Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Seven-year old Sasuke hopped over the rain puddle, and he came to a stop when he saw the little frog. Sasuke scowled at the frog. He clenched his fist. He got into fight with Naruto today.

“Hey!” he heard.

Whipping around, he balked when he saw the woman with long pink hair smiling at him. Her mask was pushed up over her forehead.

“You!” he pointed at her.

“Me.” She pointed at herself.

“What are you doing here?” he scowled.

“Um.” She pretended to think. “I’m not sure. You were fuming at the frog, and I wondered if I needed to rescue it.”

“I wasn’t mad at the frog,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I was mad at Naruto.”

To his utter annoyance, she burst out laughing. Why would she? She didn’t know who Naruto is. Right? Unless this strange pink-haired weirdo was also Naruto’s secret. That got him more annoyed, and he resolved to smash the dobe's nose.

She was a strange woman who was in the oddest place at the oddest times. The other day when he went hunting with Itachi, she caught him from falling off a steep cliff. Setting him right, she winked at him and fled. Itachi arrived shortly, and since Sasuke didn’t want their little hunting trip to get cut short, he lied that he was fine. 

Since then, he saw her again and again. Sometimes, she showed up after he was mad at Itachi. She showed up after he fought with his father, and he was feeling sad.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked her.

“Cuz you’re a funny kid."

“I’m not a funny kid.”

“Why are you mad at Naruto?”

“Cuz he’s stupid, and he thinks he’s gonna be Hokage oneday, cuz his dad is Hokage,” Sasuke muttered.

She walked past him and towards the swing set. She began to manipulate the water on the seat of the swing, and he watched her create a bubble of it, and she dropped on the sand in front of her. She did the same with the next swing seat, and she sat down. 

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“Hmmm.” She waved dismissively. “Did you want to sit down?” She pointed to the other swing. He walked over to it and slowly ran his hand across the seat. It was dry as a bone. He hopped onto it, and tried to match her speed.

“I think,” she said slowly. “You could be Hokage too, Sasuke.”

He looked at his knees.

“I want to be like the third Hokage,” he said. “He’s Shisui’s grandpa, did you know?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”

“He was an Uchiha,” he continued. “Uchiha can be Hokage too.”

“Of course, they can." 

“Dad doesn’t think so,” he continued. “I heard him say that Konoha doesn’t trust us.”

“I know a boy,” she said. “He was a boy who everyone hated. Do you know why they hated him?”

“Why?” Sasuke asked.

“Because they feared him and his power,” she continued. “People hate what they fear.”

Sasuke was silent.

“There was a huge attack on the village,” she said. “He saved them.”

Sasuke blinked.

“He ended up becoming the leader of the village in the future, and they respected him because he used his power for good,” she said. “The village will respect you, if you give them a good reason to respect you. Respect is earned, Sasuke.” 

He scrunched up his nose in confusion. Then she tousled his hair, and he yelped at her. She always did that! 

“See ya, Sasuke.”

And just like the last time, Sasuke watched her leave with a poof. A couple of seconds later, his mother called out to him.

“Sasuke!” she called. “Sasuke!”

Sasuke perked his head up. She always did that. She left before anyone else came by, and his mother had always warned him about speaking and trusting suspicious strangers. He was a shinobi!

“Sorry, I’m late,” she said. “What?” She held out her arms when he looked at her. “No hug for me?”

Sasuke flew into her arms. Holding his mother’s hand, he blabbered about his day, and what he did and what they learned, but he didn’t mention the pink-haired weirdo.

He didn’t think he wanted to. She was his secret. 

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Seventy year old Uchiha Kagami was sitting at his desk. Smiling to himself, he continued to write in his journal. Beside him and out through the window, you could make out Konoha in all it's bustling glory. The faces on the Hokage mountain included his younger face. Over the years, his face on the mountain had gotten more weathered. 

He heard someone enter. 

"Hokage-sama," she said. He turned to look at her. She had pink hair tied up into a pony tail, and she wore an ANBU uniform. The current ANBU uniform. 

“You’re back from your mission. How was it?”

“I’ve handled worse,” she said. She peeled off her mask, and she leaned back against his couch. "How are you, Hokage-sama?" 

“I’m not much of a Hokage these days,” he said. “Please. Call me Kagami." 

She smiled pleasantly, but there was a hint of sadness. She was probably around twenty now based on her excursions in and out of time. 

“It’s been a while, old friend.” He smiled at her. "Eight years?" 

"Nine," she said. "Minato's ceremony." 

But it was just yesterday, he thought. She was only nineteen. He was twenty two. He wasn’t sure he’d have made a good Third Hokage. He was too indecisive, too afraid, too confused, and he didn’t have Hiruzen’s charisma and ability to turn people to his side.

She laughed at him, and she told him he was being stupid. They ended up bickering.

He’d only find out after the Second Hokage named him successor that she was a time-traveler. She had been gone for twenty four hours. The Second Hokage was dying, and they required her prowess with medical ninjutsu. But Sakura Haruno’s signature had vanished from the earth, and Tobirama accepted his death. But not before telling him that he needed to be Hokage.

She had, since then, been every Hokage’s secret guard and confidant. She gave them advice based on what had been done, what can be done better, and what will never be.  

It took Kagami a great many years before he understood why the time-traveler couldn’t save Tobirama, and he was bitter. Over the years, she weaved in and out of the time-stream, spending a little more time in one era, and less in another. She had no control over this ability, which had been given to her by a friend in a future which went wrong. 

That’s until Minato and Jiraiya created a seal for her after she left again.

She was supposed to be back for good now. She had been back for good for the past month or so. And Minato had kept her busy. 

“Let's catch up," he said. He put aside his journal. "You don't have any where to go now, do you?" 

She looked amused, and she subconsciously rubbed her arm where the tattoo was.

"No, I suppose not." 

Chapter Text

It had been two months, and she’d just turned twenty-one yesterday. She had gotten into some trouble with a bunch of nondescript bandits attempting to loot her. Fools! They thought she was some unsuspecting civilian. Ordinarily, she would have been able to handle them, if handling thugs involved destabilizing the ground, and then taking advantage of the fact that they had no solid footing and throwing a few punches. 

But that day, for one reason or another, she was careless.

One of the thugs sliced her arm with their sword. She didn’t quite think in the spur of the moment until she felt the familiar tug. The seal had broken. 

“Oh,” she said. “Oh no.” Blood coated the tattoo. “Oh no no no!” 

The thug smirked at her—assuming he’d done some major damage—and then he looked confused when she was ripped out of the present once more. 

“Where did she go?” 

It felt like she was being pushed through a tube, and she was falling from a thousand foot drop. When she landed on solid ground, Sakura gripped the bark of whatever tree she’d touched. It was night time, and the stars were glittering, and she was on her knees and retching. She lay there for a little bit and nursed the cut over her shoulder as she stared up at the glittering stars.  

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

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It had been only six years.

Kagami was lying on one of the hospital beds, when she hobbled into his room. 

Sakura plucked the medical report from the tray, and she began to read it. Age was catching up to Kagami, but he had been diagnosed with a strange incurable disease. She had a feeling that it had been around longer than six years. 

Uchiha Kagami was dying, she thought with panic. 

Her fingers glowed as she passed her hand over his internals. 

He caught her wrist.

Kagami looked at her. His face was constricted with the breathing apparatus. He looked peaceful. Old and peaceful. 

“Don’t,” she heard. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him.

He crinkled his eyes at her with a smile. 

“You weren’t here in... time,” he said slowly. “But we have to let the past be in the past.” He brought up one wrinkly, cold hand to her cheek to see if she was real, presumably. “It’s still always a delight seeing you, old friend.” 

Time, Sakura thought. It consumed her. She was always late. She couldn’t save all the people. She couldn't save the whole world.  

“The seal…” Kagami asked. He dropped his hand. She caught it and held it. 

“Stupidest story ever,”  Sakura replied. “I got careless with it.” She bared her arm at him. “See. Ran into some bandits some 6 years ago.” 

He huffed a laugh.

“Sakura,” he said. “You’re not allowed to get careless. Minato is going to be upset when he finds out about it.” 

“Oh man,” she said. “Not looking forward to his lecture. I think I’ll skip meeting him this time around.”

“Try not to get caught then.” 

She attempted to bandage the cut up with some first-aid box which she’d stolen from the Hospital. It was a deep cut, and she didn’t have enough chakra left to mend it, because of the time-jump, stealthily moving through the village and attempting to avoid guards.

“Ah,” he said. His eyes were faraway. “It will scar.” 

She took a seat beside his bed. 

Yeah, she thought. If only she’d watched herself. If only she’d been less careless. She would have been able to save him. 

“I’ve been thinking, Kagami,” she said. “When Naruto and I dug through Minato’s scrolls about the hiraishin, and we came up with the hair-brained idea about how you could modify and throw a kunai through space and time. One of the points would be anchored to me. The other one is me in the future. But instead of traversing through space, we traverse through space and time. I mean what if the other point in time isn’t here yet, you know?” 

He gave her a questioning look. 

“What if… I ended up exactly where I ought to be?” 

He smiled at her.

“I was thinking… about it too.” 

She talked his ears off about useless theories and her mission and the good old days when he was too young and confused, and they played a prank on his sensei, Tobirama and got caught and reprimanded. 

Sakura didn’t quite know when her next stop would arrive, and he fell asleep. She reached over and planted a kiss on his forehead.

“Sleep well, old friend.” 

At one in the morning, nearly two hours after Sakura left him, Uchiha Kagami, one of the best Hokages that Konoha had ever had, passed away. The nurses arrived in the room to see the window open, and the curtains billowing gently. 

Kagami was smiling. 

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All of Konoha had turned up for his funeral, and she’d preferred to watch from between the trees—dressed in black—as they gave eulogies. There was a sea of black, and many shed tears and remembered the good times. 

She could see Sasuke, and he was twelve now. He stood beside Naruto. 

Their third team-mate was Sai. That made her smile. 

It wasn’t raining on his funeral. People paid their respects, and slowly the crowds began to filter out as the hour passed. Finally, it was only his grandson standing in front of his grave, and the sun was beginning to set. 

She waited until he left as well, before she headed up to his grave. She set down a bouquet of white roses in front of it. 

She was interrupted by a clearing of a throat.

She turned to see his grandson standing there. He was looking at her with a conflicted expression on his face. His grandson had grown in the years she’d known him. 

“My condolences,” she said.

He nodded in reply. 

“You’re Haruno Sakura, right?” he asked her. 

Sakura raised her eyebrow at him. As far as this generation and the previous generations were concerned, Haruno Sakura didn’t exist. 

“Yes.” 

“My grandfather wrote about you,” he said. “I didn’t mean to pry and read his journal, but…” He handed her the black, leather bound journal. She took it from him, and she turned the page. 

“I can’t have it.” 

“No,” Shisui said. “It was written about you. He was trying to figure out how he could keep you anchored in this particular time-period.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “It sort of ends.” 

“I know,” she said. She scanned through the pages of inky handwriting which slowly got more smudged as it passed on. 

He was trying to understand time-travel. He was trying to understand how timelines could change because of one person. The ink smudges and the messy handwriting only meant that the years of desk work got to him.  

The journal began like this: 

Imagine minding your own business one fine day, and a pretty young woman drops in front of you out of nowhere. She doesn’t fall on your lap, but instead she’s throwing up at your feet. That’s how I first met Haruno Sakura, the time-traveller. 

We have been friends for the past fifty years, and she has aided me greatly through the years with her impromptu visits. 

“Were you and him… ever?” Shisui asked her.

“No,” Sakura replied. She didn’t take the eyes off the words on the page. “He was madly in love with your grandmother, but he had no confidence to ask her out. I practically blackmailed him.” 

Shisui laughed and scratched the back of his head. 

“That’s hilarious.” 

“I saw you when you were born,” she said. She flipped the page. “He had become a grandfather on the battlefield, and your father… your father hadn’t made it in time. I saw him holding you at your father’s funeral. He introduced you to me.” 

"Oh?" Shisui didn't know what to say. He blinked repeatedly. 

“I held you when you were really young,” she said. “You tugged my hair so hard that it hurt.”  She tugged her own hair for emphasis. 

“Mum always did say that I had a good grip,” he said with a watery chuckle. He was wiping tears with the end of his sleeve and sniffed. 

She smiled at him. “I’m younger than you, actually. This must be really weird for you.”  

“You have no idea.”

She smiled a little before she looked up at him. "I don't know if he's ever told you but..." 

“He said that he’d fallen out with his son years ago, but he didn’t quite want to make the same mistake with you. He wanted you to have a happier childhood. He wanted you to smile more, and he wanted you to live your life to the fullest.” 

She looked up at him, and he was looking down. His red eyes glistened with tears, and he couldn’t stop.  

She closed the journal, and she handed it over to him. He stared at her. His mouth was slightly open. 

“Keep it,” she said.

“What?” 

“I don’t need it,” she said. “It’s your grandfather’s final work, and you should keep it safe so two meddling teens in the future don’t somehow end up finding it and using it to cross time and space.” 

He looked confused, and he peered at her.

“Are you going somewhere?” 

She turned to Kagami’s grave. “One last time, Kagami,” she said. “I can feel it. We’re almost there.” 

She felt that familiar sensation of being tugged again. Shisui didn’t quite understand it, until he saw her flicker out. He reached for her.  

She was yanked through time again. 

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Minato had never quite been fond of the fact that Sakura and Naruto in an alternate future had raided his scrolls after his death, and she’d landed herself in a hot mess. He was forty-seven years old when she showed up in his office. He dropped his pen, spilled ink over his important papers.

“Who—” 

His ANBU popped in a split-second, and their tanto blades were unsheathed, surrounding and pointed at her as she laughed awkwardly.

“Hiya… Yondaime-sama.” 

He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh. 

“Are you serious?” 

The years had tempered him down, and if he’d been younger, he would have probably yelled at her and assigned her D-Ranks. 

“You’re back,” he stated, while signalling that it was okay for his ANBU to sheathe their blades. 

But he might still assign her D-ranks. Weeding. Babysitting. 

“I think we’re here,” she said. “I’m here. I’m home finally. WE'RE HERE.” 

“What?” he asked. He aired out the papers, and he winced at the inky damage to those-very-important-papers that Nara had him sign. Nara would have his head! “What are you going talking about?” 

“I’m here. Finally! Permanently! YAHOO!” 

The ANBU looked at each other, and one of them signaled to the other that she was crazy as she started to jump for joy. 

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“You’re telling me that someone sliced your seal in a fight against bandits—who aren’t even ninja. Who you should have been easy to avoid,” Jiraiya asked her incredulously. “Are you a saanin or a genin?” 

“Yup,” she replied. 

“We should have made her wear armoured sleeves,” Minato muttered.  

“Hey, you know the seal wasn’t idiot proof, right?” 

“Hey! Technically! You were an idiot too!” 

“Heck, no I wasn’t. Not that big of a careless idiot!”

“You do know I still have Tsunade's fists of fury, right?” 

"Not her brilliance?" 

"Why you!" 

Minato burrowed his head into his hands as Sakura and Jiraiya bickered over him. There was a knock on the door, and he looked up, “Ah, come on in.” 

“Hokage-sama—” Sasuke—now a twenty-one year old jounin—stopped and stared. Sakura and Jiraiya both turned around. Sasuke stared at her for a few more moments. Sakura looked nervously back at Minato.

Minato glanced between the pair. Sasuke walked in, and he put the papers on Minato’s desk. “Ah… my father—” He faltered. “My father wanted to submit these.” 

“Oh,” Minato said with the perfunctory Hokage-Minato-tone. “Thanks, Sasuke. Right on time. More paper-work…” He wondered if he could get Sakura to do some.  

“Ah, um…” he said. Sakura bobbed on her tiptoes and she side-eyed him, refusing to meet his eyes. Jiraiya furrowed his brow and folded his arms. “I guess that’s all. Have a good day.” He bowed. 

“No problem,” he said. As he walked out, he took one look at Sakura. 

“Oh,” she said. “Thank goodness.” 

“What?” Minato asked her.

“I don’t think he even remembers,” she said happily. 

“Remember what?” Jiraiya asked curiously. 

Right then, the door of the office slammed open, and Sasuke pointed a shaking finger at her.

“YOU!” he bellowed. 

She squeaked and ran to hide behind Minato’s chair. 

“Me?”

Minato inhaled and exhaled deeply before smiling at Sasuke. 

“Have you met Haruno Sakura, Sasuke?”

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There was quite a bit of yelling on Sasuke’s end when he found out the truth. He was sworn to secrecy, but that didn't stop him from shooting her glares now and then. 

A month passed, and then two, and then six, and she showed no sign of a sudden erratic jump through time. Minato had introduced her as a ninja from a smaller village who decided to come to Konoha for whatever reason, and he inducted her into the ranks. 

There were a few people who knew the truth. Him. Shisui. Sasuke. Jiraiya. 

Sasuke, now twenty-one, wasn’t quite pleased with the fact that he’d met the resident time-traveller when he was younger. He’d tried for years to find her, and eventually he’d deluded himself into thinking she was a figment of his imagination.

He wasn’t pleased about it at all. 

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Sakura continued as she always had. She’d work at the hospital as a cover, and she’d be Minato’s secret advisor. Sometimes, he’d send her on solo missions. 

“Thanks, doc!” Uchiha Obito said. “Know where I can find Rin-chan?” He pulled on his jounin 

“Hmm?” She looked up at him from her clipboard. “Nohara-sensei should be in the surgery room right now. You might not want to disturb her.” 

“Oh okay, alright.” He sighed. 

She set the clipboard down. Lately, she thought, as she looked up at the hospital ceiling, and she folded her arms and leant against her desk. The world had changed. 

Hers was a quiet, and lonely life occasionally peppered with cheerful visits. The past was too much in her heart. She was seeing double when she saw Sasuke sometimes. She realized that she wasn’t in love with this Sasuke. 

Her Sasuke would always be part of her heart. 

She heard a clearing of a throat. 

“Hello!” 

“I’m supposed to come in for my physical?” Uchiha Shisui said. He paused at the doorway when he saw her. They stared at each other in realization. “Oh?” 

They grinned at each other.

“Why don’t you come in and close the door?” 

He huffed a laugh as he closed the door. 

“I was wondering who left those flowers on my grandfather’s grave.” 

You could always start a new life again, Minato had told her. 

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At the age of twenty-six, Sasuke Uchiha became Hokage. She was twenty-seven at the time. 

He was dressed in Hokage-robes. He eyed the desk hungrily. He let his fingers brush over the mahogany, while Shisui and Sakura watched on. 

“You know,” Sakura told Shisui. “I’m kind of scared.” 

“Me too,” Shisui said. “Sasu-chan, why don’t you check if the chair is comfortable? Would you like a cushion or two?” 

“Nuh uh!” Sakura sighed. “You can’t call him Sasu-chan anymore. He’s Hokage -sama. You got to be careful, Shisui.”  

“I get to order you both around,” Sasuke said with an unnerving gleam in his eyes. “After all those years that you both tormented me!” 

“Oh no,” Sakura said. “I think it's gone to his head.” 

“You’re not going to assign us D-Ranked missions, are you?” Shisui asked him. 

“That’s so unoriginal, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura said. “Besides, I have so much paperwork for you!” 

“Say,” Shisui said. He turned to Sakura with a twinkle in his eye. “Today’s a lovely day, isn’t it, Sakura-chan?” 

“Sure is!” 

“The sun is shining! The birds are chirping! The flowers are blooming!” 

“Let’s have a picnic while Hokage-sama is doing his gruesome paperwork!” 

“That sounds like a fantastic idea!” Shisui clasped his hand over hers. 

“Hey!” Sasuke’s eyebrow twitched. He slammed his hand down as Shisui laughed and flickered out. She laughed at Sasuke’s irritated face. “Get to work!” He pointed at Sakura. 

“Calm down, Hokage-sama!” she said. She lay her paperwork down on his desk. “Naruto hasn’t even come to greet you yet.” 

“Don’t let him in. Please. He’s banned from entering the Hokage Tower.” 

“That’s abuse of power, Hokage-sama!”

"Not when the dobe is concerned." 

He sighed as he resigned himself to paperwork, while she worked on organizing some files on the coffee table. He looked up at her. She smiled back at him.

“Got something on your mind, Hokage-sama?” she asked him.

“Why did you do it?” 

“Do what?” 

“The time-travel thing. You and Naruto. Why did the two of you do it?” 

She looked at him, and then over his shoulder, as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. There was slight pang in her chest. 

“There was a war. You were dead. People were dying. We were going to lose,” she said. “But I guess it’s just that we wanted to create a better world.” 

She met his eyes. 

“Starting with you and your clan, I guess. But there’s other complicated stuff.” 

She looked down at her files, and she bit her lips as her eyes pricked with tears. She reached over for the tissue box. 

“Thank you,” she heard. 

She looked at him, and she really looked at him. 

“Thank you, Sakura,” he repeated. She was seeing double again.

She smiled into the tissue as she felt that familiar pang. 

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto voice floated to her. “I’VE GOT AN IDEA! Don’t look at me like that. THIS ONE’S A GOOD ONE!” 

She teared up again. 

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“You know,” she said. Shisui had leant over and put down the bouquet of flowers on the grave. “I told you I’d never marry a clan boy. They have so many restrictions! They demand too much. They get everything handed to them.” 

“But then she went ahead and married one,” Shisui continued. 

“And it’s absolutely awful,” she said. 

“She’s a liar,” Shisui said. “We barely fight.” 

“We fight all the time! I think we fought over who should tend to Ichika when she cries at night,” she said. 

“You pushed me off the bed, Sakura. Your idea of fighting is hogging my half of the bed." 

“You know, Sasu-chan works me to the bone. He’s been being unusually sadistic lately because of the chuunin exams. I should really sic Itachi-san on him. I'm rambling! My point is, I need my beauty sleep!” 

"Ah yes, and keeping her poor husband up with snores and clinging to him like an octopus." 

"I do not snore!" 

“Well,” he said with a smile. “At least, Ichika loves her papa more than her mama." 

“Nonsense!”

And baby Ichika, right on cue, yanked her mother’s pink lock. “OUCH! Ichika!” Shisui burst into laughter. “Ichika! Kagami? Is it a thing in your family?” 

He kissed her on her cheek and tugged her lock of hair. 

 “Yes it is.”

She pouted, as he ringed his arm around her. She leaned on his shoulder. 

"I'm doing well these days, Kagami."