02
The world didn't come into focus right away. First, the smell of dust and old books hit her nose, and only then did her vision awaken. Symbols in an unfamiliar language. A book open to a random page. Some shadow moving nearby.
Sarada blinked and realized her glasses had fallen off. She groped for the familiar frame and put them on.
Sharp book spines dug painfully into her sides and legs. She lay in a pile of scattered books.
"Incredible," a voice muttered overhead. "It actually works."
Sarada tried to climb out of the book pile, but her weakened body still wouldn't obey.
Someone pulled her by the hand, helping her out. Scattering books and crumpling pages, Sarada rolled onto the floor.
Before her stood a young woman with long light-brown hair and a pale blue looped scarf.
Sarada sat up, adjusted her glasses, and looked around. The dimly lit room was in total chaos. Under bookshelves stuffed with books and scrolls towered crates, rolled-up maps, ancient tech from her parents' youth. Some volumes lay on the dusty floor.
The woman in the scarf, mincing along, headed to the table. The hem of her dark blue knit cardigan dragged behind, gliding over book covers and flipping pages of open collections midway through. She snatched a cup from the table and warmed her hands on it.
"No, this is truly incredible," the woman said and sipped from the cup.
"Where am I?" Sarada asked dully.
Memory slowly pieced together the recent events. The fight with father, then the stone hag.
Fear suddenly gripped Sarada. How had she gotten from Konoha to this strange room? Did she just pass out, and the woman found her on the path to the cemetery and carried her home? But why was she sprawled so clumsily in the books?
Cunning sparks gleamed in the stranger's eyes.
"You're my guest. It's been so long since I had guests!"
"Who are you?"
It seemed to Sarada her voice sounded too calm and indifferent. After the fight with dad and running with the Sharingan active, she felt not like a living person, but an empty shell of what had recently been Uchiha Sarada.
The woman pondered. The simple question puzzled her for some reason.
"To you, I'm probably a deity."
"Deity..." Sarada echoed tonelessly.
She didn't care anymore. Deity it was.
Wait. What deity?
Sarada shook her head to shake off the apathy and snap to.
"You can call me Donna," the deity continued, sipping tea. "And still, it's been so long since I had guests."
"How did I get here? I was near the cemetery."
"You touched my idol."
The image of the stone hag with churning chakra inside flashed in her memory.
"Is this space ninjutsu?"
"Hm, you could say that. But it's not just space ninjutsu. My idol is a space-time corridor. I've long waited for someone to fall into my trap, but..."
"No one walked that path," Sarada guessed.
"Oh, they did."
"They didn't touch the hag?"
"The idol," Donna corrected jealously. "Oh, they did. It's something else: everyone who touched the stone was strong and healthy. They resisted my trap; the world wouldn't let them go. But you were so weak, it pulled you into the corridor effortlessly. Truly incredible."
A childlike joy broke across the deity's face.
Fear gripped Sarada. She was trapped. Space-time technique whisked her who-knows-where. Why? To take her Sharingan? Blackmail her father?
"What do you want from me?" she asked, voice trembling.
The deity looked at her mildly puzzled.
"Hey, what's with you?"
"I'm trapped. You caught me. Why?"
Donna set the cup aside and paced the room.
"Maybe I'm just lonely. It's been so long since..."
"You had guests," Sarada repeated. "I heard that already."
"Don't be so sharp with someone who calls herself a deity," her inner voice whispered. But Sarada was too out of it. Plenty of shinobi in history had been seen as near-gods for their great power. Some proclaimed themselves gods. Take Nanadaime—even he was a deity in his way.
Sarada watched the woman pacing in her long cardigan and realized Nanadaime Hokage seemed far stronger and more impressive than this stranger from some dusty storeroom.
But Donna wasn't offended. She stopped pacing and peered into her eyes.
"Would you like to change history?"
"What?" Sarada was stunned.
"Well, maybe there were moments in your life... that you'd want to change..."
Like an electric shock.
Mom. Mommy.
"Yes."
Sarada didn't even realize how hastily the answer escaped her.
Excitement flared in the deity's eyes.
"Looks like I'm lucky today."
She sat on the floor before Sarada, legs crossed.
"Tell me about it."
Sarada flushed. She had no intention of confessing to a strange girl who acted childishly one moment and unhealthily enthusiastic the next.
"You're the deity," Sarada said challengingly. "You should know already."
But she thought: "If you're really a deity." She didn't quite believe it. Nor the space-time corridor. Space—yes. Time—no. Besides, Sarada still suspected an enemy. On the other hand, they offered to change the past. The damn deity seemed to know her life perfectly and played on her weakness.
"Mom died," Sarada surrendered. "And dad..."
Should she mention his mission? No. Can't.
"Dad?"
"Dad's just cold, indifferent, cruel, and..." Sarada felt tears welling again and quickly asked, "Can I save mom?"
The deity pondered seriously.
"It happened recently?"
"A couple days ago. So you did know?"
"Of course, I'm a deity."
"Then why ask?"
But Donna answered differently:
"If it was recent, you can't save her."
"Why?" Sarada asked, lifting her glasses to wipe the tears.
"I can't send you to a past where another you exists. Only earlier. Before your birth."
"You can really send me to the past?"
Sarada didn't believe the "deity" one bit.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"Yes," Sarada admitted, thinking, "But I want to so badly."
Then it hit her.
Deity. Donna admitted knowing about mom's death. Maybe she knew about the Uchiha too?
Sarada asked cautiously:
"Donna, tell me. You know what happened to the Uchiha clan?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then tell me," she pleaded. "Please."
The deity shook her head.
"No."
"Why?!"
Donna looked sadly at the floor.
"Because it can't be conveyed in words. You might draw wrong conclusions from my story."
What the hell with all of them, shannaro!
"So, Sarada? Want to go to the past?"
Of course she did. Yet the offer felt like a trap.
"Why help me?"
"I have my own gains," the deity said mysteriously.
"What?"
Donna eyed her intently, grunted as she stood, and went behind the shelves. Crashes of falling objects sounded. The deity returned with a strange device, a cassette tape, and explained:
"This is a projector."
"It looks ancient."
"Does it?" Donna asked genuinely surprised. "I thought it was pretty new."
Sarada skeptically eyed the battered, loose machine. The deity inserted the cassette, flipped a map hanging on the shelf to its blank side, and aimed the projector's beam at the white space.
"Look. I could watch this forever."
Black-and-white footage jumped with stripes and static. The tape was worn and older than the projector.
Donna watched the recording with loving reverence.
"See?"
"What is it?" Sarada asked boredly.
"Cells."
White glow appeared at the ends of tiny spheres filling the screen. Thin threads stretched from the poles to the centers. The spheres stretched and split in a short synchronized jerk. There were twice as many.
"See, they divide."
"Why show me this?"
The deity grinned.
"Worlds behave the same."
The recording continued. Another sharp jerk. Twice as many cells again.
"At every choice, division happens. Every possible outcome of any event gets realized. Many worlds—many clones. Similar, but different in some ways. Each follows its path and divides again at choices."
"You're saying there are many versions of our world?"
"Exactly."
"Including the one..." Sarada swallowed. "...where mom is alive?"
"Yes."
"But of course you won't send me there."
"Right. Because there's already a you there. Another you."
"How I envy that other me," Sarada thought. "If this isn't made up."
"I've pulled you out of time," Donna continued. "You're in my time stream now, unlinked from the time streams of the worlds you're from. I can send you back to any moment in the past before your birth. Your arrival alone will cause multiple divisions, since you weren't there then. The world you're from will continue unchanged. Without you. As it was. You'll go with the new world born from the division, on a different path. And what it becomes depends only on you."
"But what's in it for you? You still haven't answered."
The info still settled in her head.
"I'm writing a treatise on worlds. I've long wanted to run this experiment and study world divergence under external influence."
"What?" Sarada squinted. "Diver... what?"
"Agree—it's mutually beneficial," the deity ignored her confusion. "You save your family; I observe the experiment."
The projector died. Sarada scanned the junk- and book-strewn room, as if confirming it wasn't a dream or genjutsu.
"I can change something in the past. So mom doesn't die in the future," she murmured. "And so the Uchiha survive. If they live, if dad doesn't lose his family, maybe he won't become so... heartless. But what if I make it worse? What if the Fourth Shinobi World War ends completely differently?"
"It's all in your hands, Sarada. But know, the forces shaping history are usually mightier than our desires. Worlds resist change. They tend to circle back, no matter how you fight to fix the course."
"Wait, but... I'll return? To my time."
"Of course!"
The deity looked at her oddly, as if she'd asked something stupid. Sarada didn't dare ask details.
"Why convince me? You could just send me to the past and run your experiment."
"How? All voluntary. I force no one. If you doubt or don't want—I return you to the cemetery."
No!
Something rebelled inside.
No. Sarada didn't want back to the empty world where no one needed her. If there was a chance—she had to take it.
"I agree," she said firmly. "But which past moment?"
The deity smiled with undisguised tenderness:
"I'll send you to my favorite moment in earthly history. The birthday of Nanadaime Hokage."
Warmth stirred in her soul. The Seventh... Could she see him as a child, this great man?
"That day, Uzumaki Kushina and Yondaime Hokage Namikaze Minato laid the foundation for your peaceful future. But why not see for yourself?"
The deity jumped up and darted behind the shelves again. Familiar crashes sounded.
"Here it is. My precious."
Sarada expected another film, but Donna returned with a small black alarm clock, grabbing a few volumes from the shelf en route.
She kicked space clear on the floor, shoving aside the pile Sarada had scattered on falling, sat, and laid out open volumes. Wound the alarm.
"Ready?"
Sarada snapped to. They weren't showing her anything.
"What? Already?!"
"Exactly."
"You're sending me to the past with books and an alarm clock?"
Donna grinned slyly.
"Right. So, ready?"
Sarada straightened, hands on knees, and breathed deep.
"Yes."
She watched Donna curiously.
The deity leisurely formed seals, and random words ignited one after another in the open books.
"How does this work?" Sarada quickly asked, while the technique hadn't fully activated yet.
"Words hold immense power. If you know how to use them—you can create anything you want."
The alarm clock rang sharply. Sarada flinched.
And in the next moment, the books, the room, the focused deity—everything vanished.
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan