Naruto Shippuuden: A Time to Be Born

A very beautiful girl of about twenty stood in a field of orange and crimson wildflowers. She had dark brown hair, and two different color eyes. One was red and the other green. She wore a black sleeveless shirt with a dirty, green unzipped Jonin vest over it. Her brown cargo style pants came down to her ankle and her feet were covered by her black boots. The tails of a Leaf forehead protector billowed in the wind from the back of her head. She rested her hands on the handles of the two black bladed sai that hung from her loose fitting belt. The belt hugged her hip on her right side but drooped on her left. It was still high enough for her to rest her hands on the weapon's handles. She closed her eyes and allowed the wind to consume her. Her mind, however, wasn't at as ease as her body projected. Now matter how hard she tried, she could never be at ease. Not with the past they way it was.

She hated how the world had turned into this. The world was a damn near desolate wasteland.

Damn Konoha. Damn Akatsuki. Damn the whole ninja world.

A figure appeared behind her. He was almost twice her age. He had black hair that hung down in the front on both sides of his face and slightly spiky in the back. A forehead protector with a large scratch through the middle of it wrapped around his head. He wore black pants with a short sleeve unbuttoned blue shirt. He placed a friendly hand on the girl's shoulder.

"What is it, Sasuke?" She asked.

"It's time to go, Hitomi."

Hitomi sighed and did the seal of the Tiger.

"Release."

The beautiful field of flowing orange and crimson, the wind, the trees in the distance, even the sounds of birds all faded away into a desert like area. The field of wildflowers had turned into sand, the trees in the distance were still there only uprooted, destroyed and rotting. There were no animal sounds from any sort of living creature. The wind was still there only it was more violent, hurtful, and non soothing. Hitomi turned to Sasuke.

"Now, that I'm done with my training. Will I be able to go anywhere?" She asked.

"Yes. But I warn you that this new technique will tempt you to do more than observe." Sasuke warned. "You will be able to go to any place you wish to go. Any time or place is completely open to you."

Sasuke noticed Hitomi thinking in her head just by the look on her face. He didn't need his Sharingan to know who she wanted to meet.

"Shall we go?" He said extending his hand out, waiting for her to take it.

Hitomi placed her hand into his. The young woman felt swept away as they disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind another ghostly area ravaged by war.

To Hitomi's surprise, she was in an area full of people. She looked up to see four large heads carved into the side of the cliffface. She was in Konoha, but it was the past. She had never seen this side of Konoha before. She rather enojoyed it. She turned around to her teacher but he wasn't there.

"Sasuke?"

She looked all around her for him but he was gone. She then felt a tug on her vest. She looked down to see a young boy no older than four with the same style haircut as her teacher's.

"Did you want something, miss?" The young Sasuke asked.

"Oh no, I'm sorry. I was looking for someone else older than me with the same name." She said.

A look of confusion spread across the young Uchiha's face but he smiled and gave Hitomi the impression that he understood before running off. Then she heard crying. She turned in the direction and saw a small girl in an alleyway, out of the way of everyone else, croutched down crying. Concerned, she ran over to the girl and knelt down to her level.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"It broke." The girl lowered her hands from her face and looked up at Hitomi with tear fulled blue eyes. Regardless of the tear filled eyes, Hitomi was able to see that the girl's eyes weren't entirely blue. In fact, they had some red to them as well.

"What broke?"

"My bubble. It broke."

"Maybe you can make another one." Hitomi said studying the child. She looked about six years old with dark hair. The girl stopped crying and looked as if she just realized something.

"You're right. I can make a new one." She said sniffling back her tears and runny nose. Hitomi stood up and the girl gazed up at her with a flirtatious smile. "You're pretty. I like your eyes."

"Thank you." Hitomi said placing a gentle hand on the girl's head.

They turned and walked out of the alleyway.

"Yukino!" A voice called.

Hitomi and her small companion looked ahead to see a woman that was the age of Hitomi's teacher, waving. The girl looked up to Hitomi.

"My mom is calling me I have to go."

Hitomi knelt down to Yukino's eye level. "Don't forget to make another bubble." She said with friendly smile.

"I will." Yukino said running off.

Hitomi stood up as she watched the girl run off to her mother. She felt a familiar presence at her side. "Who's that?" She asked without turning to him.

"Your mother." Sasuke replied. "She was six at this point in time. She hasn't yet chosen the path that will unite you." Sasuke gazed at the departing child. "I wanted you to see that she was a normal person from a normal background. She's unexceptional except for what she becomes later on in life. But we don't want to stay here too long. We don't want to interfere."

"I know," Hitomi said, fully understanding the taboos associated with going into the past. People who had this ability tried to avoid affecting the lives of those they observed in the present. Only in dire emergencies did they even dare interfere. To change events in the past was unforgivable, considering the unexpected consequences that might result. They would no more use their focus to change the past than to commit murder. Possessing great power and knowing how to use it sparingly were the ultimate goals of their existence.

"Now that you know this technique, there is one more trial. It may be trivial, it may be terrifying, we have no control over what you see. You must gaze into the Lake."

"The Lake?" Hitomi asked.

"A tool that a few others and I created as a final task in knowing the technique that you now possess. Although we have created it, we have no control over what it shows. It will show you a piece of the past that is someway connected to you."

"I'll do it." She said.

Sasuke placed a hand on her shoulder and in a cloud of smoke they were gone from Konoha's past.

Hitomi opened her eyes again to see that she was standing on a dock. Sasuke was standing behind her. Hitomi leaned forward and gazed into the inky surface. He saw an image dance across the water and finally become clear. It was Konoha. It wasn't the Konoha that she had just visited but a Konoha of the past none the less. She could see people throughout the streets although they weren't moving. They were all lying on the ground either dead or dying. Then four eruptions of lightning shot skyward from four corners of the village. Her eyes widened.

"Limelight!"

Then suddenly everything within the limelight's area, was destroyed. The Lake glowed like a sun going nova. She plunged her hands into the murky water and the image disappeared.

"What can I do? How can I save them?"

That was like asking, "What is zero subtracted from zero?" There would never be anything she could do to save them, because she was just a witness. With shock, Hitomi realized that every trial she had suffered during her training had only been to prepare her for this moment. If she could resist misusing her technique now, she would pass this trial. That felt more like a curse than a comfort.

Even though this was all in the past, she never knew how Konoha's end came to be. Crouching by the Lake, the Kunoichi buried her face in her hands and wept for her dead parents, fallen comrades, and lost innocence.