An Inch of Gold

16

Itachi notices her uncertainty.

"Answer me this: would you risk everything you know and love, everything you have now, just to go back and change it all?"

"To save someone, maybe," she answers honestly.

"Even if it meant that the person—or perhaps, several persons—that you care for might cease to exist due to your own actions?" Sarada opens her mouth to reply but finds that she is even less certain now. Itachi nods as if he expected this. "Exactly. That is the risk you take when you change time. And only someone who has never experienced caring for another would make that decision."

Which is a pretty good point, actually.

If something happened to her parents or friends, Sarada would of course jump at the chance to go back and save them. However, if something in her travels caused her to lose them anyhow?

"Alright. I guess it makes sense," she concedes slowly. "But that brings us back to my question from before: who's doing it? If it's not any of the us, and any Uchiha with the ability was already killed off..."

"Anyone that was recorded by the clan, at any rate."

"Right, anyone that was... wait. What's that supposed to mean?"

"There's only one person whose fate was never accounted for," he says grimly, "but it's impossible, because that person can't have survived."

"Survived when you...?"

She doesn't want to say the words again.

"No." Itachi's eyes flash. "I mean, they can't be alive any longer because it has been centuries since she is said to have existed."

"I don't understand."

"The origin of Ōmiyanome was an Uchiha clanswoman. Teisōko Uchiha." The name is unfamiliar, but by now, Sarada expects that. "She was a prodigy, according to the stories that were passed down. Powerful, strong and the pride of her people."

"And she's the one who figured out how to travel in time?"

"Yes. When it was discovered she could move through time, the Uchiha believed they had birthed their saviour. She would be the matriarch of a new generation, a woman who would bear warriors that would make the Uchiha the most powerful clan in the world."

"So what happened? If she were that important, wouldn't she have been mentioned in the history books?"

"Not necessarily."

Which isn't surprising, given what Itachi has said and how closed-lipped her father is about their ancestors. Sarada is familiar enough with the wars between the Senju and the Uchiha from her days in the Academy, but not in any amount of depth.

"The popular story is that she fell ill," Itachi tells her. "She survived but was rendered barren. Without being able to have children who could inherit her particular skills, her value in the clan went down."

"But that's not fair! It's not like she got sick on purpose! And obviously there were still other people who had the same ability without her having children! I mean, you said before that they kept being born into the clan!"

"Yes. There were those who shared her ability to slip through time, but she was the only one to master it completely. Instead of minutes or hours, she could travel back days. Weeks. Some say months. It was her mastery that the clan wanted to breed into their descendants, and without that, she became obsolete."

"Hold on," Sarada makes a face. "They wanted people who could change time? I thought you said before that the ability was too dangerous."

"Circumstances change. During the height of the wars between the Uchiha and the Senju, such a quality was desired. In times of peace, however feeble, anyone who might use Ōmiyanome was a threat."