"Lady Fifth, urgent news!"
Just as Sakura and the other girls were finalizing sealing the deal with their new sensei, a female ANBU mber wearing a grey flak jacket and a cat mask suddenly flickered into Tenten's hospital ward.
"Weren't you in charge of tracking down Orochimaru, codenad 'Cat'?" Tsunade asked the female ANBU. "Report your findings."
The ANBU lady wearing a cat mask and her squad had been tasked with tracking down Orochimaru by the Leaf's higher-ups during the brief period of ti before Tsunade's ascension to power.
'Wait, I got it,' said Inner Sakura, snapping her fingers. 'Cat is Gekkō Hayate's girlfriend— whatever her na was. No wonder she accepted such a difficult job, she wants revenge…'
"Yes, my lady," Uzuki Yūgao responded curtly. "Two days ago, my squad located Orochimaru's main base of operations in the Land of Rice Paddies..."
Cat went on to explain the reason for her return:
Following the trail of crumbs which the Sound Five had left from the Land of Rice Paddies to the Land of Hot Water, she and her squad had managed to find the Hidden Sound Village… except they'd found it completely deserted. All sensitive information and research docunts had been incinerated, but judging from the still warm embers, Orochimaru's departure had occurred very recently…
"Judging from the tracks they left behind," Yūgao concluded, "Orochimaru and his subordinates left in a hurry… in the direction of the Hidden Leaf Village."
"Getting sloppy, eh?" Tsunade murmured to herself. "That's not like him— he either left those tracks behind on purpose, or much more likely…"
"He's running out of ti," Sakura completed. "He needs to swap to a new compatible body as soon as possible!"
Unless he was currently occupying a suitable vessel, Orochimaru needed to use the Living Corpse Reincarnation Jutsu to change bodies every three years. Orochimaru didn't know yet about the White Zetsu's naturally unageing cells and the fact that Madara had infused them with Hashirama DNA— which ant that his current vessel candidates would be the Kekkei Genkai-stealing Sakura, Sasuke of the Sharingan, and Kimimaro of the Shikotsumyaku!
There was also Guren of the Crystal Style, but she really was a last-resort pick for Orochimaru— her body wasn't compatible with any of his Cursed Seals, so if she decided to resist his Living Corpse Reincarnation Jutsu, it would be an uphill battle for dominance of her body, since she was its rightful owner.
Suddenly, the door to Tenten's hospital ward burst open.
"My Lady, big trouble!" a male ANBU mber shouted. "The Konoha Strict Correctional Facility calls for aid— there are reports of giant snakes demolishing buildings and prisoners rioting!"
The worst (or most inconvenient to keep around) shinobi criminals would be sent away to Hōzuki Castle in the Land of Grass— but the Land of Fire also had its own jail for hardened criminals, the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility. It was located a short distance away from the Hidden Leaf, in the heart of an active volcano.
"Tell them I'm on my way," Tsunade told the male ANBU mber, before turning to Yūgao. "Cat, assemble your squad— you're coming with !"
"What about us, Lady Tsunade?" Sakura asked her. "What should we do?"
"Uzumaki Karin, Yamanaka Ino, you're to assemble the rest of the Genin and await further instructions," Tsunade responded. "I'll send word to Kakashi to assemble Team 7— so Haruno Sakura, you're to stay here and wait for them to fetch you."
In Tsunade's mind, there was no such thing as coincidences.
She had just sent Adult Sasuke and Boruto to the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility, and now, it was being attacked by Orochimaru? The timing was awfully suspicious, and the strange pair already had a proven track record of getting into places where they weren't supposed to be…
"But…" Sakura began.
"No buts!" Tsunade snapped. "There's still the possibility of this attack rely being a diversion, so your orders are to sit tight. Jiraiya should still be in the middle of training Naruto, so with him and Kakashi there, you and Sasuke should be safe!"
If Orochimaru was not actually serious about retrieving Kimimaro and the Sound Four, then he would be going after either Sakura or Sasuke. They were both perfectly compatible with him, since Sasuke's chakra was similar to his in nature and Sakura had perfectly assimilated so of his chakra.
However, only two of these three potential candidates had been marked with a Cursed Seal…
"Move out!"
And with those words, Tsunade and the two masked ANBU mbers strode out of the door, followed shortly by Ino and Karin, leaving Sakura alone with the still unconscious Tenten.
"Well, I suppose it's just you and , now…" Sakura told Tenten with a half-hearted chuckle. "What a ss this has all turned out to be…"
"…"
Had it just been Sakura's imagination, or had Tenten's lips moved a little?
Tsunade had said that there was a possibility that Tenten could hear the outside world from within her dreams, so maybe she'd reacted to her words? Sakura walked up to the side of Tenten's bed and leaned over the comatose girl, pricking up her ears.
"Naruto… Hinata…" ca Tenten's barely audible voice. "Little Kawaki… little Himawari… bright as a sunflower…"
'Kawaki?' said Inner Sakura in confusion. 'Who's that!?'
A faint smile drew itself on Tenten's lips as she rembered fond mories, but her smile was soon replaced by a frown.
"…Boruto…?" Tenten whispered. "Argh…!?"
Twenty years into the future, Tenten would be subjected to Eida's Omnipotence Shinjutsu, whose power would swap everyone's perceptions of Boruto and Kawaki. From then on, Kawaki would be the Seventh's child, and Boruto would be the ungrateful fiend who murdered the Seventh and his wife— leading to the world's doom.
'Aww,' said Inner Sakura. 'Tenten's so cute when she's frustrated— those lips are looking super kissable, right about now…'
However, there were so limits to Eida's Omnipotence— it could not directly affect Otsutsuki!
Furthermore, just like Eida's Senrigan Clairvoyance could only witness events starting from the mont of her birth, neither could her Omnipotence affect ti periods when she didn't exist— even though chakra was the miracle that could link all things together, even through ti, it couldn't connect things that didn't exist yet!
And it just so happened that Eida wouldn't be born for another four years— around the ti of Kaguya's defeat in the original tiline. As a result, from the mont of her rebirth up to age eighteen, Tenten had stopped and would stop being continuously affected by Omnipotence's IQ debuff, which forced her to ignore obvious discrepancies between reality and fiction!
To rember her true history, Tenten had only needed sothing to trigger the doubts sleeping deep down within her mind— and eting Boruto and Adult Sasuke had done just that, jogging her mories from her first life.
Synapses had fired and inactive mory pathways had flared to life, her brain cells reforming connections that had lain dormant for years, and… Tenten could suddenly rember eting Boruto and cleaning the bathhouse along with the other girls! How could she have possibly forgotten eting Naruto's and Hinata's firstborn son, all those years ago!
Tenten's eyes suddenly flew open, startling Sakura.
"I rember everything!" Tenten shouted.
She abruptly sat up straight in her bed, banging her forehead against Sakura's nose.
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