To the Future

by cbehrills

Uchiha Sarada is the 9th Hokage. A legendary shinobi, the first Uchiha to have become a Hokage. However, her reign is not easy, the village is under attack from a threat greater than any that have come before. When even the Five Kage cannot stop the incoming threat there is only one person who could, Uzumaki Naruto. There is but one problem, he is dead.

175. Father and Son

BACK TO SCHOOL – FATHER AND SON

The Military Academy

Swen looks over the rabid man in front of him. Dai bears his teeth like a crazed dog, lashing out with any limb that he can as he is gripped from behind by the queen of one of the realms. He inspects his son closely, being unusually proactive in doing so. First he looks to the hair, similar colour to his own, a few shades darker, a trait Swen remembers from Dai's mother. Their eyes are different colours, but Swen notes that they are very similar in shape, in fact, their facial structures do mirror one another rather closely, just like their voices.

Swen doubts the facts no longer. Normally, he would trust his own ability to read someone's mind, but this is a special case, he wants to be certain. The physical similarities between them, the hint of his mother's looks, the fact that Nadia worked out Dai was related to him, this puts it all beyond doubt. This man is his son.

"Nadia, you should be careful, he is using 'strength' as his element, even a royal may struggle to hold him, yep."

"Don't worry Swen, I've got him, there's no way he's going to wriggle free."

Swen reminisces about Dai's mother. They met during a very different part of his life, people used to treat him very differently back then. This was before he volunteered for that crazy experiment, before he was made to look younger. He notices that Dai looks a few years older than he does. Sora's first direct student has a similar stature to what the king had during his early twenties. This is an impressive age to have broken through, far more impressive than when Swen managed to do it.

"You never told me that you had a son," Nadia says to her friend.

"I assumed there was no need to tell you. You worked it out on your own anyway, didn't you?"

"I did. I thought if you wanted to talk to me about it you would have done."

"Thank you, Nadia."

Dai stops struggling for a moment at this display. For years he has wondered how he would react when he met his father, he wondered what he would do with this accumulated rage. Seeing Swen thank Nadia for an act of friendship makes it harder to be so unthinking, so animalistic. This brings home the crushing reality of his father's condition, he is a broken man, but he is still a human being.

Dai clenches his fists once again. "Stop calling me your son. My mother is dead! If it weren't' for you that wouldn't have happened."

"If it weren't for your mother's stupidity it wouldn't have happened."

Dai flails angrily in Nadia's grasp, trying desperately to reach out and hit Swen. However, even with 'strength' as his element, overpowering a royal is almost impossible for someone at his level. It would be years before he would be strong enough to fight either Nadia or Swen head-on. This attack was a stupid emotional outburst, but one that he simply couldn't stop.

"I guess you have a right to know," Swen continues, "I killed your mother myself. I lashed out in anger, I felt exactly how you are feeling now, you shouldn't feel that way. Your mother told me that she had killed you. She told me that she had killed you because you were a reminder of me. I killed her because I felt rage, because I had let you down."

"I don't care what you say," Dai growls, "If you hadn't stood by Furst Jonas, she wouldn't have been so afraid of you. You must have known that she was scared of the empire! You must have known what she would do! You could have read her mind, but you killed her instead, you abandoned my mother!"

Nadia had worked out what Swen was doing at the time. She decided that if Swen wasn't telling her about his private affairs he must have had a reason. Perhaps the woman in his life disliked the emperor and all he stood for. She decided not to interfere, the relationship seemed to be having a good effect on Swen's mood. However, one day they met up and it was clear that he was distraught about something. Once again, she didn't pry, but she knew how difficult the situation must have been if Swen wasn't saying anything. She wonders now if she should have pried into his private life, if she could have, with her incredible foresight, changed the sequence of events for the better.

"Your mother never hated anything, not the empire, not me, not even the emperor. Your mother wasn't capable of hate," Swen explains, "That's why I was attracted to your mother. I read her mind, her thoughts were the purest I had ever heard. When I told her about it, I ended up swearing that I would never look into her mind again. I didn't want to understand her, I wanted to be around her, I wanted to have fun with her. I made her that promise, a promise that I've only ever made to your mother, and to Nadia. That's how your mother lied to me."

"Then you were the one who taught her hate!" Dai counters, "You made her hate the empire. When she desperately sent me to the academy as a child, she did that out of her fear of you. Her thoughts may have been pure when you met, but you corrupted her. This is all your fault!"

Swen wonders if that's true. He wonders exactly what he did to drive such fear into her. He had always tried to keep his life as king away from her. He acted as if he wasn't the king, as if he was just a commoner, he lived a lie for Dai's mother. Did he not act that lie well enough, were the demands of his job so transparent that she could see through him? He kept his promise to her, he enjoyed the surprises, the spontaneity, he enjoyed not understanding her more than anything. Was his own promise the reason that she ended up dying?

"He's certainly a rebel," Nadia notes, "He must get this spirit from his mother, he certainly doesn't get it from you."

Swen nods, "He certainly shares her passion."

"He's been here all along, interned with the one person in the world who could hide him from the two of us. He was raised by Headmaster Muto Sora."

Swen turns his gaze to Nadia. Her 'mind' powers are terrifying, perhaps even more so than his own. Her ability to see through people, to gaze into their very soul practically renders her clairvoyant. Was it she that Dai's mother was so afraid of? Nadia must have known that Dai had been born, she must have worked that out from the emotions he displayed at the time. Would Nadia have looked into the situation; would she have scared Dai's mother into giving him away? Swen watches as Nadia flashes him a look of disappointment. Since she has taken hold of Dai, she has been very delicate, holding him firmly in position but making sure not to hurt him. Swen remembers how much Nadia has done for him, how she has protected him from the other royals, even from the emperor at times. The doubt clears from his mind, there is no way that Nadia would do that to him.

"Muto Sora has been a better father to me than you could ever have been," Dai says angrily as he spits towards Swen.

"Has it been good growing up here?" Swen asks, "Have you known the luxury that your status should afford you? You are a prince, I would have raised you as such. Is that how you have been raised? Have you been treated as your royal blood demands?"

"My mother wouldn't have wanted me to rule over people, to control them, she wanted me to smile and laugh with them," Dai replies, "I was never able to make friends here. I didn't make a single friend all my life, because I was hiding here from you. But that all changed one day, when a man came along so brilliant that even attracted Sora's attention."

"Uzumaki Naruto."

"He was the first person I didn't have to hide from," Dai smiles, "My first friend, and now you want to kill him. So, give it your best shot if that's the kind of man you are. I'm going to try and stop you, because that's the kind of man I am!"

Nadia knows the young man's type well. Truthfully, Swen himself used to be naïve like this, that's why she always had to protect him since he became a royal. The other royals know no mercy, not even towards one another. It was up to her to protect him, to teach him the way the world really works. Idealists see the world as it should be, they blind people with their brilliance, but they are often false prophets. Sometimes, it is better to protect people from an ugly truth than to talk them into confronting it.

"Was his mother a deluded idealist?" Nadia asks.

"Yes, she was."

"What will you do with him Swen, I'll help you matter what your decision."

"I'll take him home I guess," Swen sighs, "He's a prince of my country, perhaps a future king, depending on what happens to me. He should be made to realise how the world works. I have to stop him from targeting the emperor, otherwise he will be executed as well."

Nadia accepts her friend's choice. "Very well."

They're conversation would have been interrupted if they were to care about their surroundings, but Nadia and Swen have no fear of their would-be assailants, not now that Nina and Juan have been taken out of the picture. They both note but ignore the humming and the creation of dozens of small circular grey portals around them. These portals, this tune, it's familiar to the pocket-worlders, to the military, who have suffered at its hands before.

Sarada shivers, 'talk about bad timing'.

Naruto stands alone, away from the other shinobi, away from the captains, the colonels, the generals and the few remaining aristocrats. He turns his head as a portal appears next to him, realising that this may be a quirk of fate, the one turn of destiny that proves to make or break the plan he has to defeat the king and queen.

Naruto turns to face the portal as his son steps through it, alone.

It is Boruto.

"You seem to be in a bit of a bad spot, father."

"Nothing that I can't get out of Boruto, but I would really appreciate some help, if you still consider yourself a shinobi."

"I am a shinobi, a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf Village, that's why I'm here to offer my help," Boruto says before gesturing to the many portals. "These portals go to several different locations, I have people waiting on the other side of them all. The shinobi here can split up, each head through a different one. The royals won't be able to follow all of them. It's not a perfect plan, but it will save most of us."

"And the military?"

"No homeworlders will be allowed to pass through these portals."

Naruto has had a very different experience of homeworld since he arrived in the academy. Every previous experience with a homeworlder has been problematic. He had to save his village from them at the start. Then he had to take on Clyde in the captained-six contest to change his mind. Next Lara came to their world, bearing a grudge for Clyde, she set about wiping yet another pocket-world from the history books only for Mirai to change her outlook. Then came Carmen, who desperately tried to keep them alive by opposing them, patronising them. This academy is the first place where they have been welcomed with open arms, where people embraced him as a friend.

"I'm not going to abandon them Boruto, they are my friends now," Naruto says of the military, "But, on behalf of everyone else, I accept your offer."

Naruto shouts his plan to the shinobi amongst the group, shouting along with an apology to the military who have stayed to fight. He explains that he will be staying here with Clyde, with Lara and with the colonels and generals that supported them, that he will fight with them until the last moment. The plan is accepted with resignation by the members of the military, but the shinobi are not so quick to accept the plan.

Minato teleports to Naruto's side, standing with his son and grandson.

"With respect Naruto, Boruto, the shinobi of the Hidden Leaf will have nothing to do with this plan," he says, "We're not abandoning anyone here, pocket-worlder or homeworlder, we're seeing this through to the end or escaping together."

Boruto remembers one of his darkest days, when he was asked to compete in the captained-six contest. It was a spot destined for his grandfather. When Colonel Martin sent his subordinates to attack the village, they almost killed Minato, they changed the course of the village dramatically. Nobody thought that Boruto was strong enough to fight in that captained-six contest, nobody except Minato. Once the 4th Hokage was his greatest supporter, now he stands across from him as a rival. How things have changed.

"Why must you two be like this?" Boruto asks, "You are stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, your principles will be the death of you."

"Boruto, the people of the Hidden Leaf had two paths to chose from and they chose your father's path," Minato answers, "We will follow him down the path he has carved for us, we will adopt his principles and we will stand by our allies until the end. That's who we are now, that's who I always hoped we would be. That's who I always hoped you would be."

Boruto activates his tenseigan in a rage.

"Your principles are wrong, you should…"

Boruto pauses, his enhanced eyes coming to rest on his father, and he laughs. "Oh, I see. You really are a sly man father. You haven't lost your touch from your younger days I see."

Naruto smiles, Boruto has caught onto his plan. That's something the two of them share, a unique mind for practical jokes. They have a crazy mind for plans, they see ways to do things that other people can't predict. As the two of them have matured as shinobi, they're youth has influenced the way in which they operate in situations like this. They now bury they're true plans under such a wave of superfluous noise that nobody can see it. If they are lucky, perhaps even Queen Nadia won't be able to see it.

Naruto looks back over his shoulder at Dai and King Swen. They are still arguing.

"Boruto, despite everything, do you still consider me your father?"

"Of course I do, I'm fighting to save your life as well, fool."

"Then, you don't have to stay with us going forward, you don't have to change your principles, but if you think of me as your father, please help me through this. Let's pull of one more miracle as a team, then we can go our separate ways."

Minato detects a trace of something in the eyes of his two descendants. He notices the slight chuckles they hide under their breaths. He recognizes a trait the two of them share and he's not quite sure where they inherited from. He recognizes deviousness.

"What miracle?" Minato asks, but he receives no answer.

"Together, we can do this, Nadia and Swen will be defeated," Naruto says, "If Boruto helps us, I'm confident that we will all survive. If he thinks our principles are stupid, then he has to save us from ourselves, right?"

Boruto nods. "Sure, I'll help you this once."

"Right then, it's time for our counter attack."

Boruto whispers something to his grandfather, causing Minato's eyes to light up. He quickly creates a group of clones which spread the message about, saying exactly what they're going to do, what the plan of attack is. Minato is pessimistic even after hearing the plan. It definitely could work, it's not impossible, but it's very unlikely to put them down for the count. He also has to question exactly how Boruto was able to work this plan out without even speaking to Naruto about it, did he glean it from his father's mind just with a mere look.

"It's going to have to be fast," Boruto points out to Naruto.

"I know, I hope you're as good as you used to be."

"Don't insult me father."

Boruto suddenly turns and throws a group of twenty kunai in the direction of Nadia and Swen. The two of them notice the incoming projectiles but decide to ignore them, they're moving fast, but not fast enough to hurt them, even if they do connect. The kunai then transform into rasengan, each of them enhanced by the element of 'death'. Nadia notices that all of the kunai are going to miss, and that concerns her, because someone with this level of power and skill would definitely not miss from this range. She is proven right, Boruto's flying rasengan begin to bounce off invisible surfaces in the air, ricocheting unpredictably as they head for the two royals, a technique he hasn't used for too long now.

"Swen, the boy!" Nadia shouts.

Swen immediately uses his telekinesis powers to throw Dai to a safe range. While the two royals would survive being hit with one of these attacks, his son's odds are far lower. Having cast the prince away, the two royals use their powers of 'psychic' and 'mind' to foresee where the invisible walls will be raised and dodge each of the attacks.

While preoccupied with Boruto's attack, they are approached by a human in comet form, hurtling towards them just as fast as the kunai were moments before. This is Sarada. She transforms out of her comet form at the perfect time, arriving right before Nadia just as Boruto dissipates the 'death' energy that had gathered on his rasengan.

Sarada has been given a golden opportunity to attack freely, so she gathers chakra and divine energy on her hand, creating her close-range version of her father's Indra-Arrow. With all the strength in her body, she strikes forward at Queen Nadia.

Nadia has little time to react as Sarada attacks her, having been focused just a moment before on dodging the attacks of the newcomer with the strange powers. However, with her power, she only needs a fraction of the time Sarada does to react. Nadia throws her hand out to the side, swiping the localized Indra-Arrow from Sarada's hand in the process. With just a swat of her hand, she destroys the most powerful weapon in Sarada's arsenal, just as Sarada had been suspecting.

As Nadia throws a counterpunch towards Sarada, her fist stops somewhat short. It connects with another person, who lets out a cry of pain as he is struck. It is General Clyde, using his concentrated defence to protect the 9th Hokage. Nadia knows that with Clyde's power, there is no way that he could have moved fast enough to intercept her, she looks up to confirm her hypothesis. She is proven right, Ming Dai used his 'strength' powers to throw Clyde into her way with great speed, like throwing a shield.

Boruto begins his run towards King Swen, a 'death' rasengan appearing in his hand.

Swen analyses Boruto, deducing immediately that the young man is one of the strongest shinobi in the group that have attacked him. He decides to take no chances when facing someone so strong, morphing 'psychic' energy into a ball similar to the rasengan and throwing it powerfully towards him.

The speed of the 'psychic' attack is great, so fast that Boruto may not be able to react in time to block it. Boruto doesn't need to block the attack, all part of the plan. The hand of the 4th Hokage touches Boruto on the back as Minato arrives in a flash of gold. The fastest shinobi in play at the moment, Minato throws a kunai forward just quick enough, watching as it passes Swen's 'psychic' attack.

At the moment the kunai and the ball of energy pass one another, Minato teleports himself and his grandson forward, gripping the kunai and avoiding the potentially fatal ball of energy.

As Nadia's blow knocks Clyde away, another of the Hokage joins the fray. The air swirls behind the queen's back as the 6th Hokage activates his kamui power. From the gap between dimensions a pair of hands emerge and grip Nadia on her back, these are the hands of the 2nd Hokage.

Sarada tries once again to attack Queen Nadia with her close-range Indra-Arrow, focusing as much 'creation' energy into the attack as she can and letting her arm fly. 'Make it look really good Sarada,' she thinks to herself as she closes her eyes and prays for the best.

Boruto continues to rush towards Swen, his grandfather's hand on his back. Green energy clouds his body as he enters tenseigan chakra mode and pulls his hand back to punch the king as hard as he can.

Nadia still recognises that Sarada's attack wouldn't do that much damage to her but decides to respect it anyway. She swats the attack away once again, making it look far easier than it actually is, and readies herself for a counterattack. Nadia strikes towards Sarada as hard as she can, determined that this time not even a concentrated defence would get in her way.

Minato pushes his grandson on and watches for the right moment, his eye on both battles at once. Swen snickers for a split second before kicking towards Boruto, surely with a blow powerful enough to remove the shadow Hokage's head from his shoulders. Just as planned.

They made the mistake of underestimating shinobi.

Minato and Tobirama work in conjunction, using the flying thunder god technique to swap the positions of the two people they are connected to.

Suddenly, Nadia appears where Boruto was, right in front of Swen!

The two royals strike one another with the full force at their disposal, shattering bones and shaking the ground beneath their feet. For the first time since this battle began, Nadia and Swen absorb a blow that truly does some damage.

Minato quickly removes his hand from Nadia's shoulder and teleports to Tobirama's side, to safety.

"Go on you two," Tobirama shouts at the 9th Hokage and her shadow Hokage.

In Sarada's left hand, a familiar electric wailing symbolises the creation of a chidori, emblazoned with 'creation' energy.

In Boruto's right hand, a swirling sound demonstrates the creation of a rasengan, empowered with 'death' energy.

"Go," Naruto says with a nostalgic smile.

Boruto and Sarada stand aside one another, fighting as allies for the first time since that fateful night that the village was invaded. With chidori and rasengan in hand, they strike at the king and queen while they are weak, attacking with all the remaining power that they can summon.

There is a relatively small detonation and a small shockwave as the former partners lash out at their rivals.

However, compared to the damage Nadia and Swen dealt to one another, it has barely any effect.

Nadia groans, "That was really clever, realising that only we could hurt each other, but you haven't tricked me, I know something is wrong."

Swen tilts his head, "It is?"

Nadia looks over at Naruto, still stood alone. "If they were trying to beat us with that attack, Uzumaki would have delivered it himself. I need to find out more about these shinobi, or I will never be able to predict their actions."

Naruto bursts into a cloud of smoke, demonstrating the unknown technique that Nadia quite rightly feared. This Uzumaki Naruto was a shadow clone.

Boruto smiles, this is what he realised with the tenseigan.

"My work here is done," Boruto says to his Hokage, "It's been a pleasure fighting alongside you once again Sarada."

The two of them share an awkward gaze. It was fun, fighting together again. It wasn't too long ago that they thought that's how they would spend the rest of their lives. It seems that fate wasn't so kind to them, that circumstances would set them down opposite paths that could never coincide. Now, the chances are, they won't reunite until this rebellion is over, or they die.

Boruto turns to one of the many portals that his allies opened and walks through it. The background humming noise disappears, along with the portals, as he steps away from his temporary allies, and assumes his status as their rival once again.

Sarada uses her rinnegan, now keen to answer the obvious question. Where is the real Naruto?

Naruto is stood amongst a cloud of 'life' energy. Contained within that cloud are Lara, Nina and Juan, now all fully healed after their injuries. This is yet another thing that Nadia had failed to take into her calculations. Those injuries would have been fatal for hundreds of years. Only a 'life' user could have saved them and it's been a long time since she's had to consider that possible.

Juan limps forward to act.

"Thank you Naruto, this victory will be thanks to you."

Juan's entire body starts shining in a brilliant light green divine energy. The pocket-worlders have never seen this happen before, they have never seen this much divine energy summoned, concentrated in the same spot. Most of the military have never seen this technique either, such is it's rarity and complexity. Nadia and Swen have witnessed it just recently though. This is the same way Carmen went out, Juan is going to detonate his divine core.

When Carmen did this the explosion was large. Juan is only a level below them, such a self-detonation could possibly kill even the two of them.

"Swen, your son and Uzumaki!" Nadia yells as she leaps backwards away from the danger zone.

Swen leaps into action, using telekinesis to pull both Ming Dai and Naruto away from Juan as quickly as he can. Together with the two of them and Nadia, he pulls back, anticipating a blast that will kill everyone else in the academy. This is going to be big.

But it doesn't go how they predicted.

Juan doesn't explode, he implodes.

Everyone is fine.

Nadia and Swen grind to a halt.

Nina approaches the spot where Juan disappeared, lowering her head and mumbling some words under her breath. Those in close proximity can hear her whispers.

"Thank you for everything Juan, rest in peace."

Sarada looks at the spot where her teacher disappeared. Just like that he died. He was so powerful, someone who could fight against the generals of the imperial guard, someone who helped to save the academy and their lives. He taught her how to use the future sight technique, to fight with foresight that she hadn't dreamed of previously. Despite his constant drinking, he had perhaps the most sober demeanour of them all, and he sacrificed himself, for what?

Did his death accomplish nothing?

As Nina glares ferociously at Nadia and Swen, the 'mind' using queen rolls her eyes.

"Oh no," Nadia groans, "It did work."

"Don't worry kids," Nina shouts to Dai and Naruto, "Everything will be alright now."

Swen tries to wrap his mind around what has happened, which Nadia has clearly done already. His friend looks worried, she has broken into a nervous sweat, but why? Juan was a user of 'space' energy, someone of tremendous power, his detonation should have been enormous? Then it hits him. When someone detonates their core, they can mobilise a tremendous amount of divine energy all at once, but that doesn't necessarily have to be unleashed in an attack. In theory, that energy could be used for other purposes. Naruto could use 'life' energy to heal anyone in a ten mile radius if he detonated his core. Sarada could probably create another academy with her 'creation' power.

So, what has Juan used his 'space' energy for.

Then he gets it. Of course, he used it to bring that old man here.

Once more, divine energy flares, drawing the gazes of the many people inside the military academy. This time, the energy is coming from outside the academy walls, but it is approaching fast! The energy is approaching just as fast as Nadia and Swen move, a royal level source of divine energy.

The ground begins to shake and dust bursts through the doors and windows of the military academy as three successive booms send shockwaves throughout the building. Someone is charging in, breaking through the academy walls.

That individual breaks through the final wall and with a burst of incredible speed, dashes to the centre of the clearing Nadia and Swen have made.

Of course, only he could have made Nadia this nervous.

The new arrival turns to face the two royals and speaks.

"Those two are my students, I would unhand them if I were you."

Clyde lets himself fall backwards, laying on the ground and relaxing for the first time since Nadia and Swen arrived. He lets out a tremendous cry, spreading hope to the shinobi and military that call him a leader.

"It's the headmaster!"

A cheer travels through the allied group from different worlds. Headmaster Sora has returned to help them. Now, it finally feels like everything is going to be alright. Naruto watches still gripped by King Swen and in a dangerous predicament. Now the situation has been turned completely on it's head. The man who served with Furst and Akashi in the war is here. That doesn't guarantee victory though, not against Nadia and Swen, but the odds are a lot better than before.

King Swen.

Queen Nadia.

Headmaster Sora.

Just how will this play out?