Chapter 9
Boruto Uzumaki
Beads of sweat slide down the young Uzumaki's face as his hands weave through sign after sign, spinning through jutsu after jutsu. He struggles to catch his breath, pausing to bend his back forward, hands on his knees, inhaling and exhaling rigorously. He knew everything; he was certain to pass. He should be relaxing at home or playing ninja somewhere with his friends. Yet all he could think of was the graduation exam. But it was so much more than an exam to him. It was his first chance to finally prove he's different than his father, better. All he had to do was pass the graduation exam on his first try. So he practiced and practiced and practiced.
"You shouldn't push yourself so hard, big brother," his sister Himawari says, approaching the empty training grounds from behind.
"I have to," Boruto responds through clenched teeth.
"Because our Dad's the Hokage?" she asks, taking a seat on a log nearby.
"Because I'm the Hokage's son." She gives him a questioning look. "Ah you wouldn't understand," he says waving her off. Nobody understands.
And how could they? None of the other kids were constantly being compared to their parents. All Boruto ever heard out of anyone was how alike he was to his father. Look at those eyes, just like the Hokage's! Or when he talked back to his teachers at the Academy: The same attitude as his father. Even when he was rebellious, vandalizing the Hokage monuments, something he thought no one in history had the audacity to do, and yet all he heard was laughs, Remember when Naruto used to do that! Himawari got attention, sure. Just not that kind of attention.
Boruto caught himself staring off into nothingness, lost in his own thoughts once more. He shakes his head in frustration and returns his gaze to his sister still sitting on the log. Himawari stares back with wide eyes, swinging her feet to and fro, a silent grin plastered on her face.
"Now leave, you're distracting me from training, ya know,"
She gets up from the log but doesn't depart the training grounds. Instead she lingers by a rose bush nearby, staring at the blossoming red flowers with a longing to pluck them but refraining from doing so, their sharp thorns holding the promise of pricking blood. Despite the fact, she reaches out a delicate arm and caresses the stem lightly with the tips of her fingers.
"You shouldn't be afraid to fail," she finally says, her blue eyes fixated on the bush of red before her. Her hand clasps the stalk of a flower with wide expanding petals, open to reveal the yellow eye that lies within its center. "Everything comes to pass in time, anyways." She plucks a red petal off and watches as it twirls in place repeatedly before acquiescing to the ardent force of the wind, gliding away into the depths of the ninja world.
"Hey, I'm not scared of failing, alright? There's no way!"
Himawari giggles and pops her finger, streaked with a thin line of blood, into the small of her mouth, still managing to flash her undying smile. "Good luck, big brother," she says as she walks away, a path of red petals dancing behind her.
Boruto watches her back as it disappears into the distance, a puzzled look smeared across his face. She's so weird. He picks up a stray petal left behind by his sister. But maybe she's right. He flicks the red leaf away as he exits the training grounds as well, thinking that perhaps he deserves a break after his constant training. Surely a short rest with his friends could do no harm, right? Now, to find Mitsuki.
Sarada Uchiha
Sarada walks side by side with Chouchou Akimichi, her closest friend without a doubt. And just like every other Academy kid within the Leaf Village, the two girls were discussing nothing other than the graduation exam.
"What's the point of becoming a ninja, anways?" Sarada wonders aloud, not expecting Chouchou to have the answer but finding solace in asking her all the same.
"Because our parents want us to," Chouchou replies, crunching avidly on a bag of salted chips.
Sarada sighs. She couldn't understand the purpose of the graduation exam, of the Academy, of being a shinobi. If anything, the whole process seemed more like a burden than an honor.
"I don't even think my dad really cares about what becomes of me," Sarada says.
"You're an Uchiha, of course he cares. And besides," Chouchou says through munches. "What about that other girl? With the red hair?
Sarada had completely forgotten about Rinali. "Yeah, what about her?"
Chouchou shrugs. "She'll be stepping all over you if she passes and you don't,"
"That's not going to happen," Sarada says bitterly, the thought inviting a wave of resent in her tone. "I still think it's pointless, but I am taking the graduation exam," she says as she clasps her fist into her open palm.
"I wish I had your kind of energy," Chouchou responds glumly to Sarada's transformed behavior. "Is she really an Uchiha, anyways?" she asks, returning to the topic of the red-headed anomaly.
"She says she is," Sarada crosses her arms. "But I have my doubts."
Chouchou nods in agreement, and the pair of girls continue walking aimlessly within the Leaf Village until Chouchou stumbles upon her dad, who grudgingly trudges off to train with him upon his insistence. Left alone now, with her mother working the hospital and her father off wandering who knows where, Sarada can think of nothing else to do but return to her vacant home. And that's what she had planned, until she bumped into Boruto, that is.
"Heya Sarada, do you know where Mitsuki is?" the blonde boy asks.
"How should I know?" She responds. But seeing as she has nothing better to do and no one waiting for her at home, she adds, "I'll help you find him."
And together the two traverse through Konoha, keeping their eyes peeled for a head of white hair as they scan the inhabitants of the village they call home. They find him not long after on a path headed straight into the forest, accompanied by none other than a head of fiery red hair.
"Yo, Mitsuki!" Boruto calls out.
The two kids turn to face Sarada and Boruto. Mitsuki waves while Rinali scowls next to him.
"What is she doing here?" Rinali asks aloud, not bothering to hide her sour tone.
"It's not like I came to see you," Sarada retorts.
"Sheesh, will you guys cut it out already," Boruto interrupts. "We just came here to see if Mitsuki wanted to hang out. You can come too," he says, addressing Rinali.
"We were just about to start training," Mitsuki responds. "But you two are welcome to join us,"
At that moment, both Sarada and her half-sister erupt into a flurry of protests.
"No way!"
"I'm not training with her!"
"Get lost!"
"I was here first!"
"Actually," Mitsuki says, stepping past Boruto and the angry pair of girls. "I should be getting home. I'll see you all in class," he says, retreating back in the direction of the village.
Sarada glares at Rinali who returns the gaze, while Boruto stands idly by, unsure of whether to follow Mitsuki or linger a bit longer, just to make sure they don't accidently set the forest on fire or anything.
"Don't bother training, there's no way you'll pass the graduation exam, anyways,"
Rinali smirks. "Ha! Not only am I going to pass but I'm gonna score better than you," she says, jabbing Sarada straight in the chest.
Sarada shoves the girl away from her, to which the red-head responds with lifting her fists. And with no one to stop them this time around, the two girls charge at each other, kicking and shoving and punching and pushing.
"Hey, stop!" Boruto shouts, trying to intervene, but it was useless; they'd thrust him out of the way every time he attempted to jump between them. But at least they weren't using the fire-style, right?
Wrong.
Once Sarada gained her ground, her hands began speeding through hand signs. Horse. Serpant. Ram. Monkey.
Across from her, Rinali was doing the same. Only her hands weren't as fast, the thick bandaging hindering their rate. It was Sarada's turn to smirk. It's over.
But just before she finished weaving the final hand sign that would incinerate the red-head before her, she's distracted by Boruto's voice as he yells, a little too loudly, "Hey, what's that?"
Both girls turn to look at the object he's pointing to. A small scroll lay abandoned a few feet away from the ruckus, covered in specks of dirt but its seal still readable all the same.
Boruto tilts his head. "Graduation…exam?"
And for an eerie moment the three of them stay still, stay silent, the weight of the meaning behind those two words sinking in.
Then Rinali begins to run. She grabs the scroll and delves deep within the underbrush of the forest ahead, the sinking sun failing to alleviate the situation.
But Sarada wasn't about to let her get away that easily. Not until she exposes the red-head for who she really is: a cheater. Sarada springs after the girl, the thick canopy of the forest and the onset of night combining to swallow her whole in a sea of darkness.