Sakura remains silent as she watches Sarada determinedly etch a map into the dirt from memory. At least, that's what she assumes the girl is doing, because she can't exactly see it. With moonlight as their only source of light, she has enough trouble making out the other's girl's profile, let alone the rough drawing in the dirt.

All the while, she tries to ignore the mounting sense of apprehension.

Sakura wishes she was used to all this by now. The life she has chosen is not one for the faint of heart. Even in the few months since graduating from the Academy, she's experienced more than a few instances of genuine terror and danger.

S-Class criminals, giant snakes and even a demon.

This feels different.

It isn't just the fact that she and Sarada are essentially planning to go up against a strong, deadly opponent who wields time travel and possibly the ability to end the world. In fact, that bit is still so extraordinary to Sakura that her brain hasn't even properly registered it yet. And even the idea of trying anything without the benefit of her teammate backing her up isn't as nausea-inducing as she expected. She's been on her own in more situations than she likes to admit—

Protecting the guys when they were unconscious in the Forest of Death, kidnapped by bandits that time with the monkey idol, none of them ever telling me anything until it's over...

She clenches her fists at that last one.

But right now, she is about to embark on something insane. Something on par with the crazy, half-suicidal stunts Naruto always magically manages to pull off. And on the only thing she has to rely on are her wits and her badly-injured future daughter.

A badly-injured future daughter who could wink out of existence if I do something wrong or get myself killed.

She swallows.

No pressure?

"Alright, that looks about right," Sarada says, sitting back on her heels and frowning down at the dirt sketch. She indicates several places in front of her. "These are the coordinates my team and I mapped out, anyway."

"If you say so," Sakura says, because it all looks pretty much like more dark to her.

"Well, it's not exact, obviously, the thing is growing, but based on the coordinates I remember from before and the position of the stars where we are now—"

"No, that I get. I just can't see."

"Oh." Sarada glances down again and then lets out a sheepish chuckle. "Sorry. Forgot. My team and I don't do a lot of night missions. And the last one, the science ninja gave us experimental night-vision goggles, so..."

Sakura raises an eyebrow, not even bothering to ask.

"Anyway," Sarada says, refocussing on her map. "By the best calculations we have, the epicentre of the time-bubble is about a kilometre north-west of here. That's where Teisōko must be holed up."

"Do you think it's another underground base?"

"Who knows?" Sarada replies. "We'll have to scope it out once we get closer. Come on—"

"Wait!"

Sarada pauses and glances at Sakura in surprise.

"Are you sure—absolutely sure—that you want to do this?" Sakura questions. "We're talking about facing an insane woman that can travel in time. And if she's an Uchiha, like you said..." She trails off and shifts uncomfortably, trying to tamp down the mounting panic and healthy dose of fear. "Running into Sasuke's big brother was scary enough. And the only reason either of us are alive right now is...actually...I'm not entirely sure why we're still alive. But this Teisōko person probably isn't going to be as merciful—as merciful as mass-murdering criminals can be anyway. And if she's the one doing all this..."

"No, I'm not sure about this at all," Sarada admits after a breath. "But if you have any other ideas, I'm all ears." There's an expectant pause, and Sakura slumps her shoulders. "Exactly."

"Don't give me attitude," Sakura grumbles, earning a light chuckle from Sarada. A moment later, Sarada's good hand appears in front of Sakura.

"You can't see in the dark, right?"

After a beat, she accepts it, noting that the other girls fingers are trembling slightly.

Not as confident as she pretends to be. Good to know I'm not the only one freaking out!

She offers a somewhat delayed squeeze to assure her that she's on board with whatever the plan is. Whichever way the day ends, they are in this together, and at the moment, they are all each other have.

The girls set off, with Sarada leading them in the direction it appears the epicentre of the phenomenon is located.

As they flit through the trees and across rough forest terrain, Sakura remains uneasy.

Every shadow in the corner of her eye, she imagines to be an enemy. Or Itachi Uchiha, awake once more and deciding to take them out after all. Or worse, whatever mysterious watcher Sarada said even the infamous S-ranked criminal was wary of. If she hadn't witnessed Kakashi lock away the crazed ghost man, she would be expecting him to pop up as they run. She wonders what the key to defeating him is, and what will happen once Kakashi releases him.

Nothing good, I bet...

Considering the guy's tendency to show up right before things get weird, throwing people off cliffs and releasing an army of crazed human experiments, it occurs to Sakura that he is more involved in this time phenomenon than previously thought.

If he's as insane as I think he is, and if he's got one of Orochimaru's curse seals he probably is, what if this Uchiha woman is just as crazy?

The conclusion presents itself immediately in her head.

Then, they really are embarking on a suicide mission.

Maybe I should knock Sarada out and get us both to safety now.

The thought has been fluttering away on the edges of her mind since discovering the girl's identity, but she hasn't let herself think it. Somehow, the darkness of the forest and the futility of the task ahead suddenly make it seem like the best plan.

If the world is going to end, she can at least spend her last moments keeping Sarada safe. She may never see Sasuke again, but this girl is a part of him. A part of Sakura, too. She represents all their dreams, and the idea of watching her die makes Sakura's insides twist. But so does the idea of taking a swing at her right now, taking her out when she's not expecting it. Even if doing so were to protect her, Sakura knows that the girl wouldn't forgive her.

Fighting is Sarada's choice. Sakura would be a poor mother—a piece of crap human being, really—if she took away her child's ability to choose her destiny. And really, none of them are children anymore. Not since tying the symbol of their village around their foreheads.

No, we have to see this through. No matter what.

"Hey, hold on," Sarada says, interrupting Sakura's thoughts and slowing their pace to a walk. "Do you see that?"

Sakura opens her mouth to reply that, of course she can't see, it's dark –

Except she can.

In the clearing of trees in front of them, hazy, warm light appears to emanate from nowhere in particular. Something like a mirror or a glass, only incorporeal, hangs suspended in midair. Whole chunks of the surrounding world waver, as if they are caught in a heat mirage. That's unlikely considering the cool dampness of the night.

"Look, there are more," Sarada says, pointing into the distance. Sakura has to squint this time, but it's not because of the darkness. The strange ellipsis of light is just very far away.

She turns on the spot, looking around to see if there are others. She is dismayed to find at least half a dozen more spread across the area.

"What's going on?'

Sarada casts her gaze about as well, squinting in the distance. "No idea. But the air or space wherever they're leading, or coming from, it looks weird. It's like what I noticed earlier, when Konohamaru-sensei and I were investigating. Anything outside of the phenomena looks grainy to me."

"So maybe those are windows to other dimensions or something."

"Probably. At any rate, I bet it'd be a bad idea of we cross into them. We'd probably end up in another world. Or worse." Sarada shudders at this. "Papa told me some of the places he's been before. None of them sound very safe."

"None of this is safe," Sakura says, peeking in the distance to one of the strange, portal windows that opens onto a distant sunset. "And I don't think it's a good sign that these things are popping up right now, either."

"I think the past and present are sharing space," Sarada muses. "But it didn't just happen. I think these things have been cropping up all over the phenomenon this whole time, and we didn't notice because they were spread apart. But I should have known..."

"Don't do that," Sakura orders, recognising the self-flagellating look that Sasuke sometimes wears when he thinks no one is watching. "Even if we weren't busy trying to stay alive, how could you have known?"

"It was when Papa—Sasuke—was fighting Mumyōi. He called him the "Uchiha brat"."

"So?"

"So, if you guys travelled to the past, Papa wouldn't be called that by anyone. Well. Except maybe the old Raikage." Sarada makes a face at that. "In my time, people don't call him anything so disrespectful. Even the people who hate him. He's always Sasuke Uchiha, or back home it's the Other Hokage." Sakura's eyebrows shoot up at this, and it takes all her effort not to ask. "If Mumyōi was calling him 'boy', then he's from this time. So, maybe you guys weren't the only ones to travel through time—"

"Which is entirely possible. I mean, we did run into an S-class criminal from my time," Sakura points out.

"I guess. But he actually came here to investigate, I don't think he was caught up in it. Mumyōi and that whole base...I mean, you remember the tools in the medical wing, right? All that dust? It was like people hadn't been there in decades. Maybe it was from my time, but the people inside it weren't? In any case, it means different times are bleeding into each other."

"And more it happens, the more fragile it becomes. Like cheesecloth," Sakura realises. "We have to—ahhh!"

It's a good thing they're paying at least a little attention, because when another time window suddenly opens, Sarada has enough time to yank Sakura out of its path. The move is hasty, however, and both girls need to find their footing again after stumbling back.

"That was close," Sarada says.

"I...think it was more than close," Sakura replies, staring up at the space they just occupied.

On the other side of the blurring portal, a man in heavy armour and a helmet towers over them. In the background of his world, a scarlet sky is clogged with trails of smoke. He holds a long, bloody sword in one hand, and drags a decapitated head by its long black hair.

Sakura hardly dares to breathe, hoping against hope that he can't see them.

That hope is dashed a moment later when his gaze falls upon Sarada.

"Uchiha!" he snarls, dropping his bloody bounty and lunging forward. The portal disappears around him the moment he has stepped through.

Sakura isn't even aware that she's moving. One minute she's staring up at their latest attacker, and the next she somehow has Sarada's hand in hers and they running away at full speed.

The mysterious enemy follows them.

"What the hell is this?" Sarada cries, her words barely audible above the crash and clank of their pursuer's approach.

"The past, I think!" Sakura replies, her thoughts racing a mile a minute to analyse the new situation and come up with a way of reacting. "That armour is old. Decades, maybe more—and, he just attacked you for being an Uchiha, so..."

"No way! Senju warrior? Really? But that's from like a hundred years ago!"

"I'll be sure to tell him that while he cuts us down!" Sakura yells furiously, tugging on Sarada's wrist to make them veer sharply to the left. Hopefully with his extra armour, their follower will lose some of his speed, but she knows better than to bank on that. "What are we going to do? We fight him, we'd lose!"

He's a fully grown adult. Probably jōnin level, if they even had that sort of thing back then. I can't remember if they had—oh, who cares, we're about to die!

"He's...he's after me, right?" Sarada pants.

"...Probably?" The sound of a blade slicing the air close by them, close enough that the tip brushes against the back of Sarada's borrowed shirt, making her squeak. "Definitely! Definitely after you!"

Protecting this girl is turning into a mission in and of itself! She's the most jeopardy-friendly kid I've ever met and I'm on a team with Naruto!

"Yeah...okay...I...I might have a plan...!"

"Is it a plan like throwing yourself off a cliff?" Sakura challenges as they duck low hanging tree branches and skirt around bushes that seem to appear out of nowhere. "Or bringing down the roof of a cave on our heads? Because I don't like those plans!"

Sarada doesn't answer directly, instead suddenly yelling, "Brace yourself!"

Then Sakura finds herself shoved to the side by the other girl and goes flying off to the side somewhere. The man from the portal doesn't even pause to acknowledge her, still going after Sarada's quickly disappearing form.

"What are you doing you little fool?!" Sakura screams, trying to stop the momentum of her fall and stand up at the same time. Her feet won't cooperate, and it takes longer than she'd like to get back to her feet. She feels like a giant bruise, and if that little brat survives this, I will throttle her, Shannaro!

The path ahead is brighter than the rest, and Sakura realises why a second later. It's another portal, this one leading to a brightly lit dawn. With this realisation comes understanding at what Sarada is about to do.

"No!" she screams, as Sarada runs directly toward the time portal that has just opened up. She shows no signs of stopping, and even if she wanted to, she couldn't, because the Senju warrior is barely a yard behind her. The only way to avoid the still swinging blade of his sword is to keep running, even if that puts Sarada into a completely different world. "Sarada!"

At that moment just before Sarada gets to the portal, the Senju warrior bellows out a triumphant call and brings his sword down toward her head—

Only for it to cut through the air as Sarada disappears.

The momentum of his body pulls him forward, into the portal, which ripples and disappears behind him.

Sakura's lungs constrict in confusion and dismay.

A hand lands on her shoulder and she screams, whirling around to find herself eye to eye with Sarada.

"How—what—how—?" she splutters.

"Three very good questions," Sarada answers, bent double as she gasps for breath. "Shushin. I cut it close, though. I had to, or he wouldn't have gone through the portal. I figured that's what was needed to close it: to disturb whatever's keeping it open. You saw the portal to his world disappear when he came through, right?"

Sakura gapes, parsing that, and then repeats, "Shushin."

"Yes."

"That's a D-rank technique."

"Yes?"

"You used a D-rank technique against a raging, homicidal Senju warrior?"

"Lord Sixth always says to keep it simple. And apparently Uncle Naruto once helped save the world using his stupid Sexy jutsu, so..."

Sakura opens her mouth, isn't quite sure how to react to that, and then decides not to question it. It's just another mark of how unbelievable this girl from the future is. Instead, she says, "How did you know that would work?"

"I didn't," Sarada says, and then winces, reaching behind her with her good hand. "And looks like it was close, too." She turns around, showing off a long slash across her back where the man's sword grazed her. The wound isn't deep, but it stains the remnants of the uchiwa symbol.

"I don't get it. How are you not dead yet?" Sakura can't help wonder, tallying up all of the injuries she's seen Sarada take today. "I mean, even your—even Sasuke would have a hard time standing right now, but you're...you're making jokes."

"It's thanks to you, actually," Sarada says. "Future-You. My mother started teaching me to store my chakra, like she could. It's not exactly full self-healing like what she and Grandma Tsunade can do, but it increases muscular endurance and cell regeneration. If I hadn't started learning that...I'd have died when that ghost guy threw me off the cliff."

"Wow. I want to meet me," Sakura remarks blandly. Then she narrows her eyes at Sarada and shove her finger in her face. "If you don't start letting me in on your plans, you're grounded!"

"What? I've never been grounded in my life!"

"Yeah, well, you'd better damn well pray I don't remember this then," Sakura grumbles, squinting up at the sky. "Now come on, before I change my mind about knocking you out..."

Sarada lets out an undignified exclamation.

"What?! That was a thing you had on your mind? Why was that a thing you had on your mind?" Sarada cries. "What happened to trusting me enough to perform emergency surgery on Uncle Kakashi?"

That was before I realised what a pain in the ass I was going to have for a daughter!

"Hey! Wait, you can't go anywhere without me! You can't see in the dark, remember?"

"With the luck we've been having, I could be blind and we'd probably end up stumbling into trouble," Sakura retorts.

It's depressing how true that sentiment is.

ナルト

The remaining members of Team 7 flit through the trees, keeping every sense open as they search for their missing comrades. Kakashi and Sasuke lead the way while Naruto brings up the rear.

At this point their priority isn't to worry about enemy shinobi possibly ambushing them, but unexpected portals popping up. The dangerous windows to other times appear to be manifesting all over. It's not exactly difficult to avoid them yet, but now that Kakashi is aware of them, it's harder to ignore.

From what they observed before, the portals close when objects pass through them. As such, if they ever pass near enough, all three of them will occasionally lob a pebble or tree branch into the opening, attempting to close them as they travel.

It's a stop-gap measure at best, because nothing but his team leaving the time bubble will completely end them, but it's something.

At least it makes the kids feel more useful...

At one point, one of portals begins to form several yards in front of their advancing squad, and it's only a quickly thrown kunai from Kakashi that closes it before they head through that space.

He doesn't want to think about what would happen if he or the boys accidentally passed through one.

Kakashi hasn't been looking too closely into the portals, as Konohamaru warned; in fact, the minute he and his students see anything that appears to have that uncanny, silver light they veer away, making a long arc around it.

That's one secret to the future I can live without knowing in advance...

Even so, not looking into the portals doesn't stop noises from filtering through the night. Most windows are silent and calm. Most likely, these open into times when this forest was still just forest. But sometimes there are other, more troubling resonances. Cries of animals he has never heard before mix with the shouts and screams of men dying in battle.

He's not sure which one makes him feel more uneasy.

That is, until his ears pick up the hum of skirmishing close by; the sounds are somewhat clearer and less distant than anything beyond the time windows. Kakashi raises his hand to indicate they should stop, tilting his head to one side.

"Is that happening here or somewhere else?" Naruto asks, landing beside him and Sasuke.

"I'm not sure," Kakashi admits, not wanting to completely discount it, but also not entirely keen to alter their present course. "Stay here, I'll check and then—"

"SHANNARO!"

The achingly familiar yell is followed by a dull, shaking explosion that makes the tree he and the boys are standing on vibrate slightly.

Sasuke's eyes go wide. "That was Sarada."

Kakashi doesn't even have time to give a command or turn to his students. Sasuke and Naruto are already gone, headed in the direction of the familiar voice.

Although relieved at the confirmation Sarada is indeed alive, Kakashi can't help but be wary. That shout and the explosion probably mean she's in danger.

He puts on a burst of speed, managing to pull ahead of the boys and grabs them both before they throw themselves into some rash action, or accidentally through one of the time windows. Neither looks as if they are thinking rationally right now and jumping in at the wrong moment could be disastrous.

"Wait," he cautions slightly, keeping a firm hand on both boys, all the while squinting through the foliage to assess the situation.

The first thing he makes out—not unusual, considering her hair—is Sakura.

Kakashi lets out a breath of relief. He's been operating under the assumption she was alive, but it's nice to get confirmation.

What's odd, however, is the particular facet she currently presents. In fact, he would go so far as to say that might be the reason the boys are holding themselves back, rather than his own grip on their shoulders.

Sakura stands weaponless, but with arms raised in a guard position. Bruises and bloody scratches cross every bit of her exposed skin, and her tunic has been shredded, the frayed edges brushing the bottoms of her hips. Her eyes are hard and determined, an expression her team doesn't see very often, and her entire frame is poised to ward off an attack.

A trickle of blood runs from the corner of her lip, beneath the most recent looking, fist-shaped bruise.

Behind her, Sarada kneels on the ground, panting in exhaustion. Her previously uninjured arm is cradled across her knee, the wrist hanging at an odd angle. Judging from the crater several metres away from both girls, she tried to use her strength again, but without the proper amount of chakra to back it up, was unable to cushion herself from the impact,

Surrounding them are a squad of three black-clad figures; one facing the girls, while two others warily keep their eyes on their surroundings. A fourth lies twitching in pain on the ground, foot caught in the broken earth there. From the twist of his body, it looks like he was trapped and the bone is now broken. As he struggles to get to his feet, the moonlight catches the forehead protector on his brow.

"What the hell are Iwa shinobi doing here?" Sasuke hisses.

Kakashi doesn't have an answer right away, until he remembers a story from ten years earlier. A delegation from Iwa tried to get Konoha to pay reparations for a reconnaissance squad that simply vanished within the borders of the Land of Fire. No one ever found the bodies, and there were no mentions of the squad in any mission logs, and so rather than face warfare Lord Third simply acceded to the demands.

But they actually ended up here?

The implications of that aren't good.

"Move, girl," the individual closest to Sakura—probably the leader—orders.

"No! I won't let you hurt her!"

"Ma—Sakura, get out of the way," Sarada commands through gritted teeth. "I'm fine..."

Sakura ignores her.

"Leave us alone!" she tells the Iwa shinobi. "We haven't done anything to you!"

The leader sneers. "We're not fools. It was daylight minutes ago, and now suddenly it's night? This is a genjutsu and she has a Sharingan!"

"No!"

"Don't lie! I've faced her kind before, I know their talents."

"If it was genjutsu, you could dispel it!"

"No, I can't, which means it's stronger than the norm, and the only way to get out of something like that is to make the caster falter," he sneers, stepping carefully forward. "Which is what we're going to do, whether you move out of the way or not."

He raises a hand threateningly at Sakura. There's a sheen of blood on his knuckles, and Kakashi realises that this is the one responsible for the most recent injury to Sakura's face.

He's not the only one that makes that connection.

"Tajū Kage Bunshin!!" Naruto growls, while Sasuke's fingers fly, forming the familiar signs of the the Katon Hōsenka.

Naruto's clones appear around the Iwanin, throwing themselves in between the girls and the enemy shinobi. As they immediately attack or try to dodge Naruto's clones, Sasuke flings several shuriken into the melee, concealing them in the flames of his jutsu. Using the chakra to control their trajectory, he sends a volley of flame and metal at the Iwanin.

He takes out two of them at the knees, while one of Naruto's clones lands a lucky blow on their leader. The real Naruto, and Sasuke, throw themselves into the fray.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cries in surprise and delight as the Uchiha boy lands in front of her and Sarada.

Kakashi can't help rolling his eyes here, because, of course.

"Sakura, you and Sarada get down!" Sasuke orders, catching an incoming kunai with one of his own.

It won't be enough to take out the entire squad, however, especially if any of them are jōnin, and so Kakashi gets involved as well, moving rapidly. He weaves through clones, blades and fire, and grabs hold of the enemy in the instances where they try to recover. With quick, economical movements, he snaps their necks. He doesn't like to kill in front of his students, but right now there is no time to capture and interrogate a group of Iwanin from the past.

The flames dissipate, as do Naruto's clones, leaving only Team 7 and Sarada in the clearing.

Sakura eyes the bodies of their attackers for half a second, before glancing up at her teammates.

"You guys found us!" Sarada cries.

"Hey," Naruto greets, beaming at the girls. "Looks like we're the big damn heroes this time, huh, Sarada?"

"Took you long enough to find us, Uncle Naruto," she grins, then limps around Sakura to hug him, despite the strain it puts on her arm. Naruto turns pink. There's not many people in his life that voluntarily embrace him, not people he met barely a day before.

Sasuke scowls at this display, stepping cautiously toward her as well. Sarada watches him over Naruto's shoulder, and pulls away, eyes wide and beseeching. Sasuke finds himself considering Sarada uncertainly. He's not exactly sure if he should say something right then, or if she expects to hug him as well.

Before he can conquer his indecision, however, Sakura gives a half-laugh, half sob and throws herself forward.

"I'm so glad to see you guys!" she cries in delight, grabbing both her teammates around their necks and pulling them into a close, somewhat painful hug.

"Sakura—"

"—you're choking us—"

"We thought you guys were dead!" Naruto says, gasping a little when she finally releases them both. Again, he is pleasantly surprised, and this time a little embarrassed, by the impromptu hug. Especially considering, well, it's Sakura. Even with the future set, he still cares a lot about her.

Besides, she smells nice. Why do girls always smell nice? Is it a rule or something?

Beside him, Sasuke's face is tinged with more colour than usual and he avoids looking directly at Sakura. As if she's suddenly remembered herself, Sakura's eyes widen as well and backs up a few paces.

"Um...hi Sasuke," she squeaks, her face darkening as well. "I...um...look, I kept Sarada safe. See?"

Aside from the broken bones, of course.

From the magnitude of her discomfort, it's clear even without her saying a word: she knows who Sarada's mother is.

Sasuke shifts, at a loss of what to say, but eventually manages an awkward, "Yeah, uh...good job."

Whether the rare instance of praise is brought on by genuine emotion or simply not being sure how to acknowledge the truth, Sakura doesn't know. But she can't help the smile that breaks out on her face or imagining that Sasuke's gaze softens just a little.

For a moment, it feels like there's nothing in the world but her and Sasuke, and she wonders if this is what Sarada meant—

"Alright, alright," Naruto complains. "Enough with the eye-sex already, we have stuff to do."

The moment shatters.

Instantly Sasuke and Sakura put a good three metres of distance between each other, both their faces so red that even in the shadows of the moon and Kakashi's glowsticks they are visible.

"Uncle Naruto!" Sarada howls, sounding supremely disappointed and possibly grossed out. She aims a punch to his head, and both cry out in pain.

"What's the big idea?" Naruto complains, rubbing his head while Sarada cradles her knuckles.

"You're an idiot, is what," Sasuke grumbles.

"I'm glad you're alright. Both of you," Kakashi speaks up, unable to completely fight off the smile at the sight of not one, but both girls. It shouldn't surprise him that the protectiveness he feels for his female student has effortlessly extended to her daughter as well. "We couldn't be sure."

"Well, 'alright' might be a bit of a stretch," Sarada says, wincing.

"Ah, on that note," Kakashi says, bringing out the pack of healing aids Konohamaru left him. "These should help."

Sarada brightens at the sight.

"That's Konohamaru-sensei's! You mean he's alive?!" She looks around, trying to find a sign of him. "But where...?"

"Naruto and Sasuke can explain," Kakashi cuts her off. "We have to get moving. Sakura, help heal her as much as possible. As soon as I get back from disposing of these bodies, we're getting out of here."

"What do you mean, 'out of here'?" Sarada questions, while Sakura repeats, "'Dispose'?"

He nods, but doesn't answer, already hefting one of the corpses over his shoulder. He's seen a few portals to that strange volcanic world. History remembers these Iwanin disappearing, and who is he to argue with it?

"Where's Konohamaru-sensei?" Sarada repeats once the jōnin flash-steps away with the bodies. "And Boruto? He was there in the cave – I saw him, but he's not – he didn't –?"

"He's fine," Naruto assures her.

"At least we assume so," Sasuke adds darkly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means sit down and let's fix your injuries, and then we'll tell you," he retorts, pointing to a nearby tree. Sarada wants to protest, but she knows they're right. Besides, with Kakashi momentarily absent, there's nothing else to do.

She opens her mouth, but Naruto interjects, "Don't argue with your old man!"

He sniggers, and ducks Sasuke's attempt to punch him again, but completely forgets to avoid the swift kick that follows it.

Inappropriate humour and violence aside, Naruto and Sasuke are right.

The four of them crouch down at the base of a tree, with the boys keeping an eye out for any more unexpected attackers – or opening portals, apparently. Meanwhile, Sakura concerns herself with applying whatever healing aids they got from Konohamaru to Sarada's injuries.

Luckily, in addition to a good amount of chakra replenishment patches , some of the tubes look like the standard issue healing balms her mother pioneered. Which means they'll be the most effective.

"You should treat yours, too," Sarada tells Sakura, but the other girl shakes her head.

"You need your arms more than I need to look pretty," she tells her, and then beams. "Besides, I have this amazing concealer at home, when you use it, you can't even tell. Ino gave it to me after the Chūnin Exam."

It's a lie, but Sarada knows better than to push it right now. Instead, she turns to the boys. "So what's going on? Where's Boruto?"

"You're awful concerned about him," Naruto remarks innocently, his eyes turning sly and squinty.

Sasuke elbows him. "He's fine. Probably on the way to save your other teammate."

"Mitsuki's alive, too?" Sarada cries, wincing as her movement jars something. Sakura snaps at her to stop moving, and she lowers her voice. "How is he still alive? I thought...I mean, it makes no sense..."

"We'll get to that. Before we do, there's the matter of Jikken—"

"Who?" asks Sarada.

"The ghost."

"He has a name now?" Sakura cries.

"It would seem so."

"How'd you find out?"

"He told us."

"We had to let him out of Kakashi-sensei's crazy weird Sharingan dimension," Naruto puts in, not liking Sasuke being the one with all the answers.

"You what?" Sakura demands. "You mean, we were running around here in the dark, and he could have just popped up and gone after us?! As if we didn't have enough to worry about!"

"He wouldn't have gone after you, it would have taken too much of his time," Sasuke says. "He probably calculated the probability of you being alive being too low to affect his plans."

"Oh, great, now there are plans."

"Are either of you going to stop interrupting?"

Sakura makes an apologetic face. "Sorry."

"Don't be an ass," Naruto tells him, then turns to Sakura. "He's trying to pretend he wasn't just as worried about you as I was—OW!"

Sasuke has punched him in the back of his head. Naruto rounds on him, raising a fist and preparing to retaliate, but Sarada shouts, "Knock it off, both of you! The world is ending, now's not the time for you guys to have angry grudge match!"

Both boys look as if they want to argue with her on that, but thankfully think better of it. Naruto makes a show of straightening up, while Sasuke folds his arms over his chest.

"So why is...Jikken doing all this?" Sarada wants to know, relaxing as the pain in her left hand completely disappears. The cracked knuckle is already mending, and she feels the chakra patches seeping into her skin.

"He's trying to open up a door to the past, to when Orochimaru was still a child. Apparently, he wants to kill him."

"But he can't do that!" Sarada protests. "If he does...everything will change!"

"Sarada, if you don't stop moving, I'm going to knock you out after all," Sakura says with a deceptively crisp pleasantness that has her sitting back with a scowl.

Instead of getting angrier, she sullenly goes on, trying to keep calm. "So Jikken wants to go back in time. But what does that have to do with Mitsuki?"

"Jikken wants to use Mitsuki, because because of some blood similarity," Sasuke says. "Konohamaru said some jutsu are specific enough to require certain blood types. At least that's the impression I got."

"That's...maybe not impossible, but highly improbable," Sakura frowns in thought.

"I imagine Orochimaru or Kabuto have concocted some kind of device to enhance chakra and abilities."

"I don't want to imagine..." Naruto shudders.

"Even if they did, time travel isn't Jikken's ability," Sakura notes as she finishes rechecking Sarada's bandages and fitting the last patches in place.

"He's working with someone else," Naruto declares, jumping on the change of topic. "Or maybe he's working for her, I dunno exactly. He called her a goddess, so probably he's working for her. But then again, he's not exactly the sanest guy ever."

"Understatement..."

"Kakashi thinks it's just a very skilled shinobi," Sasuke says. "Someone who has figured out how to manipulate time."

Sarada shifts uncomfortably here, and glances at Sakura. Her mother's face is drawn, eyes flitting to Sasuke and then back at her. She gives a minute shake of her head, a warning.

"Wish I knew how," Naruto grumbles. "But that ghost jerk wouldn't tell us. It's got to have something to do with that freak Orochimaru, though. Man, I hate that weirdo..."

"He's a bit...peculiar," Sarada admits reluctantly. "But he's always been nice to me. In a weird way, but still."

"If he's been experimenting on this individual, it's likely that he or she has a curse mark magnifying their ability," Sasuke muses, ignoring them. "And that ability is probably some kind of forbidden jutsu."

"It's not really a forbidden jutsu," Sarada says before she thinks it through completely. "Just one that was lost a long time ago. It shouldn't even exist in this time."

Sasuke frowns. "What do you mean?"

Now Sakura is almost glaring at Sarada, quickly relaxing when Naruto gives her a funny look.

"You're not going to believe this," Sarada says, taking a deep breath, "but...there are stories in my family. About a woman who had an advanced Sharingan ability—one so powerful, she could travel in time."

"Your family?" Naruto repeats. "As in, an Uchiha?"

Sasuke tenses. "That's impossible."

"That's what It—that's what I thought, but then I remembered the legend. Apparently, she could skip ahead by weeks and months."

Sarada quickly relays the – highly – edited version of the story her uncle told her.

"I've never heard about this," Sasuke says, eyes narrowed.

"Well, it's an old legend. Like, before the First Hokage's time–"

"Then I would have heard about it, but I haven't."

"It...it's not something you're going to find out until my time," Sarada says carefully, mentally promising to tell her father all about it if they survive this adventure.

Sasuke doesn't appear to buy this, but switches tracts.

"If you knew about this, why didn't you mention something before? Especially once we realised that time travel was involved?"

"Yeah, seriously, we could have saved a lot of time if you'd said something before we went rooting around underground," Naruto complains.

"Well, I wasn't really thinking about it before!" Sarada protests. "Not really—I mean, this Uchiha woman was supposed to be able to move just herself, okay? I didn't realise she could do it on a large scale, so I didn't make the connection to what was happening here to her. Something must have happened to bring her here, and It—we think she might have been captured by Orochimaru and experimented on."

"'We'?" Sasuke repeats, glancing at Sakura suspiciously. Her jaw is clenched, and she looks pained, as if she is biting her tongue on something.

She swallows and says, "Right. W-we were taking about it. While we were trying to get back here. Because, you know, it was just us for a bit."

Sarada winces.

And that's where I get my inability to lie from...

つづく

_____

Comments and constructive criticism are much appreciated, and very motivating! For more information about supporting my original, non-fandom related works, you're welcome to check out my tumblr (Typewriter Ninjutsu)

栗