"Are you ready?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"No way! You'll be great!" he was excited.
"You'd be better." she sighed.
He was already shaking his head at her, he had heard this too many times already, "It can't be me."
"Then how about..."
She was cut off from her half-assed escape attempt as he grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look into those beautiful, serious, and desperate eyes. "No Sakura-chan." It was final and there was no arguing, "There's no one better."
His faith in her made her smile and regain some of her lost confidence, "Thanks Naruto."
"Besides we already planned this, and that's why you got your ANBU tattoo removed and everything."
Sakura nodded stepping into the array that Shika and Naruto had been working on drawing perfectly for hours. The three of them had been planning this for months but it was still only the three of them who knew about it and while it hurt them to keep hope from the rest of the survivors it was the only way. The last thing they needed was for an enemy to try to stop them or, worse, go back with her. They had even snuck back into the once great and now completely destroyed leaf village. It provided them with privacy because no one thought anyone stupid enough to come back and the only building still standing was the Hokage's office, and they could think of no better place.
"Okay, where do you want the travel seal at?" Naruto asked her carefully.
Sakura pushed her hair back and held it to give him a clear view, "Right behind my left ear." she answered.
She could feel him trying not to shake and wishing for Shika to hurry as he drew a duplicate of the seal on the ground behind her ear with a small tattoo gun, like the one used to give the ANBU tattoos, except this one was different because it utilized the chakra of the person using it so the seal would be near impossible to break and would never fade. It comforted her to know that a small bit of his chakra would always be with her and though most would never be able to sense it her above average skills when it came to chakra control would mean that she would be able to. That was why she had made him promise to draw at least one of the arrangements on her.
Right as he finished the door opened and Shikamaru walked in.
"You're right on time Shika, Naruto here was just finishing up."
Naruto smiled and handed off the tattoo gun to Shika in relief, "Do your stuff." Naruto said as he walked off to let them finish.
"Same place we discussed before?"
"Yeah."
She pulled out her lip and he tattooed the symbol inside of her bottom lip. They had decided that this would be the best place because this would be activated by both blood and killing intent, hers.
She would think about this later, right now it was almost time and she didn't want to spend the last moments she had with them thinking morbid thoughts.
Shika stepped back just as Naruto came back in carrying a few scrolls. Before Sakura could say anything or question anything Naruto was already talking, "Now you have the yin seal Tsunade gave you that stores chakra (instead of on her forehead like Tsunade's hers was over hear heart), an inner seal (on her lip), a time travel seal (behind her ear), and now we're going to give you one more seal. It will be a seal that works like a storage scroll. It will allow you to store items inside your body because we already agreed we didn't want you carrying anything when you got there just in case."
"Where do you want it?" Shika asked.
"Middle of my right forearm." Sakura answered pointing at the area.
Shika nodded and quickly added the new seal to her skin and then had her activate it so Naruto could stick in all of the scrolls he had brought with him into it. "Some of these are weapons scrolls, some contain money, some are S-class jutsus, and some are seemingly random. They are pretty much all that are left. No matter what happens they are better off with you."
"Okay Naurto, Shika. Thank you both." Sakura said fighting her tears as they all hugged for one last time.
She wanted at least one of them to come back with her but she knew that it wasn't possible and that there was a reason it was her going back. More than ever she was glad that she had surpassed Tsunade years ago and as the missions in ANBU got harder she had gotten better until she was no longer put on a team. Recently though her skills hadn't been of much use and so she felt a little better knowing that she was going somewhere where she could still help.
Shika stepped back and into the corner of the almost collapsing room as Sakura took her place in the center of the circle and Naruto moved to the edge.
Sakura closed her eyes as Naruto started activating the circle. She couldn't bear to watch as she left her friends behind. It was ironic that now it was her doing the leaving as they watched her go. She whispered the word, "Good-bye." to them and swore she heard them whisper it back to her before she felt the world tilt and her legs give way beneath her.
She didn't need to open her eyes to know that everything had changed. Everything just felt different around her and she had a foreign chakra in her system and there was no longer a draft from cracks in the walls around her. Still she couldn't stand around and think because she was in the hokage's office and didn't want to be caught.
It only took a minute to sneak out and though she could have "poofed" away she didn't know exactly when she had landed so she didn't know exactly what security measures would be set up.
Once she had gotten far enough away from the building and the village itself she slumped against a tree in the middle of the forest to gather herself.
She was wearing an ANBU uniform because they thought it would be best to move in when she first got there. It also had helped her sneak out of the village since it was made to prevent a shinobi from being seen. They had also figured that it would help in case she was found and needed to escape. She held no scrolls or information and only the basic of weapons. Based on how little she was carrying most would identify her as a Genin. Even her headband was not on her person so she couldn't be connected to any village. As an afterthought she hoped Naruto had put it inside the storage seal. Either way it was for the best she wasn't carrying it because if she was and someone from the leaf found her and looked into her and found she didn't exist they would think she stole it and other villages would automatically see her as a threat.
Lightly she touched the seal behind her ear and could feel Naruto's chakra flowing there. The seal had allowed her to travel back in time but it had also allowed her to step out of time. That made it so she would not be bound to her younger self and so that no matter what changes or what her younger self does differently she would not be affected. This was to remove any attempt at killing her younger self in order to kill her if someone were to find out about the situation.
Sakura's hand then moved to touch her dry throat and realized how tired and thirsty she was. She didn't know if she could do this.
'Of course we can! We'll kick the Akatski's asses and anyone else who gets in our way!'
She sighed as she stood to go a little farther to the river up ahead. Inner was louder than she had ever been before. It was a side effect that she had been expecting.
'The hells wrong with you! Be happy that you can help everyone!'
Sakura nodded though she didn't think that Inner really understood that they wouldn't really be her friends or the people that she knows at all. With that in mind Sakura reached the river and bent over to take some water into her hands and wash her face.
What she saw reflected in the river made her stop. The water in her hands dropped back into the river and she reached up and touched her hair first and foremost She ran her fingers through it and pulled it in front of her face to get a better look. It still reached mid-back but instead of being its usual pink it had faded to an almost silvery pink instead. It made her wonder why it had faded but maybe that was for the best. Next she moved on her her face. She looked younger, maybe thirteen or fourteen. This shocked her but they had been expecting side effects.
She sighed and gathered more water into her hands and took a drink. The water burned going down but she could tell it probably wasn't because of her thirst. Because of Inner she had a second set of chakra pathways running parallel to hers and those were fried. It wasn't any less than she had expected. Naruto had to preform the jutsu because he was the only one with enough chakra. The problem was that mean the kuubi's chakra would be transferred into her. That was why she had been chosen. She had a second personality with her own chakra and parallel chakra pathways. They had spent forever studying her to see this and to prove it the thing was Inner had so little chakra that it barely mattered but they changed that. What they had done was flood her inner's chakra with the kuubi's chakra and hoped that her inner could absorb it and utilize it. The fact that she was still alive proved that it could work because if it couldn't the kuubi's chakra probably would have flooded her chakra as well and burned her from the inside out.
That was what the seal on her lip was for, it was a container. It was to keep her inner and the kuubi's chakra separate from her. It could be compared to the seal on Naruto's stomach except because her inner was the only personality it contained inside the seal if it was released Inner would get control of all of that chakra and her body temporarily making her the inner. She wouldn't be able to use this though until Inner completely merged her chakra with the kuubi's chakra and mended her chakra pathways. That could take a month if not more.
She hadn't decided what she would do quite yet but that partially depended on when she had ended up and what she could actually do. That made her first decision for her, she would travel. She would disguise herself as a civilian and travel from village to village to figure out what was going on and when exactly she was. She would go to sand first. If she went to the leaf first she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to force herself to leave. With that thought out she would need to get farther away from the village to rest a while longer and then open up the storage seal on her arm.
Okay I've had this for a while and now seemed like a good time to post it...