Epistles to the Departed

Prologue: Chapter 3 - A Huge Step Backwards

Prologue: Chapter 3

"A Huge Step Backwards"

So they had a solution to this huge, huge problem, but they were going to assign her.

Sakura.

Admittedly, she was strong; perhaps one of the best kunoichis there were, but she... the past her, wasn't quite up to the task. There wasn't much about her to be worried about until recently.

Key term, recently. That applied quite a bit in terms of 'time travel'. The act of going beyond the normal realms of time, either into the future or into the past.

And saving her old teammates was a event in the past, and that was also not 'recently'.

In layman's terms, she was going to get stomped on by everyone left and right without her chakra or abilities. Unlike some people, most of her skills were rather circumstantial. Maybe she'd have her chakra-punches, but she wasn't some Lord-First DNA splicer (even if she did it now and kidnapped Kabuto to forcibly infuse her with the magic tree-man cells, she wouldn't have it in the past, no thanks to the multiverse) who could afford to spam her invincibility technique to make use of her small reserves.

Part of her understood, though. Being shishou's one apprentice and the Rokudaime's only surviving student, (Sai was more of Yamato-taicho's acquaintance than Kakashi's protégé) it would make sense that they would choose her. They trusted her with every fiber of their being.

But she shoved that part away, replacing it with un-Sakura-like stubbornness.

"Why me?" she asked, not bitterly- but hoarsely, breaking out of her trance. "Isn't it better if you or Tsunade-shishou did this instead?"

"I can't. Only you or Tsunade have the capability to survive such a trip, Sakura." her former instructor declared, fiddling the scroll in his hands. "Time.. is finicky. Nobody's used this experimental jutsu just yet, so we don't know what it'll do. In case it's a dud, your regenerative chakra will save you."

"However, my direct influence on either Naruto or Sasuke are much more limited. Say, even if I returned, my actions may have greater repercussions than yours... that is, compared the positive changes." the large-busted woman inquired, trying to resolve her student's growing doubts. "The conditions that we've managed with this scroll imply that the user travels back to their genesis... meaning, their birth."

"You could just stop Orochimaru, in that case," Sakura argued. "Or kill Madara, save Obito or Rin, forbid the Akatsuki from forming. Nagato was Jiraiya's student, was he not? I wasn't even born when half these tragedies occurred. Heck, even saving Naruto's parents- Yondaime-sama and Uzumaki-san!"

"Again. Sakura, twenty years has a lot less impact than almost-sixty." the Rokudaime reasoned. "Things could change. For the better or for the worse, we don't know. Tsunade alone cannot stop the horrors of the Third Shinobi war, nor can she possibly stop all of these events."