"Will she make it?" Himawari recognized the voice, but was unable to put a face to it in her barely conscious state.

"She's strong and she took every precaution she could. She gave herself the best chances possible, but her wounds are severe. It could go either direction." Himawari also recognized this soft, feminine voice, that came closer to her as she spoke.

A wave of relief came over Himawari as the woman did something. Pain left her body and the tenseness surrounding the left side of her stomach slowly became lighter.

"What about the other's?"

"Sasuke will be fine, he had only minor injuries and already went home with Sarada. She'll need some time to heal from all of her injuries, but it's nothing life-threatening so I allowed her to go home. The familiar environment as well as the time she can spend with her dad will help her heal faster, I think." A small chuckle followed this statement, before the woman continued filling in the man: "As for Mitsuki, he was barely injured and left the hospital the same day, although he returns every day to check on Boruto. I think Boruto will be able to go home one of these days as well. That final hit was hard, but all of the damage that could possibly harm his life, has been healed and he just has to recover from his minor injuries and the blow to his ego. He was lucky that his chakra system had been shut down before the poisonous chakra could damage him even more."

This statement unlocked a chuckle from the man, confirming the statement to be true. The man didn't ask for more information about the poisonous chakra and Himawari couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed by that, as she wanted to know more.

"What about Shikadai?"

"It's him, alongside Himawari I'm worried about. He was hit by the same chakra as Himawari, but while Himawari was able to neutralize that chakra due to her knowledge of the chakra system and her training with the Hyuga, Shikadai wasn't. Himawari did turn of his chakra system and infested him with her own chakra, which saved his life, but he suffered from that poisonous chakra for a significantly longer time than Boruto. I've asked Hanabi to come and take a look at him, in the hope that she can somehow continue what Himawari has started and stop this process taking place. Shikadai's blow must have been extremely severe, as the chakra is still poisoning him… It's eating away his own chakra and preventing him from healing. If this continues, he will die…"

Himawari didn't hear the rest of the conversation anymore as she once again lost consciousness.

Sarada was sitting at the edge of the lake, watching the sun as it was setting. She was still healing from the many cuts and bruises she got during the fight a couple of days ago, but she knew that healing from her mental wounds would be a much harder battle. She had seen her best friend willingly sacrifice herself for her and Mitsuki's sake. Sarada blinked away the tears forming in her eyes. She hadn't been able to bring herself to visit the young Uzumaki, which was another thing Sarada couldn't forgive herself for.

"Sarada?" She quickly tried to hide away all her feelings and put a forced smile on her face as she turned around to meet the gaze of the Seventh Hokage. His eyes softened at her sight and Sarada felt she was unable to keep up her walls, bursting into tears. Naruto took her in a tight hug, letting her cry on his shoulder for a little while.

"I'm so sorry! This was all my fault!" Sarada cried as soon as she found her voice again. Naruto squished her even tighter, making a shushing sound.

"It was not. Himawari is many things, you know, but stupid isn't one of them. She knew what she was doing and she knew what the consequences of her actions would be, but she still did what she did. And do you know why?" Sarada shook her head, not being able to push out another word. "Because she cares about you. And because she knew that she was the only one that had any chance of surviving that blow. You didn't."

"I would have had. If I had just had enough chakra left to heal myself."

"You wouldn't have. Even if you had enough chakra."

"What do you mean?"

"The chakra works as a type of poison. The only reason Himawari survived is because of her knowledge of the chakra-network. She managed to neutralize it's most dangerous effects before even starting to heal her massive injuries. Even if you had been able to figure out what that chakra was capable of, you still wouldn't have made it as it eats away your own chakra at a rapid rate."

"But what about Shikadai? He's alive! And he got hit by that chakra too!"

"He got hit by an external hit, unlike Himawari's internal one. The effects of his blow were less severe than from Himawari's, but were still there. He too got very sick and it was only because Himawari discovered the chakra was poisonous and wiped out his entire chakra system that he even made it into the hospital. And he was also lucky Sakura picked up on that as well so that she could plan an appropriate treatment that was able to safe him."

"Shutting down someone's entire chakra network is dangerous… That could end up killing the person, especially when he or she is in a weakened stage…" Sarada looked at Naruto, her black eyes wide in surprise and panic from hearing this news.

"That's why we asked the Hyuga clan to help us out. It's their specialty after all." Sarada sighed out off relief, glad her two friends would make it.

"You know, Sarada, I once went through a rather similar illness… At some point, Kurama's chakra became toxic for me and I was dying. Luckily for me, your mom and dad found a cure in time. So really, I had no doubt Sakura-chan would be able to figure something out this time as well." Naruto was gazing at the sunset. Sarada looked at him in surprise. She had never known Naruto had been sick, let alone dying. She couldn't believe that the most powerful man on this planet had almost been killed by the biggest source of his power: the nine-tailed fox. "And Sarada?" She pulled up one of her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue: "I think you should visit Himawari, I'm sure she would like that." And with that final statement, the Seventh got up and left her alone.

- Author's note: Hey guys! I'm sorry for the late update... I'm just trying to navigatie being a fresh uni student with my hobbies and writing fanfic (and miserably failing, oops). Anyways, today's chapter is a bit shorter, but next one will be... eventful... But not in the way you expect and honestly I'm scared about how all of you are gonna react. Let's hope for the best and in the mean time, enjoy this little chapter-

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters