She pulled out her storage scroll with her toiletries from her bag and opened the door to the bathroom. She filled the tub with her water jutsu and set the wood to burn and heat her bath. She would bathe, sleep and then meet with her team. Until then, she would try not to think of anyone, from this time or her own, just the steam, the soap and the hot water. She sighed and shut the bathroom door.

"He dreams about you, in your time?" Kagami asked in surprise, he had never heard of such a thing.

"Apparently, how else would he know such things about me, and he is the one tail host, something he will pass on to his future generations. I knew the one tail host of my time, his relation, Sabaku no Gaara, we were friends." Sakura said to her team that had gathered hours later in her sitting room.

"You were friends with the one tail host?" Setsuna asked her.

"Yes, he was the Kazekage in my time and a friend of my other best friend Naruto who was the nine tails host." She said waving her hand in the air dismissing it, it wasn't important to her.

"The point is, he knows too much about me, it makes me uncomfortable." She said.

"Is that the only reason you are uncomfortable around him?" Tobirama asked her, eyes narrowed.

Sakura met his gaze, "No." She didn't elaborate, she didn't need to.

"Look, it doesn't matter, I can handle Reto, we came here for the alliance, so Kagami, Toka, I want you to meet with the Suna elder's to talk over a peace agreement later this afternoon, Tobi Kun , Setsuna and I will do some research on the god tree, see if we can narrow down our current leads. I'll need to speak with Reto, he had said before he would look through his archives, I need to know if he found anything." She ended.

She nodded to her team. "Tobi kun, Setsuna, I'll find you after I speak with Reto. Dismissed."

Sakura found him in the Kazekage's office. For a moment she had dejavu. She knocked on the door, he had bid her enter, after pushing the door open she had stopped in her tracks, feet glued to the floor. He had looked just like Gaara, sitting there in the Kazekage's blue robes, behind the desk, redhead bent over a scroll, writing something down, then he looked up at her, just like Gaara, with eyes like Sasori's. Her mouth snapped shut with words that she had been about to say choking her.

"I see my good looks leave you speechless my dear, don't be alarmed, I have that effect on women." He grinned at her like Kankuro.

"No, it's not that,." She stammered. "It's nothing.

Sakura walked into the office, looking out the window, the view was the same, perhaps it had been a mistake coming to Suna after all.

"You said you would look into your archives when we had last parted. I wonder, did you find anything?" She sat down at one of the two chairs in front of his desk uninvited, like she had done so many times before when a different red head would be Kazekage.

Reto watched her, she was troubled. "I have." He stood and walked to a shelf on the other side of his office and pulled out several scrolls, carrying them over to his desk, he cleared a small edge off pushing things to the side to set the scrolls down before her.

"It isn't as much as I had hoped to find, much of it is, lore, stories thought to be fantasy but I find legends come from truth, as you must know yourself." He gestured to the scrolls.

"Thank you Reto." She picked up the first scroll and unfurled it.

Her eyes scanned over the information quickly. This was what she needed. She set that scroll down and picked up an old faded map. More obelisks, she frowned, it was so faded it was hard to read. It reminded her of the rub she had made of the obelisk her team had found. She pulled it from the recesses of her pouch.

"We found this, from an old map I found, on the way here to see you. It is a rub of an obelisk, like the ones listed on this map. I believe it is a marker, the leads to the god tree, but I can't be sure and I can't read the markings on it." She spread the run out over his desk, laying it across the papers and other clutter.

Reto's eyes opened wide. "You found one? I have never, not once found one, how did you?"

Sakura's eyes snapped up to his. He looked back at her calmly, passively. He had realized his mistake, she knew that look. She had seen it on Gaara many times, she had seen it on Sasori, once.

"What do you know Reto, what are you keeping from me?" She asked, her eyes narrowed.

Reto shrugged, his gaze completely calm as he looked back at her.

"I know that look. As you said yourself, I was close to your family, to Suna. You have been looking for the god tree on your own haven't you?" She looked down at the papers in front of her and realized he was only showing her what he had wanted her to see, he hadn't expected her to find anything on her way here. If he had known, she was sure he wouldn't have shown her the faded map.

They stood there for quite some time, watching one another, calculating, they could see it in one another's eyes.

Sakura's mind was racing, she needed whatever information he was keeping from her...

"Do you know, I think you do, "She said slowly.

" Konoha doesn't need your alliance. We crushed you in the first three shinobi wars, we will do it again. Your failed attempt during the Chunin exams in my time, with young Gaara, was a failure, my Team, Team 7 saw to that. You know so much about me, or so you say, then you know how this will end. I need that information, but I think you know you need the alliance with the Leaf more, otherwise, why seek me out, before I knew of our connection...you were desperate, you are desperate." She took a chance, she held her breath.

Reto's eye twitched. She held his gaze.

"Very well." He finally said, pulling out a storage scroll from his robes and handing it to her.

"I didn't expect you to find an obelisk and so quickly. I have been searching for years." He admitted.

Sakura took the scroll from his hands and moved to the side of his desk, set it on the floor where there would be more room and pressed her chakra into it. Scroll after scroll, book after book popped out of the scroll, maps, grids, hand written notes that looked centuries old, appeared before her in a small puff of smoke.

"You asshole." She muttered without animosity, more in amusement, now that she had gotten what she wanted.

She looked back up at him, annoyed but also amused. He shrugged, "I told you, I had been looking for years." He wasn't even sorry.

She laughed. "This is going to take me a while to go through."

"Take it back to your rooms with you, by all means. I'll have food sent to your room for you. I am meeting with the elders later and there will be a council meeting after that. Your teammates are welcome to come speak of the alliance and I will see you later in your rooms...to see what you think after you have had time to look over the information I have gathered." He bowed to her and she nodded.

"Reto." She stopped him as he was about to leave his office. "Thank You."

He paused. "You're welcome Sakura." He smiled and left her in his office alone.

She sealed the items back into the storage scroll, picked up the small pile of scrolls on his desk and made her way to her borrowed rooms, the floating eye of the Kazekage following her down the corridors of his manse.

"This is quite impressive. You say he had been looking for the god tree for years?" Setsuna asked Sakura when they had gathered in her sitting room as planned.

"Yes, apparently he had started looking for it before I had even been sent back in time, which means, yes, he knew I was coming and knew what I would be looking for already." Sakura confirmed what both men were no doubt suspecting.

"I can't believe you talked him into giving you all of this information, it is clear, this took him years to accumulate." Tobirama was impressed with her negotiation skills.

"He needs us more than we need him, not only now, but more so in the future." She said absentmindedly as she thumbed through a handwritten book, Reto's personal notes from his many trips into his desert.

"Can you tell us? About the future?" Tobirama was dying to know, had been wanting to ask her so many questions but had refrained, he knew little good could come from knowing too much, but the scholar in him, his curious mind, wanted desperately to know.

Sakura let the book in her hands drift down to land in her lap, she looked up at Tobirama. "I will tell you one thing about the future Tobi Kun. Let the dead, remain dead." She lifted the book back up to her eyes and continued reading.

Setsuna watched the white haired man's already pale face drain of any remaining color.

"What is she talking about?" Setsuna asked Tobirama suspiciously.

"Nothing." Tobirama said, she knew...my gosh, he thought, what did I do?

Setsuna looked back at Sakura, absorbed in her reading, he would drop it for now. He picked up the scroll he had been reading and they all sat and read, researching, discussing, until the food arrived a few hours later and they took a break, resuming their research after their meal and finally parting long after the night had fallen.

Sakura stood on the roof of the Kazekage manse looking out into the desert. She breathed in the desert air, filled her lungs with the sweet scent of Suna, so familiar, yet different. The energy was the same, the stars the same but the faces of the people were different.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel Gaara walk up next to her, to watch the night's sky with her, to discuss the day's work with her. They had come up onto the roof of the manse often and spent such time together.

She wondered at Reto's words, had it meant more to him than it had to her? She was such a fool. She had only ever had eyes for Sasuke, had she been blind to all others who might have admired her, who might have loved her...

"Sakura." Reto's voice spoke softly beside her.

She opened her eyes, "Reto." She acknowledged his presence.

"Do you miss them, the ones you left behind?" He asked her quietly as though not wishing to break the spell of the night.

"All the time." She said softly.

"Your dreams, have you dreamed of...how this will end Reto?" She asked him.

A small chuckle, "A woman from the future asks me about the future."

"No, my dreams are only of the 'then', the 'now', and the immediate future. Nothing of what you are asking me. I do not know how it ends." He said regretfully.

"Shukaku, you seem to have some control over him." She thought of when she had first met Gaara, and of what little control he had over the one tail.

"It has been...a struggle, just as it was for your Gaara, but we have an..understanding of sorts. It was a very bloody road that I had to crawl down, to get where I am today." He admitted to her.

"I understand." and she did, she had known Gaara as both, as the monster and as the man.

"I know...it is ...what draws me to you. You understand, like no one else, because you have been through it before and still...could find it in your heart to care...about Gaara, after..." Reto explained his need to be beside her.

She understood now, his flirting, his desire. Gaara had apologized to her, for that day he had almost killed her during the Chunin exams, years after. He had asked for her forgiveness, and she had given it freely, had told him she understood, he was not the man he was, that she saw him, for him, and not the monster he had inside. It had meant a lot to him...she understood.

"Even Sasori, you do not speak of him as a monster. You tell of his intellect, of his genius, his skill, but not once have you ever actually put him down, or spoken poorly of him. It is clear he terrified you, but still you...earned his respect in the end..." Reto trailed off in his words and his thoughts, not sure how to connect them to what he was feeling at the moment.

"He was lonely. So lonely. He was the loneliest man I have ever met, I could see it in his eyes, he no longer had the will to live. He told me, he was not alive, nor was he dead, I don't think that was what he wanted, had planned for himself. It was a tragedy really." She said softly.

"Do you have any idea how remarkable you are?" Reto asked her. "To feel, to have such sentimental insight into your enemies, your friends, it is...a rare gift."

"The Uchiha, of your time, that Sasuke boy, he was a fool, Sakura. He did not see the gift that was right in front of him. Be it me or someone else, do not waste your life looking for something that isn't there, don't let it blind you to the love that surrounds you. The Uchiha and I are not the only ones who see what a remarkable woman you are." He left her there to her thoughts.

Sakura lifted her face to the stars as the tears slid down her face. She cried then, for what was, what is and what could be. The next morning she woke in her borrowed bed, Gaara's bed, with no clue as to how she had gotten there.

Three days, they had spent going over the research Reto had given her. A day later they had left Suna to search out the other obelisks. She was certain now that the obelisks were the key to finding the god tree. "It's like a marker of sorts, some are real, some are dummies as far as I can tell." She handed the old map to Tobirama.

"So there is more than one trail, like you thought?" Kakagami asked her.

"It seems that way, each obelisk is marked on this map, but they all seem to lead to different places." She said tapping her fingers against her leg in thought.

"So can't we just follow them all until we reach the god tree?" Toka asked confused "why is it such a big deal to find the right path , the first time."

"Well, that's the thing, if you don't find the right trail first, the tree changes location...I think. Two of the old tails in the book indicated that was the case." Sakura held up a small book she had taken from her pouch.

"It senses chakra. It will know who tracks it and what trail they take." Sakura said.

"So then, shouldn't we split up? Maybe if we each take a different trail, one of us will find it?" Setsuna suggested.

"I thought of that. The only thing is...Kaguya, made it sound like, I had to be the one to destroy the god tree, maybe it is because I'm from the future, but I think, it has to be me, so if I'm not the one to find it...I'm not sure what will happen." She said frowning.

"What if I give each of us one of my formula tags, whoever finds the tree will place a formula tag by it, there are five of us total, three trails, I can wait with you in Suna, when Kagami, Toka or Setsuna find the tree, they can notify us and I can teleport us to the tree and the three of us present can destroy it, while the other two remain where they are, so the tree doesn't move." Tobirama suggested.

"Assuming that I'm right in guessing that's how it works..." Sakura was worried. She wasn't sure of anything, this was all a guess.

"It isn't a bad plan." Kagami acknowledged. "It might work."

"It's all we have so far." Setsuna agreed.

"Let's try it." Toka smiled at Sakura. "If it doesn't work, we'll all meet back up here and figure something else out."

Tobirama watched Sakura bite and chew on her bottom lip.

"I think we only have one chance at this, call it a hunch but I think if we mess this up, we won't find the tree...ever." She told them.

"What do you want to do, Sakura?' Tobirama asked her, it was her mission after all.

She didn't answer him right away but pulled the old map from her pouch once more and looked at it. A thought occurred to her.

"Take me to the obelisk we found, by the border Tobi Kun, I have to check something." She said.

Tobirama nodded, took her by the hand and they disappeared.

"That's alright, you guys have fun, we'll wait here for you." Kagami said sarcastically to nothing.

Toka snorted. Setsuna didn't say anything, he just frowned.

Tobirama and Sakura appeared beside the obelisk he had left his formula against, their feet and legs buried in the sand by his seal. Sakura stepped up out of the sand and placed her hands on the obelisk.

"What is it, what is your idea?" Tobirama asked her.

"Don't you think it is odd Tobi, " She dropped the honorific." That we found this obelisk, and Reto had been searching for years for them?"

"Yes, I wondered about that, I don't believe in luck." He said.

"Me either." She glanced at him, then placed her hands over the eye on one side of the obelisk and infused her hands with chakra, pushing it into the stone.

Her chakra was being drawn in from her hands into the stone from their point of contact, she could feel the pull in her hands, it hummed through her arms and pinched her nerves.

She gasped, Tobirama rushed to her and grabbed her arms, trying to pull them back from the obelisk but they wouldn't move.

"Sakura!" Tobirama gripped her arms hard in his and pulled with all his might.

Sakura screamed, the pressure was building inside of her. "Stop." She gasped out through the pain.

"I think it's working." She groaned, her eyes rolling back into her head.

The markings on the obelisk began to glow, the stone pulsed with a power Tobirama had never felt before, it was dark and dangerous.

"Sakura please, you don't know what will happen, you don't know that this will help us find the god tree, it could just as easily kill you as help you!" He pleaded with her to let go of the cursed stone.

"I have to try." She almost screamed the words through her pain.

Tobirama watched, helplessly by her side, her eyes rolled back into her head, she was losing consciousness.

"I can feel, something." She whispered over the roaring in her ears, "Close, so close." She passed out, her hands were released from the stone, her body fell in slow motion through the air, Tobirama flashed under her, catching her by the arms and drew her up to his chest.

The light of her chakra was fading from the markings on the obelisk, once more the stone stood tall and cold, no pulse, no heat, nothing, leaving the small woman in his arms barely breathing. He teleported them back to Suna where the rest of their team was waiting for them.

"What the hell happened!" Setsuna demanded of Tobirama as soon as they appeared, Sakura held close to Tobirama's chest, clearly unconscious.

"Let's get her into bed first." Toka said, heading toward the manse.

After Sakura was settled in bed and checked by Tobirama for any visible injuries they left her resting in her bed and moved to her sitting room. Tobirama explained what had happened when they had gotten to the obelisk.

"She said she was close? Do you think she found something?" Setsuna asked, he was concerned the woman had pushed herself too far and feared what Lord Madara would do if something happened to her.

"Yes, I think she found something but we will have to wait for her to wake before we can ask her, let her rest for now." Tobirama said.

They sat in Sakura's sitting room for a few more minutes discussing the small unfulfilling details over and over until there was nothing left to go over, leaving for their own rooms.

Sakura woke some time later that day, groggy with a terrible headache. She sat up in her bed, propped herself up against the many pillows and put her fingers to her temples, rubbing them slowly, while pushing a small trickle of chakra to her fingers to ease the pressure in her head.

"Are you insane?" Reto's voice broke through her misery.

"Eh?" She didn't feel like having this conversation with him right now. She opened her eyes to glare at him.

"I asked you if you were insane woman." He was grinning at her again...man this guy was annoying.

"I am not...usually." She compromised.

"Sure, because it's normal to press your chakra into an unknown object without any thought for your own safety or for the safety of those around you." He said condescendingly sarcastic.

Sakura just glared at him, she knew she had been...haisty, but she was desperate to find the god tree.

Reto's grin was gone when he spoke next, "Be careful, you can't complete your mission if you're dead. You're more important to this world than you know." He got up and left her to her rest.

Sakura swung her feet out and over the side of the large bed, pulling on her night wrapper she made her way into her sitting room where several trays of food awaited her. It smelled divine and her mouth began to water. It was dark outside, night time, and she wondered how long she had been out for as she made herself a small plate of food and sat on her couch, feet tucked up under her.

She stared out the window into the desert as she ate thinking about the obelisk. She had felt something as her chakra flowed into the stone. The stone had remained cool under her touch. The more chakra she infused into the stone the more seemed to be drawn from her reservoir and visions of battles, of blood and war had flooded her mind's eye, through the diamond in her forehead and she couldn't help but wonder...what would she have seen if she had released her yin seal?

Sakura knew she needed to go back to the obelisk and try again, but would her team let her...

Madara sat with his brother at the stone table in the garden of the main house pouring over the most recent papers from the elders. There were complaints, concerns, demands, one more ridiculous than the next. He rubbed his head with one hand and reached for his tea with the other. Izuna sat across from him, a pile of his own papers in front of him.

"This is the most asinine request yet." Izuna handed his brother the letter from one of the more prominent Uchiha households.

Madara scanned the letter, "They want a private market within the compound so they don't have to leave?"

"What is the point of forming a village for peace if we just continue to segregate ourselves?" Izuna said, exasperated.

Madara smiled at his younger brother. Izuna had really come around in the last week once he noticed the Senju were having just as much trouble as the Uchiha with the demands and outrageous requests coming from their own clan members. Hashirama had complained to them just the other night about how one of the elders in his clan insisted on Senju only onsens and Uchiha only onsens...one step forward, two steps back.

It was obvious that Izuna's new found compliance was largely due to the absence of one white haired Senju, Madara only hoped his new found understanding and acceptance would continue once the white haired asshole returned. Sakura would help though. When Izuna wouldn't listen to Madara, he listened to her.

Madara sighed, "Just tell them you will give them what they want for now, when the actual village is built, there won't be any room. They will have to adjust. Sakura made it very clear to us the more segregated the village is, our clan particularly, will make it harder to prosper. She said because of our continued alienation to the rest of the village, other clan's previous suspicions of us never died but increased, making us the target of the village's animosity, it was ultimately what brought about the destruction of our clan in her time. Sakura said before the "Massacre", as she called it, our clan was more plentiful than the Senju and was the leading power of the police force. There will be no segregation this time, from the start, they need to accept that." Madara reminded his brother.

Izuna nodded, he had been there when Sakura had told them about the "Massacre", it was terrible to think one of their own had been pushed to such...measures to keep peace.

"Have you and Hashirama decided where to build this village of ours?" Izuna asked his brother.

"We are going to go out tomorrow to scout the terrain, you're more than welcome to join us." Madara said, setting down his now empty tea cup.

"I think I will." Izuna said, picking his cup up and draining the rest of his tea.

"Have you had any word from Sakura Chan?" Izuna asked, hoping for some good news.

"Not yet. She said she would send her summons when she found something out, I assume it means she hasn't found anything new yet." Madara had been hoping for word from her as well but none had come.

"I wouldn't worry brother, I'm sure she is busy, that woman won't stop until she finds an answer, or the tree itself, Kagami and Setsuna are with her, she's fine I'm sure." Izuna assured his brother with more enthusiasm than he felt, he was worried about her too.

"Maybe in the next few days we will receive word, at least letting us know they are still looking." Madara said hopefully.

"Indeed brother. In the meantime, let's keep working here. Build a village she can be proud of, that all of us can be proud of." Izuna smiled and poured them more tea.

Madara nodded and picked up another scroll to read.