Down the Rabbit Hole

A/N: I figured out a solution for my commitment issues. Make a neat little ficlet collection starring mostly Sakura or Obito and some others, and featuring a variety of AUs and plots. It's just a way for me to dump my ideas which I can't finish or explore because of real life. Yeah, the pairings in this can be crack or rare.

If you guys want to continue any of the ideas in this, please go ahead. I do believe in the gospel of sharing culture. If I do decide to continue it, still no biggie. We'll both be writing different stories with the same concept.

/

Genre: Tragedy/Angst/Family

Characters: Sakura Haruno, Sarada Uchiha, Itachi Uchiha, Shisui Uchiha, Sparrow.

Summary: Sakura and two year old Sarada end up in an alternate dimension where Itachi is the Godaime Hokage.

Pairings: mentioned Sasusaku

/

On the day she came, Uchiha Shisui was on patrol.

"What business do you have with the leaf village?" he asked her.

Shisui tugged the hood of his raincoat over his wet hair as he peered at the woman. The rain plastered the woman's pink hair over her forehead, and her long, tangled hair dripped down her back. She bundled up the child in her arms with her coat.

"Do you not recognize me?" she asked him. He was more surprised that she didn't recognize him. He noticed that she did have a Konoha headband.

"No," he said. "Who are you?"

She stared at him in the dark, and her lips parted and closed. Then she glanced over his shoulder at the Hokage monument. Her lips parted.

"Is this Konoha?" she asked him.

"Y…yes?"

He activated his sharingan when the bundle wiggled. In the thick of the dark, she blinked slowly at him.

"I need to meet the Hokage," she said. "It's urgent." Her voice picked up in panic.

"Reason?" Shisui asked.

"Look," she said. "I'm soaking wet. My baby's soaking wet. Are you going to take us to the Hokage or sit and interrogate me while she gets a cold?"

"Are you from Konoha?" he asked her.

"My word, just put us in jail will you!" She patted the bundle in her arms. "But any way that will get me to meet the Hokage is fine! We just need shelter from the rain…and help!"

Shisui took a step back. The frantic look in her eye made him assume the worst, and Shisui didn't want to be responsible for the worst.

"Your hand." She held out her hand tentatively.

Shisui glanced over his shoulder at the Hokage tower on the other side of the village. The tiny pin-prick of light assured him that Itachi was pulling a late night.

"Sorry." she began. "But what exac—"

He teleported the two of them into the Hokage Tower's waiting room.

"—tly! Whoa! A little warning could have been nice."

Shisui let go of her hand and briskly walked over to the bathroom. He switched on the light and rustled through the cabinets. Shisui managed to salvage two towels from the bottom cabinet. When he returned, he glanced at the little girl with black hair and black eyes peek over from over the coat.

She eased out of the coat, and she grabbed the hem of her mother's pants.

"Here." He held out the towel to the mother. But the woman's attention shifted to her daughter when she sneezed. She grabbed a towel and used it to wipe the little girl's face. Still holding the towels, he switched his glance over the mother.

Apart from being drenched, she had a few cuts and scrapes on her arms. She did look like she emerged from an explosion. To his utter surprise, she used chakra to "dry" the girl—as in remove globs of water from her outfit and hair. Shisui activated his sharingan. Her chakra levels were low so it required some powerful chakra control. He watched her release the globs of water and drench the carpet.

But about those low chakra levels, did she get into a fight..?

"Sorry Sara-chan!" She giggled. "You look so funny." The girl pouted at her.

It left the girl's hair sticking up on an end, and Shisui thought she looked familiar...

Then the woman sneezed.

"Oh, you poor thing!" The woman sneezed again, and Shisui raised an eyebrow. "Mama's so sorry," she said. "I think we've both caught the sniffles." She draped the towel around Sarada and sneezed again. Shisui dropped the towel on her head. "Haha, mama will try not to get sick."

"Then please dry yourself," he said unamused.

"Mmmf..thanks," the woman said. She didn't use chakra to dry herself, but instead she rubbed her hair vigorously. "I'll warm you right up. Can we have warm water?" She looked pointedly at Shisui. "Please."

Shisui glanced around first and spotted the water cooler behind the secretary's desk. He pushed the knob for warm water, and it streamed into the cup. Deciding it would be too hot, he decided to dilute it with cool water.

Shisu turned around. The mother was too busy pacing around the room to notice him return. He glanced at the child. She seemed distracted.

He knelt down in front of the little girl, and he took a sip. It seemed good enough for him.

"Here," he said. He handed her the paper-cup. "Tell me if it's too hot."

She took the cup and sipped it. The girl shook her head. Shisui smiled at her. The girl continued to take small sips. She glanced at her mother.

Shisui examined her again, and he memorized her looks. Up-close, the girl had a young Sasuke's looks.

"Sara—"

He glanced at the mother who met his eyes. The mother mussed her hair, and it parted to reveal her face. Shisui forgot his sharingan was activated and his mask was pushed up. He saw the purple diamond in the middle of her forehead. Her eyes widened at him.

"You have the sharingan," she murmured.

"That diamond, it's..."

Sara-chan sneezed, and the woman snapped her eyes back to her.

"Sara-chan!"

Rising to his feet, Shisui scratched the back of his head. He decided to inform Itachi about the woman with chakra control that rivalled one of the most famed Saanin of their time and about the little girl who looked eerily like Sasuke. He signalled to Sparrow who watched from the vents.

"Make sure they don't go anywhere."

/

He blinked slowly at the woman.

"Did you just say I was supposed to be dead?" Itachi Uchiha asked her. "Is that a threat or a joke?"

The woman was unnervingly familiar.

"As neither, Hokage-sama," she said. "You're supposed to be dead in my world."

"Your world?" His eyes flickered to the two-year-old who tugs at the woman's damp hair. Sakura idly pried the girl's hands off. "Please elaborate."

"Can you imagine copies of our world? Where our lives differ because of decisions we make?"Sakura asked. Itachi nodded. "Well, Hokage-sama, that's the Alternate Universe theory. You're alive in this world, and you're dead in mine. In another, I'm preparing for bed. In another, I...end up here."

The child was also unnervingly familiar. She reminded Itachi of Sasuke. A younger Sasuke who crawled after his brother, then walked, and then decided to run somewhere Itachi couldn't follow. The girl blinked at him. Itachi looked from her to the mother.

"Ah," he said. "I may have heard something about it. Forgive me if it seems a bit too hard to believe." He kneaded his forehead.

"Understandably," she said with a sympathetic look. "All of this is hard to take in, so I suggest you can stop me when you don't understand."

"See." She gestured toward her kid. "It all started when she got kidnapped. This is Sarada Uchiha. She's one of the "last Uchiha." I suppose you know them?"

"I'm familiar," Itachi said dryly.

"Just checking, you know?" She chuckled. "So Sarada-chan got kidnapped. It was horrible. I left the village to find her, and I got into a fight. And then before I knew it, there was an explosion, and I was transported here. To this world."

"You said "Last Uchiha?" he asked. "Does that mean in your world…my clan was wiped out sparing a few?" He heard of the noble Uzumaki clan being massacred in a night. Did the Uchiha have the same fate?

"I wouldn't put it like that," she said. "It's kind of a bizarre story. Really. I mean you—I mean the other you—wiped out the clan sparing Sasuke."

"Sparing...Sasuke?"

She fumbled with Sarada, as the girl wiggled around stare at Itachi. "See, Sarada-chan's father is Sasuke. I'm her mother."

Itachi blinked. He stared back at the child.

"I guess that kind of makes you her uncle, you know?" She paused to gauge his expression. "Well let me start from the beginning. When we were twelve, Sasuke-kun and I were teammates. Well, for a while. Then he decided to go to Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru?" he asked.

"Yeah. He wanted to get stronger than you. He wanted to fight you," she said. "He wanted to avenge his clan and revive it." She sighed. "What Sasuke-kun didn't know is that you were ordered by the council, because your clan intended to overthrow the government." Itachi blinked. "You were sick by the time he caught up to you, and you died telling him you loved him."

She smiled at his shocked expression. Itachi drummed his fingers to ease his nerves. He attracted Sarada's attention.

"And…" Itachi glanced at Sarada again. The girl gave him an cross-eyed look and stuck her tongue out before she buried her face into her mother's neck. "I suppose this is the second part of his goal."

Sakura's cheeks warmed. Sarada peeked at him again.

"Kind of? Well the thing is, we don't know where Sasuke-kun is anymore. He left me two years ago. The Hokage may know something about it." She sighed and rubbed Sarada's back. "I wrote to him, but he doesn't reply. Well he stopped replying about three months ago."

At the sound of the word "Hokage," Sarada's head perked up. She glanced at Sakura and patted her cheek babbling something about "Naruto."

Sakura chuckled.

"Ah yeah, Naruto's Hokage by the by. He was my third team-mate. Also, he's Sarada's uncle. You should see him and Kakashi compete for the position of 'best uncle.'"

Naruto Uzumaki as the current Hokage? That was Sasuke's old teammate too, who was currently off on another ANBU mission and sentenced himself to a life of obscurity and death. If Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi were team-mates, then she was—

"What's your name?"

"Ah! Sara-chan! Don't do that. It tickl—" Sarada buried her face into her mother's neck and giggled. "I mean, my name is Sakura Haruno."

Itachi stood up so quickly, that the woman squawked and took a step back. Sarada glanced up.

"Sakura Haruno?" he asked with a hoarse whisper. "Is that really you?"

"Uh, yeah," she replied.

"No," he said. "You're not."

"Ah?" Sakura looked confused. "I think I'd know my own name, Hokage-sama."

Itachi let it all settle in. The woman was evidence that a paradox couldn't exist. Of course, how did he not recognize it?

"You mean you don't believe my story?" she asked.

"I believe it," Itachi said firmly. His sharingan activated, and his eyes roved over her face. He saw a memory of a younger girl with the same features.

"Then I'm really, really confused."

"Me too," he said. "You know how you said I was supposed to be dead in your world, Haruno-san?" She nodded. "You're supposed to be dead in this world."

The rain splattered thickly against the glass and filled the hushed room.

/

She noted the Hokage pictures on the wall. Hashirama Senju, Tobirama Senju—she didn't recognize the third—Minato Namikaze and finally Itachi Uchiha. Currently, the Hokage didn't resemble the stoic portrait on the wall.

"She died when she was twelve," she said. "How did she die?"

"Yes, it was during the Third's, Uchiha Kagami's, reign." An Uchiha, huh? Sakura thought. "Uzumaki-kun got tired of my brother's goads. They decided to get into a fight and display the jutsu they learned. In retrospect, my brother got into a fight with me before he left for training that day," he said. "You interfered."

Sakura saw Naruto and Sasuke lunge towards each other—chidori crackling and rasengan swirling madly. They were about to thrust their blows into each other's chests.

"You tried to stop them both from killing each other." She thought she heard a crack in Itachi's voice. "You...succeeded."

She closed her eyes tightly when she imagined the impact.

In the thick of silence, she heard Sarada pat her cheek. "Mama?" Sakura opened her eyes and smiled at her.

Maybe Itachi Uchiha dammed all his emotions when it came to Sasuke. She was just reminding him—her presence and Sarada's presence—of a life Sasuke could have had.

"Their jounin-sensei was too late, I take it."

"Yeah," Itachi said. "Kakashi was too late. I was one of the first ANBU on the scene. We had to restrain both of them while we dealt with her…I…we were too late." He paused to give her an opportunity to speak, and he continued when she didn't. "My brother left the village shortly after, and well we never heard of him again." His voice cracked again. "It's been ten years."

The rainfall thickened considerably outside, and Sakura gave him a moment. The Hokage hunched his shoulders and looked so vulnerable with his head in his hands. Sakura walked over to his desk.

"Would...you like to hold her?"

He obliged, and little Sarada blinked as she left the comfort of her mother's hands, and Itachi perched her on his knee. He looked intently at her. Sarada tried to say "Pain, pain, go away," like Mama did when she got injured and cried. Sarada couldn't make glowy hands like Mama, but instead she just patted Itachi's cheek. Sakura looked away because it hurt too much.

"Away…pain…" she said.

"We tried everything. I tried everything in my power to find him. I still hold out the hope that he's not...dead."

"Pain pain…" Itachi took her small hand in his. "Away go…?"

He smiled at her through brimming tears.

Shisui watched the scene unfold through the crack in the door with Sparrow.

"You believe she's Haruno Sakura?" Sparrow asked him.

And Shisui was dragged backward in time, to the sight of pink strands strewn across the ground; a mangled body and the smell of charred flesh invading his nose. From the remains of her chest, stray bands of electricity arced into the air—Chidori—; her back bore shrapnel of bone, twisted flesh melded in the shape of a whirlpool—Rasengan. Those boys had killed her, and they knew it. Sasuke had begged and pleaded to see her; had clawed at the door until bloody trails lined the frame. But he was gone soon after, leaving behind an empty room and an emptier woman. Mikoto cried all night.

Devastated parents, harried ANBU, and a surreal feeling that this was all wrong. All wrong.

She glanced over her shoulder through the crack of the door and at him.

"If Hokage-sama believes it, then you best believe it too," Shisui said.