Sasuke let out a guttural howl of fury. All the stress, frustration, anger and fear that he had been so carefully maintaining control over ever since Naruto had reported Hinata's disappearance finally boiled over like an unsupervised cooking pot, the flood of emotions crashing through his carefully constructed walls of composure. He slammed his fist against the steel door so hard that he felt the bones in his fingers quiver, but as he reared back to hit the slab of metal again, a strong, rough hand latched onto his wrist and held it in place.
"Sasuke, we don't have time. Snap out of it!"
Sasuke rounded on Naruto, an angry retort bubbling to his lips, but the outburst withered and died the moment he laid eyes on his best friend's face. Naruto's mouth was set in a hard line, and his entire expression bore no sign of the rage that Sasuke would have expected him to feel at the situation they now found themselves in. As he stared into the eyes of the man who he'd known all his life, the man who possibly knew him better than anyone else, Sasuke felt the red-hot bonfire of fury in his gut sputter and die. Naruto knew exactly how much pain he had to be in to lose control this way, knew that having utterly no control over his fate was something that Sasuke worked day in and day out to prevent. Naruto's face was a picture of despair, but the blue fire in his eyes still burned; more subdued than usual, but still there. The hand clutching Sasuke's wrist released and moved to his shoulder, squeezing briefly as if to say I know, we're in trouble. But I've got your back, and you've got mine, and we will figure this out.
Sasuke took a deep breath and forced his mind to clear. Nodding to Naruto, he muttered "Thank you." Turning his attention to the bridge at large, Sasuke looked from Hinata, to Sakura, to the human who had provided her genetic blueprint. Hinata's face was nearly as pale as her eyes, her smooth skin looking as frail as porcelain, her hands clasped in front of her as she stared at the smouldering ship controls. Sakura's jade eyes shone with fear, but her face was resolute, and he watched a small smile of relief momentarily crease her lips at the sight of her husband regaining his composure. The woman who shared her genes, meanwhile, had fallen to sit on the cold steel floor of the bridge. She was staring straight ahead, piercing green eyes locked on nothing in particular, and her stiff-backed posture radiated terror at the predicament they have been locked into.
Sasuke felt his own back straighten, not out of fear, but instead out of a long-remembered instinct of command, the presence of a leader. Sakura's small smile widened at the sight. Captain Uchiha was back in command.
"Naruto is right, we need to move. Hinata, Sakura, I know that mechanics aren't either of your areas of expertise, but I need both of you to tackle the entry controls. If we're lucky, the damage will only be superficial, and you might be able to reroute some of the wiring around the breach to at least get one opening sequence out of it, to let us out." A bit of colour had returned to Hinata's face, and she nodded briefly as she and Sakura knelt in front of the steel portal.
Sasuke looked at the other Sakura seated in front of the copilot's console, considered tasking her with something for a moment, then decided against it; he knew nothing about her, had no idea whether she would just slow things down, or worse yet, impede the very slim chance they had of escaping with their lives.
"Naruto, focus on the pilot's console. If this ship's capabilities are anything similar to the freighters we have on board, this ship is going to barrel directly into the Konoha, and at a speed that's going to cause catastrophic damage. We need to stop it, if we can."
Naruto inhaled deeply and cracked his knuckles in anticipation of the job ahead. "And if I can't stop it?" His tone was calm, but Sasuke didn't miss the minute flickering of his gaze toward the human Sakura. Sasuke immediately read the meaning behind that gaze.
"If you can't shut it down, you do everything you can to recourse it to miss the Konoha."
At his words, the woman seated on the floor of the bridge stirred to life, turning to stare at him with a face of shock and rage.
"Wait… You can't just send the Ark out into space! Everything that's left of the human race is on this ship, you can't just condemn them to-" As if she'd realized what she was saying, the pink-haired woman's sentence trailed off, and a flush crept in to tint her cheeks.
"Condemn them to what? To death? The way you and your kind would have-"
"Naruto, the console, now. We're running out of time."
Naruto shot one more withering glare at thehuman Sakura, who had risen to her feet, clutching at the co-pilot's console for support, before turning his attention to the main pilot's workstation, poking delicately at the gaping hole that had been burned into the main control column.
Sasuke took two steps forward, placing himself directly before the frightened woman. She shuddered as she looked into his ebony eyes, but otherwise held his gaze well enough.
"I won't argue this point with you. I have no desire to see harm come to any of the people in stasis on this ship, but I have a responsibility to the station, and to every living being on it, human or no. If we can prevent the collision and save everyone, we will. If we can only save the Konoha, we save the Konoha."
The woman who looked so much like his wife simply stared at him, and for a moment the surreality of the situation was almost too much for him to bear, staring into those painfully familiar green eyes. Finally, he managed to tear himself away, reaching into the pocket of his tunic to retrieve his datapad.
"I'm going to contact the Konoha. They need to be warned."
Keying for communications to Admiral Hatake, Sasuke prayed to Mother and any other god that would listen that the datapad's communication range was enough to reach the Konoha.
A second passed… then two… then three…
A faint click signalled a connection being made. "Captain Uchiha?"
A surge of relief spread through Sasuke's entire body, and his legs nearly buckled beneath him. "Admiral Hatake, I need you to listen and act quickly: Run a probability tracing cone from as near to Sector 7 as you can manage, at a wide angle facing toward the Konoha's superstructure. Use the thrust profile for a mid-large frigate, from a cold startup, and keep the cone wide."
For a split second, there was silence. Then, blessedly, rather than questions or a confused reply, Sasuke heard the faint sound of Admiral Hatake relaying his directions to the helm crew, before a rustling sound signalled that he'd returned to his communications.
"Sasuke, what is going on? You've been in the hangar for nearly two hours now, you haven't moved an inch- have you located Lieutenant Uzumaki?"
Sasuke took a deep breath, stifling the tiny pang of irritation he felt at Kakashi's questions.
"We're not in Sector 3 anymore, our DOT signals are being falsely routed there, we're on Sector 7 itself. Kakashi, I swear to you I will explain everything later, but for now all I can spare the time to say is that Nagato's crew has aimed Sector 7 directly at the Konoha and turned the engines to full. You need to determine where it might hit, evacuate the highest-risk areas, and begin severe collision procedures."
Stunned silence greeted him from the other end of the datapad, but it was only a second or two before Kakashi's voice returned.
"How much time do I have?"
Sasuke considered the question. "It's hard to say, I'm not familiar with the capabilities of this class of frigate in detail- it's very old, much older than anything in the Konoha's craft load. Based on the size, and the amount of time it's been since the engines engaged-" As he spoke, Sasuke heard the very distant sound of the engine's startup sequence increase a few decibels. "Maybe fifteen minutes, twenty at best."
"So we plan for fifteen." Admiral Hatake's voice had taken on a clipped, no-nonsense inflection. Sasuke recognized the tone, from any number of other instances where the Konoha's Commanding Officer had been thrust into an uncomfortable situation and forced to work on his feet, but nothing in his term of command had even come near approaching the magnitude of the situation they now found themselves in. "I'll dispatch an EV crew up there to collect all of you."
"No." The sharpness of Sasuke's words surprised even him, for a moment, but he pushed onward anyway. "This ship could start moving any second now. There are too many lives at stake here already, we don't need to add any more if we don't… If they're too late." Mercifully, Kakashi let the unspoken meaning of his words pass by the conversation without any further contention. "There are a few small craft on board the ship, we'll be able to find one that's operational. We'll make it back fine."
This time, Kakashi's pause was significantly longer, and in the silence Sasuke could practically see his superior standing there, his eyes awash in the pain of the choice he was being forced to make.
"Alright. We'll have a crew on standby in Sector 3, if it's safe, to receive you. Good luck."
Sasuke nodded, more to reassure himself than for the benefit of anyone else. "Thank you, sir. We'll see you very soon. Terminating communication."
With a deep breath, Sasuke pocketed his datapad, glanced at the human Sakura out of the corner of his eye (she was pointedly looking away from him, her gaze fixed on the forward viewscreen that showed the ominous hulk of the Konoha stretching directly in their path) before he turned to kneel next to Naruto.
Several minutes passed in tense silence, only broken by the occasional scraping of metal on metal as some component in one reconstruction project or the other was realigned to attempt to complete the improvised repairs happening at both ends of the bridge. Sasuke was peering over Naruto's shoulder at the blonde man's hands fiddling with a small green wire, attempting to prise it loose from the metal hooks fixing it in place, when he heard a gasp from behind him, followed by the unmistakable whirring noise of a bulkhead moving.
Whirling around so fast he felt his neck crack, Sasuke saw the entryway door to the hangar slide open. Sakura fell backward from her crouching position in front of the control panel, hands clasped over her mouth, eyes screwed tightly shut in an effort to suppress the outpouring of emotional relief that nearly overwhelmed her. Hinata turned and rushed over to Naruto, throwing her arms around his shoulders with a strangled gasp before remembering that he was still attempting to reroute the ship's course, then she let go sheepishly. Naruto looked over his shoulder very briefly, flashing her a reassuring smile before returning to his work. "Great job, my love!"
"Sakura, Hinata, well done!" Sasuke grabbed Sakura around the waist and drew her close, feeling her shudder against him as she let out a deep breath. "Naruto, how are the controls looking?"
Naruto didn't turn, keeping his focus locked to the inner workings of the control column as he responded. "I think I'm close… The throttle controls weren't hit all that hard, I've managed to rein in the power to the engines quite a bit, but the forward sequence is still engaged and the control circuit is in much worse shape. It might take another few minutes."
Hinata looked at him worriedly. "Dear, we might not have another few minutes… We have no idea how long it's going to take to get one of the crafts in the hangar working- do we?" She turned her gaze on the human Sakura, who shook her head minutely and gave a small shrug.
Naruto nodded absentmindedly.
"Sasuke, take everyone else down to the hangar and find us a way out, get a ship prepared. I'll try a little bit longer to reroute this course, and if I can't, I'll meet you down there."
Hinata's eyes blazed at the suggestion, and Sasuke quickly spoke up. "Out of the question. We can't take that risk, Naruto, we need to go now."
Naruto turned again, this time locking eyes with Sasuke. "Whatever Admiral Hatake is doing down there, you and I both know that it can't possibly be enough. He can evacuate the most high-risk areas, but a ship this size colliding with the Konoha is going to have a catastrophic effect on the entire station. I need to stop this ship. I will stop this ship. You have to trust me."
Sasuke stared at his best friend, feeling time slow to a crawl around him. Of course he trusted Naruto. He trusted him with his life, and always would. But now, he was forced to choose between the safety of the man who he would do anything for, the safety of who knew how many people aboard the Konoha. People who he had sworn an oath to protect, to serve, and to lead.
He'd been forced to make some difficult choices during his time in the Konoha's navy, there was no doubt of that. Now, it seemed that the Mother had conspired to deliver to him the most agonizing choice of all.
Sasuke grabbed his best friend's shoulder and stared him dead in the eyes, piercing black boring into bright blue. "Swear to me- swear- That you'll come down. As soon as this ship starts moving, you disengage and you come to us."
Before Naruto could reply, Hinata grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him around to face her. Tears had begun to gather in the corner of her pale ivory eyes, but her face was a picture of confused anger.
"Naruto, you have to come with us. If you stay up here, and something goes wrong- If you don't- All because you came to find me-" Hinata's thoughts threatened to choke her as they all rushed to her mouth at once, but Naruto simply cut them off by leaning in and kissing her deeply. After several seconds, he broke the contact. The tears were flowing unchecked now, and her eyes were not the only ones that were wet.
"My love, I have to try. It's my duty."
Hinata uttered one choking sob, a sound of utter, heart-wrenching despair, then hugged him tightly. Into his ear, she whispered the last words she would ever speak to him:
"Promise that you'll come back to me."
Naruto smiled, his blue eyes shining with tears.
"I promise."
With difficulty, Hinata rose from her crouched position on the floor. Sakura and Sasuke had moved a respectful distance away, ready to exit through the bulkhead. Sasuke glanced over at the human Sakura, who hadn't moved from her position at the co-pilot's station.
"Whatever you do next, is your choice. We're heading to the hangar. I won't stop you if you decide to come along."
The young woman bit her lip and stared at him, conflict etched clearly across her face. Then, without another word, she rushed out the bridge door and dashed down the hallway, in the opposite direction to the hangar.
"That's that, then." Sasuke took a deep breath. "Sakura, Hinata, let's go find ourselves a ship. Naruto… good luck."
Naruto saluted quickly with his free hand, the other already buried in the pilot's control panel. Sasuke returned the salute, then forced himself to turn away, leading the two women out of the bridge.
The trip back to the hangar was uneventful. As they passed through the bay containing the stasis pods, Sakura stopped and stared wistfully at one for a few minutes, but Hinata quickly voiced what they were all thinking.
"They wouldn't wake up fast enough. All we can do is hope Naruto is able to stop the collision. That's their only chance."
Otherwise, they reached the hangar without incident. To the surprise of no one, the ship they'd been brought on board from the Konoha was nowhere to be seen, and so the three naval officers began scouring the handful of scattered ships that remained, looking for something at least somewhat familiar appeared to be in good working order. Fortunately, it appeared that a combination of rigorous climate control and some small maintenance robots that still trundled around the wide space had kept most of the crafts in excellent shape, and it wasn't long before they found one that at least bore some resemblance to a transport shuttle that all three had piloted before.
Sakura immediately moved to the cockpit of the ship to begin keying the engines, while Sasuke and Hinata waited at the open aft door of the craft. Hinata distractedly checked the time on her datapad; she'd done it at least seven times, since they'd left the bridge.
A dull, distant roaring sound made both of them jump, and the deck beneath them began to shudder. Hinata shot him a panicked look. Those two things happening in such close proximity meant only one thing: Sector 7 had begun to move.
Barely ten seconds after they'd been alerted to the change, the far hangar door slid open. Sasuke's heart leaped into his throat, and Hinata let out a strangled gasp, before they both saw pink hair flying behind the figure as she ran toward them.
The human Sakura skidded to a halt in front of them and leaned forward to place her hands on her thighs, panting. Hinata didn't bother to hide her disdain as she stared at the young woman. Looking anxiously from Hinata to Sasuke, the human Sakura opened her mouth to speak, let her lower jax hang there for a second, then closed it again before climbing aboard the shuttle.
Sasuke glanced out of the hangar, past the shimmering distortion of the force field protecting them for the vacuum of space, and felt a horrified jolt pass through him. Using the motion of the stars against their black backdrop, he was able to make a rough judgement of the speed at which Sector 7 was moving.
And it was moving far faster than he'd anticipated.
"Hinata." There was no response from the violet-haired woman beside him. Sasuke reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Hinata, we need to take off!"
Hinata wrenched her hand out of his grasp and stared at him. The pain on her face radiated like a star, and he felt a shard of sympathetic despair pierce his chest like a knife.
"We can't! He'll be on his way, we can't leave him!"
"Hinata, the ship is moving too fast! If we don't take off now, we won't make it!"
With startling speed, the woman leaped down from the deck of the shuttle and moved to run toward the bridge door. It was only on instinct alone that he managed the leap after her and grab her around the chest, halting her in her tracks. She was openly sobbing now, screaming into the echoing space of the hangar.
"Let go of me! Naruto! NARUTO!"
"Hinata, we need to go!" Through the dull haze of panic clouding his senses, Sasuke felt tears tracking down his own cheeks. For a terrifying moment, he felt his grip slip, and was certain he would lose her too. Then, a second pair of hands latched onto Hinata's shoulders and began pulling toward the open bay door of the shuttle.
Looking to his left through eyes clouded with tears, Sasuke saw that Sakura had jumped down and come to his aid in getting Hinata back aboard the shuttle. The two of them manhandled the crying woman aboard, Sasuke reaching out to slam the hatch close panel behind them as they boarded. Only once they were on the shuttle did he realize that it hadn't been Sakura who'd helped him, it'd been the human woman.
"Sakura, GO!" Sasuke roared toward the cockpit. Hinata had slid to the floor of the shuttle and was now pounding her hands against the steel of the bay door, crying hysterically. Sasuke tried to kneel down next to her, but she lashed out, her sharp fingernails digging tracks through his skin. Flinching and rubbing a hand across his face, Sasuke straightened and looked at the human woman who had just helped him save Hinata's life. She looked back at him apprehensively.
"What is your name? I don't think you ever told us."
The young woman looked surprised at the question. For a moment, she didn't reply, and the only sound in the crew hold was the sound of Hinata's weeping. Then she awkwardly extended her hand
"I'm… My name is Kara. Kara Haruno."
Sasuke nodded, taking her offered hand and shaking it. "Thank you, Kara."
Without another word, the young woman sat down on one of the low benches running the length of the chamber. For the first time since they'd removed her from stasis, Sasuke saw the faint traces of a genuine smile curl the corners of her mouth.
The black-haired Chief Consul of the Konoha knelt down next to Hinata again. This time, no attack emerged, and instead the grief-stricken woman pressed her face into his shoulder, shaking as she cried into his tunic. Sasuke wrapped his arms tightly around Hinata Uzumaki, feeling her sobs vibrate through his body.
On the Konoha's bridge, Boruto suddenly became aware of a shift in the conversation surrounding him.
"Is that… What is that?!"
"It's a distortion in the cloaking field around Sector 7! Commander, whatever it is, it's moving!"
Boruto's gaze whipped upward to look at the bridge's main viewscreen, horror mounting as he saw the rippling effect that the helm crew were talking about. It was moving quickly, bearing directly down onto a section of the Konoha to the rear of the port side.
"Commander Yamanaka, have the evacuations been completed?" Admiral Hatake's typically laconic voice rang out, almost unrecognizable in its volume and brevity.
"They're still moving, sir… The object is headed toward one of the main Agriculture fields. We're evacuating all of Sector 4 as a precaution, but there are so many people there…"
Boruto saw Admiral Hatake reply, but his words were snatched away in the eruption of voices that had filled the bridge. Turning to Sarada, Boruto was about to offer her whatever reassurance he could when he heard the metallic chiming sounds that indicated an incoming communication on his datapad.
Boruto withdrew the thin electronic device from his pocket, and looked at the name on the display. He looked at it for a long time.
Incoming Communication: DAD
He glanced up at Sarada, who took one look at the display of his datapad, then turned to the viewscreen showing the rapidly approaching anomaly that marked Sector 7. "Boruto… You have to talk to him."
Boruto swallowed dryly. He knew she was right, but that didn't make what was about to happen any easier.
Turning away, Boruto hurried across the bridge to exit through the double sliding doors. As the bulkhead closed behind him, the sound of conversation from the chamber cut off abruptly, providing him with much needed silence.
Taking a deep breath, he tapped the screen.
Accept Communication
"Dad?"
"Boruto, thank the Mother… Thank you for answering."
Immediately, a spike of fear drove through Boruto's heart at the tone of his father's voice. Something was horribly wrong.
"Dad, what is it? Is it mum? Is she-"
"No, she's safe, we found her. Sasuke is bringing her back now, she's completely alright."
The wave of relief that washed over Boruto at his father's words was short-lived, crumbling to dust as he digested the rest of the sentence.
"What do you mean, Captain Uchiha is bringing her back? Dad, where are you?"
The pause following his words was long- too long. Realization exploded into Boruto's mind like a plasma charge.
'Boruto, listen to me. There isn't much time left.
"I know that you're still angry with me for what I did, for how I lied to you. I don't blame you, it was a terrible thing for me to do to my children. But you know I love you both, and I love your mother, more than anything in the universe. All I wanted was for all of you to be safe.
"Boruto… I'm on board Sector 7. I've been trying to stop it from hitting the Konoha… But I don't think I'll be able to do it. I can feel the ship moving now, and it's moving fast, even with the power I managed to siphon off."
Boruto felt tears gathering in his eyes. A lump had swelled in his throat, blocking every attempt he made to speak into the datapad.
"Your mom is on her way home, right now, if everything went to plan. She'll need you and Hiwamari, for what's to come, just as much as you'll need her." The sound of his father's voice began to crackle with interference. "Be strong for each other.
"Boruto, I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me for lying to you."
"Dad, stop it! Of course I forgive you, now get off that ship!" Boruto's voice was rising in pitch, hysteria beginning to creep into every word he spoke.
A dry, humourless chuckle sounded through the datapad. "Son… I wish I could. Do you remember the oath you swore, the day you left the Academy? The one that I swore, and your mother, and every other Konoha naval member?"
Boruto swallowed. When he spoke, his voice was mechanical, and every fibre of his being hated himself for it.
"In the light of the stars, under the eyes of the Mother, I do so swear to serve the people of the Konoha, from this day until the day my mission is ended."
His father's voice had begun to sound breathless, as though he were exerting himself. "This is our mission, son. I couldn't stop what's coming, but I might have slowed it down, and that's enough. If even one… person… aboard that station survives because of what I did here today, then it was all worth it. That's all I can hope for."
Boruto's face was awash with tears. He could hardly see the datapad through them.
"Dad… Please, don't…"
"Take good care of your sister and mother, Boruto. Go down to Site III, all three of you, and breathe real, natural air. Feel the land beneath your feet, see the plants, the animals, the water, the sky. Enjoy every second of it. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes." It took every ounce of Boruto's willpower to push out the single word.
"Good. I love you, son.
"Goodbye."
The connection abruptly closed. Boruto felt his fingers go numb, was vaguely aware of his datapad sliding from his grasp to hit the steel floor. The small electronic device shattered on contact with the hard metal.
Then the world shook, and a horrible screeching sound echoed from a point somewhere behind him. The floor beneath his feet seemed to pitch to the side, and the young man was thrown against the wall of the hallway. His head met the steel plate with a sickening thud, and darkness took him.