Prologue

The first thing she remembered was the Why…

She gently carded her fingers through the over-long blond locks. Her best friend and teammate was utterly still and silent; something she was sure would always be gut wrenchingly, fundamentally long, no matter how long he lay there. Clearing her throat, she told him why she'd come early that week, and her words hung on the air like a confession.

"They asked me to be Hokage, Naruto."

And slowly, and single tear escaped, despite her mantra telling herself to be strong.

Kakashi was gone; overdosing on soldier pills in the battle that finally killed Madara and dying of charka exhaustion afterwards, but he had saved almost every single one of the nin under his command.

Sasuke was alive, and still a missing nin. Not much else was known. And she was still in love with the stupid jerk, and hated herself for it.

Tenzo's chakra was crippled after having been taken by Madara to be used in creating Zetsus.

Lee was dead, after opening all his gates. Sakura couldn't stabilize him in time, despite having practically invented the procedure to do so for exactly this situation.

Sai… wasn't dealing well with PTSD. Root had tried to make him emotionless, but had only left him unable to cope. Currently, he was in psychiatric care.

Ino's ninja career was over after infection had set into her crushed hand. She now ran the family flower shop and made poisons for ANBU.

Shizune was dead. She had participated in the field, despite never having been much of a fighting ninja. The inevitable had happened.

The Hyūga were revolting in the wake of Hiashi's death, and Hinata had barely survived the last assassination attempt thanks to Neji's interference.

Shino had died on the battle field. He had committed all his colonies in a risky hijutsu that did actually work, but had killed almost all of his bugs. Without a colony synched to his chakra signature, the Aburame's symbiotic relationship with the colonies had broken down, and he'd died of chakra poisoning.

Temari had been shot out of the sky by Deidara, shortly after Chōji's food pills had killed him on the battle field, and Shikamaru, grieving both his girlfriend and best friend, had taken a hermit's license and disappeared, leaving the Nara clan in an uproar. Gaarra and Kankuro kept working as the leaders of Suna and the Puppet Corps respectively, trying to bury themselves in the emotionally inept way all the sand siblings had.

The list went on and on, till Sakura couldn't even count the cost of the war, and ultimately ended in her worn and broken sensei, Tsunade, who was terribly old and terribly tired. Sakura couldn't see how she could justify refusing the hat, but right now, it seemed like one more burden than she could take.

"Naruto, this really, really sucks." She whispered.

She wanted him to him to hug her, to make her laugh, to say something unbelievably stupid and inappropriate. He just lay there looking small and lifeless.

Finally, she left the hospital and headed straight for the largest stash of booze she knew of; the Hokage's office.

Next, she remembered the What…

She was a few bottles past sober when she finally gave up bloodying her knuckle's on Tsunade's punching wall, and started crying to the desk about how worthless she was, and how she just wanted to stab her eyes out whenever she thought of the selfish, careless girl she used to be.

"I just wish I knew then what I do now. Maybe everything wouldn't have turned out so badly. I wish I could do it over…" She sobbed, before abruptly straightening as though struck. She fumbled her way into the Hokage's vault and woke up with a monstrous hangover, and a theoretical discourse on time-space seals by Namikaze Minato spread across her lap.

Then, the How…

She spent the next three years mastering the contents of the scroll. It was pure genius, something she unequivocally recognized once she knew enough about seals to do so. Interestingly, even though only one was listed, the scroll seemed to have two authors. Sometimes the language would change just slightly. That, however, wasn't Sakura's concern. Her chakra reserves were.

The first thing she learned about pure time seals, especially large-scale ones (i.e. ones spanning an amount of time greater than 70 minutes,) was the obscene amount of power they took. A Jinchuuriki would have been able to send their memories, and several others besides, but Sakura couldn't. So she burned soldier pills and emptied every crumb of chakra she could spare into special storage seals for months on end. Then she took a break from mapping the time continuum to whip out a few amplifying seals.

She estimated that she still wouldn't be able to send back much, and if she used any more chakra she would lose control and the jutsu would fail. But she couldn't lose hope now, and she thought it would be enough to make a difference.

Finally, she was ready. Late one night she walked to team 7's bridge, as she still called it, despite the team's fate. She painted the ground and her skin in the graceful, curling array she had spent years learning. The one seal that promised a chance to change everything. After one last shaky breath, she started forming the long train of hand seals. Her fingers flew swiftly in well-practiced patterns, and for a moment, she wondered inanely if it would hurt. Then the seal activated, drinking away her chakra at an incredible pace. She triggered the storage and amplifier seals and carefully poured the power in. Her coils strained at the surge of energy, but her delicate control never faltered. It seemed to last for an eternity, until the seal swallowed her last life-spark of chakra, and her soul tore loose, hurtling through the unknowable infinite stretch of time. Finally, she came to her destination; the exact same place on a little red bridge, and merged with the identical soul of a nine year-old roseate, green-eyed girl.

Then, she woke up…