Total disclaimer: I am definitely not trying to make a poltical statement about abortions, I'm just trying to tell a story in which a young girl tries to consider her options, so please don't think that by discussing this that I'm trying to persuade anyone to think a certain way.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, Mama Sakura and Papa Naruto find out some jolting news today!
Shizune went to stand to shut the door, but Sarada gripped her tightly as though she couldn't bear the thought of being left alone. She wiped the girl's sweat slicked hair out of her face and soothed into her ear, "Sarada, I need to go shut the door so we can talk… You want some privacy, right?" She was able to pry her fingers from her shirt for a moment before she could latch on again, and hurriedly locked the door before returning to the bed that Sarada had melted into a puddle on.
"Tell me everything…" she demanded quietly, taking Sarada back into her arms. Sarada was still shaking and sobbing and gave no sign of stopping anytime soon as the cries racked her chest until she was practically folding into two.
"My...my…"
"Your what?" Shizune whispered. It was clear by her reactions she was pregnant now, that the blood test wasn't wrong and corresponded with whatever showdown happened between her and Boruto just minutes before, but she wanted to give her a chance to tell her story.
"My l-l-life is-s-s over-r-r-r…" she sputtered.
"Your life isn't over, Sarada…"
"H-Help m-me." It had started to sound like her cries were weakening, but as soon as she got me out, the tears started again at full force. She continued to squeeze onto Shizune like she was the only thing buoying her to earth.
"I want to help you but you need to tell me what's going on."
"I'm p-p-p…" She took another shaky breath before letting out another sob.
"Sarada," Shizune now demanded and shifted so Sarada could partially look up at her. "I need you to try to pull yourself together the best you can. I can't help you if you don't take a deep breath- Here." She leaned over to pour her a glass of water. "Try to drink this."
Sarada reached up for the glass and wearily sat up before another wave of nausea knocked her over again. "I'm going t-to…" she began, but Shizune was smart enough to see the signs of what was about to happen next and in one fluid motion reached for the garbage can beside her and held it up to Sarada's face for her to vomit in. She rubbed her back as she heaved and tried to calculate how long it would be before Sakura would be back to work in the morning. She was sure she'd come in early to check on Sarada and would want to analyze the test results herself; she needed to get to her before she was able to see them on her own, but at the rate Sarada was moving at, she'd never know the full story before her mother arrived.
"It's okay…" she crooned in her ear again, "but listen to me… your mother will be back in only a few hours, so if you want me to help you, I need you to talk to me, okay? I need you to try your hardest."
Sarada lifted her face, spit and bits of bile dripping from her lips, and reached over for the sheet to wipe her mouth on. She didn't even care what she looked like anymore. In just a little over twenty-four hours her life had officially bottomed out.
"I-I fucked up," she whispered, her voice raspy. "Me and Boruto...I got…"
Shizune saw her face scrunch together again and she took it upon herself to finish her sentence before the girl fell apart again. "And you got pregnant…"
"Y-Yes!" she sobbed. "Will you help me?"
"How do you want me to help you?" Shizune asked quietly, rubbing her back in small circles.
"I want an...an...ab…" She couldn't get the word out, her teeth chattering together in fear, nausea, and exhaustion.
"An abortion?" Shizune ventured, not totally surprised but still shocked nonetheless.
"Yesss."
Shizune sucked in a breath, calculating both Sakura's reaction and what she could do within her own jurisdiction. "Sarada, honey, I don't think you understand...I can't just do that…"
"What? Why not?!"
"You're a minor. We have to talk to your mother. Do you only want an abortion so you don't have to tell her…?"
Sarada's body weighed down on her again as she curled tighter into a ball. "I don't want to tell anyone! I can't tell my mom, Boruto-"
"Wait, Boruto doesn't know?!"
"No!" she squeaked. "I can't tell him, I can't tell anyone! Imagine what would happen-" She squeezed her eyes shut to try to keep out the creeping thoughts insidiously sinking into her brain. "My life as a ninja would be over! None of this is worth being a single mom! And Boruto-" She cut off. She and Boruto were irreparable at that point, weren't they? She ruined her best relationship with her best friend, her partner in everything she ever did, and right when she needed him most he wouldn't be there. Having that baby would just be a painful reminder of the best thing that ever happened to her coming to a crashing end.
"Did something happen between you and Boruto and that's why you don't want to have it?" Shizune asked softly.
Sarada took another shaky breath as more tears stung her eyes. "We got into a f-fight… But this wasn't a normal fight… I told him…" No. She couldn't go into the story here or she'd absolutely fall apart and never be able to reign herself back in. "We're over, Shizune. We're done. We can't fix it and I can't have this baby or- or- or everything else would be broken." That was it: she had to maintain some semblance of normalcy without Boruto there to steady her.
"That doesn't mean you have to have an abortion. Why don't we talk to your mom?"
"My mother is going to kill me!"
Shizune sighed, still trying to figure out what to do because none of the paths opened to her seemed to lead to anything other than dead ends. "She's going to find out," she replied. "You know that she will. She's going to check your charts."
Sarada's body vibrated against her as her body shook harder. "H-help…"
"I will talk to her first," Shizune promised. "I can let her down slowly, but if you truly want an abortion you have to talk to her. But…" She paused for a moment and tried to catch her thoughts. Here was a lost girl so hellbent on keeping her secret and standing her ground that she wrapped Boruto in a genjutsu to keep him at arm's length. She was definitely scared and serious about what she wanted, yet she knew the reality was that Sarada couldn't keep it hidden forever, and even more, that fear shouldn't dictate her decision on what to do with her baby.
"But?"
"This is a serious choice, Sarada. You need to be sure in what you do because once you make this choice you can't go back."
Sarada swallowed. "That's why I can't tell Boruto," she said quietly, "b-because… because…"
"Because why?"
"Because I don't want him to change my mind!"
Shizune felt her heart drop into her stomach at her words as Sarada started sobbing again. "Oh, honey… You'll be okay. No matter what happens you will be fine and everything will play out exactly as it's supposed to." But as she stared atop Sarada's head at the night sky outside the window, she wasn't exactly sure how true that was. As much as she wanted to give Sarada the reigns of control, she knew that she wasn't in control of this, not one bit. Even if she could get an abortion she first had to get through to Sakura, and she knew it was a total toss up in how she'd react...or, potentially even worse than Sakura...Sasuke.
Sarada's tears finally drained her energy too and she eventually whimpered herself to sleep in Shizune's arms. She didn't even move as Shizune peeled her off once the first rays of sun peeked over the village, and she tiptoed back to the lab to wait for Sakura. As she sat back down at the same computer she left the night before to take care of Sarada, she remembered the medical-nin whom she ordered to retake Sarada's blood. Shit. He was no longer there, his shift probably far from over, and she could only hope that if he saw Sarada's results that he'd have half a mind to keep his mouth shut.
Just as she suspected, around six o'clock, Sakura came bouncing into the room, humming. Shizune noticed her chipper attitude and quickly bit her tongue. "Good morning!" Sakura sang as she placed her bag in the corner and picked up her white coat hanging on the coat rack.
"You're in a good mood this morning…" Shizune ventured.
"I surprisingly had such a good night of sleep last night," Sakura replied. "I figured Sarada was in good hands. How is she doing, by the way? Have you checked on her?" She moved past Shizune to sit at another computer and began clicking away to pull up patient files.
Shizune took that as her queue and shot her hand out to stop Sakura's. "We need to talk...before you look at Sarada's results…"
Instantly Sakura turned to her, her mouth in a hard frown and her eyebrows knit firmly together. "What. Is it bad-" She again turned toward the computer again to see for herself but Shizune reached over to dig her nails into her hand.
Sakura swatted at her hand. "Stop, if it's something bad I need to see-"
"It'd be best if I just talk to you-"
"Shizune, stop, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Sakura's other hand slithered to the computer mouse and began to click again toward the files, but Shizune knew she needed to tell her before she could see the big red POSITIVE, all in caps, for herself.
"Sakura," she blurted as Sarada's results began to load on the screen, "Sarada is pregnant."
Time slowed down and Shizune held her breath, waiting for the bomb to drop. Sakura froze, one hand under Shizune's grip, the other firmly on the mouse. Her eyes grazed the screen and Shizune followed them with her own, counting down the milliseconds before they arrived at what she desperately wanted to hide from her. At the same second, both sets of eyes landed on POSITIVE. Only then did Sakura begin to move. She turned her head toward Shizune, moving slowly until her shell shocked eyes reached hers; they were unreadable, blank, like she wasn't even thinking at all.
"Sakura-"
All at once Sakura's eyes widened and she stood, the chair beneath her toppling over from the force of her movement. "What the hell is going on?!" she demanded. "That can't be right. Shizune, this isn't funny!" Her eyes pierced hers, waiting for Shizune to tell her otherwise, but when the older woman just bit her lip silently, she began to move like a hurricane again in a search for any answers.
"We need to retake her blood-"
"Sakura."
"Clearly this is wrong. What if there are abnormalities that aren't showing up? Then we've wasted almost twenty-four hours when we could have been-"
"SAKURA!" Sakura finally stopped and looked back at her, her face again unreadable. "It's right…" Shizune said slowly. She began to walk toward Sakura like she was trapping a scared kitten. "I talked to her."
Sakura swallowed. "You mean…" Her voice was hollow. "You mean she's…"
"Pregnant. Yes."
Shizune thought for a moment she was about to start crying when she saw the corner of her mouth start to twitch, but before she could make a move or say another word Sakura had pushed past her and threw the door open with a force that cracked the wall behind it. Shizune chased Sakura's flying figure down the hall that was fleeing faster and faster toward her daughter's room.
She could hear sudden loud screams turned muffled as Sakura slammed the door behind her. Silently she slunk in behind Sakura and shut the door again.
Sakura was already at Sarada's bedside now. "What the hell is going on?!" she yelled, ripping the blanket off her daughter's head.
Sarada had clearly woken from her mom's sudden arrival because her eyes darted around the room like she couldn't get her bearings. "Mom-" she finally squeaked, recognizing the figure yelling at her, and slunk as far into the bed as she could. Her eyes burned as tears made their way forward again but she was otherwise frozen to the spot like a cornered animal.
"What the hell am I hearing about, Sarada?!" she yelled again. "Is it true?"
Shizune watched from the shadows as Sarada's eyes welled with tears again and began to cry.
"Is it?!" her mother demanded again.
"Sakura, stop it!" Shizune ran over to grab her arm. This wasn't the Sakura she knew, and though she was in shock and had every right to be angry as a parent, this clearly wasn't the right way to go about this.
Sakura ripped her arm away from her grasp and cried out, "This is not your place, Shizune, this is family business."
"Family business?! Look at your daughter!" She pointed to Sarada's body now curled up into a ball, high pitched whimpers emanating from her. "Whatever you are hoping to accomplish won't be done this way!"
Sakura's hands clenched at her side as she watched her daughter cry. There was no right way to handle this. She could only see the questions she wanted answered, as she witnessed the rest of her daughter's future fly backwards into the oblivion. "Sarada," she snapped, "did you know you were pregnant?"
Sarada just cried harder, the answer to Sakura's question. She sucked in a sharp breath. "How long have you known?"
"T-t-two d-a-a-aaaays…" Sarada sobbed into her pillow.
Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose, recognizing the dull throbbing of a migraine emerging behind her eyes. She tried to gain control over her own wild emotions and tried to focus on what was in front of her, what she needed to do for her daughter. (Her daughter. How was her daughter pregnant?) "We need to do an ultrasound right away to see how far you are," she sighed, trying to put herself back in place as a doctor.
"No," Sarada sobbed into her pillow.
"No?"
"I don't want to see it."
Sakura scoffed. "Stop being dramatic. What do you mean you don't want to see it?"
Sarada couldn't respond as she began crying harder again, so Shizune tiptoed gingerly to the bed and sat next to Sarada as her protector. "She doesn't want to have the baby, Sakura."
"What do you mean you don't want to have the baby?" Sakura deadpanned. "What do you think happens when you get pregnant? You have the damn baby."
Shizune breathed out slowly. "She wants an abortion…"
Sakura's eyes widened again. "W-Whatt?" she choked.
"Just...hear her out."
"An...an abortion?" she repeated. Her mind struggled to wrap around the heavy word. "Sarada, look at me. I said look at me." Sarada's head rose slowly, her red eyes pulling up unwillingly to meet her mother's. "What is this now?"
"I c-can't, Mom. Please." The words were wet as they tumbled from her mouth in a potion of spit and tears.
"Sarada, we…" The migraine drew heavier in her mind. "We have to think rationally about this-"
"I HAVE." Sarada's voice grew louder as she wiped the tears falling faster now from her eyes.
"You have not!" Sakura yelled back. She winced as her head throbbed in reply; she figured that's what she got for yelling at her pregnant teenage daughter, but she didn't care. "You are a child."
"EXACTLY."
"-And that means you have to think about this!" she continued. "Two days isn't enough time to consider!" She tried to gather her own thoughts that flew about her head and consider what she thought would be best for her daughter but she couldn't. "I don't want you to regret this someday. This is a huge decision, you have no idea."
"I know it is, Mom! D-do you not think I haven't thought about that?! I need to do this! I need to do this so nobody finds out!"
Sakura immediately came back to herself. Nobody. Sarada didn't just get herself pregnant… "Who?" she then demanded.
"Who what?" Sarada spat back.
"Who did this to you?"
She watched Sarada's black eyes grow wide just like they did when she was little and was caught doing something wrong. Her face grew red and more fat tears rolled down her cheeks, burning trails along her skin. Sarada wouldn't just cry like that over anyone. Her mind thought back to the week before when she asked Sarada where Boruto was and she just shrugged before scoffing "I'm not his keeper." She thought it was weird at the time… but now it was all making sense.
"I have to talk to Naruto," she hissed.
"Mom, no!" Sakura's stomach dropped as Sarada confirmed her worst fears. She watched her daughter struggle against the bed to reach up for her, gripping her arm so hard she drew blood. "You can't tell Lord Seventh!" This was not the reaction she thought Sarada would have, Sakura admitted. Even if this was an unwanted pregnancy, an absolute mistake, she couldn't imagine Sarada melting down fully into this for no reason. Why would she get this worked up over Boruto? They were childhood friends, almost siblings- or so she thought- so of course they got into spats, but why was she this distraught? Even Sasuke didn't rupture this kind of emotion and reaction out of her after he left the village. Something happened; Boruto did something to her to make her act like this, to make her feel like she couldn't have this baby. And whatever it was, he would pay. Naruto would make him pay.
A mama bear switch flickered on inside of her, bringing all her blood to a boil. "What happened between you two?"
"Nothing, Mom, PLEASE!" she continued to cry.
"It isn't fair to keep this to yourself then, Sarada! His father at least has to know! You can't make this decision yourself!" Sakura knew deep in her heart that even if something happened for him to hurt her, Boruto still had a right to know. She put a hand to her face again to keep herself steady as the migraine threatened to overtake her; she knew she needed to calm her blood pressure or she'd faint. "Look, even if you want an abortion...and you get one...we still have to do an ultrasound. You can't just get one blindly, we have to see what is going on.."
Sarada's lip quivered as she looked to Shizune for help. Shizune just reached over and patted her hair down. "Your mother is right," she soothed, "but I can be there right there next to you."
Sarada felt her heart flutter into her chest but she nodded anyway. If this was the only way to get what she wanted then she needed to do it and she was going to be brave about it. Minutes later she was wheeled to the furthest ultrasound room where her mother pulled the curtains tight over the door.
Sarada refused to look at the screen as her mother rubbed her abdomen with gel before running the equipment over it. Her eyes squeezed shut, scared that whatever she saw on the screen would rip away whatever resolve she had left. She heard rushing in her ears and thought she was about to pass out when her mother asked softly, "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That's the heartbeat."
Oh. So the woosh sound she was hearing wasn't coming from inside her head but from another part of her entirely. Or, well, she reminded herself, it was not from her but a small being who had taken up home inside of her. Even she had to admit how eerie yet amazing that thought was. But she tried to quickly squash the thought of "amazing," and her eyes rose up to Shizune's as a distraction. Shizune staring at the screen in awe with her lips slightly apart as she took in whatever was on it.
"I'd say about eight weeks," she murmured and patted Sarada's hand without pulling her eyes from the screen. Then, Sarada watched as her eyelids fluttered as if in confusion.
"What…" Sarada asked nervously.
"Honey, don't freak out…" her mother started slowly behind her.
"What." Was she dying? Was there something wrong? Was something about to burst from her at any mo-
"Sarada," Sakura's voice cut off her raving thoughts. "It's twins."
Sarada had promptly passed out, the overexhaustion, the stress, and the hormones from the last few days colliding with the news that she was pregnant with not one but two. Sakura took that as her opportunity to sneak away to Naruto's office and left her and strict orders with Shizune to keep her tightly locked away in a hospital room with no other visitors until she could return. The anger rose in her chest as she walked swiftly, almost jogging to her former teammate's office. Or, as he was better known now as she thought, the father of the boy who got her daughter pregnant. How could this have happened? How could they have been so stupid? Hadn't she warned her daughter, and hadn't Sarada always seemed to have a steady head on her shoulders? This type of thing was not supposed to happen to her daughter.
When Sarada and Boruto were little, Sakura and Hinata used to laugh and muse about how someday their children would marry. They would chuckle about it as they watched their two toddlers bicker over a toy, six year olds demanding a rematch of a race, seven year olds fighting over who got the bigger piece of cake. It was a fever dream of course, something they didn't really think would come true, but she guessed even back then she could see the bond the two shared. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered how Sarada reacted to Boruto even remotely finding out and wondered again what happened between them. How did he hurt her? What did he do to her? She immediately began to daydream what would happen to him once his parents found out; he deserved her wrath and his father's wrath and his mother's wrath all at once- Naruto nor Hinata would go easy on him, there was no way. Hinata had her expectations for her child and if she so much as put a toe out of line he was quickly put into place. She couldn't imagine what they would do to him once they found out he impregnated a girl.
She took the stairs two at a time once inside the building. Her blood sounded in her ears and she could feel her hands already begin to shake as she rounded the corner to Naruto's office. She was ready to unleash again, just as she used to on Naruto, and didn't even try to pull herself together nor knock before turning the doorknob and barging in.
"You need to get your fucking son right now- OH."
The chair at the desk turned toward her but the person sitting in it wasn't Naruto- it was Shikamaru.
"What did that idiot do this time?" he asked, bored and not surprised in the slightest that someone came in to complain about Boruto.
"Oh, I, um. Where's Naruto?"
"He's at an emergency five kage meeting down the hall."
"Fuck!" Sarada swallowed down the urge to punch a hole through the wall. She didn't need to embarrass herself in front of Shikamaru with another outburst.
"It must be pretty important then for you to come here yelling about it yourself," he chuckled and sat forward in the chair to lean his elbows on the desk. "Entertain me: what did Boruto do?"
Sakura felt her face grow hot again. Should she betray Sarada like this? No, it wasn't so much betrayal. She should just tell Shikamaru- once Naruto found out he would find out anyway. She placed a hand on her hip and tried to hold her head as high as she could as she stated in the coldest manner she could muster, "He knocked up my kid."
Shikamaru's eyes widened and he whistled lowly before pulling out a cigarette out of his pocket. He lit it, not saying a word, and took a deep drag before pulling it out of his mouth and blowing the smoke straight into the air. It was another moment before he finally looked at Sakura again and announced what she had been thinking the whole walk over: "Fuck. That child is dead."
It wasn't often that Naruto was summoned to Mount Myoboku, but he definitely wasn't expecting a prophecy to be the reason he went back for the first time in almost twenty years. He stood in front of Gamamaru, the giant toad spouting what sounded at first like nonsense, and thought about how confused he was.
He raised his eyebrow as the toad sage finished and asked, "Is there a way you don't have to speak in metaphors?"
Gamamaru peered down at Naruto who was staring up at him suspiciously. "I can only tell you what I dream."
"Can you go through this one more time?" he questioned grumpily.
Gamamaru didn't seem to mind Naruto's snippy, confused tone as he drew a slow breath and began his words again. "The sun and the moon will converge with power you have not yet seen. Based on the vigilance of the current sun and moon, they will either save the world or destroy it. You are in control now of this convergence."
Even hearing it a second time still didn't help it click for Naruto. The sun and moon? He remembered fondly- okay, maybe not too fondly-of discovering that he was the sun and Sasuke was the moon, but he still had so many questions. If it was about him, and why else would he be summoned if it wasn't, why are they converging now- and into what? How can he be in control of something if he didn't even know what it was? And Sasuke was in control of it too? Truthfully he hadn't seen Sasuke in months so he had no idea what they could be creating that could save or destroy the world, especially since they were at peace. Were they going to create a joint jutsu? That could be fun, he thought.
He left Mount Myoboku that day and immediately called a five kage meeting, hoping to get Sasuke in the room as well, but he had announced he couldn't make it for a few days after that. Naruto didn't want to wait that long; he needed to let the alliance know that something was in their midst or would be soon that could change the world, and he was ultimately hoping that someone would have the clue that could help him unlock what that could be.
But he quickly realized, surrounded by the other kages a few days later, that no one had any answers to anything.
"Well, if you're in control of it then it will obviously save the world, right?" Gaara asked hopefully. He always had too much faith in Naruto. While he recognized the importance of the meeting, he also had no reason to doubt his best friend's abilities in protecting the world, and wasn't overly concerned.
"Not necessarily," Chojuro piped in. "Sasuke is involved too."
Naruto winced slightly but didn't make a big deal of it; he knew Sasuke wasn't completely trusted amongst the other nations, but there was no use arguing about it. He leaned his head in his hands and sighed. "Has there been anything going on in your nations? Anything at all involving Sasuke...or me…"
"Well, have you really gone through your whole village?" Kurotsuchi asked.
"I can't think of a single thing that means we're...what's the word he used?" Naruto squinted trying to remember. "Converging."
"Well, how do these prophecies work exactly?" Darui asked, sitting back against his chair with his arms crossed. "Does it necessarily mean it'll happen now?"
"I guess not…" He suddenly remembered Jiraiya and his own prophecy. Pervy Sage had traveled the world for decades before it came true.
"But we need to stay vigilant if this means the world could potentially end or be brought to peace again," Kurotsuchi pointed out. "That implies that this time of peace will be ending at some point."
Naruto sighed. "There's nothing we can do until that point then. We have to wait until we see something." He pushed his chair to end the conversation. "I'm sorry I brought you all here under these circumstances and wasn't able to provide anything."
"We're glad you did," Gaara responded warmly. "We all need to be on the same page working together. I'm sorry that we couldn't help more."
They touched on a few more items of business, using the time they were together to their advantage. When they all finally rose to leave, Gaara turned to him and placed an arm on his shoulder. "Keep in touch if you hear anything." He patted him once and walked out the door. Even if Naruto was confused on what he was supposed to be doing, Gaara's faith certainly kept him grounded, and he was able to walk back to his office with a little more peace than he had before.
However, it all quickly dissipated as soon as he opened his office door to find a red-faced and seething Sakura standing inside.
She and Shikamaru quickly turned to face him as he opened the door and he immediately could sense the thick dread hanging in the room.
Shikamaru stood from his desk. "Well, looks like I should be going now," he stated, rubbing the back of his head. "I need to see if I can catch Gaara before he leaves...Shikadai would love to see him…" For a person who was never in a hurry, Naruto noticed a rush to him as he bolted for the door. Confused, his eyes slid over to Sakura still standing with her hands firmly on her hips.
"W-What's up, Sakura?" he asked nervously. It was obvious she was mad by the way she was standing, and out of habit he racked his brain for anything he could have done to make her mad. His head immediately ached in preparation for her to hit him for whatever he must have done.
"It's Boruto," Sakura said, clenching her teeth.
Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Boruto? What about Boruto?"
Sakura grit her teeth harder as her tongue fought to find the words that she so easily spewed at Shikamaru minutes before. Now that Naruto was in front of her she didn't know how to say it. Why was it so hard to speak now? This was her former partner, her best friend, the person she theoretically worked better with more than anyone else, so it should have been easy to let her guard down.
She felt the hot angry tears slide down the corner of her eyes as she realized in horror that her anger was turning into pain. Being there with Naruto, with a person who truly got her and was about to be thrown into this situation too, forced all of her emotions of the day to quickly morph into one.
Naruto's eyes again narrowed deeper as he watched Sakura clench her fists and try to swallow sobs. "Did something happen?" he asked cautiously.
"S-Sarada…" she sputtered. "Sarada is pregnant." Immediately she felt the air vaccuum out of the room. The truth was out. Pregnant. She couldn't take it back.
Naruto just stood there for a moment, just as she did a few hours before, completely dumbfounded. For the second time that day he had no words. "What?" His voice cracked. Pregnant? Deep from a memory, words emerged again. "Can you repeat that again, Sakura? Because I don't think I understood you."
"Sarada is pregnant."
He didn't know why but he was suddenly thrown backwards into a memory. Instead of the Hokage's office, he was surrounded by snow yet Sakura was in front of him just as she was now. 'Naruto, I love you,' she had just said, shocking him to his core. It was so reminiscent of now, a confession that could have changed everything. But her confession back then had been a lie…
...And he'd give anything now to go back to that lie because he was sure, twenty years later, that the bombshell she just dropped now for him was the truth.
"Are you saying that Boruto…"
"Boruto and Sarada are having a baby," Sakura replied shakily. "Two babies."
Two babies. Boruto. Sarada. The room now swirled and Naruto was beginning to have a hard time focusing on her. His arms reached behind him for his desk to lean on and his body crashed down, hard, sending a few papers scattering to the floor.
"She's having...two…"
"Twins."
His vision was fading fast around Sakura as his mind jumped to other memories, anything to get him out of his present, anything to rewind to a time where he could fix the present because it was just not making sense. Were there signs? Was this always meant to happen? Even in childhood, when he and Sasuke would get in screaming matches, when he searched for Sasuke to the ends of the earth, when the three of them would settle under the stars after a long mission with Kakashi-sensei...were there signs that someday they would be dealing with their children having children incredibly too young? When he and Sasuke fought to the death, trying to be the one to survive, did he sense that someday their son and daughter would unite to-
That someday his and Sasuke's bloodlines would converge?
His brain churned to life and he could instantly taste bile in the back of his mouth.
"Naruto? Naruto are you okay?"
Naruto put a weak hand up to stop her. His mind raced around Gamamaru's words and he needed quiet, absolute quiet to piece them all together. It was so clear now. So clear-
"What are you going to do about this, Naruto?!" Sakura had found her own voice again and the anger in her pit was clearly growing at seeing Naruto not reacting. "Because if you don't handle it I will, I swear! She wants to have an abortion--"
That word knocked Naruto back to himself and he blinked back at Sakura. "She can't."
"What?" Sakura was clearly surprised at Naruto's knee-jerk reaction.
"She can't have that abortion, Sakura."