To The Future

Time Loop

Uchiha Sasuke was well aware of the fact that his best friend was crazy. Once he got an idea in his head, he would dive right into it without thinking of any consequences. Any criticism bounced right off his thick head. That was the reason he was not currently in the Hokage office yelling his head off but in his home staring with judgement clear in his eyes, at his wife and Nara Shikamaru, the two culprits who were as much responsible as Naruto for this insanity.

"I understand that Sakura suffers from bouts of madness, but I expected better from you Nara." He stated.

("Hey." Sakura protested.)

"I would have agreed with you if I wasn't aware of the fact that this time heist was actually supposed to happen." Shikamaru answered.

"What do you mean?"

"A weeks before Pein's attack on Konoha, I mysteriouslyreceived the seal matrices to seal Edo tensei in my mail. It was around the time you had your fight with Itachi. At that time nobody in Konoha, let alone a seal master was even aware about Kabuto's modified Edo tensei or its importance in the upcoming war. Did you never wonder how our seal masters were able to able to perform battlefield sealing of Edo tensei, when it takes months to develop such an array?" The Nara questioned. "Anyway I decided not to look horse in the mouth until a year ago when I was presented with a project from a chunnin in R and D, trying to recreate that array used in Fourth Shinobi War. Imagine my surprise when I realised that it was the exact same matrix I had recieved 14 years ago. I mailed it to my younger counterpart when we were in the past."

"Wait, are you implying that Naruto's crazy hair brained scheme to rescue my brother was part of some necessary time loop?" Sasuke couldn't help but be sceptical.

"I think it makes sense." Sakura interjected hesitantly.

"How?"

"Your eyesight is perfect." She answered.

Sasuke looked at her blankly. "You'd have to give me more than that."

"I have examined Itachi-san's eyes. His retina had more haemorrhages than a person with grade four retinopathy. There no possibile way that you will be able to see well after getting those eyes transplanted into you. I guessing that you always had those eyes of the clone I created from Hashirama cells and Itachi-san's DNA."

Sasuke's head was spinning. His brother had never died. That couldn't be possible, could it?

"What about his Edo tensei form? Are you saying that was fake too?" He asked.

It was Shikamaru who answered this time. "I've read a lot about Edo tensei lately. There's nothing in the literature stating that the person has to be dead for the jutsu to work. It is basically a zombie clone who is controlled by the caster. The control is absolute for a dead person because they have no presence in the living world to fight against the command. Itachi was the only one able to gain control because he was alive, albeit in stasis."

"Did Naruto know about it?" He doubted it as Sakura was as surprised at Shikamaru's revelation as Sasuke was.

"He doesn't yet. I plan to tell him soon." Shikamaru replied. "There's something I've found in the archives which might require another trip to the past."

"Oh God. Why?" Sakura groaned.

"It won't be as daunting as our last trip, but I found a note from myself in the investigation reports of death of Uchiha Shisui, highlighting the fact the fact that no body was found."

"He threw himself into the Naka river. Ofcourse the body wasn't found. It washed away." Sasuke cut in.

Nara gave an exacerbated look at that. "They searched upto the dam near the capital. A missing-in-action Uchiha was taken very seriously at that time, especially after the Kyuubi attack. Maybe the body wasn't found was because it wasn't there at all."

Sasuke was getting a headache.

Thankfully, Sakura stopped the Nara from making it more severe."I think we should end the discussion here. Sarada should be home soon and this isn't something for her to hear. Furthermore, Sasuke would have to do some begging and groveling to get her to forgive him and I'm sure he wouldn't want an audience for that." She said, sending him a wink.

Sasuke resisted the urge to groan out loud at that reminder, while the Nara said his farewells. Fortunately, he had the forethought of getting a lot of gifts for Sarada. Though, he had a feeling it wasn't going to be enough. Sarada was an Uchiha and from Sakura had told him, she had inherited the tendency to hold grudges.