19. Sakura leaned over the toilet seat, vomiting….

Sakura leaned over the toilet seat, vomiting with vigour. When she was done, she fell with her back against the door crying. Why was that stupid Senju not here. He should be here with her. Instead he was a stone face on a rock surface, taunting her every time she looked up to the sky. He was nothing but ashes.

A loud knocking shook her out of her thoughts. A booming voice yelled: "Oi! Sakura-chan! Breakfast!"

Quickly rinsing her mouth with water, she grumbled to herself about the bad timing of the most unpredictable ninja of all times, but she opened the door nevertheless. She disappeared immediately in a bearhug. His smell enveloped her, ramen mixed with old training sweat and thankfully some crisp fresh air.

His blue eyes laughing, he lifted her up yelling that he had been worried sick about her. Despite her slow smile, he chatted loudly onwards, walking into her kitchen, throwing two bags of instant ramen on the counter and starting to boil water. His barging in felt like nothing had changed, as if she never left and it was just any other day. But the illusion didn't last: she noticed with a start that he had an artificial arm, just like Sasuke. Her mind came to a halt. Them losing an arm, without her at their side on the battlefield: they were lucky to be alive.

Despite her dark mood, she couldn't help but smile, his loud presence was not so bad. It made her forget her grief for a bit. They sat down at her kitchen table. She watched him eating the noodles with vigour and a lot of noise and collateral damage. When he was done eating, she took a rag from the sink to clean the table. He bombarded her with questions, but she told him no more than she did Sasuke.

After some time, she started to ask him about the ending of the war and learned that they only barely beated Kaguya. She felt sad that her actions in the past had no effect on the war. And when he told her about the atonement of Madara and the parting of Hashirama, she felt tears burn behind her eyes. Emotion choked her when she realised that still after everything, Madara found the peace that she thought he deserved. Against her instincts she had grown to admire him during her time in the past and she witnessed the intense friendship he had with Hashirama. That bond was one of the foundations of Konoha and she was glad for Hashirama that the final parting with his friend went with forgiveness and hope for a better future.

Her thoughts drifted off. How must it have been for Hashirama and Tobi to see everything that she predicted come to pass? How much had it hurt Hashirama to kill his friend, after having the hope that they had saved him from this future? Was this what made Tobi into the stern and harsh man that he would become?

Naruto stared at her, suddenly realising that she knew them intimately. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I am." she hesitated. "And what happened to the Nidaime?" the question was out before she had enough time to think it through. She dreaded the answer, but she just had to hear this. To learn of his last moments. Emotion choked her. But the answer was nothing like she expected.

"Funny that you should ask that Sakura-chan. It was odd, even when all Hokage disappeared, he stayed really long talking to that old man Hagoromo. He even travelled with Tsunade-bachan to Konoha. The last time I saw him was in the Hokage tower. I never had a chance to say goodbye though…." he faltered, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of shrimp.

She felt herself getting cold inside. What was going on here? Why had Tsunade never mentioned this? Tobi did not leave for the afterlife together with the other Hokage, but actually stayed longer in her timeline and on top of that, even left the battlefield to join Tsunade in Konoha? She could not understand why this had happened. But she felt it was no coincidence. It must have had something to do with Kaguya's meddling with time, right?

She tried to get more information out of Naruto, but it was no use. She made a mental note to ask Tsunade as quickly as possible about this strange story, hungry for any shred of information on her husband.

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After this first invasion of her privacy by her loud teammate, her life seemed to retain a sense of normality quickly. The memory of her life in the Senju compound seemed to speed away from her in time, fading at the edges quickly. The process hurt. She did not want the memories to fade, since it was all there was left of him. And whenever she was alone, the grief was almost too much to bear. So she took up work as quickly as she could. It was a welcome distraction. But she kept on feeling out of balance by Tobi's absence, and her hospital work seemed not as fulfilling as it once had.

Sasuke was tediously following her around. Trying to pick her up for lunch or dinner. She accepted occasionally, trying to be as friendly as possible but keeping a strict distance to give him no extra ideas. She knew him well enough to see he was bothered by her distance, but he did not address it.

She noticed that Naruto was never present when he sought her out and it left her wondering. She had expected them to be together more often since the extreme effort during the war to pick up their friendship where they left off. She knew for a fact that they were sparring with each other, since she had treated the both of them with training injuries on several occasions in the past two weeks. And she had seen them in the ramen stand that Naruto frequented at least two times already. Sasuke must be keeping his avances to her a secret for him, which made her wonder...

In the meantime, while Sasuke's presence unnerved her, Naruto seemed to be the only one able to cheer her up. He turned up on her doorstep early in the morning. When she opened sleepily, he darted inside to cook some rice and eggs for breakfast. And thank Kami; he finally learned how to make those. She hated instant food. Talking loudly about everything and nothing, his endless energy and simple happiness, made her feel lighter, her grief temporarily forgotten.

In the meantime she tried to make an appointment with Tsunade to ask her about Tobirama's presence in the village. But she seemed too busy to even drink a cup of tea with her. There seemed to be a crisis with one of Konoha's allies and Kakashi needed Tsunade's intel on it. So Sakura postponed her questions for now, but it kept on puzzling her, irritating her. Could it be that her Shishou was hiding something from her? Why had Tobi not been sent immediately to the afterlife like the others? Did it have something to do with Kaguya?

The longer she thought about it, the more it bugged her. Looking back on her conversations with Tsunade and Kakashi she now thought they accepted her story maybe a little too easy. There was almost no surprise or unwillingness to believe her rather unbelievable story. They seemed to be relieved that she was back, but thinking about it now, they didn't act like they had thought her to be dead. Her name was not on the memorial stone, so she was not remembered in the service for the fallen.

Was it possible that Tobirama stayed long enough to have told them their story? And why would they have kept this a secret for her? This possibility pissed her off immensely. Which felt actually good. It felt good to be pissed at something instead of grieve all the time.

But how could she find out the truth? What was the truth? Did they exclude her because it was dangerous to meddle with time? Was it even her Tobirama that Naruto fought together with? Her thoughts became strained and troubled, going round in circles.

The only thing that she was absolutely certain about, was the impossibility of Tobirama still being in the village. He would have sensed her by now and used his Hiraishin seal. She could still feel its presence on her skin. So what did Naruto's strange story mean? She cursed under her breath. She was going to find out. One way or another. She would find out.