Epistles to the Departed

So they had a solution to this huge, huge problem, but they were going to assign her.

Sakura.

Admittedly, she was strong; perhaps one of the best kunoichis there were, but she... the past her, wasn't quite up to the task. There wasn't much about her to be worried about until recently.

Key term, recently. That applied quite a bit in terms of 'time travel'. The act of going beyond the normal realms of time, either into the future or into the past.

And saving her old teammates was a event in the past, and that was also not 'recently'.

In layman's terms, she was going to get stomped on by everyone left and right without her chakra or abilities. Unlike some people, most of her skills were rather circumstantial. Maybe she'd have her chakra-punches, but she wasn't some Lord-First DNA splicer (even if she did it now and kidnapped Kabuto to forcibly infuse her with the magic tree-man cells, she wouldn't have it in the past, no thanks to the multiverse) who could afford to spam her invincibility technique to make use of her small reserves.

Part of her understood, though. Being shishou's one apprentice and the Rokudaime's only surviving student, (Sai was more of Yamato-taicho's acquaintance than Kakashi's protégé) it would make sense that they would choose her. They trusted her with every fiber of their being.

But she shoved that part away, replacing it with un-Sakura-like stubbornness.

"Why me?" she asked, not bitterly- but hoarsely, breaking out of her trance. "Isn't it better if you or Tsunade-shishou did this instead?"

"I can't. Only you or Tsunade have the capability to survive such a trip, Sakura." her former instructor declared, fiddling the scroll in his hands. "Time.. is finicky. Nobody's used this experimental jutsu just yet, so we don't know what it'll do. In case it's a dud, your regenerative chakra will save you."

"However, my direct influence on either Naruto or Sasuke are much more limited. Say, even if I returned, my actions may have greater repercussions than yours... that is, compared the positive changes." the large-busted woman inquired, trying to resolve her student's growing doubts. "The conditions that we've managed with this scroll imply that the user travels back to their genesis... meaning, their birth."

"You could just stop Orochimaru, in that case," Sakura argued. "Or kill Madara, save Obito or Rin, forbid the Akatsuki from forming. Nagato was Jiraiya's student, was he not? I wasn't even born when half these tragedies occurred. Heck, even saving Naruto's parents- Yondaime-sama and Uzumaki-san!"

"Again. Sakura, twenty years has a lot less impact than almost-sixty." the Rokudaime reasoned. "Things could change. For the better or for the worse, we don't know. Tsunade alone cannot stop the horrors of the Third Shinobi war, nor can she possibly stop all of these events."

"And I can't do this alone, either!"

"Besides, like a pure reincarnation jutsu," in reference to Chiyo's life restoration technique, the baton had been passed to the Godaime- "The sheer amount of chakra needed to turn back time fifty years-" (she 'corrected' Kakashi's sadly rightful statement of her age) "... perhaps not in body, but still, the soul- is much more difficult than twenty. Even with my large reserves, I may not make it."

Sakura still managed to find a loophole. "I used my Byakugo back at the moon. I don't have enough."

Kakashi was quite over arguing. "Do you remember how the beasts are willing to lend you a hand? As the only living wielder of the Rinnegan, you are capable of utilizing the chakra of the Nine Tailed Beasts."

Sharingan- and also, Mangekyou, was capable of controlling(in this case, harnessing their power) the tailed beasts, but not to the mastery Rinnegan had. However, the demise of the entire Uchiha Clan and the fact that no Uchiha, dead (or dead.. I guess.) had Sakura's healing ability gave little hope of becoming a promising rebuttal.

Sakura and both Tsunade were able to transfer chakra through Katsuyuu, but it was mostly an added benefactor to the contract that she possessed with the slug summon, and specifically for medicinal ninjutsu. There were others, like Karin of the Uzumaki, but she was currently M.I.A.- supposedly in hiding along with Orochimaru and it was just too difficult to track her down in short notice.

"Remember, Sakura. I do not have the motivation you do. The incentive you possess outweighs mine tenfold." Tsunade came closer to her apprentice, placing protective hands over her shoulders. "This old lady who's already lost quite a bit," she sighed, her chest compacting, "-can't compare to your fresh wounds."

"I know, shishou." the pink haired woman frowned, brushing off her mentor's hands. "You already said why you can't go, I understand. But can't you just take my Rinnegan? And like, use it for yourself?"

Completely ignoring her question, Tsunade continued to rant. "There's a lot of things that could go downhill- what if Naruto had died because his parents didn't? Madara rewrote his death the first time it happened. Even if I killed him, in his old age, he could just find another catalyst for his will. Predicting an event that'll happen in twenty years is a lot easier than.." she 'ahem'ed, glaring daggers at her current Kage- "Fifty."

The events that had led up to.. well, the era in which Sakura had been born, were relatively alright. "Risking the stability of their history could be detrimental to the progression of Konoha. Preventing the entire Third Shinobi war would possibly lead to prevented births-" (there had been an incline in birth rates after every war) "-or deaths. What if someone like Naruto hadn't been born? How would we track down The Sage of Six Path's two sons? What if they were not Konoha-born? We know of only two incarnations of Indra- Madara and Sasuke. Two of Ashura's- Naruto and my grandfather. We speculated it would occur within the same bloodline, but the Uzumaki were almost decimated and my Senju blood was scattered and practically impure by the time you had been born. The Uchiha were destined to die out or be locked up like they had if Obito defected, but how would I just tag along on one of Team Minato's missions? Besides, Madara had plotted this even before my birth..."

"Too many contradictions and stipulations," Kakashi added, hopefully.

It was driving Sakura crazy. "Yeah, I get it! Just hand me the scroll, shishou." she 'hmpfed', pouting as she snatched it borderline rudely out of the taller woman's clutches. "Anyway, do I use it now?"

"Not exactly. We may still be able to salvage the situation." the Rokudaime consulted, turning away from the women before him. "It's our last resort. Just in case, though, the Bijuu are staying near Kumogakure. They're helping with charging the Raikage's cannon. We'll send you there now with the power of the body flicke-"

..

The touseled cave suddenly became a sandy-brown room with a red rim on the window sills- the sun was bright and shining into her eyes. After hovering with legs that weren't properly prepared to support her weight, she landed on her bottom.

Her thoughts eventually caught up to her jet lag- what was that, though? It just seemed so... forced. She hadn't expected anything so cantankerous from her shisho... but it just.. Her two former teachers were practically milking her for answers she didn't have. 'What if Naruto wasn't born?' 'If Madara dies, someone else might come- who?' She didn't know! And she wouldn't know the answers to the divergences she would create in her world.

What could possibly make her more of an ideal candidate than Tsunade? She- plain civilian ninja Sakura, didn't have the same political affiliation, the Kage-status, power and potential to be hailed around as birthright. 'Surpassing' Tsunade or not, her mentor was a legend in her time and this- had she taken the opportunity, would only enhance that. Sure, Kakashi couldn't travel because the jutsu was unstable and supposedly had the chance of becoming life-threatening, or that the process of being thrown in space-time would require the presence of self-healing capabilities... but, it didn't excuse Tsunade. Oh, no, Tsunade was the one who created Creation Rebirth!

The Rinnegan in place her left eye could be easily transplanted to her shishou. Then she'd simply have to tap into the Bijuu's reserves and execute the Time Traveling Scroll, go back, expose her grandfather's best friend/prevent him from falling into the darkness, if that was even possible, and live life in the best way possible. Maybe even save her lover, and her brother Nawaki, and then some- poor Jiraiya might've not even died if Pein didn't come along. The excuses of 'predicting the future' damn sure applied to Sakura, too, even if they were on a smaller scale.

So why exactly were the two Hokages conspiring to send her back instead?

She looked up to see a man in a Kumogakure vest. Then another. Then another- she was completely surrounded by Kumo ninjas. "You're Haruno Sakura, right?"

"Y-yes."

"Come."

..

After she was lead to the Raikage's office by the Kumo personnel, she found herself face-to-face with a couple of old faces. The Tsuchikage's granddaughter, Kurotsuchi, Subaku no Gaara's sister, Temari, Chōjūrō- one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and finally, Darui, the Sandaime Raikage's former student.

"Hello, Haruno-san," the Iwagakure kunoichi was the first to approach her.

"Oh, Kamizuru-san. Greetings," Sakura recognized the growing authority in Kurotsuchi- perhaps she was well on her way on inheriting her grandfather's position. The Land of Earth would probably not send her as a delegate just for her bloodline.

Chōjūrō, as well, seemed to be more poised than the last time they'd interacted. (Admittedly, it was during battle, and that tended to give a more mosaic-esque view of oneself) Perhaps the Mizukage sought him out as a potential heir of the Kage title, too. "Kamizuru-san, so.. if I may ask, why are you all gathered here?"

"We're meeting to report on the status of our countries," Temari stated. "Otherwise, we've been helping Kumo out with the meteorites. The cannon needed more chakra than expected, because of the second time 'round, the shattered pieces of the decimated moon needed extra precision to get rid of."

"I see." she responds politely, looking at the Suna kunoichi with familiarity.

"For today, your assignment will be to assist us," says Kurotsuchi, pursing her lips. "There are some casualties and injuries, and you are Lady Godaime Hokage's apprentice, thus, I would assume, an expert healer."

Healing? Again? Well, who's to complain, if it meant saving lives, her tired state was practically irrelevant. "Understood."

"First, could you report on Konohagakure's situation?" Darui interjected, but he wasn't loud.

"...yes. Konohagakure and the rest of the Fire Country are currently sheltered away in an underground haven, we've been sending out shinobi to gather supplies. The village itself... has been destroyed."

There was a silent shockwave spreading throughout the room, as even Kumogakure's infrastructure had remained intact for the most part. "... this complicates things," Temari admitted. "Konohagakure's scroll libraries had some forbidden jutsu that could've been of use to us, such as a fuinjutsu that would be capable of sealing the moon."

Sakura detached herself from the conversation. Konoha was destroyed and... everyone on that trip besides the few jonin, Kakashi, and thank goodness, Ino, had died. Diverting her mental confliction away from her fallen comrades and focusing on the situation at hand, she brings up the weapon that is supposedly the salvation of the problem. "The Raikage's cannon...?"

"The Raikage's cannon still needs more chakra if it wants to completely destroy the moon," Chōjūrō states militantly- something quite different to the Chōjūrō she saw before. "The first blast didn't get rid of the entire moon if you remember. Neither did the second."

"Yes," Sakura recalls the ordeal with Sai and Ino, remembering the asteroids crashing down in front of them... "I do. So am I supposed to help with the charge?"

"No, but you are to stay here." announces the Kiri-nin, Chōjūrō.

Sakura is getting progressively more and more confused.

"We're aware of your dojutsu's capabilities, courtesy of Kamizuru-san here," Temari says, looking cautiously at the one bang hiding Sakura's left eye. "It was also her idea, what Tsunade-sama and Kakashi-san have presented you."

The time traveling stuff was all Kurotsuchi's idea? "...Oh. You see, I just thought it wasn't so viable. I mean, time travel?" She chuckled awfully robotically, trying (and failing) her best to fake a genuine expression. "Hah, silly, isn't it?"

The Iwagakure kunoichi seemingly looked discredited for half a second but put a hand on Sakura's shoulder. "It's very real... Haruno-san. If Toneri cannot be stopped the only way to save humankind rests on your shoulders."

Did she ever say she liked responsibility? No, she didn't.

"That is to say... no pressure." Kurotsuchi also smiled, but there was a dark air about it. Uncertainty.

She'd only realized it at the moment- but there was a very likely chance- given everything she had gathered, the situation was worse than a matter of being pragmatic. She, if the gathered efforts of the Alliance failed, would most likely would've had said goodbye to the ones she loves- for the last and final time already- and she would never see them again. Even though there was a possibility that in fact, the library's destruction had ruined her chances of saving the future, she prayed and prayed until she fell asleep- so far strung that the very hint of conflict left her mind.

Sakura Haruno, you asked for it- you wanted to be a hero. Now, pay up for your wish.

..

"Sakura, you know it's really bad to keep worrying like that?" It's Ino, who's sipping a cup of jasmine tea, her eyebrows furrowed and twitching. "Drinking sake's gotta be hepatic since you can't even stomach a cup."

Uncaringly, the pink-haired kunoichi chugs from her ochoko, flourishing in the alcoholic burn sliding down her throat. "It's just that Naruto's being so utterly and completely frustrating, Ino. He won't admit to Hinata that he's completely head-over-heels for her, even though the girl's been after him since we were twelve!" she takes another sip, letting out a well-deserved groan. "Worse than Sasuke."

"Nah, he can't be worse than Sasuke," Ino chimes in, giggling through her hand. "But, on the other hand, I know he looks like he has a total brother complex with Itachi, but I swear he loves you back."

Sakura laughed. "Try telling that to Tsunade-shishou. She's all like, 'Sakura, get over the guy, he clearly has no idea how to cater to a lady's feelings, he's incompetent.' Some days I think she's telling the truth." Her face was a brazen vermillion from the impending drunkenness. "Remember how all the girls"-hic-"used to throw themselves at Sasuke's feet? I mean, they still do, but like, even you and I..."

"I so don't want to remember that, but I get your point. Maybe he really is incompetent, figuratively.." Ino then interjects, trying to divert attention from the depressing topic of the youngest son of the Uchiha Head. It always got Sakura into a grueling, if not brooding mood, drunk or not. "Say, did you hear about Neji and-"

"Don't tell me. I'll ask him-" she hiccups, "-myself. If that guy's seriously into someone, I'm going to go to her house and take her out for sake." she said, internally sympathizing with the unfortunate girl who had to receive the stoic man's affections. Her own situation was grueling, not having a very expressive somewhat-significant other.

Maybe it was fraternizing with the enemy, per se, as if Sasuke and Neji hadn't developed a Clan-rivalry already, to talk to the lady- maybe even man who was... well, her 'technical enemy' by family relations. "Back on track... Hinata's so, just, ugh," she glugs her drink with inexperience, almost choking on it. "C'mon.. the only time she's ever asked him out was back when we were genin... hell, even my parents got together earlier than them and I don't even know how my mom puts up with my dad.."

The beach-blonde diva hair-flips casually, refilling her teacup with piping-hot tea. "Speaking of parents. My dad was talking to Godaime-sama the other day and apparently," seemingly fathers enjoyed torturing their children, "Naruto almost confessed to Hinata by the moonlight but chickened out because he was called on a mission or something. It was the week when Toneri decided to show his pretty blue-haired self down onto earth..."

Sakura yawned as she thudded the bottle down, marking it empty. "Awh, yeah..."-hic-"Man, he's totally into Hinata though. But I'm adamant about Naruto getting with his dream gal, okay? Friends over hot hunks..."

The Nanadaime Hokage steps in the room with her husband. "Sakura! Ino! This is a medical office, not a playground for gossip." Tsunade retorts, snatching the empty bottle from the table. She retaliates in shock when she finds out it is completely empty- drop-less to the bottom. Her strictness vanished and was replaced by impression. "My, my. Is this really the same Sakura who couldn't drink a single shot?"

But before Tsunade could take out her own beer from the mini-fridge in the leftmost corner of the staff room, Dan ushers the feisty lady out of it. "Tsunade... you're due for a surgery in an hour. Alchohol messes with your concentration," he says it softly, before letting go of her arm. Tsunade gives him puppy-eyes but the calm man doesn't relent, although he seems tempted.

Swaying her attention from her passively stubborn husband, she releases the pent-up stress on Sakura. "You're needed in the intense care sector in thirty minutes," Tsunade says, moving away from the fridge, pink ornamenting her flawless cheeks, making it very obvious- a fact Dan was smug- well, if his serene Godaime-like smile counted as smug. Seriously, Minato's grin was like the grin of the gods. "Ino, you should go back to your post in the pharmacy soon. They got a fresh new stock of Gemfibrozil to shelve and your fellow employees are complaining that you're always off here with Sakura..."

Ino shrugs, but takes her half-empty tea and dumps it into a thermal bottle, along with the teapot's contents. "Thirty minutes- I'd rather you prep during that time than completely lose it for the sake," Ino says rather daintily, grabbing Sakura by the shoulders to stabilize her. "Let's go, before I lose my job."

After she's dragged into the station, Sakura greets Karin, who's managing the paperwork alongside Kabuto. But the friendly greeting turns into a dazy rant in a matter of seconds. "Yo, Uzumaki.."-hic-"Tell your cousin he better man up and..."

"Haa? Naruto isn't my cousin, Sakura, how many times do I have to..." she retorts, not even caring that she was completely drunk. In a very reserved manner, she offers her arm to Sakura. "You're drunk,"- she may not care, but she did know. "Now, it's not every day I let someone bite me-"

There's a loud noise erupting from the other side of the room. "You sure about that, Ka-chan?" a certain fanged shark-man barked, his laugh tearing the bandages off of his side.

"Dammit, grr, Suigetsu! You're supposed to be back in Kiri by now! And for the last god-forsaken time, I'm not your mother!" Karin scorns, holding her fist offensively while a vein pops on her forehead. 'Kaa-chan' was 'mother,' and 'Ka-chan' sounded pretty much the same. She was only twenty-one! Not old enough to be Suigetsu's mother! Bastard! The bespectacled woman scoffs passive-aggressively before turning back to Sakura. "Seriously. He thinks annoying me is his dignified version of a book-club hobby."

"Frankly though, it is enjoyable," Kabuto remarks, clicking his pen, enthusiastically humming the tune of some made-up jingle.

"Shut up, Yakushi. Or else you'll be seeing Uzushiogakure when I'm done with you." And truth be told, the Village of the Swirling Tides had some really swirly-looking buildings. And Karin would know, being a native- she wasn't talking about being nicely offered an onsen vacation ticket to Uzushio, she was talking about being beat to a pulp so hard that he saw stars and swirls.

Sakura catches Karin off guard when she sinks her teeth into the skin of her forearm, and the redhead yelps, appropriately so. The refreshing chakra revitalizes Sakura's displeasing, unpresentable state, and her mind clears.

"Thanks, Karin... sorry," she states as she basks in the afterglow of relief. "Now. Suigetsu, I know your friendly reunion with your best buddy here is nice and all, but the Intense Care sector is not reserved for patients who have clearly fully recovered. I'll have... Kabuto check you out."

In disgust, Suigetsu yanks back, almost pulling on his bandages again. "Check me ou-"

"...Of the hospital. Don't make it 'chuck you out', Hōzuki-san." she high-fives Karin as they both cackle like witches.

"Girls... are scary," the white-haired man says, shaking. The one in a short ponytail nods in agreement, heading off to the lobby.

Turning to Karin, she recovers her 'serious face'. "Who's in here? Who needs surgery? Tsunade-shishou informed me I needed to get her within thirty minutes."

The ginger female takes the clip from the white desk nearby, adjusting her lab coat. "... Looks like, this time, it's... Rin Nohara. She's hospitalized for internal bleeding all over- her lung collapsed, too, because her Bijuu is acting up again. You'd better check up on her now, they're trying to keep her stable while people begin to repair her internal damage. The Sanbi's healing makes it easier but she's really frail."

Sakura, now not-drunk, (and knowing to not stall any longer with small-talk) rushes off into the emergency room.

"Doctor Haruno," the medical assistant says, as the electrocardiographic machine beeps a little slower. "She's still unstable."

"What have you done so far?" she asks, knowing her medics would've probably taken enough measures taken already to prevent unnecessary suffering.

"We've set her rib bones back, she'd gotten a flail chest. We're setting her down with her legs elevated, at least until you or another doctor came along." the nurse responded, looking down at her paper. "Her internal bleeding hasn't stopped or eased, we checked, she'll need your help to to repair the damage."

Even though Karin and Kabuto had been on-post, it was still extremely early in the morning. Not (or not as much as during normal hours, though a few times they'd be summoned for advanced procedures) very many experienced doctors were taking the early-morning shift- Tsunade knew fully of their antics and thus assigned them to work then anyway. 'Darn,' she thought to herself. 'I am a little sleepy. Karin fixed most of my fatigue, but maybe I should've had tea instead of sake...' Sakura began her work, coming a little closer to the brunette laying mostly motionless on the surgical table, hands pressed on Rin's chest. Green chakra grew over her and sweat dribbled down the side of her face as her concentration poured in to aid the woman before her.

First, the bone had been pre-set by the medic-nin already, it was easier to heal without the risk of damaging the lung further. It took a total of five minutes to completely mend the first rib that had been broken since they were more than cracks and normal would need steel boosters and months of time to mend. The second rib took far less. It wasn't a clean break, only a fracture, making it a lot easier to fix.

She repeated the process with the rest of Rin's shattered chest, and soon her ribcage was back to its normal shape. Now for the lungs. Sadly she wasn't able to do anything with medicinal chakra alone- unless she somehow found a way to pump chakra into her lung and combine that with wind-style jutsu to artificially replicate tube thoracostomy, but she didn't have the time to experiment on this further, especially when it was already a delicate procedure.

From there they would just hook her up to an oxygen machine and return her to her hospital room before giving the unresponsive woman an IV drip. Her lung collapse was ruled out for being spontaneous, given the signs of a broken rib cage and sternum, so that method of treatment wasn't considered.

But the internal bleeding was still a problem, so she positioned her hands on Rin's stomach. "Have you identified which organs?" and the nurse began enumerating the damaged areas and Sakura hovered over where each should be, sending pulses of green around the radius of injury.

An hour passed until Sakura had Rin back into top shape- not with a collapsed lung, but she would heal on her own, after all, it was better not to interfere with this breed of injury. Most healthy adults did. Going out into the waiting room were her sensei and his former teammate, the Hachidaime Kakashi Hatake and Obito Uchiha.

"Hachidaime-sama!" Sakura says, rubbing the dark circles beginning to form on the bags of her eyes. "Obito! You're here for Rin... don't worry, she's fine..."

The Uchiha glomped Sakura, hugging her, moaning something about 'Uwwhha, Rin, she's okay,' while the current Hokage patted his friend on the back. "So, sensei, why aren't you back at the Kage Office already? There's no way your assistant would let you starve off time here with us," Sakura asks, curious.

"It's two in the morning, Sakura." The gray haired man took the chance to explain, putting a finger up against his student's lips to shush her. It was... strangely familiar. "We came back from a political meeting in Suna, but we felt a serious charka signature. It felt like.. Naruto, the Kazekage's son- Gaara, or Rin," Kakashi admitted. "She acted up and it was the Kazekage's son who had to restrain her, but she almost rampaged on the villagers. I had so much paperwork to do. So much... damages. Did you know the Kazekage's wife almost beat me to death? She looked like such a sweet woman.. but in the face of her village..." he practically shivered.

"Another jinchūriki? Well, admitted, there are nine of them. Unless you count that one time you almost turned psycho, Obito-sensei... then, ten..."

Obito looked sheepishly at the both of them, going beet-red with embarrassment. "Look, Nidaime-sama had some things to say about the Uchiha being discriminated against, okay?" Obito answered, peevishly. "Madara-sama wasn't wrong,"

"And yet here we are," Sakura sighed, yawning into her flattened hand. "Your plan failed and the world is still at peace." Thankfully Madara's weird undead body- wait, no, scratch that, he actually somehow completely revived himself- had been detained and every now and then she was to have a psych session (it rotated between at least a dozen med-nin in that field or ones with generally more power) with the second Hokage, albeit he needed to be restrained by twenty ANBU-level shinobi and having to have his chakra sealed.

Once, he almost stabbed Sakura with a kitchen knife she was using to make a salmon sashimi with. From then she just asked Shisui and Itachi to come over and be her personal bodyguards against 'Grandpa Maddie-hime', and they dual-Susano'oed him into submission. Then the job in rehabilitating the dead-now-living Madara was transferred from the medical division to the Uchihas entirely, taking in their founding father with welcome arms. He and Mikoto- Sasuke's mother- actually became besties. Blergh. Her mom actually went shopping with the two of them a few times, it was gross.

She thought it was gross when Itachi went through the 'nail polish and long, feminine hair' stage, but she grew used to it and actually missed it when his glorious tresses were trimmed down to his shoulders and his fingers grew calloused and uncared for. And Madara, he, too, was brimming with feminine charm. All Uchiha had some. (Maybe except Obito.)

"I wonder who would have business in Suna of the jinchūriki," Kakashi-sensei looked bemused as he pondered the possibilities. "I mean, you had to enslave Rin and Naruto the last time you turned into the Juubi's jinchūriki. Maybe you could tell if you just remembered the signature? Aw, Obito. You couldn't kill them because you love~ them."

Obito looked dejected, looking like 'I wouldn't dare hurt my darling wife! And your brat is actually a pretty nice person.' but he did just mumble in typical-to-his-lineage fashion.

"Was it a bigger political meeting? Maybe it was just Killer Bee," Sakura states, humbling the possibility of a reunion with the rapping Hidden Cloud man.

"Eh." Kakashi says without much thought. "Probably."

..

It's around when the sun drowns itself out of the horizon. Perhaps 6 or 7, but there seem to be a shortage of watches. Summer makes the days last quite a long time, after all.

Tenten and Neji took out Sakura for some gyoza, insisting it a quadruple friendly hangout with 'Sasuke's memory'. Forgetting completely about her drunken creed, Sakura doesn't ask the Hyūga man about his 'person of interest'. Pushing the sake away this time, wettening her lips in memory of her first hangover- Karin merely cured the symptoms but the alcohol had lingered in her body to wreak havoc later.

"Where's Lee-kun, again?" Sakura asks, eating a side of anko dumplings that Tenten had kindly offered to her, winking, calling it a 'peace offering', which Sakura didn't completely understand but thanked her anyway for.

"It's a double-date for your dignity, not a Team Gai plus Sakura reunion," Tenten 'tsk'ed, shaking her head vigorously, taking a bite of Sakura's dumplings. "This place really is great! Choji recommended it to me, now I see why."

"Tenten..." the pinkette stops for a second. "Double-date? What do you mean?"

Neji coughs.

Tenten coughs, too. "Well, you see, Sakura, we've-"

"You've," Neji corrects in a reprehensible tone.

"I've," Tenten says with a sneer on her face. "Ever since Sasuke came back to the village- you know, after making sure Kaguya wasn't going to start acting up again, the unpredictable rabbit-goddess she is," the dual buns on her head straddled back and forth as she motioned with her hands. "Team 7- your team, it's been quite the divide..."

"What she means is that you barely hang out with anyone anymore." says the Hyūga, quite bluntly. "Naruto's off finding romance- with my cousin," he growls out the last part with mock hatred in his voice. "Now that it's finally peaceful. And Tenten thought you've been too absorbed with work to relax and converse normally with your best friends."

"Or maybe something even better?" Tenten adds.

"Oh...?" Sakura purrs, suddenly gaining vixenish quality with her half-lidded eyes. Her oddly seductive way of sitting up from her chair resembled a curling body of a snake lured out by the trance of a flute. "A-are you... insinuating that I should do... with Sasuke... the nast-"

"No!" Tenten yelps, switching to her iconic shocked face, her eyes turning blank as she tries to stop Sakura. "No-no-no-no, hundred times no, Sakura."

Her wiggling eyebrows stop dead in their tracks, and her shadowed gaze turns back into a pool of shimmering, figurative innocence. "Hohhh, I was going to say 'nasturtium picking'. Ino suggested that a bouquet of nasturtiums would send a clear message to Sasuke that I was joking when I called him Tsundere..." When she received a very disapproving look from the couple, she rose her hands in defeat, sitting back down. "...and yes, I jest." the pink-haired kunoichi murmurs. "Anywho, I know we don't go out together as often... but I have a job, and he has a job. There are priorities, ya know?"

Neji and Tenten look at each other. It's true that since the war, they've grown out of their childhoods. They are no longer adolescents- even their age-induced mental purity had been stripped since the very emergence of death and violence- their genin days- at the start of the chunin exams- so, now, when they had been through an entire world war, there was no argument. They were young adults- if they had been non-shinobi, they'd been fledglings leaving the nest, finally becoming independent and getting a stable income- renting their first house- maybe even starting a family. If anything, that crude innuendo was supposedly the only thing Sakura should be doing- providing the next generation of ninja to protect the village before she would possibly perish without doing so in the line of duty. This is how it had always worked.

They don't mention it again.

Sakura pays her part- a third, of the gyoza and bids the pair goodbye, and she heads to her home, after visiting a convenience store to buy a bottle of water... and some pickled plums. Something made her feel like she needed a cold shower, badly, but she compensated with a cold slurp of the clear liquid.

As she headed homeward, she accidentally finds herself walking toward the direction of the Uchiha compound- what was she doing? She backs away, realizing her mistake.

But then a familiar Uchiha slides behind her, with the same silence he always seemed to carry with, she stiffens at the sensation of his presence brushing closely to her light chakra field. It makes her back bristle with anxiety- because she knows who it is. "S... Sasuke-kun."

"Kun?" it's definitely Sasuke, alright.

"Kun...?" Sakura repeats. "Sorry, oops. Sasuke. Hi, ...uh, darling." she turns around to meet his dark gaze, her lips quivering ever-so-slightly with nervousness. "Weren't you on that mission to Iwa or something...?"

"I was." he replies, nodding while closing his features.

"Was," Sakura repeats again. She was picking things up from Tenten and Neji.

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"That."

"That..?"

In frustration, Sasuke just stops saying anything at all but brushes closer against her. Words mean nothing to Sasuke, if only Sakura would see that...

"Want some.. umeboshi?" she offered, mostly out of the will to break the silence. "Here..." she doesn't even wait for a proper agreement or disagreement before just tearing open the plastic packaging and swiftly taking out the sweet stuff inside.

After handing it to Sasuke, Sakura averted away from him, knowing full well Sasuke disliked sweets. "Here... anyway, I'm going home," she announced demurely. The titular man ahead of her was alluring as he was unavailable, but she didn't want to face him, not today.

All that with Neji and Tenten saying that she should hang out more... with Naruto, with him. But Sakura's not a child anymore, okay? She doesn't want to be a liability. She's a respected heroine and to be continued to be classified as such she can't show her vulnerability. All is good, and good was hard to maintain.

When they were supposedly 'in love' but barely talked, it just felt plain inorganic. Like she was devoting her emotions to a rock. But for the man of her dreams, a loveless relationship... though it hurt, she felt, was worth it, to keep lying to herself. Maybe it would be granted if she hoped strong enough. It worked with... Lee, I guess, with his infinite resolve for mastering Taijutsu.

"Sakura.. Take..." Sasuke says, his stare digging into her soul. He looked tired, there were faint bags on his handsome face and Sakura broke the contact. Why did his words hurt to listen to? But suddenly, he finishes his sentence- "...Take me with you." -and then the pain and suspicion melts away.

She shrugs and decides to string him along. "I love umeboshi." she says, eating the pickled plum with delight. "Sasuke, you like it too, right?"

"I know," he says, taking one for himself and chewing into it, at first, hesitantly, and deciding he enjoyed the sweetness. Despite his utter dislike for the sugary flavor, he enjoyed it- like someone enjoying the bitterness of tea or the spiciness of wasabi while dominantly disliking those flavors. "I do."

"Using the least amount of words possible to convey your feelings," Sakura sighs, eating the delectable prune with a widening mouth, smacking her lips briefly before chewing it. "So Sasuke-like. So utterly and frustratingly tsundere."

He was silenced by the comment, looking agitated. "On second thought. I'm just going home." the raven-haired man retorts, stuffing his hands into his pockets before turning away. Sakura doesn't stop him, nor does she wave goodbye. "...see you. Sakura. Tch."

If Sasuke could describe the heated romantic tension between them, he'd call it 'you're my insignificant other,' just to act all bitter and uninterested. But Ino was totally right. Screw that doubt or whatever, Sasuke totally is so obsessed with Sakura that he can't even stand being made fun of for that very fact.

"Tsundere." she spits, before opening her house's gates, looking back. "And I'm never seeing you again, loser!"- wait, why did she say that? Why did something in her tell her that she'd categorically never see him ever again? Why was there dread when she looked at him like he'd died and she was staring at a ghost?

Sasuke looks like a lost puppy. (It's pretty cute, but not as cute as Naruto's adorable widdle whiskered cheeks. Guilt tripping won't work on her.) It's his turn to not say anything as his silhouette grows darker and hazier as he walks away. Immense contriteness floods in Sakura's chest, but she ignores it. She'll see him tomorrow, and he truly hadn't been hurt by her trivial comment on his 'dere' type, had he?

Pay no mind... Sakura. Enjoy your umeboshi and imagine the good days, back when this silly excuse of a BF(F) was a spoiled brat who was even more hyperactive than Naruto himself. Mikoto showered him with love and Fugaku, well, with the Tsundere genes running well in the family, being himself. Itachi was no exception to this rule.

Speaking of family... she wondered if her mom had prepared her dinner yet or what. She's an adult now, but the Obito/Madara incident has left her very little time to do things herself, so where's the harm? Mebuki likes cooking, to an extent. Too bad this trait didn't pass through- she [Sakura] was pretty tragic at it- couldn't even make curry without accidentally turning it a blobbish shade of neon green. Not to mention the blood-curdling food pills.

But home is where the heart is and women, too, can only be won through their stomachs. And her abdomen growled in dissatisfaction. Plums, apparently, the measly amount in the mostly-air spare the silica gel and five plums in packaging were not nearly sufficient.

..

"I'm back."

"Welcome home,"

Then, unexpectedly, the ceiling began to crack.

"Isn't that concerning?" says her mother, looking up at the crack. Mebuki and Kizashi then exchange glances at the interior blemish like its a particularly red and bulbous zit.

"It seems concerning," Kizashi adds. "Is that normal?"

"Oh, that's normal," Sakura says, observing the webby crease in the concrete above. Wait. Hold on. That's not normal.

Huh..? Wait a second. Was there anything about this that was anywhere near standard? There weren't eight Kage, there were six. Why was Naruto alive? Neji? Sasuke-Obito-Rin-Madara-Jiraiya-Dan-they're all supposed to be dead! She wasn't- couldn't be in Konoha.. Konoha was destroyed! She was supposed to be in Kumo!

And realizing the fault of her dream, Sakura frantically screamed.

..

And it were those frantic cries woke her up.

The room was slightly cold- she noticed it even before she opened her eyes. As realization began to settle in, she desperately looked for a clock or something to signal the time-- the ombre dawn was glowing beyond her window, the full moon dusting behind the vivid saturation. Sakura blinked, slowly, as her eyes and ears adjusted to the overwhelming sensation. "It's Toneri- he's here! Sakura, you need to leave!"

When she understands, she's up- her supine body snaps back into place like a rubber band. "What? Now?" There's no time for mental preparation- no time. No time at all! Sakura can't even begin to imagine the collateral damage he's done already. Was he in Kumo? Or was it simply information relayed to them by the other countries?

She's ushered out of her room by Kumo assistants, both in their shinobi gear. She doesn't have time to get dressed up- the end was nigh. (Although it's embarrassing wearing nothing but her pajamas, personal dignity is not a concern right now.) The countdown that had temporarily been paused started ticking again, this time, at a faster rate than before. As she stormed down the staircase, she saw chaos- everyone was screaming.

"Kiri was obliterated! One man, one man! One man did this!" cried one official, throwing himself at the wall. "We're doomed! Dead! To hell with the Hokage's plan, we're already too late!" another pulled at his hair, tears dripping down his rolls. "Iwagakure is done for, too, the Tsuchikage was killed in one blow- we're going to die!"

It looked like a hillbilly gathering of 'The End is Near' crazies, but really, Sakura knew that they weren't psychotic lunatics. It was truth. "Our own Raikage!" cried one man, kneeling on the ground in dissolution. "Raikage-sama is dead!"

No sign of 'Konoha is doomed,'-- not yet. She felt her heart collapse on itself at the same time as regaining traction. But Sakura ignored it the best she could, as she smashed through the doors and began running at top speed. The cave she was set to go to.. if she could reach it, then she'd be fine! The bag containing her scroll waved unbuckled at her side, bouncing off her thigh every step she took. No goodbyes.

There were no goodbyes because this wasn't goodbye. Good always prevails over evil!

Right?

________________________________

"I bestow total devastation for you, Hagoromo's failures!"

Armies came in response to Toneri.

The new sensations- the real, beating hearts, the bodies filled with blood and bones, like himself, not the wooden puppets that held no life, no love. The new people he met would not last another day, but he was solemnly grateful for their presence. Even if they were evil and filthy; no matter what they said or claimed to do. 'We'll protect Konoha!' 'Our friendship will defeat you!' So sweet, so childish, so naïve to their own vermin and disease. It rang like a serenade in his head as she slaughtered the useless drones, a violent but justified culling of the vilest creatures on the planet. Slash, splish, squish. This divine punishment was the only way secure retribution!

The second coming of the earth! Oh, no, it wasn't he that should be grateful, it was them. They cared so about their earth that they threw away their lives for it, and yet they didn't realize it was them themselves who polluted it with false ideologies, insane rhetoric and merciless slaughter. He looked down at his victims, those tainted with his first taste of blood- and looked forward for the billions that would follow.

It was so much fun killing those sinners. The ichor that infested their veins was a testament to their guilt! No less, no more, just the fact they had been syndicates to his ancestral devastation meant just as much as a blade to the throat. Hinata's clan, the Hyūga were moon-people like himself- less corrupted than the filth that went against his ancestor's decree: meaning she could be spared, being one of the purest of Byakugan, sans her young sister, without incurring Hamura's wrath- oh, beloved Byakugan-princess! How he loved her! The same princess who loved him!

So when he finally annihilated all the strays wandering around, bloodthirst leaving his immediate thought, Hinata's memories became so clear to him. When he'd placed the orb within her, it was like they possessed a singular mind- those names, such as 'Naruto', 'Hiashi', 'Neji,'- even though he's never met them before, he can clearly decipher every detail she knows about them as if they were his own memories. But he feels rage. They've all hurt her, in some way or another, he feels it through her eyes.

So he knew just who to target, who to make suffer.

(If only he knew they were already dead.)

So when he comes to 'Konoha'- the village where Hinata-hime came from, he is delighted by the destruction left behind. But that delight melts to ecstatic anger when a large force of shinobi comes to combat him- the strongest, he assumes, is the blonde woman in front, her aura tenfold to that of most of her men. They're alive, and they needed to die.

With the snap of his fingers, a large ray of light goes smashing through the cataclysmic scenery. It explodes, in a neat line, and the screams of many rings out like a vociferous cacophony of birds. The leader of the group looks shocked. She's hurt. She's not happy, so he's ha-

But he's surprised by a sudden brightening in this large-busted woman's eyes, as she smiles. He can barely register her face from so far away, but she sees the twitch in the faraway image.

An ugly frown disfigures the Ōtsutsuki's serene countenance, and he charges another fatal light, this time, at the woman below.

But a shrill cry deploys his bomb too early, and it explodes meters away from his hands, combusting mid-air instead of on the ground where it would engulf them in flames.

"I'll kill you if I must, Toneri!"

It was Hinata; her fists plummeting into his back. Toneri gasped at the sudden assault, but his cyan flames swerved out of the way in the nick of time. "I will not let you harm the people I care for!" In a flash, his fiery grasp sent Hinata onto the earth, and she shrieked in retaliation.

Even through his snowy-white skin, his light-blue eyes shining with the iridescence of the Tenseigan, he looked impossibly wicked. "Byakugan-hime, I did not expect you to betray my trust. But alas, you will do what I say..." his grip tightened around her wrist, and Hinata yelped in pain. ".. and as punishment, you will be rewarded with the deaths of those you love."

Hinata screamed as he dug his claws into her chest, pushing a bulb of light in. As she fell backward, but not before digging her own fist into her chest, pushing the sphere out. "No!" she screams, dashing forward with rage in her white eyes.

It hurts it hurts it hurts- he's never been betrayed before, for as long as Toneri can remember. What did this mean? Her love for this pathetic, cruel world exceeded that of the one she carried for him? Were all those words lies? Was he too hopeful? The flames almost spike into a hellish red as he grows cold. But as soon as the blood left his face, it came back with another emotion.

It's anger- more than he's ever known, and it floods into his head.

Toneri doesn't want to truly harm her- but she betrayed his trust. The trust he extended out to her and her alone. He's mad. "I suppose you don't have a choice," he tenses, grabbing both of her hands without the delicacy he has had before- this time, it's a martyrous cracking noise that rings out into the void. Hinata screams, loudly, like an animal dying in a trap, before falling limply at Toneri's feet.

"These hands... they will never defy me again!" he screams, leaving Hinata defenseless on the ground. Her arms were broken- she was a whimpering mess, her yowls unheard by her husband, who simply proceeded to abandon the attack, teleporting both himself Hinata back on the moon.

..

It's only a few minutes later, after Hinata is safely locked up in the palace bedchamber. She won't betray him ever again once she has no reason to.

The first person he kills that has any value, is the lady in the navy-blue dress, her hair pinned upward like a little fountain. Even though the lava she spewed as incredibly hot- a rare release type, indeed, she and her forces were not strong enough to stop them. 'Mei', was it?

The old man with the big nose. He, too, was formidable, but like a dying flame- no, the last piece of earth clinging to a dirty rock, is washed away by Toneri's power. 'Ōnoki.' Not even the dark-skinned lightning-man with incredible speed can save them, as he falls. At this point, he doesn't even want to keep up with the number of fleeting features that come into view, even though his subconscious matches those blurry faces with names from his memory. They're all like ants to him- he doesn't even think of considering them unique anymore.

Countless faces come in and out of sight, their determination wiped clean by the power of his fist. Toneri kills, kills, kills until he's completely deaf to the terrified screams. Civilians, he assumes, the defenseless, the sick, the weak, the children, the old. All dead.

He goes back to 'Konoha' for one lengthy, sick look at the blonde woman, cowering, alone, as the sole survivor of his heavenly rapture. He beams, his teeth flickering between his sky-blue fire, as he begins mentally valuing her suffering. What would destroy her? What would make her just as sad and demented as...

But he thinks its too much of an effort, and that he's had his fun, and the world should just be destroyed in a single wave of his hands instead of him killing off humankind one-by-one.

Oh, to think he thought he was human? No, Toneri is not human, he is so much more. It proved to him when Hinata betrayed him that he had none of that cowering insolence!

"'Tsunade', are you?" he asks but doesn't get an answer.

Annoyed, he decides to finish her off. Boom.

But she doesn't die- her body begins slowly rebuilding itself in front of him, the flesh reconstructing itself from the ground-up.

She was interesting.

________________________________

Panting, Sakura made the arduous journey to the sacred cave underground. It was much like Konoha's shelter, so she first thought there would be evacuated Lightning citizens would be taking refuge there, but it was utterly empty under inspection.

What she knew was that Killer Bee was to 'chaperone' her- well, more like just watch over her as she took in the Bijuu's chakra. She would have to be careful, however, as if her body was unprepared she could possibly die as a result of an overload of power.

"Bee? Hello? Hey, Bee!" she tried to find the jinchūriki of the Eight-tails- but perhaps he was arriving with the rest of the Beasts. A sinking feeling hindered her from making too much noise after that- you never know what your enemies could pick up. Had Toneri been in Kumo at the time- she was unsure.

It only was a matter of minutes before the promised beasts made their appearance, and Sakura was feverishly holding her breath. Despite seeing them in tow during the final moments following the Great Shinobi World War, this was a far different context.

Sakura sat in the corner of the cave, the sobbing tinkering in and out of her mind. Would she just give in to her desires and cry? If Toneri destroyed Kiri and Iwa, there was a possibility that Konoha had... no, it couldn't of.

She doesn't know if she's the only person alive on earth now. What if she is- the whole situation pressures even her- a seasoned kunoichi who lived through the Fourth War at the front lines where she has seen it all.

Eventually, though those negative thoughts were banished alongside the thundering footsteps of the nine Bijuu and an extra human guest.

When Sakura saw Kurama, he had this hellbent, bittersweet expression that confused her- maybe it was difficult seeing his favorite jinchūriki's former teammate? The only other person with her was Killer Bee, the Gyuki's jinchūriki. (Also the only person who had a tailed beast sealed inside them in the world, ever since all the vessels perished, the exception being Gaara, who's Ichibi had been extracted years earlier.)

She looked away from Kurama. Kurama meant Naruto and she wasn't willing to think of him at this time. Damn it, she was over the crying phase already. She really has a low tolerance for emotional stress, doesn't she?

The internal troubles went away when the last jinchūriki started to holler out some beats. "Time to get it started, oh! Sakura-chan, yo! Start the assimilation, go!" the late Raikage's adoptive brother was still rapping. Even in the middle of the devastation of the entire planet. Thank you, god, for this one solace, for surely she would have gone insane with the intense pressure put on her for the whole entire world's only chance at salvation.

Not knowing whether to dig an ostrich hole into the ground and shove her face in it or to actually consummate the plan in motion, she simply let a pair of parentheses form on the corners of her lips and settled for a half-way.

"Alright!" she yowled, a tad too enthusiastically. Her Rinnegan's tomoe performed an elaborate twirl and the beasts fell into a somewhat-trance. Their eyes shifted to match hers- and while the only jinchūriki seemed iffy that his partner was being 'used', this was the only way even hope of being able to gambol around in the sunlight again. Or rap, for that matter.

A sudden prickle was detected in her hands- then it surged upwards to her shoulders. The pinkette twitched, unsure of if this had been pain- or something else. The electricity spread exponentially throughout her body, and the familiar Byakugo-like symptoms began to arise. The same kind of gravity-defying strength she'd experienced only a few weeks prior.

When she was done with the ritual, she opened her eyes to see the beasts panting with tire. They'd be safe here, though; a giant underground cave was probably exempt from being abolished by an asteroid, considering the ground above would hit first. She summoned her Rinnegan portal- this time, with more ease than the time on the moon, and stepped out to where she had been when she left the Konoha shelter.

...Except that it had been obscured beyond recognition.

The ceiling had been punted through and there was a stunning crater in the place of where... well, everything, was.

In shock, Sakura stammered helplessly for a few, irritably gangling moments. She couldn't sense any survivors. There were no cries for help or bodies to be seen. Did this mean the entirety of the Land of Fire... died? Vaporized by the impact of the falling meteor? Or did they evacuate? Regardless of the answer, she had the scroll with her, she could fix this.. she had the chakra...

Furiously, Sakura jammed her gloved hands into the satchel on her back. It didn't take long, but every wasted millisecond could make a difference. When she located the scroll, she yanked it out, eyeing it curiously before opening it-

'This is it!'

The scroll's contents were soon blurred by the sudden, snowy illumination- a brilliant arctic-blue light enveloped her, hindering her vision.

________________________________

"A shame. You were admirable- if only everyone were like you."

Tsunade was probably the one stickler from the entire assortment of people he had battled that day. Unlike everyone else, she could take multiple hits. She always grew back, after each mortal wound, being tossed around like a ragdoll yet still remaining alive, rendering her practically immortal. She was interesting, unlike the others who were remarkably, on her level in terms of strength, possessed a life force that counterbalanced death itself.

Eventually, though, she ran out of chakra. And like a candle without a wick, that woman's honeysuckle eyes grew matte and the black lines marking her seal regressed into the purple diamond on her forehead. Senju Tsunade, you will at least be remembered as having some value on the battlefield. Impressive.

His pleasure did not last long as an unsettling thought reached the forefront of his mind. The orb of light he transplanted within Hinata allowed him to gain control over her- overtake her thoughts, as well as her body. Now, incapacitated in her room, she would be unable to try anything.

Hinata-sama's mind was riddled with his stupid, golden sun-kissed hair and his idiotic smile. Toneri could sense every emotion- every sob that trembled from his lovely bride's being. His face never left her damn mind.

Naruto-kun this. Naruto-kun that. It was so... endlessly aggravating! His crap-stuffing grin was unbearable, his whiskers tracing the sides of his cheeks. He was human and yet he had the marks of a beast! How foul- a real disgrace.

Thinking of his brightness made Toneri sick to the stomach. Not even that one memory- the final memory of that douchebag, where his positively eleemosynary ruling matriarch had been puking, of all things, violently onto the ground compared to how disgusted he felt.

It was a primal urge that ground his gears to no extent. The pieced moments of his description is frequently replaced by an explanatory and humble female voice, narrating a past event with him in it. No visuals, just this one voice paired with the darkness. Like Hinata-sama had been taking notes from a second party just to learn about 'Naruto'.

Why did she think of him? She knows its useless to ask for help. Nobody can overcome the power of the Tenseigan- Toneri would obliterate all life within seconds if it weren't for the incitement of torturing this man who is digging at Hinata-hime's sanity. Maybe he doesn't know this, but 'Naruto' has hurt his beloved, sweet, (traitorous) Hinata-hime. The final memory of him he can dig up from her is his figure lying on the ground, muddy and clearly sleeping while Byakugan-himesama is shaking with sorrow.

Inconsiderate little fool.

Everyone- not that he couldn't stop them if he caught air of it anyway-capable of stopping the destruction of the Sage of Six Path's world is dead, spare the few strays he missed and the couple of shinobi that managed to escape the majority's massacre by foolishly hiding away somewhere. But those bloodthirsty rats would meet their maker very soon, so it mattered little.

Naruto.. where to find Naruto. He doesn't remember ever killing him- he must be alive, because his memory is so fresh in Hinata's mind. Then he remembers- the night he secured his Byakugan, he saw the statue on the cliff-side- it was Naruto. He must be a bigshot in this.. 'Konoha' of theirs.

Another mindly intrusion deviates Toneri's focus. This time, instead of Naruto alone, he's paired with a pink-haired kunoichi, a masked man in the middle, and a boy with the sassiest look of intimidation Toneri's ever seen. 'Sakura'. 'Kakashi'. 'Sasuke'. If he found those three, then he'd find Naruto and personally deliver justice to his front door.

________________________________

Identically to when she first came to Kumo, she landed on her bottom on a stone-cold terrain. Opening her eyes duteously, Sakura pursed her lips, distraught. The jutsu was supposed to send 'one to their genesis', so why was she clearly still an adult? Unless it sent her body back, too.. in that case, why was she here, of all places? She was born in a hospital, not a cave.

The scroll in her hands held the answer. 'Body Flicker', it read. Just like how the Yondaime Raikage's was flashy and featured blue lightning, this was Kakashi's variant. His had summoned a pure stream of light in place of his regular, deadly Raiton. At the same time, it varied as a summoning jutsu. Her current Hokage was nearby.

Turning herself towards her Kage, she clenched her fist, while observing it wondrously- testing her grip strength by grappling each of her fingers back and forth. "Sensei. An explanation, now."

All the dotted evidence she had so far. The scroll not working, Tsunade refusing to volunteer, the mission being assigned to her.. just on the tip of her tongue.

The pieces of a scattered kaleidoscope eventually made a whole picture, if you had the patience to match all the parts together.

Her chest contracted as she envisioned Hinata's face. Things like 'puzzles' or 'parts of a whole' just made her remember. She couldn't stop thinking about it- when the knitted scarf(oh, could she stop with the references to Hinata?) that is your family has been ripped to shreds by distance and death, you mourn them, didn't you?

Hinata had been taken right under Sakura's nose.

Even when her single-tracked mind ran on a set path, she couldn't help but turn her head to the side once in a while.

Crack

Her knuckles were ready and her fists were balled. "Sensei..." she roared, her voice impossibly deep and rough. Kakashi visually tensed, as even the Copy Ninja himself feared the tempest of the Savage Pink Leviathan.

The bargain of choosing either the life of everyone ever or letting Kakashi be spared of her wrath was like an obvious choice.

It wasn't long before Sakura's trained eyes picked up on the petty state of her Rokudaime. He was scorched by the flames and his outfit was torn in places, especially after the destruction Toneri had inflicted the entire world with, just a half-hour prior. How he managed to survive was beyond her, but she was glad he did.

Kakashi scrawled up by Sakura, clutching his burns desperately as he looked up to the pinkette. Why hadn't the scroll worked? Sakura was panicking- the Bijuu's chakra was swirling inside her, all this energy had wanted to just... explode! She bent down to his stature, before swiping a healing touch over his shoulder. She tsked as relaxation momentarily phased over what was visible of Kakashi's face, but was replaced by his previous strain. "I'm not healing the rest of that if you don't talk," she threatened.

It seemed to work. "There is no Time Travelling jutsu... here, Sakura. You are simply the only one left with Obito's chakra... the one who has the information we need."

The clues were making sense now - maybe in a retarded, sloth-paced way, but they were. "What!?" the pink-haired kunoichi gasped, disbelief clouding her judgment. "Why would you lie about this, Kakashi-sensei?"

"We needed to.. prevent.. p-public outcry. We needed you to believe this, too, because if you had known there was a chance that... well, you might not take it and try to fight Toneri yourself." And they both knew that would not have ended well.

"Oh." she sighed, before crouching over and easily repairing the damage her sensei had been racked with. As visible relief drew over the masked man, he gained the strength to stand up and guide themselves to a safer clearing.

..

"Rinne Rebirt-"

Her paltry sensei found this was the perfect time to finally remind her of a very crucial point. "Sakura, you know we don't have Obito's body."

Sakura rolled her eyes and refrained from finishing her sentence. "Right."

"And you'd die if you used that. Didn't you see what happened to-" as if speaking his former teammate's name was a sin, Kakashi chose that time to be a fairly sufficient one to hack out some congealed blood onto the grass. Sakura swore she'd patched him up into a privy! "-Obito?"

After reviving Madara, the younger Uchiha in question's hair turned a disgusting ivory. Not even the salt-and-pepper of old age, just... white. While it wasn't the worst color, it was so emo- in the worst possible way. If her pink hair was exotic and her sensei's frostbitten silver was edgy, that white hair of his just screamed 'I'm emotionally broken'(and also an Uchiha).

Sure, blood red or pure, unadulterated black (not the dark gray most had) were atrocious all the same, but white had reached peak prevalence when it came down to the Uchiha aesthetic. Hell, even Madara had white hair... twice.

Yes, she got it. Uchihas had the 'Curse of Hatred' thing going for them, and that's what made their moralities perverse; but after passing through the tribunals of being a lovelorn wreck and an actual wreck(after being stabbed/emotionally abused/fatally wounded by an Uchiha), she was sick of their constant deplorable behavior. That was enough for Sakura to completely change her mind.

The only way she could channel her anger in such a dire situation was humor, it seemed.

"Just do what Hagoromo did." her sensei implored.

Ah, yes. The final moments before she was knocked out by Sasuke and returned only to find him and her other best friend dead. That was a good memory to recall.

Remembering Obito's chakra- then calling it out of her circulation, was a difficult process. If she was correct, sharing her Yin release with another person (like she had with Kō or Obito) resulted in a little drawback of the receiver's Yang chakra- which wasn't a part of her natural chakra affinity. Thus, his chakra still remained within her -just like how Hashirama's chakra awakened Madara's Rinnegan- laid dormant, kind of like a benign tumor, within her system.

She had contacted him through her palms (which had been on Obito's shoulders) so she channeled her focus there. Sure enough, Obito's signature was present, however weak it was. Her violet orb began to impulsively twitch shut, but Sakura willed it in her to keep it open. Dragooning herself to strain her Rinnegan like this was new- she only utilized it on the sporadic occasion, so there was no overexertion, but it needed to be done. "Outer Path: Pure Lands Soul Summoning Technique!"

It was hazy, at first, like a small candlelight that was about to go out- but the blueness of her chakra grew into a resurging flame- and the two estranged friends were reunited once more. Obito's form was staring back down at them, a puzzled look on his face.

"I'm.. no. I'm not alive. Sakura? Kakashi? Did you two..."

"No, Obit-" the Rokudaime swabbed his forearm onto his lips, wiping some residue blood that pooled in his throat. "-o. Simply putting, the world's going to end, you better remember that time-traveling jutsu or we did this all for nothing."

His blue form teetered to the side, as if contemplating something. "I guess I do. I've never actually done it because it's going to take a lot of chak-"

"I have the Tentail's chakra." The floating spirit's face contorted, looking ghostlier than possible. For god's sake, the guy was already dead (his hair was off-white, despite being dyed blue by the chakra and his face was still marked by the disfiguring spiral scar) and he looked like... worse than death. Sakura jittered internally before rephrasing her sentence, this time, in a more calculated manner. "No! I'm not saying the Tentails was... what I mean, is.. I have all nine of the beasts' chakra."

Relieved, Obito's deathly expression resumed to a neutral. "Sadly, it's not a skill I can demonstrate," he said, pointing at the woman's left Mangekyou-Rinnegan hybrid in understanding. After explaining how it could "only be self-administered," as previously predicted.

"Before I do this, there's something I need to ask."

"Sensei.. I have a question. The people in Kumo told me Toneri destroyed Kiri." Truthfully it had been screams directed to no one in particular, not a direct address to Sakura... however, that detail is trivial. "What happened?"

"So you haven't heard... I stayed behind from Konoha's remains because I knew the scroll would lead you to me. But at the shelter.. Toneri showed up, obviously undefeated by the Allied Shinobi Force's troops." he explained, carefully dodging the topic of her friends' current statuses. "I had a hunch it wouldn't work out. So I used a stronger version of the body flicker to disperse the citizens around the Land of Fire. Toneri got in, destroyed the camp and stormed off, looking for Naruto."

"Why Naruto..?" Sakura's eyes widened. "He's dead.. why is he looking for him?"

"I don't know, but he knows who I am and who you are. You should be careful for the time being. Hide your chakra signature." Following his statement, Sakura tried to hide the insanely huge field of power to the best of her ability. The thing is, hiding your signature used up chakra, much like trying to close a box that has too much inside often led to spillage. So technically it was eating away at such a level that it was rather counter-intuitive since Sakura didn't usually have this much-shelved power.

The kunoichi steadied, closing her lids in concentration. "...Okay. Obito, teach me how."

"This technique is called the 'One's Life Genesis Jutsu'. Dragon. Hare. Tiger. Bird. Ox." His hands weaved the signs as he spoke them, slow enough to process fully. "Horse." he finished, but didn't bend his fingers to match in a triangular shape, and his voice went on unaccompanied. He couldn't demonstrate, after all.

"A variant of Space-Time jutsu and speed-enhancing tactics, it allows the compression of gravity and gathering of exotic matter to cause a worm-hole large enough to be stable. Hence why it takes a large amount of chakra." The scarred man drew an imaginary loop- which connected to another loop into the air to symbolize the worm-hole. "From there, the reason why I suppose Kakashi chose you, is the intense amount of radiation that comes from it. Your DNA would be fundamentally damaged beyond repair if you were just any person. Also, you'll be traveling faster than light through this tear in space-time and will be thrown back into the past."

"Yeesh. It won't affect me when I officially come back as a kid, right?" Sakura didn't want to suddenly get cancer or die of radiation poisoning as a baby. If it meant her consciousness(soul) transferred back as well, would she have the same hormones and cranial structure? Or was the mind a separate entity, connected to her chakra? Was she going to perish early due to some somatic error or due to the Hayflick limit? (She already stressed her bodily functions with her Byakugo enough) Would this baby-bod work like a clone?!

She was beginning to sound like Tsunade when she was listing off her worries! But it was justified, alright? If she died then everything would've been for naught. Who else has the Rinnegan and Creation Rebirth other than Sakura? Nobody! Breath. Sakura. Deep breath, 1.. 2.. 3.. exhale. Too late to turn back now, especially with all the 'catching up to Naruto posthumously' deal.

"No. It's just that... surviving the journey is pretty hard. Once you're past that, though, everything will be perfectly fine." Obito divulged, patting Sakura on the back with a transparent hand. "Don't worry... apparently."

"Will you be alright here? After.. I leave?" turning to Kakashi, the pink-haired shinobi asks with pursed lips. "The world is going to end... I can't leave you to face Toneri. Do my actions change the world in this timeline... or am I creating a new one?" From the time-travel science journals Sakura had skimmed, there were a few noting the fact that time-travel, theoretically, wouldn't change her past. She wouldn't gain new memories all of a sudden just because she went to the past. If nothing she could do in this new reality would change the future she came from, it would be so bittersweet.

Obito shook his head. "From what I know, since this change is a paradox- you won't be in your current body- it'll erase this future or pause it." That gave hope back to Sakura, and her concerned frown softened. Perhaps he was lying, but it didn't matter. "It's not purely scientific, after all. Chakra, as we know, was originally alien to humankind."

Sometimes she thanks Kaguya for being the alien fruit-eating inter-dimensional traveler she was/is. Bending reality, logic, time, whatever. Screw science or the 'natural order of things,' chakra did what it wanted. "Kakashi-sensei. Obito."

"Now, go," Kakashi says, extending his forelimb to her. "Go save humanity."

She threw herself over her sensei in a familial hug. "Thank you, for everything. I promise to save this future. I'll never lose sight of my goal for as long as I live!" Truly, even if the last moment of this Kakashi would be her cracking her knuckles venomously at him, it was something to be cherished. She burns the faint blur of his silver tresses into her mind with the power of the Mangekyou, unwilling to forget. "... for believing in me, even when things are looking this down... I won't let you be disappointed."

"You better, Sakura. You're my only remaining student. Make me proud." Kakashi began to smile a little, returning the gesture with a fatherly fondness. After a heartfelt silence, the Rokudaime's chin left Sakura's shoulder. "Hey, I'd like it if you didn't prank me as much the next time, you know? Also, tell Naruto to do the things his mom told him to, don't let Sasuke seek dangerous power. Maybe teach Sai a few things about being discreet in the right way."

"Mmhm, yeah.. I will."

"I'm sorry for never paying attention to you, Sakura. You always felt the need to be as good as Naruto and Sasuke... but you are special in your own way, and-" -but suddenly he stood up defensively, breaking away from the embrace. "Sakura. I feel Toneri's chakra signature. It's coming closer..!"

Sakura, too, noticed the immeasurable source of power shine like a flaming beacon in the darkness. She didn't recognize it- his chakra hadn't even held a candle to the puissance of this incoming projectile, but if Kakashi said it was Toneri-

He noticed them- he was coming for them! The seconds were clocking in more sluggishly than Sakura had processed, and thus the mere fractions of this minuscule measure of time started losing momentum. Her perception began dulling to slow-motion, as her body dragged behind her racing mind. Her chakra pooled into her core, the suppression cleared and now a dark halo around Sakura's figure. Remember- dragon- hare- tiger- bird- ox- horse!

"Sakura! Now!" Obito yelled.

..

"One's Life Genesis Jutsu!"