Chapter 1


It was Neji's memorial day.

Konoha was unevenful as usual. People ran their business as they did in every other mundane day. The deseased were already gone. Nothing said that better than the brutal passage of time. Only those grave stones and stories recorded in history books reminded people of what happened in that war.

Sakura was checking a patient's medical record when the chief nurse slid the door wide open, dragging a blond boy with her. "Sakura Sama, please bandage his wounds. Other nurses couldn't rein him in."

Boruto.

His face was clean, cleaner than usual, and his body looked perfectly fine.

Sakura nodded to that chief nurse:"Thank you. I will send him home when he is done. You can leave now."

The door closed.

Boruto lowered his head.

Sakura quietly smiled: "Tell me, what is this all about?"

Suddenly, Boruto pleaded: "Aunty, could you feign some wounds on me? The kind of wounds that could deceive my mother's Byakugan."

Sakura shook her head. "You used this trick for too many times. Not to mention your mother doesn't need Byakugan to tell if you are lying."

Boruto frowned, like a little fox trying hard to plot something. Sakura couldn't suppress a small smile at this thought. It was her who delivered Boruto, and she still remembered how he felt in her arms. He was a baby at that time.

Years had slipped by.

Boruto's request disrupted her reflection - "Aunt Sakura, only today, please! Today is my uncle's memorial day."

Sakura was taken aback.

Boruto whispered, in a depressing tone: "It's about my mother. Every year this time, she would leave for the forest or the training ground that my uncle Neji used to go, and stay there for a whole day."

Suddenly, a strange feeling gripped her.

Sakura tried to sound casual. "So you want to..."

Boruto dropped his head. "I want mother to notice... that I was wounded. Even if she blames me, beats me, claims her disappointment... it's still better than... I don't like her being like that, as if the whole world has abandoned her. Yet that world... I couldn't enter it, nor could my father. Maybe uncle is there, talking to her, but I couldn't hear anything. I'm scared. I fear that uncle would take my mother away."

The smell of disinfecting solution permeated the air, mixed with fragrance of osmanthus blossoms outside of the window. In Boruto's voice lied a tint of sadness that belied his age.

In this regard... he and Naruto weren't exactly the same.

Sakura thought of Sarada. When she was at Sarada's age, she wasn't as sensitive too.

What exactly made their kids paranoid at such a tender age, when they were born in a long-lasting summer, a peaceful post-war period, and their parents were well-respected shinobi who dotted on them? - They weren't supposed to be this unhappy.

After spending quite some time to persuade Boruto to go back home, Sakura decided to make a trip to the training ground.


It hadn't changed much.

Old marks and slits left by shuriken were still on those logs, only shinobi who wielded shuriken were different - fresh, youthful faces that failed to echo with those deep in her memory. And among them she couldn't find an ivory-eyed, dark-haired young man who carried an air of aloofness.

You were missed by many. Neji.

Shinobi greeted her, but that dainty woman was nowhere to be found.

If Hinata wasn't here, then it must be the forest. Clamor disquieted Hinata. She would avoid the crowds in the training ground today, moreover, Sakura recalled Boruto's words: "In that world... maybe uncle was there, talking to her, but I couldn't hear anything..."

She needed a quiet place to talk to Neji, didn't she?

It seemed Sarada had to wait a bit longer, Sakura mused, continuing in that direction.

Sakura respected, even admired Neji, but she understood something that Hinata apparently did not: there were things a mother was not supposed to do. When the past baggage excessively drained one's emotion, it was time to let go. At the end of the day, they couldn't bring back the dead, and they lived, not only for themselves.

For Sakura, this forest meant a lot: the Chunin exam where she almost lost her life; the encounter with Orochimaru which led to Sasuke's defection to Sound Village.

Too many memories.

Yet what flashed across her mind were trivial details.

Such as how Sakuke strolled ahead with his hands in pockets; how Naruto failed in his blunt attempts to impress her.

It was Kunochi's intuition that cut short her train of thought - danger.

No, not now.

It was moments ago. There was a fierce fight, and the signs left on the ground screamed outsiders. Sakura sensed something vague and familiar in the air - Hinata. The only thing for sure was that Hinata wasn't hurt. Maybe they didn't intend to harm her.

There was no blood, not a soul.

It struck Sakura that -

Hinata was kidnapped.