"Okay, let's begin. What's your name?"
Sakura immediately burst into tears. Although she had come close to being arrested a few times, this was the first time she had ever set foot in the Konoha Military Police Force's HQ… but that was not why hot tears were now welling in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry with my questions!" Uchiha Kagen, the flustered clerk in charge of interrogating Sakura, stammered. "Do you want to take a break? A glass of water, maybe?"
"I'm okay," Sakura sniffled. "I'll take a bowl of katsudon though. Please and thank you."
In her native Japan, katsudon had become something of a running joke in popular culture when it came to cop shows. It was part of the good-cop routine to offer a bowl of delicious, breaded pork cutlet over rice to suspects, hoping it would loosen their tongues.
Come to think of it, hadn't something similar happened to Karin in the original timeline when the Hidden Leaf had captured her?
"I dunno about katsudon, but if it's pork cutlets you want," the clerk said, looking rather lost, "I could have some katsu curry ramen brought in. There's this new place called Ramen Ichiraku that just opened downtown…"
Sakura buried her head in her hands and wailed.
If Ichiraku's had just opened, then that meant— she thought back to Teuchi's and Captain Yamato's conversation before their departure— she was stranded twenty years in the past! By the time she caught up to the present, she would be thirty-six! Forget about being a bride, she would be a groomer if she tried to marry Naruto or Sasuke then!
"I'm so sorry!" the poor clerk yelped. "It's okay if you don't like ramen, I'll have someone bring you something else!"
…
Meanwhile, in the neighbouring viewing room behind the one-way mirror, Fugaku shook his head and sighed, revolving to face his wife, who was holding three-year-old Itachi in her arms.
"Poor girl," he told her. "Katsudon must have been her mother's favourite food."
He turned his attention back to the interrogation.
…
"Have you had any training as a kunoichi?" Kagen was now telling Sakura. "What is your connection to Senju Tsunade? The clan head mentioned you bringing up her name when you attempted to enter the village."
Sakura was at a loss. What was she supposed to do now, tell them the truth? If she admitted to being from the future, they'd either think she was mad or accuse her of lying…and worse still, they might actually believe her.
Truth be told, Sakura still hadn't quite come to terms with it herself; the whole time travel business still felt absurdly unreal. Even though she had, technically speaking, travelled back in time when Shion's Dōjutsu had triggered, and she had personally seen Boruto and Adult Sasuke turn up from the future besides. She'd just thought she'd have a little longer before she had to deal with Boruto‑era shenanigans again, is all…
Sakura shook her head. A shinobi must always expect the unexpectable!
So, if telling the truth was off the table, perhaps she could come up with a lie instead. The trouble was, she wasn't at all sure she could spin a convincing, watertight background story for herself on the spot, let alone keep it consistent from one question to the next… she'd have to sprinkle in some truth with the lies.
Indeed, coming to Konoha had been a monumental mistake.
Personally, Sakura blamed the village's scouting teams. Why hadn't the people running the village's surveillance bothered to question her properly, to make her realise they weren't preparing for the Fourth Shinobi World War at all, but the Third? Were her Sharingan really so intimidating, her chakra signature so immense that no one dared to confront her without one of the village's heavy hitters? Was the situation really so dire, and the village so desperately stretched thin, that no one could be spared to stop her before she arrived?
WHAT IF SHE'D BEEN A TERRORIST!?
Sakura let her forehead fall against the interrogation room's metal table with a dull thud and groaned. In the end, this was her own fault. She'd been so focused on finding her missing companions that she'd leapt at the first chance to rush home and disregarded all the odds things she'd noticed on the way… and now she was further than ever from the place she belonged.
Her greatest priority now was not carrying out Queen Sēramu's mission, but avoiding any further alterations to the future. She had to steer clear of drawing more attention than she already had and make her way back to the Land of Lōran. Surely there had to be some clue as to why she had time slipped in the first place!
"Well?" asked Kagen, raising an eyebrow.
Right, she was supposed to be answering his questions.
"I was trained by Lady Tsunade," Sakura admitted. "I can summon a slug, if you'd like proof."
Would the summoning contract still hold if she hadn't signed it yet? Technically, she hadn't signed anything, since Katsuyu didn't require her summoners to, unlike the toads or the snakes… so maybe it would still work through some wibbly-wobbly, spacey-timey ninjutsu… stuff?
Sakura inwardly prayed to every kami she could think of that Tsunade would be away from the village. She had developed her haemophobia during the Second Shinobi World War and had subsequently left the village… right?
"Oh, you're in luck!" Kagen said brightly. "It just so happens that Lady Tsunade was just about to leave the village, since her newest disciple, Miss Shizune, has just been promoted to Chūnin. I'm certain she'll be glad to see her old pupil before her departure! I'll send word to have her drop by the Uchiha District to see you…"
Sakura smiled weakly, though inwardly she was screaming. "Haha, lucky me…"
Now, she had no choice but to run! Sage Mode, Susano'o, whatever it took before this turned into a bigger deal! To hell with Sāra, at this rate, she was going to be unborn… and just as she sank into the depths of despair, a flash of inspiration struck.
"Wait, I didn't tell you my name yet!" Sakura hastily added. "Tell Lady Tsunade that Konan is waiting for her… one of the three brats Lord Jiraiya saved back then, in Amegakure!"
At this point in time, Tsunade being her teacher was a lie. Unlike Jiraiya, she had never picked up any stray orphans on the side of the road, but she clearly remembered her teammate abandoning her and Orochimaru in favour of teaching three foreign brats.
The real Konan would be around fifteen during this time period, which was close enough for Sakura's purposes. So, if she could only bait Tsunade into visiting her in person, and if she could just tell her teacher her story… there was a chance Tsunade could convince the Uchiha clan to let her leave the village! Then, it would be a simple matter of getting Tsunade to seal away her own memories, and the timeline would be safe… although Sakura would still be stranded in the past.
Using the First Hokage's necklace as proof of her identity, convincing Young(er) Tsunade to take her side ought to be easy enough!
…
"That simplifies the matter of verifying if she's truly who she claims to be, which leaves only one point of suspicion," Uchiha Fugaku muttered to himself. He pressed the intercom button, and his voice crackled to life in the interrogation room. "Miss Konan, I can see you're consistently using low levels of chakra for some kind of technique… would you kindly dispel your Transformation Jutsu?"
So far, things were looking good.
The Uchiha clan took care of its own, so if this Konan girl hadn't been trained by any of the other Four Great Villages, but by Konoha's Senju Tsunade of all people, then they would be able to seamlessly integrate a three-tomoe kunoichi into the clan… a Jōnin-level ninja with close ties to the village's political elite to boot.
"Do I really have to?" Sakura sniffed. "It's rather embarrassing…"
"Is it a disfiguring scar? If so, there's nothing to worry about; medical ninjutsu has been making great strides in the past few years," Kagen asked. "Just quickly dispel your Transformation Jutsu so that we can see your true appearance, and you'll be free to leave with Fugaku-sama…"
Blushing furiously, Sakura performed a hand sign.
Her breasts seemed to undulate and vibrate, straining against her clothes… and suddenly, the sound of tearing fabric filled the room as they violently expanded to their full 135 cm glory, bursting free from their confines with a vengeance and coming to rest heavily on the table with a loud whump. And although she didn't notice it, her height also increased slightly, from 159 cm to 160 cm; her N-cup form was slightly outdated.
Sakura hastily brought her hands up, thankful that her arms were long enough that she could still cover her nipples from view.
"Oh," Kagen said with a small voice, unable to tear his eyes from her quivering flesh. "Er, we'll reimburse you for your clothes..."
The sharp crack of a slap rang out from the neighbouring room as Uchiha Mikoto smacked her husband for staring slack-jawed a few seconds too long at the poor girl whose wardrobe malfunction he had caused with his insensitive request.