To The Future

Himawari's Time Travelling Adventure

Uchiha Itachi was travelling through Kiri by tree hopping when he heard the sound of a child crying in the middle of the forest. He debated to himself about moving on, then sighed and went towards the direction of the sniffling sound. He knew that this part of the forest was a frequent battleground between purists and rebels. Leaving a child alone in this area would be the same as leaving the child dead.

He found the child at the base of a tree. She looked to be about five years of age, had dark indigo hair and two whisker marks on each cheek. He wondered who would be cruel enough to inflict such injury on a child. Making his footsteps audible, he tried to gain her attention. She looked at him and he noticed her eyes. They were the exact same eyes he had seen just days ago, on the face of the Kyuubi jinchiruchi, Uzumaki Naruto.

She quickly wiped her face of tears when she saw him and asked him, looking at his forehead protector, "You're a leaf ninja, right? Do you know where tou-chan is?"

Apparently, she didn't know the meaning of slash on the forehead protector.

"I don't," he answered her honestly. "What are you doing here?"

She sniffed. "We were here on a vacation. Then the bad men kidnapped Mama and Boruto and tou-chan said he was sending me somewhere safe and said that he would come to get me when it's safe and then he disappeared."

"Who's your father?" he asked, before trying to figure out what had happened.

"Uzumaki Naruto." she sniffed. "My name is Uzumaki Himawari."

It seemed Naruto-Kun had inherited his father's talent for space-time seals. But Itachi didn't know what kind of idiot would consider the Bloody Mist a safe place to send their daughter to.

"I am Uchiha Itachi." he offered her his name in response to hers. It was the polite thing to do and was also a way to fish for information.

"You're related to Sarada?" She asked, her eyes curious, instead of sad as of a moment ago.

"I don't know." he decided to be honest. Although, he very much wished the answer to her question was positive. It would mean Sasuke had a family.

"Why do you have a line across the leaf on your forehead protector?"

He had forgotten how many questions a five-year-old child asked.

"It means that I don't live in Konoha."

"Like Sasuke Oji-san?"

"What?"

He couldn't help but tense up at that. Sasuke was a missing-nin?

"Sarada told me that he was never into Konoha because he was wandering ninja, that protected the village from outside its walls. Are you wandering ninja, too?"

"Something like that." He couldn't express the relief he felt at that. Sasuke was alive, he had a daughter. Although he couldn't understand why he'd name his daughter 'salad'. He liked tomatoes but this was taking it a bit far.

"Is your family sad too? Because you are always away? Sarada and Sakura oba-san are really sad because of that."

Himawari has a real talent to hit a nerve.

"I don't have a family." he lied, for the first time in this conversation. "Do you know why Sasuke-san a wandering ninja?"

Was it some form of compulsory assignment that the council had given his brother due to the past crimes of his clan?

Himawari hesitated. "I don't know for sure, but..... Promise me you won't tell you can," she demanded.

"I promise."