[Chapter Size: 2400 Words.]
Third Person POV
Past.
...
...
Ciri looked at Madara's parents, her in-laws, wondering how she could have been so stupid to say that.
'That was way too weird... what were you thinking, you foolish, stubborn idiot!' Ciri wanted to crawl into a hole after that. Ciri pressed her lips tightly together.
"What are you talking about?!" The man broke the awkward silence, speaking angrily, unable to understand why this strange woman would say something like that.
"I can get you out of here," Ciri said after regaining a bit of her composure.
"Don't come any closer!" The man kept staring at Ciri with the Sharingan.
"Please... in the future, the boy you're carrying is someone I will meet in the future. He's someone very important to me, and he's going to save me. I came to take you out of here and send you to the future so you can survive," Ciri practically begged.
"Kai..." The woman tried to speak, but the man growled.
"No... she's lying!" the man snarled.
"Please..." the woman said timidly.
"You want us to believe someone who just appeared here and said this absurd nonsense about taking us to the future?"
He even seemed to ignore the part where Ciri said the baby would be her husband, because they found that too bizarre. Even so, they couldn't believe the absurdity of time travel or her proposal to take them to a distant future.
Ciri was about to say more, but suddenly looked behind the couple, raising her head. Even the two of them looked back at the same time as people followed after them. Reinforcements had been sent.
"You two get out of here. I'll cover you," Ciri said. She didn't want those people following them while she still needed to convince them, she didn't want to force them. Wouldn't that be wrong on her part?
Then she disappeared, while the two looked at each other. The man picked the woman up in his arms and started running.
Ciri began slaughtering every group of shinobi that came toward her, teleporting around while they didn't even have time to react, massacring them until none of them were left. Ordinary soldiers were nothing compared to those fighting at the center of the clan, and she could hear the explosions from where she was.
When she finished, she went back to look for the couple, leaving the clan in flames behind her. But as soon as she found them, a few kilometers away, they were lying on the ground, and there was a unicorn standing over them. The same unicorn that had sent her to the past.
'I was there that night,' the unicorn had revealed to her. She remembered.
"You... who are you?" She wasn't sure if it was really him, so she asked.
"There is nothing to fear, child. I had to intervene when I saw your argument with them. They would never trust you." Ciri stared at him, pressing her lips together.
"You're going to let me take them?" She gripped the hilt of her sword. Even if it was the unicorn that had brought her there, she didn't know if he would try to stop her.
"I'm not here to stop you. You are free to take them to the future," he said, taking a step back. "I also took the liberty of erasing their memories."
"What?! What did you do?!" Ciri exclaimed.
"Because if I hadn't done that, the child in the woman's womb would not survive. They lost too many relatives tonight. That would cause a pain that would consume them in many possibilities, and it would lead to the loss of the baby soon after through a miscarriage."
"That is why I erased the pain they felt that night and even the existence of their powers. They will live as ordinary people and will be able to raise a boy."
"Wait... but Madara said his parents died. Isn't there a chance to save them?" Ciri immediately asked, while the unicorn shook his head.
"No. If you save them, the future may change."
"You may never have the chance to meet Madara. And any alteration could lead you down another path. To a future you may not know..." Ciri stopped, biting her lips so hard they almost bled.
The unicorn was right.
If she saved Madara's parents, their future would change as well. Most likely, he would never come to Cintra Castle, and she also had no idea what might happen to her.
She could choose whether or not to return to her own future.
Ciri rejected the last thought, because she didn't want to forget Madara and the moments they had shared together. The possibility that Aren would not exist in that future, just as it had happened when she saved Cintra and stayed behind to prevent the kingdom from falling.
"I understand..." That was all she said in the end, giving up on the idea.
"Now take them. The ninjas will not stop hunting them down. I will find a way to deceive them here, so they will think they will not search for them in the future. Now go."
Ciri nodded and approached the two bodies, placing one hand on each of them. She closed her eyes and imagined the future.
The unicorn also helped, making his horn glow.
Ciri knew what she had to do. The next moment, she shone and disappeared.
She suddenly appeared in a wheat field with a flash in the middle of the day, while the entire plantation around her, within a five-meter radius, exploded because of the shock caused by the teleportation.
Ciri raised her head. After checking that Madara's father and mother were fine, she tried to guess where they were.
There was a village beside that plantation, dogs were barking in their direction, drawing everyone's attention, along with the explosion, and some people were already walking toward where she was.
Ciri knew she couldn't stay there. "Well... I guess we'll have to trust this," she murmured carefully before looking at the two bodies.
She took one of the small bags she kept with her, a bag of coins, and placed it beside them. There should be at least three hundred gold coins there, enough for them to start a new life in that village.
She disappeared from there before anyone could arrive. Ciri teleported to the forest on the opposite side and watched the people coming through the plantation with dogs, while they began shouting after finding two people lying there.
"Please... I hope these actions are enough for Madara to find me in the future..." Ciri made a silent prayer.
She disappeared from there and reappeared once again in the middle of the Uchiha clan, or at least what was left of it.
All she saw were ruins, with tree branches that had grown throughout the place. There were still destroyed houses even three hundred years later.
No one seemed to live there. It was a very hidden place and, from what she realized, not even Madara knew about this place, otherwise he would have told her.
Ciri decided that she would show it to him when she had the chance.
She still didn't know how to return. It could be the same way she had used to come to the future... But she couldn't stop thinking that maybe, if she could see her one last time...
She disappeared from there and appeared in Cintra. She activated camouflage magic so no one would notice her and entered the castle.
There was her grandmother, sitting on the throne while listening to an audience and judging some noble.
Ciri couldn't help but smile while standing in a corner of the throne room.
She hadn't come to change the future. She couldn't. She only wanted to see her grandmother one last time, even in an era when Ciri herself didn't yet exist. She was younger, but still had that fierce and resolute gaze, worthy of the queen of Cintra.
"I miss you so much, grandma..." Ciri murmured to herself. Even after everything, there was no denying the feeling of longing she had for Calanthe.
Her eyes moved to Eist, Commander Varys, all of them alive as well, then she looked at Mousesack, who observed everything in silence. He couldn't perceive her either.
But her eyes rested on a woman standing in a corner of the throne room.
Pavetta.
She was pregnant.
Ciri felt a wave of emotion upon seeing her mother. The green eyes and hair almost platinum like her own.
Her belly had already been growing for several months.
She could barely even remember her mother's face properly anymore.
Beside her stood a man. They seemed very close and, from Calanthe's displeased expression, there was no doubt.
That was her father.
And also the future emperor of Nilfgaard... or at least he would be in the future. Emhyr.
Ciri felt enormous disgust upon seeing him. If she could eliminate him, would she change something? She was tempted to do it.
She could still meet Madara, they could still be together, and without Nilfgaard interfering in their lives.
But she would also be changing the future too much.
What would happen to the friends she had made? Would she travel across the continent the same way as before? Would she still have her adventures with Madara? Would she grow stronger by his side? Would Aren exist... If Madara could marry her, would he restrain himself by staying in the kingdom? He might still love her, but Madara would see Cintra as a cage...
Madara could show his power to her grandmother, that he was far too powerful... Would her grandmother have let him take her away?
But would that really happen?
The future was something dangerous. She realized that now.
Then her eyes closed, and small tears began to run down her face.
"I'm sorry..." She had suffered greatly from the loss of Cintra, but she also couldn't deny that the future had fulfilled her.
If she lost Madara... and consequently Aren from her life... she would never recover. Even the Ciri she had saved felt that something was missing, her adult version could see the teenager within that version, saw something that banquets and court life could never fill. She would not live like that...
Ciri turned her back and disappeared from the court while the sound continued echoing through the hall, with Calanthe's firm voice making everyone shrink back.
Only a few tears were left behind, falling onto the floor of the throne room. No one would see them. No one would know that she had been there.
Ciri returned to some distant place.
She teleported directly to where their countryside house between Sodden and Cintra would one day stand.
There was no castle there yet. There was only grass and the lagoon.
Ciri remained silent there, closing her eyes while tears streamed down her face, before taking a deep breath and looking at her reflection in the water.
"It's time to go back..." she decided.
Then she closed her eyes, and her body glowed. The next moment, she disappeared. A green explosion tore through that empty place, but there was no one there. Only the animals heard it.
More than twenty years later, on a desert planet, an explosion appeared on the surface as Madara passed through the portal.
His eyes stopped as he observed the entire desolate planet. Madara immediately realized what that place was.
The planet victim to the White Frost. His eyes noticed that the constellations had begun to fall out of alignment.
"Ciri..." Madara felt the urge to ask what had happened to her.
He didn't know how he was breathing in a place like that. There shouldn't have been oxygen, but that didn't matter right now.
He sensed traces of energy appearing while seeing a clear distortion in space. Her teleportation.
Madara quickly opened a scroll with a bit of blood that still remained and began drawing several sealing circles.
Ciri had the ability to show the way, and he wanted to know where he should go.
It didn't take long before everything glowed and a portal appeared. Madara immediately stored the scroll away and stepped through the portal.
He emerged in front of a cave and entered the place, following the traces of Ciri and the unicorn. Soon, he found the unicorn standing by the edge of the lagoon, looking downward. Its eyes only lifted slightly to watch him approach.
"You made it here..." it said.
Madara remained silent. "Where is Ciri?" he asked, observing the enormous lagoon below them.
"She is doing what she must do," the unicorn replied.
Madara did not like that answer. "How long until she comes back?"
"I do not know, but she will return soon. It may feel like hours or days for her, but for us it will only be a few minutes."
Despite his uneasiness, Madara said nothing.
He stayed there watching. At a certain point, he picked up one of the swords to sharpen it. They must have become worn out during the fights, especially after the number of kunai that he would have to take to take to a blacksmith to be repaired/reforged.
At the same time, he could feel some changes within himself, the existential crisis was still there, giving him a terrible headache. But he ignored it, though as he remained there, he felt it easing... As if something was changing.
[System: 89%!]
He remained there for half an hour without exchanging another word with the unicorn. He was not in a good mood.
He didn't like the idea of Ciri going somewhere where he would have no control. He wouldn't be able to look for her.
Even so, he stayed there until the water began glowing again.
"She is coming," said the unicorn.
A flash appeared.
The glow intensified even more until it suddenly vanished, at the same time that an explosion of water erupted as Ciri appeared in the middle of the lagoon and quickly rose to the surface to breathe above the water.
She tried to orient herself with ragged breaths, not expecting to return in the middle of the water, and Madara was already there, offering his hand for her to step onto the water.
"Welcome back," he said.
The headache.
All of that had disappeared.
What should have been an existential crisis for him seemed to have been resolved after her trip to the past.
Ironic to say that.
"Madara..." Ciri hugged him tightly as soon as he pulled her close.
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