Disclaimer: The series Naruto and the various characters herein don't actually belong to me but Masashi Kishimoto.

1/18/2008 Updated version, minor corrections and revisions added.

The Girl Genius

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

They say that time heals all wounds.

They're wrong though. Physical injuries can heal and fade but the mental ones? Those are a bit more serious and tend to be far too stubborn to simply vanish.

The pain of loss, the grief of losing friends and family and lovers never completely go away. Actually it gets even worse. Time is no healer, no balm to soothe your pain away. Time is a vicious enemy, a sadistic bastard who greedily steals all that it can from you. Your youth, your strength, your family, your friends, your children and grandchildren and more are all ultimately consumed by it. It grinds away, slowly but surely. At least, that's what it seems like to me.

I reflect that perhaps it simply because I have lived too long. I have grown too old. I have watched so many of my precious friends and family grow old and die. The burden of so much loss and death and pain weighs down on me, I feel crushed beneath it so much that it hurts to even breath.

Time weighs down on me. Although one wouldn't guess it looking at me. Despite the centuries that I have lived, I still look in my mid twenties. My hair is untouched by the snow of age, my body is still firm and taunt, my skin is smooth and unlined. But it is all an illusion. A sham. Despite my apparent youthfulness, time has gnawed away at me so much that I feel hollow inside.

I remember when I was barely out of childhood, I encountered a madman whose dream was immortality. He struggled and searched for years what I gained purely by accident. I wonder how he would have reacted to know that immortality is not what's it's cracked up to be.

After a couple of hundred or so years thinking about the whole damn thing I have to come to the conclusion that the ability to die is one of the human race's most precious gifts. It is also perhaps one of our greatest strengths. To die means that humans are constantly challenged and forced to grow, to change, to evolve, to adapt. To become greater than they were before.

I had no idea what it meant to being able to die … until I lost the ability to do so. It has come to the point where it is simply too much for me to bear any longer. To scream "Enough!" although by now, it's more of a whispered prayer and plea for it all to end.

Perhaps that is why I have come here. Back to the beginning. Back to where it all started. This was where I was born. Where I forged my first friendship. Where I first fell in love. Where I first fell out of love. My first kiss. The firsts of so many things, so many events that defined my youth.

It used to be Konohagakure. The Hidden Leaf Village. Once upon a time, it was the strongest and most powerful Hidden Village. Now it was nothing but ruins and rubble that was slowly being reclaimed by the forest.

And yet, not everything was wild and overgrown.

I take in a deep breath and try not to shudder at the huge desolate crater where nothing grows. The ground is fine powder and fused glass.

I wasn't awake when it happened but the survivors told me of the fierce struggle that took place here. Of the terrible shockwaves, of the earth shaking and trembling, of the explosions, and the furious waves upon waves of roiling chakra.

This is where Konoha's loudest and most surprising hyperactive ninja would face his greatest opponent. He had been hated and despised by the very Village he ultimately gave his life to try and protect at the very end. My eyes start brimming with tears as I weep, surprised that centuries after the fact, I still mourn him. That I still remember him so clearly, so fondly.

I turn away and wander through the ruins. Here and there I pause, trying to recognize certain landmarks. The Hokage Tower has collapsed and fallen on it's side. I can still recognize the skeletal beams of the support structure. That pile of rubble used to be the Konoha Hospital where I spent so many hours. I pause, orienting myself and locate my old house. And about a block away is a burnt out shell that used to be a flower shop that I spent hours talking to my best friend and rival. Still more memories come flooding back. Good ones. Bad ones. And I revel in them.

Only a few rotten beams remain of the old bridge where I used to wait with my teammates for our perpetually late Jounin instructor.

The old Ninja Academy is buried under tons of rubble from the partially collapsed mountain. I suspect that the students would have cheered at the sight.

Our old training ground is still mostly intact. Overgrown and weedy but it has remained relatively untouched. I stop and smile remembering our first test as a team took place here. It didn't go so well but at least I didn't get tied up to the training post like my blonde teammate. I chuckle remembering that it took us a few hours to remember that we had left him behind and still tied up. Boy, was he really pissed about that.

I continue on.

I paused at a few sticks of decaying wood and collapsed lumber and recognize this place as the bookstore where my perverted and perpetually tardy Jounin mentor always came to buy his precious reading material. He would have wept if he saw what happened to his beloved bookstore along with their wares.

I shake my head and move onward. I spot a vacant lot that used to be Anko's favorite dango shop. Anko had an obsession about the stuff that bordered Naruto's fondness for ramen. It always amazed me that she could consume as much dango as she did and never put on any weight. Actually I rather envied that.

And speaking of food obsessions, I chuckle as I find another familiar spot marked only by a rusted out, half buried oven which used to be Ichiraku's Ramen Bar.

And over there … I stop, feeling chilled.

It was here.

I recognize this spot intimately. This was where it happened. It was here I lay dying, inflicted with a mortal wound. I could literally feel myself ebbing away, a tearful lavender eyed shinobi trying desperately to heal what she could. To repair what was essentially a mortal injury. I remember trying to work up the strength to tell her not to bother. To concentrate on trying to save the others. But then again Hinata had never been one to give up easily, I smiled fondly at the memory of the painfully shy and perpetually nervous kunoichi with a will of unyielding steel. Even if I had, she would have ignored me.

And then he had come. His blue eyes wide in shock and horror as he stared at my injury. Then he smiled at me. The same goofy grin he had always given me. "I won't let you die. I promise," he told me. The last promise he would ever make. And I remember the crimson flames, the crackling explosion of chakra as he unleashed it. I remember screaming as he poured more and more chakra into me, more than he ever dared to tap before. Then darkness.

I awoke nearly a week later to find Hinata carefully trying to change my clothing one handed while using the other hand to try and shield her eyes from seeing anything too indecent. I always found that aspect of her shyness amusing. I long harbored suspicions that she closed her eyes when she took a bath.

She told me what happened afterwards. Naruto's final sacrifice, the terrible destruction, the forced evacuation of Konoha. And so many deaths. In the end, Hinata and I were the only survivors of the Rookie 9.

Naruto's final gift was an enormous amount of chakra, far more than any normal human possessed but with my enormous control, I could wield it far more effectively than he did. It would be years later before I discovered the side effects.

Ultimately I discovered that I wasn't aging normally. My examinations proved that I was constantly regenerating my cells before they died. Hinata remarked that she was surprised that it had taken me so long to realize it. That was when I looked at her and realized the fine wrinkles that had crept into the corners of her eyes, the strands of white that were sprinkled in her formerly dark hair and realized that time was creeping up on my friend.

As the decades passed and more lines and wrinkles and white hair appeared, I was amazed that she didn't resent that I was retaining my youthfulness. When I asked her about it, she simply patted my hand and said, "I do feel bad about it," she remarked and then smiled sadly, "I feel bad that I'm going to leave you too."

She was right. Although I didn't realize it at the time. I was there at the very end, hearing her wheezing breath and holding her frail hand that was spotted with age. Her breathing became slower and more erratic until finally, she let out a sigh and passed away. Leaving me all alone. The last of the Rookie 9.

She would not be the last one I would lose though. There would be so many others over the centuries. So many. And I remember mourning them all.

I found myself wondering how much longer my extended lifespan would last. How long could I go? What would happen eventually? Would I slowly begin to run down and start to age normally? Or would I simply turn into dust and disappear?

I dismiss these thoughts. It's not as though I will find out. I've grown tired of it all. Tired of living. Tired of it all. For the past few centuries, I spent some time working on and off on this little jutsu. The idea intrigued me. It also scared me. But in the end, I decided that the potential reward is simply too enticing for me not try.

And if it did fail … well, I suppose it wouldn't be too bad either.

Out of sheer whimsy, I decided to emplace the Seal on top of the Hokage Monument.

I've spent decades studying seals. And while ninjas sealed things away in scrolls all the time, most never give any thought to it. But basically what it is a cheat. It's mathematical formulae for folding space and time to create a pocket dimension. Twisting, compressing, spindling space/time to form a bubble in subspace where the object rests in statis.

This particular Seal is hideously more complex. Because I intend to fold time and space and subvert it, folding it again to form a tunnel, a portal into the past to send myself through. However I won't survive. Nothing can. Physical matter would be shredded, their molecules completely ruptured and torn apart.

On the other hand … something nonphysical could survive the transition. Say like … a soul. It would travel back it time and once in the past, I'm relatively sure that the soul will naturally gravitate towards … well itself. To the me who is already alive back then. I think.

Afterwards, theoretically the two souls will … hopefully merge and my knowledge will be implanted in my younger self. Hopefully, armed with information about the future and the various martial and medical techniques that I've spent the past couple of centuries working on, I … well my past self will be able to alter the course of history. I hope.

It's only a theory but I've spent the past century working out the kinks and I'm fairly certain it can work. And like I've said before, if not … well, it doesn't really matter does it?

I stroll around the hexagonal shape I've burned into the rock with a finger surrounded by a razor sharp blade of pure chakra. This has to be absolutely perfect. It has to be. I'll only get one try. I nod, ticking everything off one by one in my mental checklist. I take a deep breath. It's time.

I strip off all my clothes and walk to the center of the hexagon and sit. Nervously, I crack my knuckles and suddenly remember a sharp pain of someone rapping them with a wooden stick.

I glance down and smile faintly as I trace the joints as I remember how Tsunade used to complain about my habit. Loudly.

"It is essential for medical ninja to not only be professional, but appear professional as well," I recall Tsunade waggling the wooden stick like a baton as she pontificates, "it is paramount that the patient remains confident in our ability to treat them. Otherwise, they may panic and resist our attempts to assist them. You cannot appear nervous or uncertain because that is the fastest thing that will undercut your authority!"

Afterwards I would mutter something about at least I didn't drink like a fish or fritter away all my money by gambling. Which usually earned me another sharp rap and a snarled "being a smart ass doesn't help either,".

I realize suddenly that my hands are actually trembling. I take a deep breath and force them to be still. I can't help it. I'm so excited, I'm almost giddy. It's been so long, I can't remember the last time I felt like this. I feel the energies building inside of me as I begin. The entire hexagonal seal begins to glow and I feel the hairs on the back of my hand begin to stand up as I feed more and more chakra into the runes. There is a rumbling sound that I can feel in my very bones.

I close my eyes as the brightest, most brilliant light I have ever seen illuminates the entire mountaintop. I'm dimly aware of the earth heaving, rock splintering and cracking as the entire mountain is being pulverized by the titantic forces I've unleashed. Oops, I giggle, I broke it. I've never broken a mountain before. Gotta admit, that's something new, I reflect as suddenly it looks like the sky itself has been ripped apart. OK, that's new too.

I gasp seeing the blackness, the pure pitch dark void. Up until now, the only thing that has remained relatively intact from the crumbling mountain has been the area containing the Seal. Now, I see fractures beginning to form as the stresses are beginning to consume even the protective power of the Seal. The illuminated runes begin to flicker and fade and I feel myself being pulled upward into the dark blank emptiness. This is it, I realize.

I wonder if this will actually work or if I've just been deluding myself.

I wonder if I can actually change things or if Fate refuses to be mocked.

I wonder.

But if this works, if I can see all of them again, then it doesn't matter. That's enough. It's be all worthwhile… was Sakura Haruno's last thought before she was swallowed up by the Void, a smile on her face.