting as the mouth, was set in an upwards arch.

One corner of the thread had been noticeably pulled on, as the thread had come loose on that side.

In her other hand was a bigger doll with yarn in a darker shade of pink and two half-circles stitched with black thread, imitating the way her father's eyes would crinkle when he smiled. That doll, too, she set down on the carpet.

Sakura remembered these.

Her father had had them custom-made. Sakura glanced to the third doll leaning against the base of the couch-turned-bed. Light brown yarn and buttons the color of the forests surrounding Konoha.

Sakura, Kizashi, and Mebuki. She had gotten these on her fifth birthday. She had loved them back then.

Then, her eyes caught the fourth figure that was lying on her crossed legs. This one had hair the same shade as the Kizashi-figure and two buttons that matched the ones on both Mebuki's and Sakura's doll.

Yūta.

Right, she had a brother now. Or, rather, this Sakura had a brother.

He was eleven, seven years older than her current self.

Right. There was a matter she needed to adress.

Asking him for his age had turned out to be even riskier than expected. His reaction at her simple question, him changing the topic, and his relief to her response was strange. Almost as if he were used to dealing with such situations.

It could be linked to Yūta existing in this world.

Eleven years ago...

She wracked her brain, trying to recall anything that happened back then, years before her birth. Her idea had been to use his time of birth to get a clue about... why he came to be. Because that was the only hint she had.

A tiny, unreasonable part of her had been hoping to suddenly, through miraculous circumstances, solve the mysteries that had been plaguing her alongside her endless questions of whyamIhere.

The strangeness of this world she thought she knew, yet felt unfamiliar in a way home couldn't be, showing itself infront of her as an older brother she never had, the too-apparent poverty of her family, the death of the father she had longed to finally meet again, and the result of her past failures sitting in her mindscape, as if rubbing in her face that she was supposed to be dead and had unfairly claimed this life and body as hers when it was anything but.

Sakura tried to find the answer to those questions, or at least an answer, but was ultimately met with–

nothing.

There wasn't any event eleven years ago that could've caused any of this.

Why would there be one? Yūta didn't exist in her world, her life. Gods, her memory of history could be entirely useless because her recollection didn't include Yūta, or her father dying, or her family's poorness.

What was different now? Why did Yūta exist? What caused these changes?

Sakura tucked away the dolls and went to bed, mind spinning with a myriad of questions and concerns, left to be unheard and unanswered.[1231 words]

A/N

Shisui will finally make an appearance again next chapter. Believe me when I say I wanted to give him more screen-time, but I got carried away writing Yūta.

Also, new cover. The first one had been temporary anyway.

26/7/24