Sakura was pretty content with her life. She was the best healer in the Elemental Nations. She had a wonderful daughter and a loving (if sometimes absent) husband. She had everything she ever wished for.

Atleast that was what she told herself everyday, until her idiotic blonde best friend came to her with a hair brained scheme of time travel.

".... and Himawari said he even shared his cloak with her."

"No. No matter how many sappy stories you share about your Karasu-nii, Naruto, I'm won't be agreeing to this. This is time-travel we're talking about, directly messing with the fabric of universe. Anything goes wrong and BANG-" She snapped her fingers. "- the reality ceases to exist."

Naruto dared to bring in the puppy dog eyes, and damnit, she had a weakness to those. "But Himawari-chan already did it once. Nothing happened."

"All right, one, it was a faulty seal which you don't know if you can replicate. Don't interrupt me." She snapped when Naruto opened his mouth. "Two, Himawari was already a component of the future and she didn't change much in the past. You're talking about bringing someone who was instrumental to the state of the present, to the future. What's going to happen when he isn't there to do whatever he did and everything changes? Are you prepared to lose your children? Because I'm sure as hell not going to bet Sarada's life on this."

Naruto wisely kept quiet as she finished her rant. Then, he sobered up and she knew he was going to use his Hokage voice.

"Sakura-chan, I'm not going to risk anybody's life for this. I've already thought about the possible consequences. I'm not that much of a knucklehead as I was back when we were genin. I'm the Hokage now and responsible for lives of every one of Konoha's citizens." He gulped. "Even the ones from the past. I'm not saying that everything he did was right, but he was forced to choose between bad and worse. Konoha failed him, among many others. But there is possibility to give him a second chance without risking much, and i don't think I'll be a very good Hokage if I don't make most of it."

This was the feared talk-no-jutsu, wasn't it? She should have just ran for the hills after saying no. She was Naruto's teammate, she knew this happened to everyone who gave him a chance a talk. But no, Sakura had to open her big mouth to tell him that he was wrong. Well, now she had to bear the consequences.

"All right. What do you need help for?" She sighed.

Naruto opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by the door of his office being opened.

Shikamaru entered carrying a considerable number of files, presumably (judging by the way his expression fell) for Naruto to go- through and sign.

He walked up to the desk and looked suspiciously at both of them.

"None of the hospital proposals are open. What are you two up to?"

Naruto giggled nervously. "What makes you think we are up to something, Shika? We were just catching up."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at that. "Whenever the members of your team 'catch up', it usually means more work for me. Spill."

"Naruto wants to save Itachi by utilising a time traveling side effect of a malfunctioning Hiraishin kunai." Sakura blurted out before Naruto could dig himself into an even deeper hole. She ignored the betrayed look her teammate shot her.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered, as expected. What he did next however was quite unexpected. "You are going to do this, no matter how much I try to stop you. It's better if I help right now and prevent the collateral damage rather than try to salvage the situation when it's already gone to hell." He continued.

Sakura glanced incredulously at Naruto. Had the powers of his talk-no-jutsu increased so much that it was now capable of working passively?

"All right. We are going to do it, dattebayo. So the plan is that I'm going to tweak the seal to take us to the moment when Itachi was just about dying, with a fake Itachi like body. Then Sakura will transplant Itachi's eyes to the fake body and leave it there for Obito to take , as we couldn't have won the war without Sasuke having those eyes. Then I'll put the real Itachi in a safe location with a life suspension seal. He'll be dead enough for Edo-tensei to work during the war. After we're back to the present we'll go to the place where we put him, I'll cancel the life suspension seal and Sakura can heal him." Naruto finished with flamboyance.

Shikamaru blinked. "You've actually some thought into it."

"Yeah. I told you, Shika, I can be smart."

"There are some flaws,of course." Shikamaru continued as if Naruto hadn't interrupted him. "Edo-tensei requires the DNA of the person to be resurrected. How would Kabuto get Itachi's DNA if he replaced by a fake body?"

Naruto scratched his head and looked towards Sakura. "Uh.. I didn't think about that. Sakura-chan, can you make a fake body with Itachi's DNA?"

Well, at least she'll score some brownie points with her husband if she agreed to this.

"I'll see what I can do."

How had this become her life?