Chapter Text
They hit the ground together, crashing into the grass as the earth exploded around them. Somehow, she managed to keep her grip on his arm as they tumbled across the field, having to pour every ounce of chakra she had into her hand so she wouldn’t lose him. They finally rolled to a stop.
At one time, her heart would have pounded out of her chest at the way he’d held onto her while they tumbled through the air and as they rolled through the grass—but she was more focused on trying to breathe than to worry about that. She pushed off his chest and dropped to the ground next to him, her breath completely knocked out of her.
Whatever jutsu that was, it hurt like hell .
She pushed herself onto her elbows, her entire body aching. Every muscle felt like it had been stretched out until it snapped. She looked up at Sasuke, letting out a breath of relief when his eyes met hers.
“What were you thinking?” he snapped, his tone all too familiar. Only Sasuke would be transported through an unknown jutsu and manage to glare at her for coming along.
She released his arm, wincing as she sat up, equal parts comforted and annoyed by his familiarity. She dusted the dirt from her shirt as she told him, “Did you really think I was going to let you and Naruto go after him without me?”
He pushed himself off the ground, following her lead in brushing off the dirt that covered his skin, “You had no idea what you were running into, what if his jutsu killed us?”
She raised an eyebrow at him, crossing her arms, “So you can get yourself killed and it’s fine, but I can’t.” She couldn’t help what slipped out next, “Little late for you to start caring about me dying, isn’t it, Sasuke?”
His eyes flashed for a moment, but he shifted his glare to the ground. “At least Naruto is still there, hopefully he can hold on until we get back.”
She stood up, finally noticing the sun that was beating down at her back, “Um, wasn’t it nighttime?” She glanced around the rolling field, the green grass billowing in the light summery breeze. “And it definitely wasn’t this hot out,” she realized, the warmth from her vest and long sleeve suddenly suffocating.
Sasuke stood next to her, his frown deepening as he realized the same thing, “What did Madara say before he cast his jutsu?” he turned to Sakura, his Sharingan glowing.
She fumbled through her memories, “Something about taking things back, ending things before they started. I think he knew he was losing. You and Naruto were overpowering him.”
“He wouldn’t just give up though. This has to have something to do with stopping us still.” He paced a few steps forward, scanning the large field around them once again. Blocking the sunlight, he stared at the familiar dips and cliff edges that surrounded the valley before he turned to Sakura, his voice far more worried than she was used to hearing, “You’re sure he said ‘taking things back’?”
She nodded, “It was all I caught before he started doing those hand signs.” She stepped closer to him, “Sasuke, what is it?”
His eyes were looking everywhere but at her, his mind moving a mile a minute behind them. She caught his wrist, and when his eyes met hers, his tone was reserved once again, “I think he sent us back in time.”
“What?” Sakura knew she shouldn’t laugh so she fought desperately to keep the giggle at bay, especially with how tense Sasuke was. But time travel ? Was that really the first conclusion he’d come to? “What makes you think that?”
“He said he wanted to take things back, and look,” he stepped behind her and pointed over her shoulder towards the cliffs along the edge. “Do those look familiar? This is the same place we just were, which makes sense. Travelling through time wouldn’t change your location.”
She stepped away from him, trying to ignore how fast her heart started beating the moment he’d stood behind her . This was so not the time for that . “Okay, even if that’s true, wouldn’t Madara be here too?”
He shrugged, “We weren’t supposed to go with him. Maybe he had it worked out to bring him somewhere else.”
“Okay, say we agree that a time-travelling jutsu is possible… when exactly do you think we are?”
He shrugged, “There’s no way to know from here. We’ll need to go to the village.” Sakura blinked at him. Sasuke, in the village ? Willingly ? He shrugged, “I said it before, a lot happened, things changed.”
He started walking towards the village, a hike that would no doubt take them the day and Sakura asked, “Do you want to tell me what changed?” He froze, mid step, but Sakura pressed, “I need to know before we go to the village. Whatever we find there, whoever we find…”
“What do you mean?”
“Danzo,” she said simply, watching his back tense. “If you see someone like him, someone you hate, I need to know you won’t do anything.” She had to force her feet to stay in place, she wanted nothing more than to rush after him, but she had to know this first.
“Trust me, Sakura, I’m not like the dobe. I won’t interfere here. It’s not our time.”
Sakura shook her head, dropping her eyes to the grass, “That’s not enough, Sasuke. I wish it were that easy but…” she watched him turn around, but she kept her eyes firmly on his shoes, determined to avoid his gaze. “’Trust me’ doesn’t cut it anymore. Not from you.”
She was stronger than this, she should be able to look him in the eye and tell him exactly what she thought of him—but the mere idea of it, of looking at him and being vulnerable once again, it made her skin crawl. She’d done it before, again and again and every time he just drove the knife in deeper.
He sighed heavily, walking closer to her, “Then what can I say?”
She dared to glance up at him then, her green eyes locking on his and she wished she’d kept her gaze to the ground. It was so much easier to talk to him when he wasn’t looking at her. Still, she forced her voice out as strong as she could muster, “Swear it, on your clan.”
His eyes widened just barely, but it was enough that she knew her point had come across. She was serious about this. He nodded, “I swear.”
She dipped her chin in a nod and then set off, unable to keep the eye contact any longer. She heard him following behind her and together they raced towards the Leaf Village unsure of who they would find there. As they travelled, they came up with their plan, henges would be used so that no one would recognize them or remember them.
And their first order of business was to find out just when, exactly it was. But they weren’t to ask because that was too suspicious. And then track down Madara, get themselves back to their time without interfering with anything or anyone else.
As the summer sun crept overhead, Sakura dropped her vest and pushed up her sleeves as the heat took over, only slight envious of Sasuke’s loose fitting top. Running full speed as they were, they cut a few hours off their travel, but by the time they neared the village, both were exhausted.
Just beyond the walls of the village, they stopped. They needed a little more energy to keep up the henges, and though neither would admit it, travelling through time put a serious strain on their muscles. It felt like they’d been ripped apart and thrown back together.
Sakura healed what she could with her medical ninjutsu, but her muscles still felt tense when she stood. The sun had begun its slow decent, letting the warm air cool slightly and finally gave her relief from its suffocating heat. She glanced over at Sasuke, “Ready?”
He nodded, and instantly the two were transformed. Sasuke was no longer his dark haired Uchiha self, replaced instead by a taller man with short brown hair, light blue eyes and wearing a loosely tied robe. Sakura transformed herself into a woman of around the same age, her light brown hair and dark eyes nothing like her usual self. The dress she wore was simple, beige and tied with a blue sash, nothing that would stand out.
They started towards the gate of the village, and Sakura knew one thing for certain. It was before Pain’s attack. When she shared this with Sasuke, he asked how she knew. “The walls are the old ones. Nothing like the ones we rebuilt.”
A leaf shinobi stood in front of the gates, his arms crossed, and no matter how hard Sakura stared at him, she couldn’t recognize him. He asked for their names and Sasuke answered, “Chen and Hana Abiko. Travellers from outside the Leaf.”
They were let into the village not long after. As they walked through the front arch, Sakura found herself taking in the familiar sight of a lively Konoha. While the reconstruction was impressive and felt enough like home, this version of Konoha was still the most familiar.
That was where the familiarity ended though, the further they walked into the village, the less people she recognized. She was glad to see Ichiraku’s Ramen shop already up and running, so she knew they couldn’t have been sent that far back. Sakura rounded the corner of one building, an old apartment complex and her eyes landed on the great stone faces.
Except there were only four.
Sasuke stopped beside her, “Well that narrows it down.” She figured he was pointing at the faces, but when she followed his hand, it landed on the man in the Hokage cloak. The blonde hair was unmistakeable, even though she’d only just met him.
“Naruto’s dad,” she mumbled. “That means,” her hand slammed on his forearm with her realization. “We’re not even alive yet, maybe you are but—” she was cut off by a familiar voice, except it was slightly higher in pitch than she was used to. She turned around, her eyes catching the familiar silver hair, although this time, he wore an Anbu uniform and was much younger than the sensei she knew.
Kakashi walked next to the Hokage, he couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. Sasuke gently pulled her between two nearby buildings, firmly planting them out of sight. “That was Kakashi sensei, but he’s a kid …” her stomach rolled. She wasn’t even alive yet. Her sensei was her age . Her teammate was yet to be born . Somewhere, a baby Sasuke could be crawling around. The Uchiha clan was still alive . Each realization led to another.
Sasuke, ever level headed and focused on the mission snapped her from her spiralling thoughts, “Why would Madara come back here? Why now?”
Sakura leaned against the nearest building for support, having to fight through her panic. She schooled her expression and forced her thoughts to slow down; she needed to be rational. Her medical nin training kicked in and she forced herself to evaluate the situation as detachedly as possible.
“Okay, right now , in this time; what is Madara doing?”
Sasuke shrugged, “In hiding. Probably helping my brother come up with a plan to kill the Uchihas.” His voice didn’t sound angry like she’d thought it would. Whenever Itachi was brought up in the past, it seemed to bring out the worst in Sasuke. But now, he just sounded sad.
Deciding to tuck that into the problems-we’ll-deal-with-later section of her brain, she focused on the first part. “If he’s in hiding, his first appearance was at the nine-tails attack right? And when that happened,” her eyes glanced onto the street, watching the yellow haired man laugh, tossing his arm around Kakashi. Her mouth was suddenly dry as she realized she was looking at a man who had no idea what was about to happen to his family, “He died. That was the night Naruto was born, wasn’t it?”
Sasuke nodded, connecting the dots with her, “Madara said he wanted to take things back, end them before they started.”
“He’s going to try to kill Naruto,” her voice came out tight, and she swallowed the lump that had clawed its way up her throat. She shook her head adamantly, “We can’t let that happen.”
“Agreed, but how do we do that without changing anything else?” his now blue-eyed gaze was softer than his usual, but she still preferred his dark Uchiha eyes. Even the Sharingan, as powerful and terrifying it was at times, it was beautiful.
“Your eyes,” she mumbled, the answer obvious as she stared into them. “You can control the nine-tails, right? Do you think you can beat Madara to it?”
Sasuke looked away, leaning against the opposite wall, “I can try, but then what? If the nine-tails doesn’t attack… that changes everything . And I doubt I could control it enough to make it attack the same way again.”
And he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the damn beast, the source of the problem that started it all. It was because of the attack that the distrust grew against the Uchiha, and it was because of that that Itachi had to make the greatest sacrifice in the history of the Leaf.
Sakura shook her head, “No matter what we do, it’s going to change things. Think about it, the Madara that’s coming to attack, he’s not going to be the Madara that attacked before—that was Obito anyways, just pretending to be Madara.” At Sasuke’s exasperated look she cleared her throat, “Either way, the one who’s going to come attack is going to be the one we just fought. That means there are two Madaras now, even if one is Obito—”
“I doubt it. Madara’s probably already stopped the other one. He wouldn’t risk that.”
“Do we even know what counts as a risk?” she asked, tossing her hands, “We’re talking about time travel, Sasuke, us just being here could have massive effects. But if we don’t stop Madara now, the world we’re going back to is going to be a whole lot different.”
“So we need to kill the Madara from our time, but just let everything else happen,” he agreed, but his voice sounded shaky. Sakura immediately knew why.
“Your family,” she mumbled. The Uchiha clan was still alive, people Sasuke hadn’t seen since he was five years old. If they walked just a little further down the street, they’d reach the Uchiha Clan’s land. “Sasuke, I don’t think—"
He shook his head, “It doesn’t matter. It worked the way it did for a reason, it got us here.” Now he just hoped they could find a way to get back before he had to watch it happen… again . He added, “We can only kill Madara once he’s shown us how to get back to our time. If we stop him here and go back before we talk to anyone or see anyone, then we should be fine.”
Sakura was about to reply, agree and help him come up with a plan, but there was suddenly a dagger flying between them and then there was a blur of colour. Yellow, silver, a flash of red. And then the surprisingly tall-for-a-sixteen-year-old Kakashi had her hands pinned, and the Hokage himself had done the same to Sasuke.
“I’m normally not too worried when people whisper behind my back,” he smiled easily. “But when they start talking about killing someone, I get concerned. Why don’t you two come with me?” Once he was sure that Sasuke wouldn’t struggle, he reached a hand over to Kakashi and Sakura, making sure he had a grip on both.
They were gone in a flash.