Boruto rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked hazily up at the celling. The cycle of going from horrified to embarrassed to semi-calm to hugging his pillow threatened to take away his sanity. He was nearly positive that he was going to have nightmares, but for some reason, his dreams were filled with fluffy pink sheep. I guess that was Hebi's doing, he thought, sitting up with a large yawn.

The moment his mouth was closed, the sight of a hooded figure by his doorway jolted him awake.

Forming a plus sign with his index and middle fingers of both hands overlapping at the mid-joints, four shadow clones appeared behind him. He fumbled around the desk for his ninja tool pouch, threw his hand inside, grabbed a kunai, and hurled it at the target. But it was easily deflected.

Boruto heaved an exasperated sigh. "Hebi… WHY ARE YOU IN MY ROOM?!"

The hooded figure remained silent.

Frustration brewing at being blatantly ignored, Boruto mobilized two of his shadow clones and charged the mysterious figure.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

He threw his hands back, remembering the time they got vaporized. But that deep sinister voice… wasn't Hebi. "What are you?"

"You should be aware of what I am already. I am similar to the person you call Hebi."

Eyes narrowing, Boruto crouched, leaning forward with his arms in front of him.

"Relax, fighting me is useless. You should know that as well."

"Why are you here? What do you want with us?"

The hooded figure laughed. "Quite the spunk you've obtained… Or have you always had it? I've never paid much attention."

Boruto remained in his fighting stance. Somehow, he got the feeling that it was important for him to bide his time until Hebi showed up.

"What I am matters little. I've come to give you a mission."

Think of a response. Something. Anything. "…What's in it for me?"

"I'll leave the people precious to you alone."

Boruto's attack stance faltered. Mom… Himawari… Mitsuki… Sarada… But he kept his shadow clones deployed. "How do I know you aren't lying?"

"You don't. That's the beauty of our jobs," replied the figure. "But you trusted Hebi, didn't you?"

"…What is the mission?"

"It's simple, really," replied the second author, "all you have to do is—"

In that instant, the hooded figure vanished. Boruto furrowed his eyes. Crouching back down, he frantically looked around the room. But he saw nothing.

Suddenly, Hebi appeared before him.

"Boruto! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine…" he said, the adrenaline pumping through his body slowly depleting, shadow clones disappearing into clouds of smoke. "More importantly, where were you? And who was that guy?"

The author typed rapidly into their laptop. "I was making sure your friends didn't wake up to any… unpleasant, dreams. That guy is known as a troublemaker. I'm not sure how many are here as of right now, but their goal is to interrupt the mission and cause it to fail. The second you take a mission from one of them, I would disappear... That was close."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THAT YESTERDAY?! Jeez… Stuff like that is important, ya know?"

The author sighed. "I did attempt to warn you… I'm not supposed to involve you in the workings of my dimension… And don't worry, I've started taking precautionary measures against them. Like you just saw."

"Did you tell Mitsuki and Sarada about this? What if they accept a mission?"

The author sighed. "You really just want to know about everything, don't you?"

"Yes! Considering this concerns my life and theirs?!"

"I suppose I will tell you what I hesitated to say yesterday… These people are called troublemakers. Or at least, I think that's what the man earlier was. Their only goal is to cause the mission to fail. That being said… Boruto."

"Yes?"

"If you die, the mission is over. And the troublemakers can have their way with you and your friends. While I will agree that it is important to protect Mitsuki and Sarada, please be aware that you also need to protect yourself."

His jaw dropped open. "Huh? I thought you were all powerful. What happened to being able to revive me?"

"I can… But your death will cause the mission to fail… Each person from my dimension must choose someone to give a mission to. Do you see this device?"

Boruto narrowed his eyes at the laptop. "Well yeah, it's right there."

"This device allows me to monitor you. I can see everything through your eyes in the form of writing."

"That's basically stalking!"

The author sighed. "It's for ease of recording the events and reporting them to my people… That being said, if I am not in the area, I won't be able to see anything outside of what you are seeing. Which is why I didn't know what was happening with Suzuno until it was much too late. Since I wasn't watching, I could only read that you were attacking Suzuno. I'm lucky Sarada jumped in to save you, or it would have ended much too soon."

"So why don't you just follow us around? Wouldn't that solve the problem?"

"I do follow you… to an extent. There are times when my presence would get in the way, and with a troublemaker wandering around, I'd rather not make my location known…."

"But you just did."

"That was a special circumstance. Troublemaker or not, no one is foolish enough to start a fight in your home. He was lucky he got away before I used space-time jutsu to send him to another dimension… It would be much easier to get rid of the troublemaker if I could seal them inside of something."

Boruto plunked himself down and began to think. "So you need to seal them? Is that the only way you can beat them?"

"Well… no. There are two other methods… And sealing them is rather unrealistic anyway. We would have to separate them from their device. Or get our hands on their device, which is, depending on the device's safety mechanism, impossible. Catching them off guard is nearly impossible, and they likely have traps to protect themselves… The first realistic way to do away with one of these guys would be to find the person who the troublemaker gave the mission to and kill them."

"I thought it was Suzuno?"

"There are two possibilities there," explained the author. "The first is that there are multiple troublemakers. The second is that the quest was given to someone other than Suzuno, and that person gave Suzuno a quest."

Boruto blinked a few times. "I'm not really tracking with you."

"Essentially, they are using someone that works a mission's counter, or the boss of an organization in Amegakure. They gave the boss a mission, and in turn, the boss gave missions to his minions… Going all the way to Amegakure to find that person would take a long time, and it isn't really plausible considering our only lead is dead."

"So. What's the other way?" His stomach growled. "And could you make it quick? I'm getting hungry."

The author sighed. "Boruto, remember what your reward is for completing this mission?"

"…Your erasure from existence in my dimension."

"Exactly. While it is risky and I don't recommend it, accepting a mission is a possibility. For anyone other than you. And the mission will likely be to kill you."

"And you can't revive me?"

"No. Well, at least I can't. Another one of my people, a mediator, will. And then your memories of my existence and your time with me around will be taken."

"So how do we do this without me dying or failing the mission?! You're not making any sense."

Taking a deep breath in, the author eyed their laptop. "There's two ways. The first is wording."

"…Wording?"

"When one of my people gives a mission, the person accepting it has the chance to confirm what they said and change it. For example. If the mission was 'kill Uzumaki Boruto,' the receiver could say something along the lines of 'so you want me to stop his heart?' and the troublemaker would most likely say yes. But it is possible to stop someone's heart momentarily without killing them."

Boruto shuddered. "Whoever accepts this mission better be smart."

"Not only that, they also have to have a way to carry out the twisting the wording… And some sort of resistance to memory manipulation. The troublemaker isn't so dumb to assume that your friends will kill you of their own free will."

"…Mitsuki…"

The author nodded. "Mitsuki has the ability to stop someone's heart momentarily with the poison from his snakes, but having Mitsuki accept a mission willingly would be suspicious… It would draw too much attention."

"I see… He would have to pretend like he was against it and secretly separate a few of his snakes from his main body... That way he would be protected against memory manipulation. He trusts the snakes since they're part of him, and they could give him his real mission… Wait, shouldn't we have had this conversation in front of him?! That would have saved a lot of time."

A brief smile crossed the author's face under their hood. "I suppose it would have. But now, there's no time to lose. I've spent far too long in this room with you… I'll go to where Sarada is and watch you through my device. You should go to Mitsuki and inform him of the plan."

Boruto nodded. "But first, breakfast."

With a bit of laughter, the author disappeared.

. . .

Boruto ate his full and left his house only to find Mitsuki at Kaminari Burger.

"Mitsuki!"

"Hey, Boruto. I thought I might run into you here."

Boruto ordered a drink and sat down. "Did you have something you wanted to say?"

"No," replied Mitsuki, smiling across the table. "I thought you may have had another conversation with Hebi last night, so I decided to wait here. My dreams were rather interesting."

"Tell me about it." Boruto grimaced as he remembered the fields of pink sheep. "We actually came up with a plan. It's kinda risky, but I think it'll work…"

"A plan?"

"It might be better not to talk about it here," said Boruto, peering around.

"Should we wait for Sarada?"

Boruto blinked a few times. "She doesn't really have any involvement in it… But I guess we should."

"So? Have you thought of any other way to complete the mission?"

Boruto's cheeks tinged pink. "No… But I don't have to worry about that right now anyways."

"You're going to do it?"

"…I don't really have a choice. But it still seems impossible," Boruto sighed, propping his head up on his fist as he toyed with the straw in his soda. "No matter how I look at it, she's going to punch me."

"If she's unconscious, she wouldn't be able to punch you," replied Mitsuki. "But Hebi might not be too happy about that."

Boruto straightened his back. "Mitsuki!" He grinned. "You're a genius!"

"Ah, but if she wakes up, she'll punch you. It may be good to test how heavily she sleeps first."

Eyes narrowing, his spine curved forward again. "That's impossible… You know she's always the first one up on overnight missions…"

"I guess you'll just have to stay up late," replied Mitsuki with a smile.

Just then, a familiar face entered the restaurant. Boruto tilted his head to the side to confirm the identity of the purple haired girl, and his face lit up into a smile. "Class Prez! Long time no see!"

"Boruto!" She gave him a wave and hurried over to his table.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to the village to deliver something to your father. I was hoping maybe I'd run into you before I left."

Mitsuki's eyes glinted. He didn't miss the forlorn tone of voice Sumire used when approaching him. "Boruto. I'm going to buy another soda. Should I get you one too?"

Boruto frowned. "Huh? No, I'm good. I just got one… Thanks though!"

"Boruto, how have your missions been going," Sumire asked as she took a seat next to him.

"Missions?!" He fidgeted, avoiding eye contact. "Fine. Yup, all good."

Sumire tilted her head to the side. "Is something wrong?"

"Nope! Nothing. Nothing at all."

"The only thing wrong with this idiot is his inability to speak."

Boruto's eyes shot up to find Sarada glaring at him with her hands on her hips.

Missions. Sarada. He looked even further away, heat rising to his cheeks. "S-Shut up."

Sumire blinked. She looked from Sarada to Boruto. Then from Boruto to Sarada. Then back to Boruto, who just so happened to be blushing while glancing at Sarada from the corner of his eye. When her head moved, Boruto immediately hid his face in his jacket and absentmindedly toyed with his soda straw.

"Boruto," Sumire said suddenly, standing up from her seat in the booth. "There's something I need to talk to you about. Can you come with me really quick?"

"Huh?" The blush dissipated from his face. "Sure… I guess so." Leaving his drink behind, he followed Sumire out of the restaurant.

Hm. The author watched from their position at another booth. Sumire shouldn't pose a threat to Boruto's life, but she might pose a threat to the mission… I have a feeling I already know what this is about.