~ Authors Note ~
Part II
Here we go with the second part of this, I'm thinking that there will be more than just two parts because of the ideas that I have, however, this will not be a long series. Anyways, be sure to favorite this and comment below.
By the time I returned to the mansion, it way after bedtime for Himawari and me. The sky was dark with smokey gray clouds, the air has a chill to it that sends shivers up my spine, and the full moon overhead is only adding to the eerie feelings. The streets of Konaha are nearly empty with only a few stragglers out and about, the sketchy kind of people that Mom always tells my sister and me to stay away from.
Luckily Dad's not home, wait... has he even been coming home? I can't recall anytime lately that he's actually been here, now that I know about his love for Sarada's mother, it make sense why. Maybe that's why he's never coming home before, Mom always told us it was because he was busy being Hokage, but what if it was really because he was sneaking around behind Mom's back with Sakura-sama?
My blood begins to boil. So help me, if that's the truth, I-I-I'll— I don't even know what the hell I'll do. Doesn't matter to me if he's the hokage or not, the jinchuriki of Kurama, and one of the most powerful shinobi to ever live. If he did that, I'll kick his ass across this village. And that's a promise.
One good thing about him not being home is that it's easier to sneak up into the window of my bedroom without alerting anyone of my entrance. Being the troublemaker has its perks, learning how to move silently in the dead of night happens to be one of them. The sight that greets me is not what I'm expecting. Sitting on my bed with her knees pulled up to her chest is Himawari.
Her eyes are puffy and red from crying and she looks like she hasn't gotten any sleep. And I left her all alone to deal with the reality... Damn, what a shitty big brother I am. Moving next to her, I take a seat on my bed as she buries her face in my chest.
"Hey..." I try, making my voice as calm and soothing as possible. "What's the matter Hima-chan?"
"M-mommy and Daddy are, they're not gonna be together anymore... We're not a family anymore. Bolt," she looks up at me, blue eyes like Dad's that are tearing me to shreds as they plead with me to give her something that I can't. "Tell me it not true, that it's a joke."
I wish it was...
"N-no, I can't say that, you know I can't say that. Lying isn't going to make this better and I can't tell you something that we both know isn't true Hima..." I hear the shakiness in my voice, hating every moment of weakness. I have to be strong for Himawari. She needs someone to cry to, a pillar of strength and to her, that person is me.
"Nothing's going to be the same again, is it Bolt?" she sounds so broken, so defeated. Himawari sounds just like me, negative at the world and seeing something that her sweet innocence should be spared. I never wanted her to be like me, I wanted her to stay pure.
"No... no it isn't."
A minute later her breathing evens out, she's fallen asleep on me. smiling to myself, I carefully pick her up and carrying her to her bedroom. Tucking her snugly beneath the lavender blanket and making sure her stuffed fox in in the bed with her.
Slipping out of the house in the morning, I let Himawari sleep and don't even let Mom know I was ever home. How can she be in love with Sasuke? I remember being told all my life by everyone that she only ever had eyes for my father. Kiba-san and Shino-sensei who were on the same team as her were always telling me how she'd faint and blush and stutter whenever Dad was around. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Just as I round the corner at the training grounds, I see Sarada sitting down in the middle. A distant look on her face as she watches the clouds overhead, she's probably miles away from here.
"Daydreaming much?" I ask, biting back a laugh when Sarada almost jumps ten feet in the air.
"Bolt..." she glares at me, clenching her fist.
"Sorry Sarada, I didn't mean to startle you, I just saw you thinking about something and I wanted to check on you."
When her glare fades, I notice the dark purple bags under her eyes. The way her mouth is set in a permanent frown, how she seems to be dragging herself around by force. She didn't get any sleep either. I tried to get some sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, I'd remember the discussion we had and then the face off with Orochimaru.
"I know, it's just..." she shakes her head. "Complicated. And then I've been thinking on what he said last night. Do you think we should, I mean, are we acting a little rash about this?"
Shooting her a look, I sigh. "You're asking the wrong person."
"But what if—" she didn't get to finish because the sound of someone shouting our names caught our attention. Turning, I see Konohamaru-sensei running towards us with Mitsuki in tow who opted to walk instead.
"What is it Sensei?" Sarada asks, moving so she's standing beside me. One hand resting on her hip while the other hangs loosely at her side.
A smile is the response we got. "The Hokage has a mission for us."
Immediately my whole body goes rigid and all my nerves are on fire, like I've been hit by a lightning bolt. Ironic. Seems Sarada had the same reaction as the color in her face has been flushed out.
Konohamaru-Sensei glance back and forth between us, feeling the tension I guess. "What's the matter? I figured you'd be excited."
"N-nothing, we just hadn't expected any assignments. That's all, right Bolt?" she nudges me with her elbow.
I nodded.
Everything after is a bit of a blur, Sarada and me following behind out team leader and Mitsuki. I remember passing the shops and seeing all the people, but it was like random images to recall and not a full scene. Inside the office is where I feel like I'm suffocating. Da— I mean, Lord Seventh sits at his desk with mountains of paperwork piled high to the ceiling almost.
He says something when he sees us, I can hear anything over my pounding heart. By trying to read his lips, I think I know what it was.
Ah Konohamaru, how have you been?
Friendly reunions as always before jumping into a more serious matter. I can feel the hokage's eyes on me, but I keep my eyes directed at the mountain of hokage's faces behind him instead. He's probably still thinking about what I said yesterday. Maybe I should have kept that one thought to myself, oh well, too late now.
I'm not a fool who doesn't notice the way his gaze lingers after every sentence is said, the way he seems to be pleading me to talk to him. Keeping my expression calm and collected, I act like an other shinobi and not like the hokage's son. After Lord Seventh's finished telling us about this simple point a to point b transport mission we are dismissed and just as I'm about to leave, he calls for me.
"Bolt..." he pauses. "Can I get a word?"
Biting back a sigh, I close the door again and turn to face the orange hokage.
"Absolutely Lord Seventh," my voice light but not to emotionally connected to the words. I don't fail to notice the way his eyebrow shifts up in a confused way, of how he seems to learn forward in his chair. We had a fight once about me addressing him as Lord Seventh in front of people instead of calling him Dad and I refused. He was my Dad and I had every right to call him that and now that I'm calling him by his title, especially after what happened last night... It's suspicious.
"Boruto, about what you said yesterday..."
All my walls fly up immediately. This is the last thing I want to discuss. "There are far more important things for you to be worrying about at the moment than some silly child's ramblings Lord Seventh, it's nothing."
He rises from his chair, about to argue, when the door open and Shikamaru-sama, the hokage's adviser walks in. This is my chance to escape this situation and I don't hesitate to take it. Slipping from the office before Lord Seventh can protest.
The first thing I notice are the plain white cribs sitting on each side of the black void of a room. Wails erupt from them, their cries shattering my eardrums as the sound bounces off the voids walls. Then I see Sakura-sama walking towards the crib to my right while my mother walks to the crib on the left. Each reaching into the crib for the crying infants.
"Isn't he just the cutest thing?" she asks, looking up at the man who appears beside he suddenly. My father at her side, Hokage robes and all. Dad flashes high signature grin the takes up his whole face.
"Yeah of course, he is my son after all."
I catch a glimpse of the child's face, a pudgy little thing with strands of pink hair on its forehead and two trademark whiskers on each cheek. Dad and Sakura-sama get snuggly together as the look over their new infant they that they had together. A cooing shifts my attention to the baby in my own Mom's arms. Small and pudgy too with strands of black hair falling around his eyes. As Sasuke-san looks on with a smile grazing his lips.
Two little baby boys, each of them are my parents children. My half-siblings. The one born into this new development unlike the ones before. Sarada and Himawari appear in the middle with me as Mom and Sauke-san and Dad and Sakura-sama are slowly distancing themselves farther and farther away from us. As if we have some sort of disease.
This is what the future will be like for us...
I'm awaken at the academy to violent shaking from Sarada who looks panicked. When she sees my eyes open, she releases her grip on my jacket and begins to rub the inside of her thumb. She looks like she wants to ask me something, but before I can ask what it is, she asks it.
"Did you have the same dream as me?"
"You mean about the... and their?" I trail off, raising an eyebrow her way.
She subtly nods.
"Wait..." I glance around. "When the hell did I fall asleep out here?"
"I don't know, it's just when I saw you lying here I had to ask you." She looks over her shoulder. "What do you think it means Bolt?"
"How am I supposed to know? I'm an idiot remember?"
"Your dad and my mom..." she trails off. "I already knew that he'd had a thing for her when they were young but... Does that mean he never loved your mother? They were together for years and you're mother loved him her whole life? And what about us, if they don't love each other and we're the product of said other... Is it ridiculous to ask if they still love us?"
"Not at all children, it's a perfectly valid question in a situation so complex," a voice sounds to our right. Darting up, I turn to see Orochimaru standing at the tree line with his all-knowing smirk plastered like the Hokage faces on the mountain. "Have you reached a decision?"
Looking to Sarada, she gives me the okay.
"Yes, we have."
Sarada and I cross the threshold to stand before one of the legendary sannin. A moment of doubt washes over me. Is this really the most reasonable decision to take? What about Himawari? She'll be all alone if I go with him... Can I really push the thoughts of my sister away and leave her behind like some distant memory of a past that no longer exists. Guilt is the next feeling to crush me.
Guilt for doing this to my family—or that shattered remains of my family in all the bits in pieces that remain of it. Sorrow for loosing the life I'd once had here in Konoha where all my friends are. The lessons I've learned about being a ninja and a shinobi from Sasuke-San, before he had feelings for my mother. This feels like some kind of trick, like a dream. However, instead of waking up from a nightmare, it's my reality.
I'm sorry Mother... and Himawari for being such a terrible older brother... and even to Father, the Seventh Hokage and friend to all for not being able to be someone worthy of being your son
This is just something I have to do...
The door to the home of the soon-to-be-ex wife of the Seventh Hokage slams open in a wild frenzy. Standing behind the door with wide blue eyes filled to the brim with panic stood a little girl about nine years old with short dark blue hair that fanned out at the side, and two whisker marks on her cheeks. She was breathing heavily, as though she'd run the entire way. Which she had.
"Mommy!" she shouts with all her might. Footsteps down the stair and standing before her was the to-be Hinata Uchiha with her shoulder length hair tied back in a ponytail. Dressed in an apron over her lavender jacket.
"What's the matter Hima-chan?" the former Hyuga's voice nothing but soft sweetness.
"I-I-I, it was..." the little girl was waving her arms frantically, trying to articulate what she was saying. Her mind was a jumbled mess and she couldn't seem to form a coherent thought.
"Sweetie, calm down and tell me what's the matter."
Himawari takes a deep breath to collect herself before saying, "It's Bolt and Sarada!"
Hinata blinks twice at that. "What about them?"
"I saw Bolt was asleep on the academy grounds and I was going to surprise him, but Sarada showed up and they were taking, but I was too far away and couldn't hear the words. Then this man with real pale skin showed up and Bolt and Sarada just walked off with him. A total stranger!"
Pale man...? Hinata thought, confused. Seeking more information about this so called stranger, she decides to ask more details. "Himawari, tell me what this man look like, exactly."
"Okay, uh... He was tall, a lot taller than Bolt and he had these purple upside down, curved triangles under his eyes. Oh! And his eyes were a gold-ish color, kind of like a snakes eyes..." she rubbed the back of her head awkwardly.
Kind of like snake eyes... Hinata flipped through her metal list of people who may fit that description when suddenly, it came to her. Her eyes widened and a gasp of horror escaped her lips. There's only one person to fit that. Orochimaru!
"Himawari lets go right now," Hinata grabs her youngest child arm, lightly tugging her out the door and in close proximity as they nearly are running to the Seventh Hokage's office.
"Mommy, what's wrong? Are Bolt and Sarada going to be okay?"
"If your description is right, your brother and Sarada are in a lot of danger and we need to go tell your father about it immediately..." she tried to spare her daughter of the more horrifying possibilities.
"I thought he wasn't my daddy anymore..." Himawari mutters, looking down at her shoes sadly.
Hinata stops to look at her daughter, surprised that she would even think that— wait. If she thinks that, then what do Boruto and Sarada think? Both of them were older that Himawari and they were ninja, but they were still only twelve years old kids and now their parents are divorcing and their families are breaking up.
Did they join Orochimaru because they thought that Naruto and Sasuke weren't their father anymore, that they weren't loved?
Or was it something deeper? Hinata shakes her head, they'll have to deal with the kids emotional states later, right now she needs to make sure that they don't leave the village with that madman.
"Listen to me, no matter what happens between your father and me, he is still your father. Nothing in this whole wide world can change that and he's not disappearing from you and Bolt's life just because he's in love with Sakura-Sama and I have some feelings for Sasuke-Kun. His love for the both of you is unconditional and not situational, do you understand?"
"Yeah," Himawari brightens as she looks up at her mother. "So Daddy is still Daddy, not matter what?"
Hinata smiles at her. "Yes, no matter what."