"Two broken ribs." Sakura hummed and moved onto the next man.
"One broken leg and two broken fingers." She sat back on her haunches and surveyed the two men laying on the ground in front of her through narrowed eyes.
"I've had worse." Uchiha Setsuna deadpanned, refusing to meet Sakura's eye.
"I've inflicted worse." Tobirama said flatly glaring openly at the injured Uchiha.
Sakura looked from one Senju to one uchiha and sighed. "Look. We're never going to make it to Suna if you don't shut the fuck up and stop fighting. I am not your babysitter. I have more important things to deal with than the two of your fighting like spoiled children."
"If it doesn't stop, you aren't allowed to come." She said seriously.
Setsuna opened his mouth at the same time Tobirama did, but Sakura pushed chakra to her fists and rose. "I'm not joking."
"If this doesn't stop, you won't be coming with me, and you can go home and explain to your own clan heads, why you got sent home like children." She said.
"Now this is what's going to happen. I am going to heal both of you. You will not speak until we get to Suna. If I hear anything or see any funny business, I will kick both of your asses." She moved to Tobirama and healed his broken ribs, then to Setsuna and healed his leg and fingers.
"Any questions?" Both men stodd, brushed the grass and dirt from their clothes and shook thier heads.
"Good. Let's move." Sakura leapt to the trees at a dead run.
Kagami and Toka shared an amused look but said nothing as they followed the pink head through the woods.
They paused before evening to drink and relieve themselves. Sakura started a small fire and Tobirama broiled the fish they had caught on the way. Toka and Kagami were on watch and Setsuna sat beside Sakura as she referenced the maps she had brought with her from the uchiha library.
"I think we will need to stop on the border of Fire and Wind. The map here," She pointed to the spot on the map she was referring to so that Setsuna could see what she meant."This is the old border but it isn't too far from the border now. Funny. The borders look almost the same as in my time. Some things never change." She smiled at Setsuna.
"Some things do." Setsunas said with more venom than he had meant to and cleared his throat when Tobirama looked up from the fish he was tending to give him a dirty look.
"I mean the alliance, with The Senju yes, but also with Suna. It is strange. The Kazekage approached you?" Setsuna had heard second hand the story of how Reto and Sakura had met from Izuna, but Izuna and Madara had come in after the fight had already started. He was interested in hearing it from Sakura herself.
"He attacked me actually under a false name." She laughed.
"That's funny to you? You really are a strange woman." Setsuna said without heat.
He had been apprehensive following a non-Uchiha and a kunoichi to a village that was not only new, but composed of their not so recent enemies. The land of Wind and the land of Fire had a very bloody past. Their sparring match had changed his mind. He and Kagami had found out first hand how very dangerous Madara's love interest could be. More dangerous for the intelligence behind each damaging hit, she moved with timed precision, with strategy, she was smart.
It made him wonder if more Uchiha women should be encouraged to become shinobi. It had been more socially accepted for the women to stay at home, to use their visual prowess to protect the home and children, the next generation of Uchiha. After seeing Sakura blast crater after crater into the ground with such monstrous strength and agility, he thought they might be better suited on the front lines.
The Uchiha were a traditional clan, set in the ways of the old days. It had worked for them, they had prospered under the leadership of the elders, of the rules set by the founders of their clan. Well their clan was changing, the world was changing, thanks to this one, little pink haired woman, maybe it was time for the rules to change as well. If what she said was true, and he had no reason to doubt her, she had proven herself worthy in his eyes, they had to change, or the Uchiha of the future...would be no more.
Briefly, he wondered what the Senju thought, surely they were in the same position as the Uchiha. He had heard, like the others, there was only one of each from their clan left in her future. Setsuna's eyes wandered to Toka Senju, a woman and a shinobi. Were the Senju more open to change than the Uchiha, is that why the Hokage of Sakura's village during her time was a Senju and not an Uchiha?
Setsuna looked down at his leg. Sakura had healed it perfectly, it was like it had never been broken. Was it that which made her such a formidable kunoichi? Thoughts swarmed his weary mind. He could see how valuable she was, clearly Madara Sama had picked a worthy woman. Setsuna knew Sakura was the key to the Uchiha's future prosperity, he could see it clearly. She had his respect.
Sakura sighed and rolled the map back up, tied it and sealed it within her storage scroll again. She had been lost in her thoughts and hadn't noticed Kagami and Toka had returned. She slipped her storage scroll that contained all of her reference materials back into her pack and pulled out the storage scroll that contained her spare clothes and other personal items. She pushed her chakra into the scroll and pulled her hair brush from the mess. She brushed her hair, brained it quickly and pinned it to her head. It had come loose in their run and she wanted it out of the way.
Toka watched Tobirama watch Sakura brush and braid her hair. The man couldn't be more obvious. Toka rose from her seat beside the fire and moved to sit next to him.
"Tobi, is the fish almost ready?" She asked him, drawing his attention away from the pinkette.
"Almost." He said gruffly, he wasn't a fool, he knew what she was doing.
"Let it go Tobi." She said quietly.
"They aren't married yet." He said just as quietly.
"True, but it won't help our alliance if you keep staring at her like that when she is being courted by the Uchiha clan head." Toka nudged him playfully.
"To my knowledge, she never formally accepted his courtship, there is no contract." He protested.
Toka sighed, clearly he had put some thought into this. "No, but did you not see them together at the meeting, there is something there Tobi, you shouldn't interfere." She warned.
"I'm not going to interfere." He turned the fish over.
Toka looked at the man, tall, straight, strong. His eyes wandered back to Sakura. "Your eyes suggest otherwise, and I'm not the only one who has noticed. Sakura may be ignorant to your feelings for her, but the Uchiha are not." Toka looked pointedly at Setsuna, who was indeed looking at them.
"You think I give a damn what they think?" Tobirama hissed under his breath.
"If you care about Sakura as much as I think you do, you should." Toka got up and joined Sakura who was pulling wooden plates from a storage scroll.
"Hmph." Was all Tobirama said in reply.
Kagami the good natured Uchiha tht he was rose and sat next to the Senju heir. "Looks good Tobirama San."
Tobirama nodded to the man.
"I'll get breakfast for us, how about that, since you got dinner?" Kagami offered with a kind smile.
"That would be nice." Tobirama said, surprised at the sincerity in the uchiha's voice.
The men nodded to one another, and Kagami took the plates from Sakura's hand when she came over to the fire. "I got this flower, you go sit down, I expect you'll want to move on after dinner?"
"Yes, if everyone is able. I will check our chakra levels and heart rate before we depart to ensure everyone is still stable." Sakura smiled at Kagami, the man had a calming effect on her, it was nice.
"Yes doctor!" Kagami chirped and smiled easily at her again.
Sakura laughed and went to sit back down beside Toka.
They stopped at the border of Wind and Fire at Sakura's bequest. She pulled the map from her pouch and looked for the landmark she had seen on the map. She started walking off without a word in the direction indicated on the map.
"What are we looking for Sakura Chan?" Tobirama walked beside her.
"An obelisk, tall, made of stone, pointed at the top." She said absentmindedly as she searched the horizon.
She closed her eyes, it smelled familiar, no matter what time she was in, the place where sand met soil was the same and she smiled, comforted by the familiarity. Tobirama saw her smile and wondered what had brought it to her lips but said nothing. He searched the horizon with her looking for anything out of place.
"There." Sakura pointed to a small spot in the distance, along the border to their left.
She was running before he realized she had left his side. He caught up to her easily, only to star at what she was running her hands over.
"What is that Sakura?" Toka asked, when the rest of their team had joined them.
"It is an obelisk, it marks the road to the god tree, according to my research." Sakura sent her team a blinding smile.
"We're on the right track I think." The excitement in her voice was infectious, even Tobirama smiled at her news.
"Is it an actual tree we are looking for or is that just a metaphor or something?" Kagami asked.
"Honestly, I'm not sure." Sakura looked apologetic.
"I really only have what Sarutobi and the goddess herself told me, which isn't much, that's why I am in such a hurry to get to Suna." She explained.
Setsuna ran his hands over the obelisk with Sakura looking at the carvings.
"I think, this is only the top Sakura Sama, it appears to go...below the sand line." He bent and cupped his hands forming a shovel and started pulling the sand away from the base of the obelisk.
"You're right." Sakura dropped to her knees and joined him.
Kagami and Toka tried to help by pushing the sand that was removed by Setsuna and Sakura away from the area as it built up behind them. Tobirama was studying the markings on the obelisk with great interest.
"I think we should stop, it seems to go on forever. Deeper than we can dig out by hand." Sakura stood beside the obelisk, her hands on her hips.
Setsuna stepped forward and ran his hands over the obelisk again. He felt something, like an energy or life force flowing through it.
"Sakura Sama, can you feel that, do you feel something inside the stone, or surrounding it?" Setsuna asked her.
Sakura moved back up to the stone and placed her hands on it, it buzzed? "How old." She ran her hands over the symbols that decorated the stone. She could see the shape of what looked like an eye. She bent in close, her face inches from the stone." Does this look...like an eye to you?" She asked Setsuna.
He moved over to her side of the obelisk and looked where she had pointed, "It does, how strange."
Kagami and Toka were looking at the other side of the obelisk, "There's one here too" Toka pointed.
"And here." Tobirama said from another side of the stone pillar.
Sakura pulled some paper from her pouch and a stick of colored wax. She laid the paper over one side of the obelisk and made a rubb of the symbols and foreign characters. She wanted to show Reto when they made it to Suna, to see if any of it was familiar to him.
She pulled a current map from her pouch, tucking the rub away and marked the obliske's location on the map.
Tobirama watched Sakura mark the obelisk on her map, he pulled a formula tag from his pouch and buried it in the sand beside the obelisk, doing a simple sealing jutsu to hold it in place. Sakura had seen him do it and smiled at her thanks. He nodded.
"You mastered it, I take it?" She nodded to the seal once more.
"Recently, but yes." He said.
"You're truly amazing Tobi Kun." Sakura smiled and checked her pack, "Let's get to Suna, I want to make it there before dawn."
They ran.
Sakura had sent word via Lady Katsuyu before they had left telling Reto she was taking up his offer to visit him in Suna, and that they would be arriving in three days' time, less if she could push her team hard. He had laughed when he had heard the message from her slug summons. He was looking forward to seeing her again. He had been dreaming of her specifically ever since their last meeting, of her 'other life'. He found her fascinating, particularly her relationship to his future relative, Gaara Sabaku, the Kazekage of her time.
