A/N: A shorter chapter this time. Probably the norm.

"Sarada!" Sakura called desperately after the girl as she strode unsentimentally back into her own room. "Sarada, hear me out!"

Sarada ignored the woman's words. She needed to be alone; she needed a quiet moment to think for herself, away from all the mayhem in the world. Alternatively, she needed her friends Boruto and Mitsuki, people whom she could trust and confide in.

But the woman behind kept persisting, much to her displeasure.

Sarada sped up, hoping that Sakura would eventually relent. It was to little avail.

"Please, Sarada. Please, you have to understand-"

"There's nothing to talk about," Sarada interrupted Sakura, turning around briskly to face the woman. "Why do you care about me anyway? I'm not from your world."

And with that she continued, brushing Sakura's comments and apologies away.

"I thought you would have wanted to stay," Boruto remarked. "Don't you want to see how we fought Momoshiki and Kinshiki."

"Why would I need to?" Sasuke rebutted. "Momoshiki has the Rinnegan and he can absorb all forms of ninjutsu. Kinshiki is immensely strong and relies on brute force. Ergo, taijutsu is the best way out. Am I missing on anything?"

"Not that I can think of," Boruto muttered.

"Besides, I'll have you to ask about if they actually were to attack this planet," Sasuke reasoned. "Hence, there's no point in wasting our time wallowing in your memories."

"Glad to be of help," uttered Boruto not entirely sincerely. "Truly."

"Lovely," Sasuke quipped. "Anything else you want to know?"

"What are you going to do now?" Boruto prodded for signals of emotion.

"What do you mean by that?" Sasuke questioned as his eyes narrowed.

"You know… now that you know how everything could have been-"

"Boruto," Sasuke interjected. "Drop all that talk, please."

"What do you not care at all? Heck, does it not bother you one bit that all of this could have been avoided if you only managed to reconcile with my dad?!" Boruto said as he gesticulated wildly. "Does anything bother you at all?"

"It wouldn't matter if anything did."

"Does it bother you at all that you're practically running a police state? People get intimidated all the time, get inspected regularly and aren't free to travel around all the time without regular documents?"

"I believe we've had this conversation before," Sasuke dismissed Boruto's accusations brusquely.

"I'm not going to stop asking questions until you answer them properly," Boruto insisted. He had surprisingly managed to suppress his temper. Somehow, he was unable to stay angry at the man in front of him.

Sasuke sighed: "Very well. Believe it or not, I think your memories – the ones we revisited together – were authentic all right. You're not too wrong. Your world is peaceful, mostly, and far more technologically advanced than mine. Its people are freer. But your world isn't my world."

"A solution like that could never happen here, not anymore," Sasuke continued. "This world has no saviour, no messiah." He stopped, paused speaking and began scrutinising the boy before him. "You must have heard about the prophecy, no?"

Boruto nodded. Then asked: "You have too?"

"Of course. I have my sources in Hi no Ishi," Sasuke explained nonchalantly.

"And… you're not afraid?" Boruto asked. "I mean-"

He was interrupted by Sasuke's laugh. "Of course not," Sasuke said as he chuckled, for it took a while for the laughter to die down completely. "Why would I be?"

"I mean, maybe I could overthrow you and save the world?" Boruto hinted, shrugging his shoulders and privately gauging for a reaction.

"Would you?" Sasuke's voice quieted.

"Or I could doom it to perpetual darkness, whatever the hell that meant."

"You don't sound very serious about all of that," Sasuke said as he noticed Boruto's slackening demeanour. "For someone's who is awfully critical of what I'm doing, you seem pretty … casual, at home even."

Boruto's eyes widened at the suggestion. A preposterous idea, he internally asserted. There was no way in hell he'd ever feel comfortable here, in Sasuke's big bland house. But he couldn't exactly tell the man that. He had to be more rounded and less provocative with his words. He remembered Shikadai's wry comments that one time when they saw Shino sensei wearing an appalling clown costume at the village festival (it was a few years ago – long story, mind you): if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Boruto intended to do precisely so. Boruto had wanted to approach their Academy instructor, but Shikadai's vociferous objections resulted in one less prank that night.

"Anyways, Boruto," Sasuke resumed talking. "I knew what you were getting at."

"What?"

"The whole fear surrounding Momoshiki and Kinshiki, it was all an act, right? To get me to look into your past?" Sasuke whispered.

"What?"

"Don't look at me like you don't know anything," Sasuke's said as he sighed and shut his eyes, shook his head.

"When… did you realise that?"

"I figured that out while we were playing 'Dinner Dash' in that arcade."

"What? That early?"

"You lacked urgency. And let's face it, we played that game for an hour. You seemed very eager to show me around your world – in hopes that I might come to appreciate it, perhaps?" Sasuke said, eyeing Boruto, scrutinising the boy for every quiver of emotion. "Not to mention, in that other world, you explained that my counterpart there frequently travelled between worlds and ultimately encountered Momoshiki and Kinshiki. There's a considerable chance that it was my counterpart's encounter with them that triggered their invasion the first place."

"If you suspected so, then why did you stay?"

"I was curious. And… I wanted to know more about you. Who you are, where you grew up, what you wanted. Don't be too upset about this," the man added as he noticed Boruto's ashen, disappointed expression. The boy simply couldn't hide it. Sasuke almost felt bad for him. Almost. "Far greater men have failed to convince me."

Sarada couldn't stop thinking about Boruto. She missed him. It hurt, the fact that they left each other on such terrible terms and the fact that she may never see him alive again. She wanted to find him, dive into his arms, cry and apologise for the animosity she displayed when they last met– in a non-romantic manner, of course.

She lay in a bare, barren cell where the walls were dull grey slabs of concrete. The door was shut and the small room was illuminated with one singular light bulb. It constantly flickered on and off – its functioning abilities were precarious, inconsistent, much like Boruto's fate, or so an anxious Sarada speculated.

She didn't know what to do, quite literally. Ever since her rift with Sakura, she started feeling out of place in Hi no Ishi. Sure, most counterparts of her friends and acquaintances in her world belonged to it. Konohamaru, Chocho, Shikadai, Inojin, Kakashi and all. Yet if Sakura turned out different in this world, what's to say if the others aren't the same? Her friends seemed amiable enough, but they were also hardened people. Sarada began wondering whether she belonged with them at all. Perhaps Boruto was right, perhaps she should have simply gone home with him and refrained from making such a fuss over things.

She heard a knock on the door, and she promptly ignored it. Sakura entered anyway.

"Sarada," the woman gently uttered as her voice choked. Her eyes were slightly swollen. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"What?" Sarada asked impatiently. She twisted her body away. She wanted no such conversation; she wanted to ruminate in silence and wait for Mitsuki's return.

"Please," Sakura implored. There was a trace of desperation. She moved closer to Sarada and sat on the bed with the girl. "Sarada, please. Hear me out on this, just once."

"Heh," Boruto grunted as he refused to budge from the chair in Sasuke's room. "You put on a pretty convincing act."

"Why thank you. Though it wasn't entirely an act Boruto. It was an interesting experience, notwithstanding all the scheming involved," Sasuke remarked with a caustic politeness.

"What do you want me then, Sasuke? Why are you keeping me here?" Boruto uttered these words forcefully. He felt himself being overcome with frustration. His efforts – to make Sasuke see the other side of things – were going nowhere. Yet he was also trapped here, being unable to reach his friends. He tried to edge his vision closer to the window to catch a glimpse of the world outside - or at least the landscape of some generic Konoha residential area. "What's the point of all of this?" Boruto spoke again. "You know, you forcing me to stay at your house and not letting me go out… it's kinda unbearable…"

Sasuke snorted: "A walk then?"

"Huh?" Boruto sounded confused.

"Would you like to go out for a walk?" Sasuke repeated, enunciating in a rather condescending manner, this time with more clarity.

"You'd allow that? I thought you objected to that before-"

"Yes or no?"

"Sure, beats staying here with nothing."

"I'll admit Sarada, I hid so many things from you," Sakura began speaking, her sorrowful expressions suggestive of the torrent of apologies about to come. "I didn't want you to know a lot of things about me, about Hi no Ishi. But I guess there's no point in me obscuring anything anymore. Yes, as an organisation, we of Hi no Ishi have attacked low-level bureaucrats of the regime and their families. We've raided and attacked many offices of the regime – we've slaughtered hundreds and thousands of people that way."

"So the epithet 'terrorist' isn't exactly too off the bar," Sarada squirmed as her face contorted into a blaze of revulsion. She shook with disgust as droplets of cold rainwater began dripping down on her from the ceiling – it must have been raining outside.

"And the regime isn't? They arrest and torture people, innocent people on a regular basis. They…" Sakura fulminated, her complexion livid with rage and vexation. No matter what she said, the girl in front of her only seemed to resent her even more. Sakura slowly began to resign herself to this new reality. It was best if she avoided moral expoundings and cut straight to the truth. The pain would be quick and sharp, but nothing compared to the sluggish torture as more and more of her wrongs were wrenched from her. The girl deserves to know, even if it meant she'll remain hated forever. "No. You're right. I shouldn't be making excuses. Some of the people we targeted were indeed horrible accomplices of terror, or corrupt bureaucrats. But many were innocent people too. And their families… you're right Sarada. We're all sinners in this world."

And after those words, the woman heaved a sigh and made her way towards the door. The past was a heap of broken images and she was still basking in its debris in the present. The girl, still languishing in the room, was but a reminder of how things could have been different.

The tarmac streets were soaked, dyed into a darker hue as the skies rained on them ceaselessly. Boruto felt splashes here and there dampening his black jacket as he walked through the neighbourhood, umbrella in hand.

"There's not many people out here," Boruto remarked dully. Most residents, it seemed, preferred to stay indoors during the rain, for flickers of light could be seen here and there out of the windows.

"I've noticed," Sasuke deadpanned as he led the way. He claimed he was going to take Boruto somewhere important.

"May I ask, why do you live here?" Boruto asked, switching topics.

"Do you have a problem with this place?"

"It's just… it's so dull – no ordinary. Anyone could've been living here. And I mean, you're technically in charge of everything thing so I thought your place of resident would be a little more…"

"… lavish?" Sasuke suggested.

"Yeah, that."

"It gives you a sense of anonymity," Sasuke said. "Plus, paradoxically, it's safer. Think about it, if no one suspected that I live here, no one would conduct foolish attempts on my life. Not that I'm actually bothered by assassinations – they're never as threatening as they seem. They're just… an irritation."

"Right…" Boruto's voice trailed off as he, again, heard Sasuke so nonchalantly discuss subjects related to death and murder. From the way the man talked about it, one would suspect such matters are now second nature to him. Then again, that was probably true. "And why is there literally nothing in your house?"

"What do you mean nothing? There's a bed – more than one, I believe. There's my office, my desk, a bunch of papers-"

"I meant there were no photos, no books, nothing personal at all!" Boruto rebuked. "That's not very normal."

"There's no point in them," Sasuke said as he shrugged. He didn't seem bothered by the weather at all, his pace unfaltering. Boruto had to force himself to keep up with the man next to him.

So there they were, two souls trudging along the road in the middle the rain. One lost boy, and one empty shell of a man.

"This is where you buried him?"

"Yes."

They stood before a slab of stone located in an unassuming area of the forest. It was unnamed and passersby would, at best, shrug at its banality, if they noticed it at all.

"I see."

"I come here once in a while. Not every day of course, just when I want some peace of mind."

"Why?"

Boruto was met with silence.

He felt queasy on the inside as his internals performed summersaults amidst the impending sense of awkwardness. Having spent more time with the man, he observed that Sasuke always seemed unsure when touching on the topic of his long dead arch-rival. It took a while to pinpoint all the emotions present but Boruto thought he could detect bitterness, resentment, loathing, love, regret, frustration, admiration all concentrated in one man.

Even in death the bonds were never truly severed. That was why Sasuke Uchiha visited Naruto Uzumaki's grave, a grave he himself had erected.

Boruto's contemplations were rudely punctuated by some casual culinary query: "So, Boruto, are you up for late dinner in town? We're putting on disguises, of course."

"Sure."

His chakra levels were dangerously low, Chomei could tell.

The Hi no Ishi and ANBU reinforcements clashed violently, ripping the picturesque terrain into pieces as trees, flowers and other flora and fauna were shredded by blasts of wind, fire and lightning.

"Link your chakra with mine," Chomei ordered as she approached a physically depleted Shino. "Bump your fist against mine."

"There are too many of them Lee!" Tenten yelled desperately as she fired a string of kunai at the enemy.

"Sixth gate!" bellowed the man in the green spandex as he glowed and charged towards a band of hostile forces. He was going to give it all. They needed to win this one.

"Kakashi…" Sakura's voice was hoarse from all the crying, the silver-haired man observed with concern. He hadn't seen her weep for ages, not since her friend Ino perished in a mission five years ago.

His former student, his comrade, his old friend.

"Sarada?" He gently prodded for answers. The woman had grown especially attached to that girl from another dimension. That daughter of Sasuke and hers.

Sakura nodded: "I know she probably hates my guts now, but oh I just wished I had been honest with her at first. And I wished I had at least tried to do something about Boruto." She paused for a moment to steady herself. "I – I just don't want to lose her, you know what I mean?"

Kakashi looked at her and felt pity surging within. Sakura had grown very attached to Sarada, Kakashi suspected, because she was paradoxically an anchor to the past, a reminder of how things could have been.

She had loved Sasuke – not the childish infatuation of her Academy days but passionate love that can hurt and harm – with all her heart, waited for him, waiting for him to come back. It changed after Naruto's death though, with her love morphing into a bitter hatred. (They had banded together, Sakura, the rest of Konoha 11 and many shinobi who were unwilling to accept the new reality.) And to think that they could have had Sarada together, it seared an unbearable pain in her heart.

When the girl had arrived, Sakura had felt a mixture of emotions bubbling within: she didn't know whether to hate the girl or befriend her. She chose the latter partly out of regard to the prophecy but partly because no matter how hard she tried to banish it, there will always exist a small segment of her mind reserved for a fantasy world where Naruto managed to bring Sasuke back.

Without realising it, she had poured her feelings into the girl, coming to regard Sarada like her own daughter.

And now she blew it.

And she knew, in her heart, that she deserved it. For sugar coating everything for the girl and for indulging in her own fantasies.

Sarada lay unmoving in her bed. That is if you can categorise a cold hard slab of concrete with a thin sheet over it as a bed.

She thought about what Sakura had said, all the things the woman had confessed. At least for this time, she was honest about it all. Still, it wasn't so much the fact that Sakura had shielded Sarada from some sordid aspects of revolutionary life. No, not really. It was the sheer truth that everything was so different here that totally, utterly disorientated Sarada for a second time. It was sinking in, slowly at first but crashing down at an increasingly accelerated rate.

Sighing, she wondered if she acted a little too extreme towards Sakura. The woman had lived a hard life. Sure, she wasn't Sarada's mother, but she was nevertheless human. At the very least, Sarada began wondering, a cordial but more distant attitude would have sufficed.

An explosion.

A scream.

Those were what interrupted Sarada's stream of thoughts.

Something had happened.

Something big.

"Sarada! They've found this base! Get out and get ready to fight!" Kakashi's voice rang somewhere near her door.

She activated her Sharingan instantly and detected a cloud of unwelcome chakras.

The Hyuuga.

Hanabi.

A/N: And so ends another chapter! And yes, this was a much quicker update than before. I've errr been procrastinating a little at work - though to be fair, I've still managed to finish all my daily tasks with diligence and dedication. It's just that there's simply too much spare time after that :P

So, just a few remarks. This is not a Boruto/ Sasuke fanfict. I'm not objected towards yaoi, heck I've even read some of it and favourited some of it. But no, this story does not have any strict pairings save for some implied Boruto/ Sarada - I'm not sure if they're going to get super romantic either, since they're both still 13 (we have to be realistic.) Point is, if this was yaoi, I'd be clear about this right at the beginning. So no.

Secondly, I'd like to make another serious request for a beta reader. I'm really not spectacular with monitoring my own grammatical errors. I'll admit it. Please PMS me if you'd like to help :D I'd also like to than the numerous encouraging comments some of you have been sending me. I cannot stress how grateful I am for them. For you guys, I'll stay up till 3 am to write this story anyway. Seriously (okay maybe not if I had a 6am flight the next day.)

Lastly, any predictions for the ending? I'll errr dedicate a 1000 one-shot to the person who comes closest!

Please leave your thoughts and comments in the reviews! I read every single one of them!