A Glimpse of Things to Be

Chapter 8 – Sakura

"I'm going next!" Sakura proclaimed, and nobody seemed willing to fight her over it. While a part of her was wanting to help get Ino's mind off of the apparent death of her father, she was mostly upset at herself. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that her and Sasuke would end up together, and yet here she was allowing Ino and even Hinata to go before her!

A pink-haired woman stood over a sink, her hair pulled back and down. It was obviously Sakura, though her appearance looked older than her current in some slight ways. She was doing dishes in the sink, humming some tune quietly.

"Hey mom!" a voice called out from a nearby room. "I'm home." The voice was female, and did not sound all too excited. If anything, she sounded quite exasperated. Sakura sighed before turning off the faucet and drying off her hands. She turned and walked into the living room, where a visibly frustrated seven-year old girl was sitting on the couch.

The girl had dark hair and pitch-black eyes, with facial features that gave many of them the opinion that Sasuke was, in all likelihood, the father. Naruto in particular could see the similarities quite strongly, especially the way that they looked when they were pouting.

"So, maybe that whole Sasuke thing works out after all?" Temari said, voicing what everyone else was thinking. Everyone else was too afraid to get Sakura's hopes up too soon, knowing full well what it would be like if it turned out not to be true.

Sakura herself was having trouble processing this. Her daughter definitely looked like a good mix of both her and Sasuke, having Sasuke's hair and eye color with her body type. It seemed too good to be true. Had everything actually worked out? All the troubles gone, replaced with a happy and relatively normal home life, with a husband and daughter?

"Hi sweetie. Bad day?" Sakura had the slightest bit of a smirk on her face, and it seemed incredibly likely that she had a bit of experience handling these types of situations.

"I don't wanna talk about it." The girl puffed a bit, turning away. Sakura rolled her eyes before moving in to take a seat beside her daughter on the couch.

"You know it'll be best if you just let it out. You can go back to being happy and I can go back to doing housework. So go ahead and tell me." The black-haired girl sighed.

"Everyone else is always talking about their father. 'Oh, my dad taught me this' during training, or 'my dad and I have been training a lot; he says it's time I learn clan jutsu.' And here I am, having never met my father, just sitting there quietly while they talk about all the cool things they're doing at home."

"Is that what this is about? Oh come now Sarada, you know –-"

"I know what?" the girl interrupted her mother loudly. Sakura had a scowl on her face, but seemed willing to let her continue. "That my dad loves me? That he's out there, somewhere, thinking about me? That he cares about either of us? No, Mom, I don't know ANY of that. All I know is that YOU tell me that, not him! If he cares so much, where is he?" She was quite visibly angry now, past the point of frustration. Her face was lit up brightly, and to the viewers, it was this side that made it so obvious it was truly Sakura's daughter.

"Now look young lady, I know you're upset, but I will not be talked to like that in this household." Sakura said sternly, with a slightly raised voice. It seemed she was intent on disciplining the child before things got out of hand. Her voice lowered as she continued. "Your father has important business to attend to, keeping the village safe so that kids like you and your friends don't have to worry about the next evil mastermind starting another war or trying to destroy the village. Besides, you met him once; you just do not remember since it was your third birthday."

"But why can't he visit?" the girl implored, looking deep into her mother's eyes and obviously desperate for an answer.

"I don't know. That's just not him." she said, wrapping an arm around her clearly disappointed daughter. "I never really thought he'd be the type of man who'd stay in the village, only going out on short-term missions. I always knew, at least in my heart, that we would never have that type of life. But, I love him, and I was willing to accept that. Part of me wishes we did have that life; that I would wake up and he would be here, that he could help you train and see how strong you're going to be. But that's not the life he wants. It's not right to ask him to change when I knew going into it that he wouldn't. So, if you're going to get mad at anyone, it should be me."

"You make a pretty good mother, Sakura." Ino said, seemingly not jabbing at Sakura in any way. Sakura was, of course, intensely absorbed into the scene taking place in front of her and was already completely taken aback by the idea of having a child, especially since all of the context clues hinted to the father being Sasuke. In a way it was nice though she was somewhat disappointed that it seemed like some things would never change and she'd rarely see him.

"Ugh, daughters seem like a lot of work. Let's have a son, Shikamaru!"

The Nara could feel the headache approaching as if it traveled to the past as a result of them looking into the future. "First of all, that's not something we can really control." He said it calmly, though everyone could see the blush tinting his cheeks. "Secondly, can we please not talk about this as if it's normal? It's not."

"Oh, you're so insufferable."

"Now tell me, and this time I want the truth," Sakura continued, "this has something to do with Boruto doesn't it?"

"W-what? Of course not, Mom!"

"Now now, nobody else gets to you like him. You two are pretty close, after all." Sakura said, in such a way that even a seven-year old could pick up what she was implying.

"You're so weird!" the girl said defensively, not enjoying her mother implying that she liked Boruto. Well, of course she liked him, but they were friends; she knew what her mother meant! "He was just talking about some things and I guess, maybe, he mentioned Naruto-ojisan and I got a little bit… jealous."

The meaning was not lost on anyone in the room that Naruto, being the uncle of Sarada, and resulting in jealousy about fathers, meant that Boruto was the name of his son. Naruto, at this point, had been enjoying his reprieve after the embarrassing scene with Hinata until the malevolent future-telling device saw fit to mention him again. Hinata, meanwhile, was thinking that it was quite a nice name and that she did not mind it. There was, perhaps, a small bit of red on her cheeks at the thought of it being her son due to the nature of what that implied, but considering what she had already seen from the device today it was not enough to make her too distressed.

"Well, I know your father's not here right now, but I know what he'd say. 'Sarada, jealousy is unbecoming of an Uchiha" Sakura said, as if to remove whatever doubt there could have possibly been about the identity of the father. "Especially if it has anything to do with that idiot Naruto. And don't call him Ojisan.' But that last part would be said in the way only your father could do, where he sounds so serious but you can tell he doesn't mean it." There was a smile on Sakura's face as she gave her daughter a final hug. "Now, if you do not mind, I need to finish all this housework! How two people living in such a large house make such a mess I will never know..." The scene faded.

Sakura couldn't think of anything to say; from what she had seen, she seemed so strong, confident, and mature at a point that did not really seem that far into the future. She was obviously a good bit older but it's not like she was pushing middle-aged or anything. It made her feel like a child to see how she would turn out.

"That was touching. Who's next?" Kiba said, bored by the scene and really finding the entire experience so far to be much more boring than expected. Where was all the action?

"You are so rude!" Tenten said, rolling her eyes at the behavior of the Inuzuka.

"I think it's my turn." Chouji said, finishing a bag of chips. He had hesitated in stepping forward for a while now, mostly because he could not really imagine anything that he wanted to see in the future whereas everyone else seemed to have so much hope for it. Still, he decided that he was not going to delay it anymore and to get it out of the way.

A/N: Yes, this story has been updated. I know it's been quite some time, but let me explain: I was somewhat disappointed that the story had taken a turn away from what it was supposed to be originally and I felt somewhat exasperated by that thought. However, any time I read it, I always found that I enjoyed reading it quite a bit and wanted to continue working on it. Then, with two other major stories going on, I'd just keep putting it to the side. Now I feel like the time has come to resume writing this.

Please note that I have changed my original description; all scenes in this story should be "Scenes consisting either of canon possibilities or plausible alternatives to canon happenings". This represents no major shift in the kinds of chapters I write. If you're a long-term reader, you will find no significant changes in the way that I write the chapters. If you're a new reader, welcome.

As always, thank you for reading! Please feel free to favorite, follow, review, or simply continue onward!