Hello everyone! Welcome back to A Spark of Hope!
I'm so sorry for the long delay! I've just been so busy with life and with online tutoring, an Axie account, supporting my friends and gf, and trying to survive while keeping my general sanity up. Aside from that stress, I've been okay, since I've been keeping in touch with my friends. I'll be hanging out with a close friend later too, so that'll be a huge boost to my motivation and well-being since I haven't seen her in a year and 8 months because of the pandemic. Yeah, to say my government really bungled our country's pandemic response is an understatement. Good thing we're both vaccinated now, along with most of our two families.
With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy this newest chapter. This was one of the hardest to write, just because of the number of moving parts and making sure everything flowed well, but it made it all worthwhile. I really hope to hear from you guys in the comments hehehe ^_^
Chapter 8: Reconstitution
A Rain-ways passenger train went on its way under the bleak and inclement skies of the Land of Rain. It was a half-hour ride between the cities of Ame and Spur, since the newer train models made in Marumi were both faster and safer than the older models that ran the same route and tracks.
It was only a couple minutes past 8 am, and the outline of the skyscrapers of Ame was still visible from the windows of the train. Most of the passengers inside were either asleep or keeping themselves busy by reading the newspapers or playing games on their smartphones. But there were some who were livelier and who were chattering with each other, mostly in one compartment. Inside that train compartment were the men and women who were heading to Rem Fortress, for the commemoration of the anniversary of the Battle of Mount Tirad. They were all wearing dark colored clothes as a sign of mourning, and they also had with them thick jackets, as both the city and the mountain they were going to ascend were cold, snowy, and windy.
"You said you had that dream again last night, Boruto?"
The blonde shinobi nodded to Sarada, who was sitting beside him. "It's the usual one, where Sumire and I talk about how to live life to the fullest."
Behind them, Gengenia, Wasabi, and Namida were leaning forwards to hear, while Yan was sitting on Sarada's other side.
Gengania, who was wearing a purple shirt with short white-tipped sleeves that was quite similar to what she had seen Sumire wearing before, asked Boruto, "So you dream of her often?"
"It's much rarer that I don't see her in my dreams, compared to when I do. I dream of her… hmm… almost every night, you know?"
"We also have dreams of her," Wasabi spoke for herself and Namida, "though not as frequently as you. Once a week to once a month. Hanabi-sensei told us that she too has dreams of Sumire on occasion."
"Same here," Sarada added. "Around twice a month, for me."
"I only got to know her over five days," Gengania noted. "The five days of the Battle of the Hod and Feres Passes. I definitely don't know her as well as you guys. But in that brief time, she was always nice and caring, and she went out of her way to spend time with us. She really helped us grow more relaxed and trusting in you guys, along with Kakashi-sensei of course. So yeah, I've had a few dreams of those memories with her too."
Yan sighed. "I'm the only one here who never met her or knew her. But I just know, I just know that she would have been one of us soul sisters."
Across the aisle from Yan, Chocho perked up. "Yeah! Soul sis!" The two of them stretched their hands across the aisle and exchanged hi-fives.
On the other hand, behind Chocho, Shikadai and Denki were having a separate conversation, but Shikadai paused. He only partially heard what Chocho said, and was confused as to what it meant.
"Did she just say… 'Solosis'?"
"Highly doubt it," Denki replied and adjusted his glasses, "unless she's a fan of that pocket monster series set in another universe."
Chocho rolled her eyes. "Soul. Sisters."
"We're soul sisters," Yan more calmly explained to him. "We ride together, we die together."
"And sometimes," Sarada added with a snicker, "those two mean the same thing."
Towards the back of the train compartment, Legretta sat back, smiling to herself while overhearing their conversation, as well as the simultaneous conversations of the young gothic-looking kunoichi in front of her with her somehow-sentient doll and with eight other girls all clustered around her. Beside Legretta sat a younger shinobi, one whom she noticed bore quite the resemblance to the famed shinobi, Kakashi Hatake, who sat a few rows away next to Naruto and Hinata Uzumaki. This younger shinobi, who wore the same iconic half-face mask, was fiddling with what appeared to Legretta to be a pair of Sharingan-themed contact lenses, although his blue-violet eyes looked as if they were analyzing everything that was going on with his friends and committing it to his memory.
After a few seconds, she spotted a man clad in a black cloak eyeing her with suspicion. She quickly recognized him as Sasuke Uchiha. He sat directly behind Naruto Uzumaki, while his wife Sakura Uchiha sat behind Hinata, and Sai behind Kakashi. Further behind Sai sat Ino, Tenten, Moegi, Konohamaru, and Hanabi. Rather than backing down immediately, Legretta returned the stare, and for a few uncomfortable seconds, she and Sasuke locked eyes. Finally, they both relented, and their eyes went their separate ways, with Legretta looking at the bleak sky outside her window seat.
The train's public address system came to life and blared, "In about twenty minutes, we will arrive at our destination, the city of Spur. Please make sure you have all your belongings with you. Rain-ways will not be held liable for any losses. Thank you for riding Rain-ways! We give our everything to bring you everywhere!"
Legretta let her mind wander off. She began to reminisce on what had happened two years prior, when she, Delta, and the others in their faction of Kara became secret caretakers of Nue.
*******XXXXXXX*******
"How much further is it?" Legretta asked Amado, her voice slightly strained because of the long climb and the cold, thin air high on the slopes of Mount Tirad. Ahead of her, Kashin Koji, Grado, and Delta were treading along the snowy path of the Spur Trail, while behind her, Amado took up the rear. The sun was shining brightly in the sky, with only a few clouds passing by, and the wind was only a gentle caress at the moment.
"Not too far now," Amado answered, his breath turning into frost. "A few hundred meters more along this trail, and then we divert to the Horns."
There were some other teams of climbers who had pulled on ahead of their group. For one, there was a Shinobi Union regiment making its way to the Sheltered Col to resupply the Rem Fortress with food, equipment, and more supplies. Meanwhile, two mountain climbing teams were aiming to reach their established final camps higher up on Mount Tirad. Their plan, they told Legretta a couple of hours ago, was to push on 1500 meters up past the Sheltered Col and get back to their final camp, a cluster of temporary tents near the yellowish sandstone bands. This final camp was just over a kilometer or so vertically from the summit of Mount Tirad. There at their camp, they would stay overnight up in the death zone, where climbers can only stay for a couple of days at most before dying from lack of oxygen, for their much-awaited summit attempts that would start in the very early morning of the next day.
Legretta was no mountaineer by any means, with the closest thing she could compare to climbing Mount Tirad being the long walks she used to take while she lived in the mountain cities of Menas Unkûr and Menas Tearth, the latter also known as the Ainu Quarter of Spur. However, she knew just how important summiting this mountain was to these climbers, since they each spent 50000 ryo just for their climbing permits from Spur. On top of that, the climbing ropes, carabiners, crampons, climbing suits, oxygen bottles, and the rest of the equipment combined all cost them considerable sums of money.
Two thoughts thus came to Legretta's mind. The first was that Spur, by awarding these climbing permits at that high price, would get so much money for its treasury, and it would help fund the currently planned expansion, renovation, and avalanche-protection projects for the city, not to mention the tunnel between the twin cities of Spur and Menas Unkûr that was also under construction. The second was that the climbers, being willing to spend all that money for a chance to summit Mount Tirad, the highest mountain in the entire continent, must love the thrill of climbing mountains, as if it was a metaphor for overcoming the obstacles in their lives.
At last, the five caught sight of the Sheltered Col, marked by the repaired walls of the Rem Fortress on the col and by the ruins of the Sephiroth Pillars, which in the past guarded the entrance into the saddle point between Mount Tirad and the twin peaks of the Horns of Hod. The pillars, formerly spires reaching tens of meters higher than the path they bounded, were now only jagged stumps of their former selves, a broken pair of horns. Much of the boulders of the rockslide that the Konoha regiment set off were used to repair the walls of the fortress, while the rest were set aside and piled and cobbled as cairns, as markers to honor those who fell during the now-famous battle around a year ago.
"Let's rest for a moment," Amado shouted from behind the group. Grado and Kashin Koji moved around twenty meters further and scouted the trail ahead. Meanwhile, Legretta and Delta came together and sat on the snowy path, they looked to the west at the high mountain range that stretched far towards the horizon.
"Alright, alright…" Legretta noticed Amado looking at his phone. She concluded that he was double-checking the intel he had received. He had told the four of them earlier in the week that he was sent a critical lead to the creature Nue, specifically an eyewitness and several photographs. They showed what looked to be a tiny Nue burrowing in the snowy rock face. The witness had also told Amado that he had stumbled upon it while climbing the West Horn of Hod, which incidentally was close to where Nue was last seen and known to be, the Sheltered Col, which connects Mount Tirad and the Horns. But when he tried to get closer to take more pictures, it sensed him coming and retreated to a hidden burrow.
Amado nodded quietly to himself and put the phone back in his pocket. "Once we get to the col, we don't go inside the fortress, just to make sure we don't get stopped by the shinobi there. We divert to the Horns of Hod. Everyone understand?"
Legretta nodded along with the others, and so they resumed the climb with the last few hundred meters up the Spur Trail, up until they passed the broken Sephiroth pillars and entered the more or less horizontal Sheltered Col. Instead of following the new stone brick path to the humongous gates of the fortress, they broke left and slowly tread through unbroken snow, following the wide and gently sloping path towards the twin peaks of the Horns of Hod.
"The West Horn," Amado spoke as they clambered up the path to the twin peaks. They made their way towards the Western Horn of Hod, whose summit lay a couple hundred meters taller than the East Horn beside it.
"Somewhere around here," Delta thought out loud beside Legretta, "Nue lives on… But where exactly?"
Legretta saw Amado checking his phone to see the pictures that the climber who saw Nue sent him. He then walked around and compared the picture to the mountain. He also looked for the rope-laden trail visible on one corner of the picture. After a few minutes of him walking around the climbing trails of the Horns and the other four following him, they stumbled upon the climbing ropes on the northwest face. He quickly angled the picture to copy how the landscape looked. "It should be-"
"Nu-Nununununu!"
Above the slight howl of the cold breeze of mountain wind, Legretta heard something behind her. She turned around just in time to see a tiny tailed creature jumping high into the air before disappearing beneath the snow without even a puff of a snowy cloud splashing around from an impact.
She immediately made her way to where it dove into the snow, and found a burrow, a small dark tunnel that she couldn't see far into. The other four, sensing her movement, approached her.
Delta asked her, "Did you see Nue?"
"I think so." Legretta knelt on the cold snow and pointed at the tunnel, which they both concluded was Nue's home, although Amado was busy thinking because that was not the area in the picture he had gotten.
"Should we… uhh…" Grado asked, "like, wait for it to come out?"
Koji replied, "I've experienced firsthand how the Nue works. It senses our chakra. It'll keep hiding, or maybe burrowing deeper, until we leave. And we can't blast through to capture, or the Shinobi Union soldiers at the fortress might notice and compromise us."
"We're not necessarily capturing Nue," Amado reminded Koji. "We're here to protect it and keep it secret, especially from Jigen and his faction."
"Maybe there's a way to get it to trust us," Delta suggested. She looked at Legretta. "Hmm… Perhaps you could use a Fonic Hymn?"
"What good would that do?"
"One of Sumire's best friends studied the Fonic Hymns. You know the Fonic Hymns too. Nue might recognize it."
"And you think Nue will warm up to us that way," Legretta finished Delta's train of thought. "Alright then, I guess it's worth a try."
Legretta cleared her throat, stretched her hand out towards the small hole in the mountainside and inhaled deeply before singing, "Ryo Rei Kuroa Ryo Zue Rei Va Zue Rei…"
Not a second after her hymn ended, they heard a shrill growl as an answer, as well as the sound of movement from inside the tunnel. Then, Nue popped its furry head out of the burrow. It was noticeably smiling and had a vibrant aura, as if it were revitalized, which was Legretta's intention when she used the Fourth Fonic Hymn.
Nue scanned the group, and afterwards it cautiously crawled out from its burrow and slowly approached Legretta, all the while keeping its gaze focused at the brown-haired kunoichi. Its eyes were curious and its ears were perked, almost as if she reminded Nue of someone it knew.
At last, the squirrel-sized Nue rubbed against the thigh of the kneeling Legretta, and she caressed the smooth fur of its back in response. It was a sign that she had managed to gain its trust, or at the very least, showed Nue that she and the other four people with her were friendly.
However, Nue did panic ever so slightly when Legretta, unable to contain herself due to Nue's cuteness, picked Nue up and hugged him as tight as she could, as she was prone to do with adorable things.
*******XXXXXXX*******
It was 8:45 in the morning, and the caravan of shinobi and kunoichi walked up one of the steep concrete flights of stairs that linked the avenues of the Sixth and Seventh Levels of Spur. It was cold, with a light snowfall and a breeze blowing down onto the seven levels of the mountain city of the Land of Rain.
Chocho and a few others were sipping from their cups of hot coffee, which they had bought from a restaurant along the Fourth Avenue, to fully wake up and get more energy for the long hike to Rem Fortress, on the Sheltered Col on the slopes of Mount Tirad.
Once he made it to the landing of the Seventh Level, Sasuke stopped for what looked to be a short rest, leaning on the railing that guarded the sidewalk, and looked out at the city below him.
Boruto, who had been a couple of paces behind him, passed by and noticed his master. He stepped aside to let the others pass by them. "Uncle Sasuke," Boruto asked, "is anything the matter?"
"That woman," Sasuke spoke softly and discreetly motioned to the brunette woman at the tail end of the group, still halfway up this stairway between the sixth and seventh levels. "She's been following us, from the moment we boarded the train in Ame."
Boruto glanced at her, but his eyes quickly darted away when she returned his gaze with a courteous smile. "Are you sure she's following us? Maybe she's just going the same way?"
"I… have a feeling…"
However, as Legretta stepped onto the sidewalk of the Seventh Avenue of Spur, she went right instead of left as everyone else did.
Boruto raised his eyebrow at his master. "Maybe it's just your paranoia acting up again? It's happened before."
"Hmm…" Sasuke's face remained firm, his eyes deep in thought, although he nodded to Boruto in acknowledgement. "Perhaps…"
As the majority of the group headed to the staging point to congregate and rest, Legretta followed the avenue of the Seventh Level eastwards for a few minutes before she reached the Ainu Quarter of Spur, Menas Tearth. Here, the green spaces became more open, and the houses transitioned from the more modern concrete and glass to the more traditional wooden and stone brick structures.
Entering a particular building, the Ainu Community Center and Museum House, she approached the merchandise corner and asked the lady at the counter for some Ikupasuy, wooden Ainu prayer sticks, and a handful of Kyara, incense sticks made from agarwood, as well as multiple bags of food offerings. The lady quickly acquiesced, placing the order inside a bag.
"Iyairaiker," Legretta thanked her with a smile and a nod, and paid for her purchase with a generous added tip.
As she stepped outside, she saw a pair of young baby bears being raised in captivity. She entered their pathside enclosure and pet the two bears, gently stroking their soft brown fur. In return, they played with her, trying to climb her legs. She was so engrossed in the cuteness of the bears that she only noticed a man coming up to her at the last second.
"Miss Legretta," the man wearing a construction helmet greeted her. "Nice to see you again."
"Good morning to you too, Atsushi."
"It's about the tunnel project between Menas Tearth and Menas Unkûr," he reported. "We've been able to work around the mistake we found last time you were here. The ends of the drilling projects are less than two kilometers from joining up now, though it seems that the vertical distance between the tunnel sections is still around 15-20 meters."
"Good work with the solution. Now, if we make the slope smooth and gradual between the two tunnel sections, will the tunnel be passable for people or vehicles throughout? Like, the slope of the tunnel won't be too steep in any one place?"
"It looks like it, but we'll triple-check our computer models to make extra sure."
She nodded. "How much longer do you think it will take?"
"Hmm… Three to four months to complete the tunnel and stabilize it, then two months to fully pave the tunnel road between the two cities, and then maybe a week or so to make sure all the lighting and ventilation inside systems are working perfectly. After that, a day or two of test runs, and it should be open and ready for the general public."
Legretta stood up and shook his hand. "Thank you Atsushi. You've been a real help. Have your men been getting enough rest too? Don't overwork yourselves, please."
She then excused herself, seeing that there was only a few minutes until 9:00 am. The two of them parted, with Atsushi returning to the tunnel entrance beyond the Ainu Community Center, and Legretta briskly walking back along Seventh Avenue towards the staging point for climbing groups going up the Spur Trail to Mount Tirad.
With a minute or so to spare, Legretta rejoined the group of shinobi and kunoichi, who were now lining up for the hours-long trek at the staging point. She took her place in line near Boruto, Sarada, Yan, Namida, Wasabi, and Gengania, just as Kakashi was giving reminders about the trail and the emergency depots of oxygen canisters and other supplies that they would pass by on the way up, if ever an emergency were to arise. It would take around four and a half hours for them to reach their destination, which was 8 kilometers away and 2 kilometers up from Spur. Afterwards, they would stay at the Rem Fortress for two to three hours, and then take around another three to four hours to descend back to Spur.
Suddenly and out of the blue, she was accosted by Sasuke, who had pushed Boruto and Sarada aside to get to her. She saw that he was glaring at her, his Rinnegan visible to her from behind his bangs.
"What is your purpose here?" Sasuke asked her, his voice sharp, pointed, and direct. His hand gripped her shoulder tight, and in response, she grabbed his wrist with her free hand.
She squinted her brown eyes and answered his question with a question of her own, with a deadpan voice. "What's your purpose in asking?"
"Woah, woah," Boruto tried to separate Sasuke from Legretta. "Hey calm down, Uncle Sasuke, please…"
"Dad," Sarada tried to do the same. Her voice was half-embarrassed, half-irate. "What are you doing?!"
Now with that, everyone in the group overheard the commotion. As Gengania, Yan, and Wasabi helped Legretta by pulling her away from Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi stepped in. "What's the matter, Sasuke?"
"My wife and I recognize you from the restaurant we ate at last night," Sasuke explained to Legretta, his unique eyes not breaking away from hers. "And you followed us all the way from Ame. Bottomline is, if you're some sort of spy, or if you have any bad intentions against any of us, I won't hold myself back against you."
"You're not the first man to threaten my life," she coolly replied. "And my purpose? I intend to honor the memory of those who fell in the battle." She showed the group her bag of ikupasuy and kyara, her offerings to be made in memory of the dead.
Naruto looked at Legretta, then nodded and turned to Sasuke. He approached his best friend of many years. "Calm down," he whispered to Sasuke. "She's not a threat."
Kakashi also tried to defuse the situation. "The last thing we want is to cause a scene in front of cameras or make a bad impression, especially if it's just a misunderstanding."
With both the current Hokage and the former Hokage telling him the same thing, Sasuke relented and let Legretta be. He walked away from her and returned to Sakura's side, although Legretta still saw both him and his wife side-eyeing her.
On the other hand, Naruto approached her. "Are you okay, miss? I'm so sorry for that. I hope it didn't dissuade you from joining us."
Legretta shook her head and bowed. "I'm fine. Thank you, Lord Seventh. Honestly, I've had worse experiences with men. This was nothing…"
*******XXXXXXX*******
It was 12:51 pm, and the shinobi and kunoichi were making good progress on their climb. The entrance to Sheltered Col was within sight, only a few hundred meters to the northwest. Two and a half kilometers above them, they saw the high summit of Mount Tirad looking as if it were smoking, with a large plume of white snow rising high into the thin air and speedy winds at its great height. A short distance to the west, the twin peaks of the Horns of Hod stood beside Mount Tirad, with the Sheltered Col joining them to the Tirad massif.
"So yeah," Boruto was talking quietly with Yan, who was walking beside him on the trail. "I still see her a lot, in my dreams and in normal everyday life. It's like she appears to me whenever I need it, even if I don't expect it. In a way, it's like she's still here with me. Of course, when I say those things, people think I'm insane."
Yan nodded as she listened to Boruto. "I mean, I get why they'd assume you're schizo. But Sarada also dreams of Sumire quite a lot, and I know because she tells me every time she and Sumire talk in a dream. Same with Wasabi and Namida and Chocho. It's sort of like our support system, to help them with their trauma."
"That's what everyone says. It's because of the trauma, that it's my brain and the coping mechanism it chose. It… just feels so real though…"
"But I trust you," Yan continued, reassuring him. "We spent some time together when you stayed over in Oto. I know you and your character. You've always told me the truth. So if you think Sumire's with you, then I won't contradict you there."
After a few seconds of silence, someone spoke from behind them. "Personally, I don't think you're insane." Boruto and Yan turned and saw Legretta looking at them, her soft eyes and caring voice evident. "Maybe this person is sticking around you, as a guiding spirit of sorts. That would be wonderful, really."
Boruto chuckled. "Thank you, miss. So you believe in spirits?"
"I don't think about that a lot. The world's got enough problems. But in the culture I grew up in, spirits are an important fact of everyday life. Every living being has a soul, a spirit. Thus, all life is precious, and so all life must be protected."
Legretta smiled tenderly. "And perhaps sometimes, these spirits merely want to remain close with their loved ones, to help them cope with their grief. For what is grief, if not love persevering?" She then sighed deeply and looked Boruto in the eye. "There's a reason why the dead are given more flowers than the living: Regret is still far stronger than gratitude. That's why we must cherish our friends and family and those we love while they're still around. We don't wait until they're gone."
As Boruto and Yan were dwelling on Legretta's words of wisdom, the entire group stopped as they passed by a pair of cairns located near a sheer drop. The smaller and evidently more hastily erected pile of rocks was where three years ago, Sarada, Mitsuki, and Denki had buried Metal Lee's torn-off lower leg, which was all that was left of him when they tried to save him from the fall. The other one, the taller and relatively more recent addition made of rocks from the shattered Sephiroth Pillars, served as the empty grave marker for Udon Ise, the former sensei of Team 5 who walked off the cliff minutes before Metal did. Their bodies were never found, and given that the cliff descended steeply into a slow-moving glacier over a thousand meters below, the possibility of finding their bodies at all was extremely slim.
Tenten approached her son's small cairn, and on bended knees she wept and grieved over the loss of her son. She asked to be left alone for a while, as what would usually happen during this yearly trip, and promised to catch up to the main group at the fortress later.
Naruto and the others let her be, and the group trudged on towards the col after leaving their thoughts and prayers for Metal at his marker.
"It's kinda sad," Boruto lamented. "Only Aunt Tenten is here for Metal."
Yan asked her friends, "What happened to Metal's father? Rock Lee-sensei, wasn't it?"
Sarada answered, "He stayed in Konoha. He's taking care of the person most important to him: Guy-sensei."
"More important than his own family?" Gengania grimaced. "That sounds like an unhealthy obsession to me."
"You're not wrong." Namida sighed. "He really couldn't leave Guy-sensei for one weekend? This is his son, after all."
"Ahh well," Wasabi replied, "I only heard that Guy-sensei hasn't been doing well as of late. The specifics, not so much."
"From what I know," Sarada informed them, "and this is private information so it doesn't leave us… Guy-sensei has been bedridden for the past few months. Mom said he had a deep vein thrombosis in his thigh from being wheelchair-bound for so long, not to mention some bedsores on his hips. He had to be operated on."
"Shit," Boruto grimaced. "Is he still in the hospital?"
"He was there for like a month, but after the DVT was surgically removed and blood thinners prescribed to prevent further clotting in his legs, he asked to go home to rest there. Ever since he got discharged, Rock Lee's been his caretaker. He's basically been living there in Guy-sensei's home."
"I sure hope he gets better soon," Yan wished.
"Same here," Wasabi and Namida concurred. Wasabi added, "He's a beloved teacher at the Academy, after all."
At last, a few minutes past 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the large group made it to the Sheltered Col. Thirty meters away stood the gates of the Rem Fortress. It was roughly a four hour climb to the crest of the mountain pass, three hours less than compared to the first time that Boruto and the rest of the Konoha squadron took to climb the Spur Trail three years prior. The more established trail, everyone traveling light and with a faster pace, and prior experiences of using this route, all helped to ease the climbing and reduce the trek time.
However, before they went any closer to the fortress, they turned to a pair of white marble obelisks that were a meter and a half in height. These two markers, only a stone's throw away from the fortress walls, were dedicated to Sumire and Nue. The ground on which these memorial pillars stood was ground zero of the massive meters-deep crater where Sumire was last seen before the explosion, before her ultimate sacrifice. The former hole was now level ground once again, having since been filled in with soil and crushed rock by those who had been tasked to repair the Rem Fortress. But most notably, it was the one place high on Mount Tirad that was naturally supporting life, compared to the actively maintained garden and greenhouse complex inside Rem Fortress, as dark green grass and violet sopherias and glowing white selenias grew around the twin white markers. And around a dozen pitch-black alpine choughs, hardy crows that lived high in the mountains, had even made their nests, filled with eggs and food for their young, in the space between the obelisks.
Boruto knelt down in front of the white marker dedicated to Sumire. Sarada followed suit and knelt on the grass beside Boruto, with Wasabi, Namida, and Hanabi all doing the same afterwards to honor their fallen teammate and beloved friend. Chocho and Yan stood behind Sarada, while Hako and Gengania stood beside Wasabi and Namida.
With his hand, he gently wiped the residual snow away from the base of the smooth white marble, revealing words carved in the stone. He quietly read the epitaph carved in honor of Sumire.
She skied, yet loved the earth and sea
Yet loved more her true family
So she patiently waits
In this beautiful place
For all of those who love
The mountains and the rains
He then glanced to his side, his eyes bright and happy, as if he heard and saw someone so important to him. He smiled, firmly nodded, and replied to seemingly no one in particular, "Yeah, it sure is…"
The moment of silence, which at first was out of respect, then grew long and awkward when Boruto was heard talking to himself. Because of that, most of the group began to make for the warmth and comfort of the Rem Fortress. The familiar great stone doors, now repaired, were wide open, and the renovated interior was welcoming and beckoning them from the harsher conditions outside. Before they went in, Naruto, Sasuke, Konohamaru, Shikadai, Inojin, Himawari, and a few others patted or hugged those who were kneeling, letting them know that they weren't alone in grief.
When everyone else left, only Boruto, Sarada, Namida, Wasabi, Hanabi, Hinata, Chocho, Legretta, and Denki were left at the twin markers for Sumire and Nue.
"Hey," Sarada asked Boruto, "is she talking to you?"
Boruto turned towards his best friend and teammate. "Yeah, she's right here. She told me, 'It's nice of them to write that for me.'"
"So that's what you replied to just now," Hanabi nodded. On the other hand, Hinata stayed silent but supportive of her son. She still remembered the chakra remnant of Sumire inside her son. She recalled that it had told her not to tell anyone else, instead implying that she should let things play out, but even she was skeptical that anything major could happen. All she knew was that Sumire's chakra inside her son was helpful to him.
Suddenly, Boruto chuckled. He relayed to Sarada and the others, "She said, 'Wait until you find out it's not a dream.'"
Sarada, Yan, Wasabi, and Namida slowly glanced towards each other, and then back to Boruto.
"What a world that would be," Sarada sadly lamented.
Meanwhile, Denki sat near Nue's obelisk marker and felt the cold grass and flowers at his fingertips. "It's as if this specific place is friendlier to life," he mused to himself. "But Nue is nowhere to be found here…"
Several things were not making sense to him. Firstly, selenia flowers were indeed hardy and were known to thrive in even the darkest of caves, and theoretically in other harsh environments. But they were rare, and they were not endemic to the Land of Rain or to the mountains of the Mile-High range. Secondly, sopheria flowers were definitely not supposed to grow in high altitudes, cold weather, or snowy biomes.
He considered the possibility of grass seeds being blown by the wind or carried by the crows from the garden plots in the fortress to the site around their nests. And perhaps some passerby planted the flowers afterwards, for Denki knew that while they were not endemic to the area, they could be bought from certain flower shops. In fact, he had heard from Inojin that Yamanaka Flowers, owned and operated by Ino Yamanaka, sold both selenias and sopherias.
However, that still did not answer how they were currently surviving and thriving there, without any signs of duress or environmental stresses. To Denki, this meant that they were either planted within the past week or so, or they had been genetically modified to possess the unusual traits necessary to adapt to the thinner air and the colder climate. He also recalled that Lord Yahikonan and Lady Konan had warned them yesterday about sightings of mysterious people lingering in the area around the col in the past few months, though there was no proof that they were the ones responsible for this colorful and lively patch on the white and gray mountain.
Thus, Denki plucked a few petals from the flowers and a few blades of grass, and then placed them inside a sealed and airtight case to have them examined back in Konoha. After putting that case back inside his bag, he stood up and asked Boruto and Sarada, "Shall we go look for Nue now?"
Boruto nodded. "Alright. Let's go."
"I can come and help," Yan volunteered, "if you're alright with that."
"Thanks," Sarada said while helping Boruto up to his feet. "The more eyes, the bigger chance that we see something."
"We'll go ahead and set up for the livestream," Namida told them.
"We'll join up to watch when we're done searching for Nue," Sarada replied. "We'll probably give it an hour or so… Where will you be singing?"
"At the promontory," Wasabi answered, "the old observation point. See you guys there!"
With that, Hinata, Hanabi, and Chocho accompanied Wasabi and Namida to help set up the camera, microphones, and speakers. On the other hand, Boruto, Sarada, Yan, and Denki went to the surveillance room in the fortress to ask if they could check out the security camera archives over the past few weeks. Once they were done there, their plan was to scour around the Spur, Hod, and Feres trails on Mount Tirad to see if they could find any sign of Nue.
Only Legretta was left at the grassy flower patch around the memorial. She had stood there in silence, her brown hair blowing in the slight breeze that swept eastwards through the mountain pass. She lit a kyara incense stick and stuck it in the hard soil, and then laid her ikupasuy prayer stick at the foot of Sumire's marble marker.
"The genetically modified flowers have been doing well," she noted in her mind with a smile, "since we planted them five or six months ago. Looks like a nice garden, truly."
She then glanced to the West Horn of Hod, where she knew Nue's colony was. "Also, they'd be looking in the wrong place then. And maybe it's for the best that they don't find Nue, for Nue's own safety from Jigen and his allies. But… But what if Nue wants to reunite with them?"
*******XXXXXXX*******
It was 3:13 in the afternoon, and Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, Sai, and Ino were inspecting the gray stone walls and the various buildings and facilities inside the Rem Fortress. The commanding officer in charge of the fort, Colonel Takimichi, was leading the tour.
Since the fortress was left in ruins following the Battle of the Hod and Feres Passes, the buildings had since been renovated, with more efficient lighting and heating inside the buildings for reduced electricity usage, more solar panels and precipitation harvesters on the roofs of some structures, advanced water purifiers for drinking and bathing inside another building, and backup gas-fuelled generators on standby in another. In the science and research hub, there was even an experimental thorium nuclear fission reactor, produced by the combined effort of Kaminarimon Company, of Orochimaru's research group in Oto, and Pioneering Technologies, a subsidy of Akita Inuzuka's Advanced Science and Technology Development Division. This new thorium-based power source, specifically a thorium molten salt reactor that was 3 meters tall and 2.5 meters long and wide, was to be tested over a period of six months for its energy generation rate, efficiency, environmental friendliness, and overall safety.
The barracks had been expanded aboveground and belowground, with some of them having three floors and two floors of basements dug into the stone of the mountain, with bedrooms, mess rooms, lobbies, and clinics. As such, the fortress could currently support a force of up to 5000 men, although the logistics of the constant resupply of food from the cities of Spur and Menas Tearth, as well as the quick and orderly transport along the trails, would become a costly issue.
Thus, the Rem Fortress had a permanent garrison of around 200 shinobi, kunoichi, scientists, doctors, and other staff manning it. This was the economic and military optimum, as calculated by Shikamaru when the fortress was rebuilt over two years ago.
Furthermore, there were added defenses outside the fortress itself that Colonel Takimichi showed off. There were now interconnected tunnel systems, dug by hand into the mountain itself, that led to the various foxholes, pillboxes, and bunkers lower on the slopes and the trails, hidden away behind crests or snowlines. There was also an artillery platform under construction, and it jut out from the fortress walls near where the Sheltered Col intersected with the promontory of the West Ridge. The guns themselves were still being modeled and planned out in Marumi, and afterwards the individual parts and ammunition would be separately manufactured and then delivered to Rem Fortress, along with the necessary manuals, to be assembled onsite.
"Any assault on this fortress and the passes of Mount Tirad," Colonel Takimichi repeated the words of General Shikamaru Nara to Naruto and the others, "the only viable crossing directly on the border between the Land of Rain and the Land of Earth, will be extremely costly and time-consuming on the part of the attacking side."
Meanwhile, on the West Ridge observation deck of the Rem Fortress, Namida had just finished the seventh song of her planned ten song set of the concert livestream, the proceeds of which would be donated to the Ainu communities that were greatly affected by the Fifth Great Shinobi War and the Merikhan Invasion of the Land of Grass. She was taking a break to catch her breath, drink some water, and read on her laptop the many incoming messages from the online audience of more than 150,000 people who were watching her stream at that moment.
From their monoblock seats on the observation point, the in-person crowd was applauding loudly and cheering Namida on. This live audience of hers consisted of Shikadai, Ryogi, Chocho, Inojin, Himawari, Eho, Yuina, Iwabe, Houki, Hako, Enko, Gengania, Panga, Conwi, Ivryed, Fujibayashi, Tomoka, Mikawa, Yamada, Moegi, Konohamaru, Hanabi, Hinata, Tenten, Choji, Karui, Shino, and a couple dozen off-duty soldiers and staff who weren't accompanying the inspection tour.
Nearby, Wasabi was helping her girlfriend off-camera by operating the GO XLR mixer and checking the livestream on her laptop, to make sure that the video and audio of the stream was running smoothly and in-sync, and that the stream itself was being recorded for future use.
The livestream had started around 2:30, almost 45 minutes ago, as they had to set up the hard camera in the right place to capture the best background scenery possible, connect Namida's microphone to the speakers and to their sound mixer, and then connect all of those, along with their laptops, to the internet services and the energy grid of the Rem Fortress. They also made sure to secure the mic stand and speakers, in case the wind picked up, but so far the weather had been favorable and the winds had been gentle. And in case gusts did come along, Namida's microphone had a wind pop filter installed so the wind wouldn't be heard too much on the stream.
While Namida read through the barrage of messages of support and love coming her way, a long message from a superfan caught her eye, and after fully reading through it, she replied to it on air.
"Hey, Rifa Nupurpet from Hush! Please, never apologize if you can't afford to donate or support me with money or anything like that. I understand your situation! Listen, I tell people all the time, 'Please, take care of yourselves first before even considering sending your hard-earned money to me.' That is never something worth apologizing for. Trust me. I do this because I love it, okay? If you just want to sit back and enjoy my content, if you just want to listen to my songs and my vlogs, while you sit back and work on something else and have a good time, I'm all about it! You are just as valuable to me as someone who pays me! So please, never apologize for something like that, or feel that you're lesser because of that. Like, of course, thank you so very much to everyone here for your kindness and your support and your donations, but to me, a fan is a fan, a viewer is a viewer, a listener is a listener, and everyone who I can make laugh or smile or happy in general is equally important to me. I love you guys so damn much!"
As Namida continued to reply to her fans, Boruto, Sarada, Yan, and Denki all made their way up the staircase that led to the promontory and the audience area. They sat down next to their friends, since they had reserved seats for the four of them, and they rested from their search for Nue along the trails of Mount Tirad.
"Any luck?" Gengania quietly asked. "Did you guys spot anything?"
A dejected Denki shook his head. "Nothing."
Yan sighed silently. "There's just no reference point like we saw in the photo. We couldn't find it."
"The source only said it was close to the Rem Fortress," Boruto recounted what Denki had said, keeping the tone hushed so they weren't heard on the livestream. "No specific location though."
"You guys should take a rest first," Hinata advised them. "We don't want any of you to get snow-blindness or anything like that before we make our way down."
Boruto asked, "What time do we go back down?"
"Ideally," Sarada answered, "4 pm. Then we'll have 2-3 hours of good sunlight to help us on the way down."
Hinata revealed, "We're not sure how long the tour of the fortress defenses has left, and if Naruto will still end with a speech to the shinobi to boost them. If ever, we may have to leave past 4 pm."
"It shouldn't be that bad," Hanabi reassured them. "The forecast is good for us, mostly clear skies. We've also climbed down the mountain in darkness before, and now the trail is better-demarcated now, with lights that'll signal the hazardous sections."
On the stage that was the observation platform, Namida cleared her voice and handed her hydroflask to Wasabi. "I guess it's time for me to debut my newest song. The official version will come out on streaming sites in a few days. It's titled, 'Always By Our Side'. I really hope that you all enjoy it."
The song began with an orchestra of violins, cellos, and other string instruments, one that had been prerecorded in the studio, being pumped out by the speakers. With the audience now attentively listening and quiet out of respect, Namida took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, faced the camera, and sang slowly and softly at first. "We listen quietly to the wind, although you aren't here now. The words I've written over and over have all flown away, gone with the wind."
Her voice grew firmer and louder for the first chorus. "But love is always here, where it bathes in the warm sunlight. Even though we may not see it, it is always by our side."
Closing her eyes as if to imagine the scenery her song was evoking, Namida reverted back to a softer tone. "The trees in the forest sing gently in the rain, giving us encouragement. I walk on this path, which will not yet dry up, towards the goal of another day… Love is like the water in a stream. Just as I grasp it, it flows past me. I'm reminded of you every time, and the moments we had, now all in the past…"
As the music swelled to a powerful, emotional crescendo, tears began to flow down Namida's cheeks, though she had tried to hold them back as best she could. After all, this was her personal tribute to Sumire, one of her closest friends and one of the most important people in her life, in her own words and feelings.
Still, in the midst of her tears, she willed her voice to stay stable, and she powered through her emotions to belt out the last chorus. "But our love will always be here, where it bathes in the warmth of the sun. And even though we may not always notice, I know you'll always be by our side…"
She trailed off on the last word, as if her voice was fading away. The music ended a few seconds later, only to be replaced by the rousing ovation from her audience, both online and onsite, who showered her with colorful heart reactions, more stream donations, thunderous applause, and cheers from the bottom of their hearts and top of their lungs.
The ovation waned slowly, but eventually it died down, and Sarada was able to more fully digest the lyrics of Namida's new song. As she did, she began to remember her conversations with Sumire three years ago. There was the long talk they had high on the summit, when the two of them climbed to the peak of Mount Tirad between the third night and the fourth day of the battle. There was also that one with her, Sumire, and Wasabi before their final shift at the walls, before the supertyphoon let up ever so briefly. And there was the final time they spoke, the last time Sarada saw her in person, when Sumire made her decision to stay behind and buy everyone else as much time as possible to descend from the mountain pass and escape from the enemy army.
Sarada began to ruminate again as she was somewhat prone to, her mind fixated on the things she could have done differently to prevent the chain of events from starting, and on what more she could have done in order to save Sumire, so that none of this pain and guilt that she felt would ever have come into being.
"You look like you're hoping someone will show up."
She knew Boruto was the one who said that. His voice, even while whispering, was clear and unmistakable.
"I'm… afraid there's no hope of that," Sarada replied with a sullen, gloomy expression. "But it doesn't stop me from wishing… Wishing that she'd be here again."
"…Yeah, same…"
Namida had begun singing another song, so Boruto kept talking in a hushed tone so as to not disturb her performance. "By the way, you never fully told me what happened. You promised to tell me everything here, so I'm calling it in."
Sarada knew that it would be unfair if she kept hiding it from him any longer, so she nodded. "Hmm… Where to begin?"
"Why did you and Sumire climb the mountain that day? It was so out of the blue, you know? We were talking right here, and then you left me mid-conversation to go up with her. Why?"
"Well that, I was just following Sumire because I saw her pass by and leave. She climbed because… umm…" She inhaled and exhaled deeply. "For one, she saw us hugging and got the wrong idea."
"...Really?"
"Yeah, that was one of the reasons. She also wanted to escape the chaos in the fortress for a while, and so did I… And I guess we just wanted to feel a little closer to heaven?"
"What do you mean? I thought neither of you believed in that?"
Sarada huffed and swallowed. "Hmm… Let me get straight to the point then. Do you know why she so willingly sacrificed herself for all of us?"
"…Because of her love for all of us?"
At that moment, Sarada felt Denki's hand press on her left shoulder, and she knew that he was listening in and that he had her back if anything needed to be confirmed to Boruto. Glancing towards him, she saw both him and Yan, who sat beside Denki, multitasking with both listening to Namida's performance while also discreetly keeping tabs on Boruto and Sarada.
Nodding gratefully, she turned back to face Boruto. "Partly the reason. But that's not all of it." She sighed deeply. "She… She was dying."
For a few moments, Boruto sat there, trying to comprehend what Sarada had just told him. "…What?"
"Remember that localized time-manipulation jutsu that she lost control of? The one that really caused the explosion and the avalanche that blocked the Hod Pass… I think we told you about it like a week ago. She lost control of the chakra and the energy involved, and it ended up such a shock to her body's cells, almost like a lethal radiation dose would. According to Denki's tests, she would have been consigned to a long decline, a slow death, unless we found somehow a cure or treatment for it. Denki swore that he'd try his best to treat her once we got back to Konoha."
"So not only did I not know if anything could actually help," Denki added, "but we didn't even know where the full Gozu Tennou manuscript was at the time, if it was still accessible or even in existence. Again, I only found out it was in Konoha's possession when I asked Lord Seventh a few months ago." He shook his head. "Perhaps all that uncertainty didn't help Sumire's mental state then. In any case, it's a moot point. She made her decision, and she saved all of us." He reassured him, "It's not your fault, Boruto."
"But why didn't any of you tell me? Why keep it from me? From us?"
"Sumire begged us not to tell anyone else if it couldn't be helped," Sarada informed Boruto, "especially you. She didn't want anyone to worry."
"I was so convinced too," Denki mused in his head despondently, "that if we found Nue… or maybe if Mitsuki had been allowed to come along too… Maybe something could have happened now…"
While the livestream of the concert progressed at the Rem Fortress, Legretta had made her way across the Sheltered Col to the West Horn of Hod, where the secret entrance to Nue's cave system was. She had made sure that nobody was following her, including the four shinobi and kunoichi that were looking for Nue along Mount Tirad's trails. And thankfully for her, Sasuke had joined Naruto in the inspection of the base, so he was otherwise preoccupied.
From where she stood, just in front of Nue's burrow, she could still see and listen to the performance of one Namida Suzumeno at the neighboring Mount Tirad.
"Truly, she has such a wonderful voice," Legretta noted to herself. "And she is beautiful too." She saw why Delta took a liking to her and her girlfriend, and sometimes compared Namida to Legretta favorably. She also wondered where exactly her partner and friend was right now. She only knew that Delta was likely looking on from somewhere with a view, and that she wouldn't do anything as stupid as to draw attention or confront the group.
She rolled the stone out from its shallow groove and quietly called, "Nue, I'm here."
Soon, mini-Nue came scurrying to greet her, having recognized her voice. It jumped around in happiness and rubbed itself on Legretta's legs like a cat would, as the kunoichi laid some bags of onigiri that she had brought for the Nue colony, the same food that she had claimed to Sasuke were offerings for the dead. Nue then beckoned to the others inside the burrow to help get their food into their shelter.
It was at that moment that Legretta heard it. "Tue Rei Ze Croa Riou Tue Ze…"
At first, she wondered if she actually heard a Fonic Hymn being sung, or if it was her mind playing tricks on her in the altitude, in which case she knew that she would have to descend immediately. But it was no hallucination, because immediately after the first Fonic Hymn came the second. "Croa Riou Ze Tue Riou Rei Neu Riou Ze…"
In surprise, she turned to the fortress where the voice was coming from, and she recognized that the person singing the Fonic Hymns was in fact the person who had been singing all this time: Namida.
"Va Rei Ze Tue Neu Tue Riou Tue Croa…" Legretta recalled Delta telling her that one of Sumire's friends was studying the old Fonic Hymns, but not that she knew enough to sing them in the right melody. She also didn't say, or perhaps forgot to make it clear, who exactly it was.
"Riou Rei Croa Riou Ze Rei Va Ze Rei…" The Fourth Fonic Hymn was sung, and Nue bolted towards the fortress, recognizing Namida's voice.
But the worried Legretta called back for Nue, and so it stopped and turned to look back. "Are you sure about this?"
Nue nodded without a second thought, and made a cute pouting face as a nonverbal plea. "Va Neu Va Rei Va Neu Va Ze Rei…" Legretta wanted to take a second to think about the potential consequences of helping Nue reunite with its friends.
It didn't take long for her to decide.
"Croa Riou Croa Neu Tue Rei Croa Riou Ze Rei Va…" Legretta picked Nue up and sprinted at full speed back to the fortress, all while carrying and cradling the cute mini-form of Nue in her arms.
"Rei Va Neu Croa Tue Rei Rei…" Legretta began to sing in tune and in sync with Namida, since she knew by heart and soul the Seven Fonic Hymns that made up the Grand Fonic Hymn when sung in succession. She continued on upon hearing Namida repeat the hymns.
Back at the Rem Fortress, Namida was singing the Grand Fonic Hymn as an unannounced encore to cap off her livestream. But as she repeated the seven hymns as was apparently customary, those who were listening to her in the fortress began to hear another voice, which they assumed to be a weird echo caused by the mountains, or the power of her voice, or the strength of the loudspeakers, or a combination of the three. But it turned out not to be an echo, since the voice kept singing even after Namida stopped, and it kept getting louder and louder, as if coming closer to them.
All of a sudden, Legretta burst through the Spur Gate of the Rem Fortress, singing with somehow-still-stable vocals even though she was running. Those on the promontory above saw that she was holding a familiar creature. "HOLY SHIT!" Sarada exclaimed, "NUE?!"
Thus, she, Boruto, Yan, Denki, Wasabi, Namida, and everyone else hurried towards her, but not before one of the staff assisting with Namida's livestream concert adjusted the hard camera over so that the audience online could see what was happening in the fortress below. At the same time, Naruto, Sasuke, and the rest of the inspection party returned via the Feres Trail. To everyone's collective shock, they not only saw one Nue, but they saw an entire pack of mini-Nues, dozens of them, that had followed behind Legretta and the original Nue. The pack was staying by the gates, as if waiting to witness how the impending reunion would unfold.
"Nuuuuueeeee!" At the central square of the fortress, the original Nue leapt from its caretaker's arms and ran towards the people that it had not seen in years, squealing in joy all the while. Suddenly, its body began to glow and shine. The others stopped in their tracks, unsure of what Nue's glow meant and nervous that it was about to self-destruct as Sumire once did, until they noticed that some of them now had that same glow.
Boruto stared at his shining hands. "What's happening?"
Then, colorful streams of opalescent chakra emerged from Nue. Similarly, very bright and dense streams of chakra emanated from Boruto, Sarada, Wasabi, Namida, and Hanabi. Shikadai, Inojin, Chocho, Moegi, Konohamaru, Denki, Iwabe, Hako, and Tokenagi all released streaks of chakra that were noticeably less bright, while Kakashi, Houki, Enko, Gengania, Panga, Conwi, Fujibayashi, Ivyred, Tomoka, Mikawa, and Yamada all had streaks too, albeit theirs were dimmer and thinner.
The outflow of the streams converged together into a pool of light, and the pooling chakra kicked up clouds of dusty snow. Everyone covered their eyes, yet tried to watch on through the tiny cracks between their fingers, out of their curiosity and awe.
Not twenty seconds from when they began, the streams of warm chakra cut out. Only a few seconds later, the blinding orb of light slowly subsided, revealing someone lying on the cold stone brick path.
It was a young woman, with long purple hair, light violet clothing, and a pair of deep, striking violet eyes that were wide open.
Sooo how did you like it? If you did, please give likes/kudos and tell me in the comments, please! This is such a pivotal chapter in the book, after all. And I want to know if you were moved by this chapter.
Legretta held her ground against Sasuke, she's that fierce :O
Also, her wise words came from Shutter (a Thai horror film that I love), WandaVision (obviously amazing), and a quote from Anne Frank.
Namida's song is based on "Letters" from Violet Evergarden, although altered quite a bit! ^_^
The Fonic Hymns make their comeback! And boy will they become important tools in the future ;)
And yes. She's back. =D
The next two chapters, Chapter 9: The Triumphant Return, and Chapter 10: Homecoming, will have a lot more details, and will feature more characters, both familiar and new. That will just about wrap up the first arc of this novel. The second arc will be bloodier and perhaps shocking, and it'll focus more on the ongoing Fifth Great Ninja War. The two Ainu girls in the beginning, along with their friends on the frontline town, will once again take center stage, and so will Shikamaru and the other generals of the Shinobi Union! So stay tuned for all of that! ;)