Chapter 2: The State of Kara

(Revised 10/30/2020)

Boruto awoke yet something was not quite right.

He could feel something off in his current location. This probably had to do with the fact he was surrounded by a stunning array of colors and the eerie feeling of a dark, heavy, ubiquitous void.

It seemed he was standing amid a nebula, at the foot of the birthplace of stars. This was no place for a human such as him. No, this was a place for gods.

"Momoshiki." Boruto said turning around, it always took him a few moments to regain his wits when apparently summoned like this, but soon enough the shinobi's memories returned to him.

"Ah, the brat." replied back Momoshiki, the phenomenon was not new to either of them. Boruto was Momoshiki's vessel after all. A constant reminder of Momoshiki and his fellow Otsusuki's failures, and as much as the brat irked him, he was Momoshiki's only tie to this mortal coil.

The two had struck a deal before, one that would tie them together inexplicably for as long as Boruto remained alive, and Boruto had signed it without a clue. His signature being the killing blow against Momoshiki years prior.

Finding the future of the shinobi to be so tantalizing, so raw, Momoshiki decided, rashly he was afraid, to make the shinobi his host. Unfortunately, the loss of his own body would not allow him to see it through his own eyes, and as such he had to become the likes of a lowly hitchhiker- rather unbefitting of his status as a god.

The other unfortunate effect is that he had to allow the boy his power in order to remain. Though these days it was not like he used it. Still, his mark is what allowed him to view the shinobi's journey as well, and without it, there would be no ties to this realm, and he would have passed on peacefully.

Momoshiki could think of no worse fate than passing peacefully. He was not just a god, but also a warrior. He should die in battle, serving his betters, or not at all. The mere thought disgusted him, more so than letting the boy have the mark.

The aforementioned karma mark rested neatly in Boruto's right palm and went nicely with his dojutsu, the Jogan.

"That blasted Tomura had foreseen all of this." bitterly thought Momoshiki as he surveyed the teen in front of him. Boruto stood around awkwardly, unamused at being ungracefully summoned like this.

Letting the boy simmer longer, as it amused him, Momoshiki turned back to his thoughts. He could not lie to himself. It was tempting to abandon this reality, and move on but Momoshiki was a sadist, though not one without reason. He savored the coming fall of a certain yellow-haired dobe, and for once he knew vengeance would be his. Oh yes, and how glorious it would be.

He had already gotten a taste with the other vessel not too long ago, and my, was it ever so delicious.

"I'm assuming you didn't invite me here for tea." Boruto said to break the deafening silence building between them, thus pulling Momoshiki from his thoughts, but alas only for him to bring his attention to him for a split second before disregarding him again.

The alien had always made Boruto nervous. He did try to murder his friends and loved ones, remove and take all the chakra in the world, and most importantly tried to kill Boruto himself the one and only time they ever fought.

Not to mention, it was with Momoshiki's power he was able to have killed Isshiki.

But to kill Isshiki, that meant he had killed Kawaki.

"Kawaki…" Boruto mused wistfully as his thoughts turned to the man he had called brother. The scars still had not healed, well physically they had, but mentally... Boruto wasn't sure if they ever would, if they ever could.

Like how it never seemed he never would be rid of this accursed alien either. Unless he wanted to lose his hand…

The peace between the alien and the teen always felt uneasy, but unbeknownst to Boruto, Momoshiki could do no actual harm. At least not without Boruto's permission. Boruto may be his host, but Momoshiki had not been strong enough to embed his essence into Boruto's chakra core fully, having found it protected by that traitor Tomura. Unlike, Isshiki, he was thus more of a watcher than a master.

At least, for now. If it were ever to change though, it would still have to be Boruto's choice. Until then being a watcher did give Momoshiki a few perks, like conversing with his host and sharing his power.

"Whoopee…" Momoshiki thought bitterly as he inwardly rolled his eyes. With these unpleasant thoughts, maybe it was time to address the yellow-haired elephant in the room.

"This is no doing of mine; you came here yourself." the fallen god had spoken with a tone of utmost poise and grace. One rather refined for a being such as himself.

"What? H-How?" Boruto was dumbfounded, finding himself caught off guard at the response, or rather any response. Most of the time all he got was grunts or obtuse sarcastic comments. Not to mention, the last thing Boruto remembered was fighting Naruto in a bout, and he was winning. How would that bring him here?

"Used too much chakra, I'm afraid." said Momoshiki feigning concern. The effort was not lost on Boruto who scowled in return.

"Naturally, you started to rely on my power instead. Since you were calling to my realm through the mark when you fell unconscious, it brought you there and," Momoshiki paused with a smirk growing on his lips he gestured to the diorama of space before them. "Here you are."

Boruto scowled intensely at the alien in front of him, and Momoshiki found himself growing drunk on the expression before him. He sure did love theatrics. There was not much he could do these days, with theatrics being one of those few things left he could.

"This is where I preside while making my… observations." spoke Momoshiki with a menacing smile. "I'm sure you were not fully aware of this connection."

"I was not." Boruto replied without any such fanfare. "And I'm not sure I'm too keen on this either. I think this is the most you've ever spoken to me, and I don't like how that's making me feel." Boruto was frowning at the implications the alien was making.

"Not quite right, but not quite wrong either." Momoshiki teased playfully dodging the shinobi's latter comment.

The response just left the yellow-haired shinobi confused and not knowing how to respond he grew silent again.

Momoshiki had been present multiple times in Boruto's bouts with Kara, but more as a phantom than a guiding presence or a trusted confidant. He only ever seemed to appear when Boruto used his power, and it wasn't every time either.

With both of them losing their attention to their own thoughts, Momoshiki also allowed the silence to descend between the two. Being "buddy buddy" with Boruto was not what Momoshiki was here to do. With his true goal, observation, in mind, Momoshiki continued to reflect on the adventures he had observed with the shinobi.

This seemingly caused the space they were in started to fluctuate some and Momoshiki allowed his thoughts to appear physically before him and Boruto.

After all, Boruto was his guest and the scene Boruto originally found himself in was from his own memories. No human could think of such a space, let alone be remembering a first-hand account of a nebula. Such was the superior power of a god, and a god alone.

The memories had the appearance of a bubble-like screen with the texture of a cloud, and the grain of it too. Secondhand knowledge wasn't as detailed after all.

Pulling his gaze towards a memory-cloud Momoshiki saw the scene before them. It seemed they were viewing when Isshiki was defeated.

The cloud zoomed into the destruction surrounding two young men. The memory clouds didn't contain much detail but were more summaries then anything, unless one specifically wanted detail, but Momoshiki just wanted to lightly observe.

000

Boruto Uzumaki, much younger then, found himself facing off against his sworn brother Kawaki amongst the Hokage's faces in ruins. The shining towers of Konohagakure lied in ruins behind and in front of them.

The two had just exchanged blows pausing to regain their breath, leaving them to their thoughts.

Using the power of the second less powerful ten-tailed beast, Kara had made quick work of Konoha.

However, Kawaki was no Madara Uchiha. He knew every bit counted and he would allow no counterattack no matter how pitiful it would be.

Kawaki had used the power of his karma mark to leave Konoha's top shinobi in another dimension. The shinobi foolishly gathered in one place ready to strike against the beast, thinking they could do the same as they had before.

Even the mighty Nanadaime had fallen for the trap. With no space-time ninjutsu to call his own, Naruto and all the other shinobi were left at the mercy of Kara.

Boruto surveyed the scene before him. Sensing the battle to be long and difficult he tied his scarred Forehead protector around his head in defiance, proving was ready to be a Konoha shinobi once more. It wasn't his but rather the forehead protector of one Sasuke Uchiha, who was currently entangled in trying to bring everyone back from the dimension Kawaki had trapped the rest of the Konoha shinobi in.

Boruto had lost Kawaki once, that being at the time of the death of Jigen through the combined efforts of his father, Sasuke, and Kashin Koji years ago.

And he never got him back.

The conflict had claimed Kashin Koji's life. Boruto never knew much about him but apparently, he was from the leaf. That made him one of them, and as such there was a small funeral for him juxtaposed at the time of celebration of an enemy's death. Konohagakure was safe, at least then.

Unable to track the movements of Kara without the dimensional hopping power of Jigen alerting them to his movements, and with some fuinjutsu used to seal the members Chakra so it couldn't be sensed from Sage mode, there was little that Naruto or Sasuke could do. They had known Kara would wait till Kawaki grew stronger, and until that day would come Naruto and Sasuke could afford to wait and try to make their own hand stronger. After all, they had their own Karma user to train.

And so Boruto and Sasuke had left Konoha for three long years. Boruto could not stop Sasuke from going on his missions, so that left him only the option to join him. Joining meant he had to leave his friends behind, but it would only be temporary.

In the meantime, knowing he couldn't be much of use to his team, Boruto left Team 7, replaced by Mirai Sarutobi as a favor to her cousin and favorite sidekick.

With that, things remained in a sense of uneasy peace until one fateful day Sasuke and Boruto had received an important message to return to Konoha from one of Naruto's toad summons. Kara had arrived. Knowing the coming battle was upon them they quickly returned using Sasuke's Rinnegan.

They were back, back to where Boruto was now.

Facing his friend.

His brother.

The two clashed, staff meeting sword, their respective weapons sounding out a memorable clang.

"I didn't think you'd go this far, Kawaki!" hissed Boruto.

"I'll send you where I sent the Nanadaime, Boruto." Kawaki replied stalwartly.

Boruto winced, "Was this the only possible outcome?" he said with a sigh.

"Yes, that's right." Kawaki would not pull any punches "The age of shinobi… is over!" Kawaki replied as another clang rang out between the two, they resumed clashing once more.

000

Momoshiki growing bored as he has seen the fight many times before, pulled away from the cloud bubble.

A fight like that deserved to be viewed with more detail then he could provide with all the other memories surrounding the pair. Though, it had been quite the spectacle and had left his fellow alien's plans in tattered ruins when Boruto had removed all traces to Isshiki's vessel.

No karma, no vessel, and thus no ties to this reality.

Momoshiki foresaw this of course when observing the blond shinobi's thread of fate but with no means of communication between Momoshiki and the others of his clan it would serve him no actual purpose to try and actively roadblock what would happen to his fellow clan members.

Not that he much cared for them either way. They always stood in the way of his own success and achievement while he was alive. Why would he want them to ruin his post-mortem entertainment too?

No, he was here to observe, at least for now, and so observe he shall. Though, Kara was the most interesting thing to occur to Boruto in a long while. Maybe it would have been worth it to prolong the conflict? If not just so that Momoshiki would not die of boredom. Speaking of which…

Memories of many D ranks floated through the space, the occasional C rank, and the much rarer B and A ranks. He could count the S Rank missions on his hand.

Bah, peace made things so boring at times. Momoshiki hoped every day that his clan would return, or another Kara would form again but he already knew the future when he chose his vessel, another advantage of being a watcher.

Not in this boy's lifetime at least.

More smaller victories and scenes played out before the pair. Momoshiki growing increasingly bored by the minute. He had all day every day to reflect on the boy, however Boruto had found himself flabbergasted at the amount of detail in the memory clouds surrounding them. Here was his entire life since that fateful day seven years ago.

Millions of memories were arrayed before them. There was too much to see, too much to react to, it was a miracle Momoshiki hadn't gone mad containing all these thoughts!

"Maybe he has…" thought Boruto solemnly until realizing that the alien likely already had gone mad before coming to Earth. He soon lost all sense of pity and empathy that had been budding for Momoshiki, but all that supposed madness paled in comparison to the flashes of the first memory still fresh in Boruto's own mind.

"What was the point of showing this to me? Do you find joy in reminding me of my biggest failure?!" Boruto accused, confusion and anger quickly overtaking his bewilderment and wonder by the showing of the defeated god and the loss of his surrogate brother to him.

"There was not one. I happened to get lost in thought and forget that you were here." Boruto was starting to get really annoyed especially after being treated like some unwanted pest. These were his memories after all, and he does not like to be toyed with them.

"You son of a-!" Boruto, about to curse out the fallen god, was cut off in surprise by the sudden change in movement from Momoshiki who got right in front of his face in the blink of an eye. It shouldn't come as a surprise, it is Momoshiki's after all.

"Perhaps, it was best to remind you, that you are being watched." Momoshiki mused with a smile, Boruto's frown growing stronger at the implications with each passing sentence from the alien.

But before he could get in his smirky reply, the world shook like it had been pounded, seemingly affronted on all sides. Suddenly a wind flew through, picking up the young shinobi pushing him farther and farther away as Boruto helplessly rode it. He could only mutter to himself "W-what the!"

"So please, do try your best to make it a good show. Good luck with what lies ahead boy, you'll need it." Momoshiki shouted as the young man left, not knowing if he fully heard his last thought before the boy would regain consciousness.

And with that Momoshiki was alone. He really needs to find something else to do… maybe he could pick up shogi?

000

Boruto awoke with a gasp and covered in sweat. Taking in his surroundings, he immediately noticed it was mid-afternoon, and he had last remembered it being near the end of the morning.

He also noticed there were clean white tile floors, the austere also white walls, some empty patient beds, and finally the smell of anti-septic in the air. It seemed like he had truly passed out from chakra exhaustion and was now in the Konoha General Hospital.

As Boruto calmed down, his thoughts returned to Momoshiki. Was that excursion all but a dream?

"No, if I'm ever to interject, it's to prove that I'm very much real boy." Momoshiki growled in his head.

"I'd appreciate it if you weren't so loud then!" Boruto hissed inwardly, wincing at the unexpected response hurting his inner ears. Just his luck, it was real, and apparently Momoshiki had recently grown a tongue.

Boruto, lost in thought at the implications of having a neutral observer in his head was soon cut off by the sound of the door opening.

"Oi!" piped a familiar kunoichi "It's about time you woke up."

"How long?" asked Boruto instantaneously. A ninja learned not to waste time when in an unknown situation.

"About a day." Sarada responded in kind.

"EHHHH?" Boruto yelled "B-But then that means!"

"Yes, we are supposed to leave tomorrow!" huffed Sarada back "I've been waiting for you to wake up because of that!"

Boruto gaped as he realized he had lost all the downtime he had between his missions.

"You've got to be kidding me…" Boruto said as he stared off into the void. He just could not believe it. A new move hospitalized him? He is Boruto Uzumaki! He must have accidentally used too much chakra perfecting it the night before. Not to mention he didn't get any sleep because he was too excited to show it off and then he had the morning to midafternoon patrol duty with Sarada, and then he used all those shadow clones to pull the prank on his dad, and then the fight… On second thought, maybe it wasn't so farfetched. Even Uzumaki's have limits.

"Isn't there any way we could postpone the mission?" Boruto turned to Sarada, trying to regain any semblance of his lost time.

"No." Sarada replied curtly in response.

"C'mon Sarada you've got at least give me something in light of this revelation." Boruto pleaded with the raven-haired kunoichi but soon realized there was no mercy in her eyes.

"No." Sarada replied curtly, again.

At least he had not just lazed away and slept through it, but nothing was worse than falling asleep just to wake up and go back to work. Boruto would have preferred death, honestly!

The revelation had taken precedence over any and all thoughts of Momoshiki. No time for space god-like demons now. Now, there was only one thing left on his mind.

"If that's the case, get me the hell out of here." Boruto said to Sarada as he started to remove his own IV and the multiple sensors that were attached to his previously comatose body.

"Eh? What for?" the raven-haired girl tilted her head in curiosity as she wondered what he would spend the last of his remaining time on.

"Even if it's the last thing I do, I'm getting a Jalapeno burger." Boruto said with his eyebrows furled and the lines of his face contoured in a serious manner.

The kunoichi deadpanned as she went to grab his papers for discharging him. She sighed. It seems that no matter how things change, somethings will always be the same.

Author's Notes:

Momoshiki sure is an interesting element to try and find a place for.

For any possible re-reader's I have decided to change a few things. Part of returning to an outline and WIP is incorporating new ideas you have had since and ones you have had whilst writing. Do not worry though, besides an element here or there the story structure is the same.

See you guys next time, and hopefully a bit sooner this time.