Preventing The Inevitable

Chapter 3

It had been sometime during the fifth year of the war. They had been sitting around a campfire, long after the sun had set and all the other Shinobi had gone to rest (because sleep wasn't possible anymore). It must've been on one of the weekly 'bonding evenings' Sai and Naruto had started.

—

"Hey, Sakura?" Naruto asked while throwing a rather large branch into the flame.

"Mh-m?" She looked up from the soldier pills she was working on.

"Do you... do you think-..." Naruto went quiet.

Sasuke, who had been watching her work for lack of other entertainment , also glanced up and raised an eyebrow. "Why so quiet? That's quite unusual behavior coming from an airhead."

"I'm not an airhead! It's just- I don't know... I'm just... uh... struggling to find the right words ." Naruto glared into the fire.

Sai chuckled from the other side of the campfire. "Well, you are usually an airhead. But to think I'd ever see you scrambling for words."

Sakura put her material away and faced Naruto. Apparently, being the most emotionally intelligent person here besides the Uzumaki himself, meant having to take the wheel during these kinds of situations. "So, what is it? Just say whatever comes to mind. After all that time spent together, it would be a shame if I didn't understand the thought process of an idiot like you." Though it came out rather harsh, Naruto should know that she meant well.

The blonde took a deep breath . "So... do you think... we could–... go... back and fix all of this?" Naruto's usually loud voice was barely a whisper towards the end.

For a moment, the only noise any of them could hear was the soft crackling of the campfire. It was silent, in the dead of the night. Then, Sakura sighed. Deep and defeated. "Naruto... you know time travel isn't possible."

"But– if you could, would you?"

"Fix this mess? Of fucking course I would!" She leaned back and looked at the stars glowering down at them . Her eyes threatened to close. It was too late for this shit. "But it isn't possible. Don't you remember what we learnt in the Academy? The laws of time are not for humans to break."

Naruto, too, sighed at that. A long silence followed.

"Shimura-sama– I mean, Danzō once tried to do it ." Sai confessed quietly . "It was after the Uchiha... incident." He sent a cautious glance to the only Uchiha present (and alive).

Sasuke scoffed. "No need to get all discreet now. Do you really think I could've afforded to get offended every time back then? I don't need to be pitied by someone claiming to understand emotions."

Usually, Sakura would've said something at that. But she knew that, even if Sasuke acted unfazed, he would still get shaken up at the mention of the Massacre that happened so many years ago. His hostility towards Sai wasn't new – rather, it was one of the main reasons they had started gathering every week like this. However, it wasn't normally this bad. Lashing out was the defense mechanism that had gotten him through the worst of times, and she knew that.

Fortunately, Sai knew it as well and accepted the rather harshly spoken permission to continue.

"They used assets and resources they had stolen from the Uchiha – specifically, the Sharingan. I'm not sure how he used them, I don't even know what exactly he wanted to do with... time-travel. A lot of agents were sent to gather knowledge concerning space-time. Only his most loyal subordinates got to do that, though, and since I was still early into converting, I only heard about it from others."

"Did he succeed?" Naruto asked, as if the answer wasn't obvious.

"Of course not." Sai's fingers twitched and he pulled out his sketchbook. "See, in order for time travel to work, one's body would first have to completely be disassembled of sorts, teleport through time, and then be put together at the other side." Sai painted a simple sketch.

Sakura knew he was aware that he didn't need to do that in order to explain the process. She knew that itching feeling, the need to do something with your hands, because staying still was not preparing, and not preparing meant death. It was the reason why she was making soldier pills like this, whenever she had free time.

"It's like the Second's Flying Thunder God technique." Sai continued, talking to no one in particular, as everyone around the campfire was listening. "Just that there's an extra step where the dissolved parts of one's body travel through time. Danzō tried around for a few months but likely couldn't get that part figured out, and the project was eventually aborted."

"Oh..." Naruto sounded disappointed. Did he seriously think it was a possibility?

Next to her, Sasuke threw another branch into the slowly dying fire. "Even if we did manage to go back in time, it'd be practically impossible to prevent Kaguya's revival." His voice was bitter. "This whole plan had been in motion for thousands of years before we were even born. That was why no one had been able to spot it before it was too late. I don't know how far you'd want to go back, but it's going to get harder, the wider the gap between the timelines is."

Sakura nodded. She didn't want to tell Naruto off, but it was better for his own good to give up on such hopes early on. "Preventing this particular course of events from happening will only result in a delay." She continues Sasuke's thought process. "Zetsu is practically impossible to find, especially if he were to know that someone is aware of his existence and plan. No matter how hard we tried to erase the things Zetsu did, he could just start over after we are all dead. It's inevitable."

And then they were all glaring at the fire, cursing Kaguya for coming to this place, cursing Indra and Ashura for turning their conflict into a never ending cycle of war, cursing the world for making them live in such a hellhole. Sakura wondered if she really should've said that. Perhaps she should've gone along with Naruto and dreamt about impossible things. Now, the fragile peace they'd managed to achieve during these weekly sessions was ruined. She felt guilty.

"Now, now, how about we try to start with finding a way for time travel to actually work?" Kakashi, who had been silently listening to the conversation, suddenly said, gaining confused looks from all of them. "If it's an upgraded version of the Hiraishin, we will just have to figure out how to incorporate the extra step. Whether it would be possible to actually change the outcome of Kaguya's revival i s a bridge we can burn once we get to it.

"Who knows, maybe it is possible to prevent the inevitable."

Sakura let out a chuckle at that. Sasuke smirked, and Sai nudged Naruto about how it may be possible if they could take a closer look at one of the three-pronged Kunai he had shown around some time ago.

Since all five of them had had some training in Fūinjutsu, they quietly exchanged ideas about the techniques it may require. Though she knew that it was only a distant dream and never an actual possibility, going to sleep that night was a bit easier and less plagued with nightmares of fallen comrades.

—

It was a week after that night that Kakashi died.

A/N

I posted these three chapters all at once just to get it done and give anyone who is interested a taste of what the story is going to be like. I'll see when I update again, but it's not going to take too long (I hope)

And it's still 11/9/23.