Making The Right Choice
By Kuno-Baby
AN: With thanks to everyone who ever wrote a shitty time travel fic.
She was falling. That's the sensation she normally had when she looked at his handsomely tanned face, framed by his blond hair. This time the sensation was far more literal; in her staring, she had missed the odd rock poking out of the ground and tripped forward, pitched with an awkward jerking motion as well-trained muscles sprung to her rescue only a moment too late.
She was caught. Slowly turning up as she gained her balance and stood, the white mask marked with the caricature features of a woodland animal stared back expressionlessly at her. Not the knight she was hoping for, but better than falling on her face. She was a proud kunoichi, sure, but being rescued was better than the alternative.
He held her hand a little too long for her comfort, before he began to speak in a calm, almost emotionless tone, at odds with the meaning of his words. "You like him, don't you?"
For a second, she didn't quite understand him, then caught his meaning as he turned his head at the Hokage, his eyes unseen but his intent obvious.
"It doesn't matter." She stuttered out.
"Why not?" he asked, a little playfulness entering his voice, still cold, "If he's the one you want, you should take him."
"Who are you to tell me these kinds of things?" she asked, face turning red.
"Ah, not just yet, m…" He trailed off, and she almost didn't notice the word he tried to say.
He shook his head. "Anyways, what you want is important. More important than you know."
She stared at him incredulously. "Maybe you aren't from around here, but even the civilians know that what a member of a clan wants doesn't usually factor into what they get."
The man chuckled, the first real emotion he'd shown her. "He's the Hokage. Or he's about to be. Everyone knows that, even if they don't have the advantages I have. Your clan won't be able to refuse him if he wants you."
"Does he?" she asked, a little hope entering her voice.
"I have to show you something first." He pulled out a small wallet, and quickly withdrew two things: a ryo note and a photograph.
"This may be hard to believe," he began, "but I am from the future. I am here to help you in making the right choice today. Everything depends on it." He flashed the money in front of her eyes, the date being 17 years into the future.
"I know that isn't enough, but I couldn't bring much with me. This photograph, however, would be a lot harder to fake." He held it up to her eyes much longer. 'The monument,' she thought to herself, 'Those faces…'
In front of her were three children, genin that she'd never seen before, posing in front of the Hokage Monument. However, she'd never seen the Monument with Namikaze's face in it before. A chilling thought hit her. 'This is real?'
"That is your son, mother. One of them is me." The man finished.
"Which one?" she asked, almost desperate, but he shook his head.
"I can't tell you too much. But you have to understand – Whether or not I am born, whether my future is made, that all depends on this moment. You have to decide… your clan, or your own feelings?"
In that moment, she felt more resolve than ever before. Never again would her clan hold her back from her happiness.
Uchiha Makoto walked gracefully forward, through the crowd, and finally came to the Yellow Flash, Namikaze Minato, returning war hero and heir to the Hokage, and planted a ferocious kiss on his lips.
Uchiha Sasuke raised his mask for the last time as he felt the last pieces of his traveling technique begin to break and his very existence disappear. Itachi would not be born. Naruto would not be born. He, himself, would not be born and his horrible destiny would never unfold. A single tear trailed down his face and fell to the ground as he ceased to be, the last evidence that he had ever been there.
