He knew they were losing, but they had always been stubborn so they would continue fighting to the end. But Kurama had helped him cook up a plan to win.
In this time, they would never win. Obito and Madara had become too powerful, and been able to carry out their plans unchecked for years. Sometimes he thought they started fighting the war too late.
But if they had time? Time to change things? Then this war could just be a nightmare.
He knew he couldn't go. He knew he would try to save everyone, even those that can't be saved. He can't sent Sasuke—he would kill anyone he thought could be a threat.
But Sakura, she was different.
Naruto had always loved Sakura, he knew he always would. Even when he had been with Hinata, part of him—a large part—loved Sakura more. And even though he denied her, he knew she loved him.
But Sakura loved Sasuke too. She loved Sai and Kakashi, and perhaps Yamato too. Sakura had a big heart after all. But he knew that Kakashi, Sai and Yamato would never have the same love that Sakura would freely give Sasuke and Naruto if they let her.
Part of his desire to use Sakura in plan was selfish. He wanted her to be safe, far away from this stupid war and away from harm.
But he knew Sakura would and could do it.
He knew Sakura, and watched her from afar when they were both kids and he had become love-sick because she had been kind to him—the only one in their class that had been truly kind to him before she succumbed to peer pressure.
He knew that despite the fact that Sakura was known to wear her heart on her sleeve, that she was calculated. The way she had taken down the team that had gone with her to kill Sasuke told that to anyone who actually looked.
If someone had watched Sakura's verbal-spars with Ino than they would be able to see how she calculated her insults to hurt her the most.
Sakura had been a paper-ninja long before she grew into her strength. Sakura was calculated enough to manipulation people into doing things she wanted them too, but had enough compassion that she wouldn't do for the wrong reasons. Sakura would calculate each life, who she could save and those she wouldn't.
And he knew Sakura would do this better than him or Sasuke because Sakura loved them, because she hated burying bodies of broken little children, because she had spent years beside a Kage and knew politics in a way that Sasuke and Naruto would never bother to learn, and because she could.
Because Sakura could flash the enemy a sweet smile with her sharp green eyes calculating how fast she could kill them.
But he had no idea how he was supposed to tell her. How could he tell his treasure that he wanted to send her away?
In the end he didn't have too. Obito had attacked her because he knew that she was Naruto's Rin, Sasuke's Rin, and Kakashi's Rin. He doubted Sai thought of her like that, Naruto thought Sai looked at her like a lost child would his mother.
She had laid gasping in Sai's grasp, blood heavily leaking from the slash to the side of her face. Sai's face was paler than ever as he pressed his chakra into her—trying to stop her bleeding out and to give her chakra to heal. A dim green glow flickered on and off too many wounds.
Sasuke had chased after Obito, a snarl of rage twisting his features, and part of Naruto thinks Sasuke's a coward because he knew that Sasuke wouldn't watch as Sakura died.
Kakashi had chased after him, his masked face completely blank though rage swam in mismatched eyes.
Naruto was only dimly aware of it, he was too busy kneeling beside her as Kurama whispered in his ears what to do.
His fingers burn as he draws seal after seal around her and on her, pushing his and Kurama's chakra into her dying body. He can feel his life draining from him and going into her, he felt no regret.
He's aware enough to pull Sai away from her before the seals activate.
A dome of golden red surrounds her before both disappear.
Sai shouted out her name, but Naruto can't really hear him any more as he fell back. He looked up at the heavy grey sky and absently remembered time when it had been blue.
Someone's shaking him, but he doesn't energy to turn his head.
Weakly he heard Kurama whisper that it worked and she was safe.
So he grinned up at the dark sky with blood stained teeth, deaf to Sai's shouts as he let out his death rattle.
It didn't matter anyway. She was safe.
Over a hundred years in the past, she arrives in front of startled and suspicious Uzumaki—she's unconscious and defenceless.
But they won't harm her. An Uzumaki treasure this strange and half-dead woman enough to give up their life to get her to safety. They would never spit on any of their kin's last wish.
Later an eight year girl with name her Takara, unaware that Takara would change the world though she would never know how it had been for it would never be again.