Chapter 2

The gold shroud of the Kyuubi's chakra coated his body. From the tips of his hair down to his toes, the golden hue surged through him like a living flame for the first time in months. And it felt joyous.

The chakra bled into the seal, dark lines becoming clear, then shining with golden light. The brightness spreading over the whole room, as the chakra went into the seal on the floor to crawl up the walls into the arrays that had been drawn into the overhanging roof.

The world was light.

Chains sprouted from the walls, floor and ceiling. Nine chains meeting at the center before the bright flame of the Kyuubi's chakra spread into them, lighting them like tinder that did not burn as energy forked and split between the links to meet in the center.

The crackle of power sent goosebumps crawling up his arms. Like static electricity only without the harsh sting. He pushed his and Kurama's chakra into the seal willing this to work. It had to!

Then there was a tear.

All nine chains pulled taut, retreating back into their seals, link by agonizingly slow link, with the tear becoming wider and wider, the fabric of reality split open to reveal an abyss of...impossibility.

It looked like an ocean of churning water in a storm, a spiral of black non light, a surface as still as a tombstone, the brightest of starlight the most vibrant of colors, all at the same time his mind unable or unwilling to attempt to grasp even the concept of what he was looking at.

An end to infinity.

"I can't believe we did it." He whispered to himself even knowing that this was the easy part.

Beside him Sakura threw a look.

Sasuke nodded.

In the next second Naruto's body was wrapped in a flutter of sealing note pages, with a single scroll coiling around his body.

"What?" He asked, startled as the golden chakra receded back into his seal.

He hunched forward, the sudden loss of strength leaving him as he saw the dark, fiery body of the Susanoo form up around him like the walls of an impenetrable fortress. "Sasuke!?" He turned his head to look at the Uchiha! "What're you doing?"

"What we have to." He answered.

"We have to get you through." Sakura said walking up beside him.

He turned looking at her, his mind processing what they were saying, a slowly creeping horror dawning on his features.

"No..." He whispered...demanded. "No! You said that-"

"I lied." She confessed sadly. "My calculations always showed that you nor Kyuubi, would ever have the power to pull yourself and us back far enough to make enough of a difference. You just pulling back yourself...you'd only be able to get yourself to the very beginning of the war."

Naruto's wide, unblinking eyes percolated with tears his face slack with dumb shock even as Sasuke stepped infront of him, his back to the Jinchuuriki, facing the doorway.

"All our research shows every step is an exponential increase." The Uchiha said. "At the first step, you only take one day. On the second two. On the third four. Fifth eight and so on. There are four thousand, three hundred an eighty days in twelve years With the exponential growth, we need eleven steps.

"We can make that!" The blond cried, struggling in his bonds before turning to Sakura, a look of such betrayal in his eyes she felt her heart clench in her chest. "You told me I could make that!

"I lied." She repeated.

"So how many can I make?" If he was close...then

"At the very best estimates...you can only make eight...and that's if all our calculations are on the marker. We could be completely wrong."

He shook his head, the tears dripping down his cheeks to fall off his chin. "No...No...I'll get you there!" I'll get you there! Sakura!"

She shook her head, a brittle smile tugging at her lips "Naruto." She sighed... "You don't know how much..."

There were the sounds of shouts now. Of battle reaching in through the outside walls.

"We have no time!" Sasuke demanded, turning to give her a look over his shoulder.

She nodded, turning away from Naruto to march infront of Sasuke as the Uchiha reached out, both hands, one to grip her shoulder, the other to grip Naruto's.

She reached down, a burst of chakra into the activation rune as tattoos spread from the seal on her forehead to spread over her skin.

She did not have years worth of chakra like Tsunade-sama. Just barely one...it would have to be enough.

The doorway, held open by the nine chains, thrummed with power, the nine links spinning like a typhoon, faster and faster the seals at their feet becoming brighter.

Then they were somewhere else.

On the edge of nothingness...

Sakura felt ground under her feet, sweat beading at her brow as the very perception of all her five senses were thrown completely askew.

Heat, light, dark, up, down, nothing conformed to her ability to comprehend. She closed her eyes focusing on Sasuke's hand on her shoulder and ignoring Naruto's struggles in his atempts to escape his restraints.

She stood nowhere, and everywhere. Her chakra, her tether of life, anchoring her to this place like she would tether herself to the side of a tree, or on a wall. That was the only way it could work. Once she was finished...Sasuke would begin to do the same, so that he could navigate this place that led to nowhere, and everywhere at once. This vast void of nothingness that held the whole of everything within your reach and just beyond.

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