They were back at the bookstore.
Konohamaru whispered something to Sayuri behind the counter and she eyed him with slight bemusement.
"The scroll," he requested.
She hesitated a little, before nodding: "Here it is."
"Thank you, Sayuri," Konohamaru replied. "I trust that you've met Sarada and Mitsuki."
"Yes… They caught me by surprise when they entered here," she conceded before turning her attention to the two. "Sarada, I must apologise for my initial suspicions."
"No worries," Sarada waved her hands and grinned, simply glad to be rid of this unfounded accusation.
"Where's Boruto?" Sayuri asked.
"He left us," grimaced Mitsuki. "He's going to Konoha alone."
"We need to go and find him-" Sarada joined in, agitation relapsing into her voice.
"No Sarada," Konohamaru shook his head. "Anyone near Konoha is good as gone, or at least if we retrieve him now and without a plan. We'll have to get to the base first. There we can-"
"But we can't just leave him!" Sarada complained.
"We won't," Konohamaru insisted. "But –"
"I'll go to Konoha and find-"
"No. Look, I don't know how your dad is like in your world but he is not your friend here," Konohamaru lowered his head and shut his eyes for a brief respite. "Do not assume he'd go easy on you Sarada, anymore than he did on Sakura, Kakashi or … well, friends who are not with us today anymore."
Words escaped Sarada. She bit her lip
"Alright, we should get going. Sayuri – mind leading us to the summoning room?" Konohamaru beckoned towards Sayuri for guidance.
She led them to an obscure corner of the bookstore and did a few hand seals. The shelves split open and series of stairs emerged, descending down a dark tunnel.
"Quick, follow me," Sayuri urged them.
They arrived at dawn and Boruto was woken up by the sound of the early fish market. A homely old woman was bellowing the newest prices for her fresh, raw salmon as she frowned at the savvy antics of her competitors. They had, apparently, unilaterally lowered the costs without consulting the other salespersons. Markets – they have arrangements like that. The perks of commerce.
He was home.
Because Konoha was the only home he ever knew.
As he bade goodbye to the merchant and his nephew, he made the decision to stroll through the streets.
It was a peculiar feeling, to be somewhere so familiar and so alien. Every corner, every turn was exactly as he imagined, yet just as Boruto began to come to grips with the blueprint of the area, he would run into an unknown shop erected by alien traced his fingers over the graffiti adorning the concrete walls that enclosed a grocery. Barely visible red ink portrayed the shape of a spiraled leaf – the emblem of his village. It must have been there for ages, longer than twenty years at least.
No one around wore the Konoha headband, not even persons who vaguely resembled career shinobis. Desiring to appear less conspicuous, Bolt took his off.
He held it in his right palm and gave it one hard look – it was Sasuke's headband, the one given to him shortly before their confrontation with Momoshiki and Kinshiki. The long dent inscribed by Naruto during the first battle at the Valley of the End was there, like an irrecoverable scar that spoke of the pains of the past. Other parts were roughened, weathered by strenuous hardships, for the headband had previously accompanied Sasuke through an assortment of terrain during his journey for redemption: the snowy mountains of the Land of Iron, the sands of the Land of Wind, the eerie plains of worlds of yonder, the dense foliage of the Land of Fire, the misty marshes of the Land of Water…
Boruto himself often wondered why Sasuke gave him the headband at all; it was strange to be parted with such a committed companion, just like that. Then again, it was also a token of trust, a gift to a student that imparted invaluable lessons. It spoke of hardship, bonds, endurance, but above all, redemption. It was something that struck an intimate chord with a Boruto who had been tormented with the humiliation of being caught cheating, a Boruto dealing with profound feelings of loneliness, insecurity and anxiety.
Tearing his gaze away, he resumed his journey towards the Hokage tower.
"Reverse summoning jutsu!" Konohamaru chanted as he finished weaving an array of intricate hand signs.
The walls around them were engraved with mystical symbols and a strange chakra emitted all around them.
"The walls here are embedded with the remnants of scattered chakra from the tailed beasts," Konohamaru explained. "Combined with this scroll and the right-hand signs, they are able to transport us to the base of Hi no Ishi."
Sarada gazed at her surroundings in awe.
"Right, off we go – to Mount Myoboku!" declared Konohamaru.
Boruto eyed the recruitment posters on the wall curiously. The Hokage's office needed a new errand boy that is about his age and moderately competent in the arts of ninjutsu.
"This is my chance," he muttered to himself. "I'll-"
"Out of my way kid!" bellowed a man brusquely. Judging from his strides and his jacket, he would be a jonin.
"Wait, sir," Boruto tried to stop him.
"What?" He was not amused.
"Do you know where I'd go for..." Boruto pointed at the poster to save himself the effort of explaining.
The man burst into laughter: "Good luck with that! The last one lasted for thirteen days – turned out to be a spy! We finished him off in no time! We pulled his entrails out one by one-"
"I am no spy," was all Boruto cold mustered.
"I'm just joking! Boy, you sure know how to draw people's suspicions," the man chuckled.
"I mean it- I… I just need a job-"
"You're one of those young kids who travel to Konoha right? The kind that's looking for better opportunities and prospects?" The man inquired sceptically, with a trace of pity. "In that case, just turn up at the lower office 10am tomorrow. My friend Ayame's heading the interviews."
Ayame. Ichirou's niece. Boruto will be sure to send a word of greetings for her uncle.
They were at Mount Myoboku, one of the last places of refuge in this world, one of the last places still untainted by the Hokage's shadow. A sanctuary.
The emerald-green grasses were segmented by thin streams of crystal blue water, adorned by flowers tinted by all shades of the rainbow. All around them, frogs laid lazily on soft, comfortable fungi that functioned as the animal equivalent of armchairs. There was not a trace of fear, or so Sarada thought.
"Right kiddos, our leader Sakura is in… that cave… wait, no – that cave!" Konohamaru instructed.
"What a drag," complained Shikadai. "I'll take them there instead…"
Sarada chortled at Konohamaru-sensei (can he still be called that?) and his comical manner of speech – it was reassuring to find something so familiar.
The advance interiors of the cave caught Sarada by surprise, though she wonders why she is surprised by anything at all by now. There were rooms filled with cosy beds and couches. Some were even occupied by rebels (Sarada was, by now, sure of who they actually are) old and young. Children were playing in the game halls, chasing each other down the slides and pushing each other on the swings. The crackle of their laughter filled the surroundings with a sense of normality, something uncommon in these days.
They arrived at the main quarters. It was situated right at the top-centre, overlooking the affairs that occurred in the base.
Sarada saw that Sakura sat behind the chair of the main desk and when she turned around, their eyes met.
Sakura was a woman in her mid-thirties, though judging from her physical appearance, she only looked twenty. The sagging dark circles beneath her eyes, however, betrayed the cruel, merciless effects of time. She was an exhausted woman, a drained woman.
"Mama…" Sarada couldn't help blurt out. She went up and hugged the pink-haired woman in front of her. Hard.
Boruto decided to spend time scouring through the public library. It was best if he tried to piece together what happened in the past twenty years, even though he had been vaguely briefed by the girl at the bookstore.
Sarada loved to scold him for never reading and, to a small, small, infinitesimal extent, she was right. He loved comics, especially ones that told of adventures in the Warring Clans Era, or ones that involved extraterrestrial threats (something more realistic than he originally imagined.) But it was true that he loathed anything with more than 10 lines of words per page. It was not as if he was incapable of reading them; he merely shunned them out of boredom and indifference.
Titles about his dad were still conspicuously absent, but there was a book about the tailed-beasts tucked away in an obscure corner.
The Evils of the Gokage, it read. The back cover was essentially a summary of how the five shinobi villages harnessed their monopoly over the tailed-beasts to wage war against each other, devastating millions of lives and satisfying their own greed. There was also a brief note on the horrors of the life of a jinchuriki.
Wonderful, more propaganda, he internally groaned.
Nonetheless, Boruto decided to check out the book, sensing that this version of history could come in handy if he were to audition for a job at the Hokage's office.
As he was about to leave the place, another title caught his attention: The History of the Clans.
Worth a shot, he contemplated with a shrug and proceeded to check that out too.
"Mama, I can't believe I'm saying this but I missed you so much," Sarada was beginning to sob.
Sakura – this Sakura – wore an expression of shock and utter confusion. It had fully replaced her previous complexion of fatigue and sadness. Gently, she pushed Sarada out of her embrace.
"Who are you, exactly?"
The sight of aunt Hanabi strolling through the streets stunned him beyond words. She was accompanied by another man from the Hyuuga clan; the caged-bird seal sign was absent from her forehead.
Boruto was unsure why it was the first thing he noticed. The aunt Hanabi back in his world didn't have a seal too, but this world was different. Had Naruto and Kakashi not been Hokage, would there still have been a challenge issued to the Hyuuga elders to eradicate this ancient ritual?
He decided to follow them.
"I…" Sarada was lost for words. I'm your daughter from an alternate dimension that you had with the man you are currently trying to overthrow sounded… well… unhelpful. "I'm Sarada. I'm your-"
"You called me 'mama'," Sakura chuckled, her bright green eyes glistening with amusement.
"Well, you see, Sakura, Sarada and I are not from this world, we-" Mitsuki tried to help her explain everything.
"I know. Katsuyu and Gamabunta have already informed me… of the possibility of guests from a different reality. It was all written in the prophecies," she nodded thoughtfully. "You must be my daughter from there – correct?"
Sarada nodded. Her mother was as perceptive as ever.
"Will you lads please excuse us? We'd like some heart-to-heart girl-time," Sakura winked to the rest.
"Now," Sakura smiled – that same familiar smile Sarada would see every day back in her world (though this lacked the usual maternal flair) – as Konohamaru, Shikadai and Mitsuki filtered out of the room. She pulled Sarada close to her. "Tell me more about this, this other world."
"Are you sure it's a good idea to them there?" Mitsuki questioned Konohamaru skeptically. "She is her daughter from an alternate dimension, apparently."
"I've never seen Sakura so cheery," Konohamaru observed. "She has had a hard life. You may not know, but in this world, she never married. She dedicated the last seventeen years of her life to the cause of Hi no Ishi."
Sensing an opportunity to discover more about this alien reality, Mitsuki pressed on: "What happened?"
"What happened?" Konohamaru raised his eyebrows. "I'd like your question to be a little more specific than that."
"Why… I mean, how did we get here?" Mitsuki tried to be more specific and he was evidently failure due to the sheer abundance of facts he needed to fill in his as-of-yet virtually empty arsenal of knowledge of this world. "And," he added, "Why is Naruto Uzumaki's name erased from the history books?"
"I'll start with the basics. Shortly after the defeat of Kaguya, Sasuke killed Naruto in the Valley of the End. He declared the beginning of a new world order, massacred the Gokage, incarcerated the tailed beasts and made himself Hokage, or, to put things more accurately, the sole ruler of the continent plus the islands of the Land of Water. He did, however, release the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Long things short, Sakura and Kakashi refused to give in and founded Hi no Ishi in hopes of restoring the memory and beliefs of Naruto Uzumaki and they have been fighting against this… this… tyrannical regime ever since. And unfortunately, most ordinary people in the streets these days have all but forgotten who Naruto was. It is forbidden to talk or write about him," Konohamaru explained with somber eyes. "The Hokage gave these orders."
Mitsuki gulped uncomfortably, "So what you're saying is that… you're all fighting a lost cause?"
Konohamaru's expressions vacillated between indignant defiance and reluctant agreement. After pausing for a moment, he explained, "There is a chance, according to the prophecy told by the Toad Sage. He said that a ray of hope would dawn upon this land in the form of three young genin, who will have the chance to save or doom this world."
Mitsuki's discomfort only intensified. Save or doom this world – but this wasn't their world at all. No doubt saving it was the last thing on the minds of his two other companions, as is the case with him.
"I…" he was just about to explain his feelings when he managed to stop himself. Now is not the time for sensitive discussion.
Hanabi and the man were at the doorsteps of the Hyuuga compound. They entered and Boruto struggled to decide whether he should follow them in.
In this world, his father had been dead for seventeen years. In this world, he had never existed.
Sighing, Boruto took one last glimpse at the entrance and walked away.
Best if he did not arouse any suspicions.
A/N: Three chapters in four days! (And one more to come) I really hate myself for procrastinating:(
To clear up some confusion about the timeline: this story is taking place a year after Momoshiki and Kinshiki's attack. Boruto, Sarada and Mitsuki are all 13. The 4th Shinobi World War happened 17 years ago. Any more questions, feel free to PM me!
Where is everyone heading off to? Will the trio ever return to their own world? What challenges will they face?
Let me know your feelings about this chapter in the reviews!