Chapter 5

The clones of acidic black smoke – or whatever they truly are – rush down the hallway as the dust of the wall she just destroyed dissipates. Sarada's throat tightens with fear, but she does not let it paralyze her. She screams it all out: her rage, her determination. Then she charges towards them with her first raised and her weapons ready.

This is how a good shinobi fights. She stops thinking; she simply focuses on fighting. She stops being an individual and becomes an efficient battle machine. No more personal feelings: no more self-pity, no more fear, no more longing for her village, her family and her friends. For now, nothing but killing these clones and getting out of here matters. Nothing but saving her own self matters. She refuses to wait to be rescued, like a damsel in distress. She can do this. She is autonomous, and smart, and capable, and-

"Well, took you long enough, little Uchiha!"

The sound of that man's terrible voice runs a shiver down her spine. She punches the last two clones and spins around to face him. He stands at the other end of the hallway, his arms opened wide and his grin wicked and blood-thirsty. He has gone back to his original form; he is not disturbingly gigantic and muscular anymore. But now that she has seen what he is really capable of, she cannot help but feel deeply intimidated.

He drops his arms slowly and relaxes his grin so that he looks downright eerie now. "I admire your courage to try to escape," he says. "However, you are being foolish. It is simply impossible to escape, little girl. Can't you see?" He motions around them: at the destroyed cell, the low ceiling, the gray walls, the darkness, the musky scent in the air. "We are underground. You have to get out of here first to go back home. And to do that, you will have to go through me... and through my people."

Sarada stops breathing as the shadows behind him shift and materialize into several clones. She wonders how he does all this: create clones from shadows, drastically change his body, manipulate more than one element at a time. She doesn't see him weaving signs. Is this some sort of peculiar kekkei genkai? What clan could this man be from? Certainly not one from Konoha. He barely looks human, though. Maybe that'd explain why he is powerful enough to beat the three Neo-Sannin, something no one else has ever managed. Could he be from the space, like those enemies two years ago? Or a descendant of a god or goddess like Kaguya? Or related to the tailed beasts?

"Who are you?" she demands, clenching her fists, turning her terrifying uncertainty into fury. "Why do you want my Sharingan?"

The man simply bursts out laughing, showing off all his sharp, yellow teeth.

"Answer me!"

Slowly, his laughter dies out. All amusement vanishes from his expression: there is nothing but boredom and, perhaps, sadness.

"My name is Eien," he answers at last, tone suddenly softer. "I am glad you care to ask. I am glad you are actually interested. People usually aren't."

Sarada grimaces with confusion, but she cannot say anything, for he continues speaking.

"I, like your father, once lost everything. My family, my future, my humanity. But unlike your father, I was utterly alone, with no one to save me from myself. Do not pity me for that, though. There is nothing wrong with being lost in your own darkness forever. It means you are stronger than everyone else. It means you can survive anything."

Sarada feels all the strength leave her limbs as she realizes that this is how her father could have ended up if he had not had the Nanaidame and Mama. Again, that familiar feeling comes: fear; fear of the person he was once, and of losing Papa, or losing herself. Papa had a curse, his whole clan did, and she might have it too. What if she, unlike Papa but like Eien, ends up alone, with nobody to save her from herself?

"This is where my darkness has taken me," Eien is saying. "I have all this power already thanks to it – but I want more, also thanks to it. I need more. I need that ultimate power I once read about in some ancient scriptures of my extinct clan. This power will not only make me the most power being in the planet; it will also give me immortality, make me eternal! But to achieve it, I need to have all three doujutsus. As you see, I have two of them, and now I only need yours."

He wants her Sharingan, the main trait of her cursed clan? A tiny voice in her head screams that, fine, maybe he should have it. Maybe she does not want nor need to be an Uchiha anymore. Maybe that can save her from the curse...

Blinded by fear, unaware of her mistaken thoughts, she hesitates and almost takes a step forward, but what he says next makes her halt.

"Do you understand now, Sarada? Be a smart girl and understand that it is impossible to escape from me. And be a kind girl; allow me my ultimate power. Surrender to me!"

At such words, anger spontaneously revives her body and makes her blood boil. "How dare you," she growls, "ask me to surrender?"

Eien frowns, seeing that his coaxing has failed to work on her.

"Who do you think I am?" she continues, stepping forward, but now for a different reason. "Don't you know who my parents are? Don't you know I will become Hokage one day? I am not a passive, obedient little girl. I just can't give up, Eien; it is not in my genes to give up!"

As she directs her fist to the ground, one single thought flashes in her mind: in spite of her clan's curse or her doubts or anything else, she carries the will of fire, and all she has to be strong, like her parents, in order to survive.

Naruto, Mitsuki and Boruto jump through the portal and land on a strange land where the sky is dark despite the presence of a sun. This sun is not like the one they know; it is fainter, white, like a moon, but not quite. And this land is a wasteland: there is nothing but mountains, rocks, boulders, and dust all around. No plans, no buildings, nothing. It reminds Boruto of the land where they fought two years ago, but even more desolating.

"Where are the Uchihas?" Mitsuki asks, and in that moment, they spot Sasuke and Sakura walking towards them.

"There is nothing in the perimeter," Sasuke is telling the Nanaidame. He seems composed again, although there is an opaque layer on his mismatched eyes, like an old sadness that had been there concealed all this time, but that was now revealed to the world, with no shame or restrain. "We can't sense a single presence aboveground."

"Aboveground?" Naruto repeats.

"We sense something underground," Sakura says, "but we are not certain it's them. The presences are too faint, too far from here. They must be several feet underground or somehow concealed. Clearly, he does not want us to find them, but we can."

Naruto sighs and nods thoughtfully. "I see. We got to get down there, then. But how?"

Just then, Sasuke looks at Boruto and Mitsuki. His eyes remain on the former for a longer time. His stare is so unusually intense that Boruto cannot hold it for longer than three seconds.

"Uh, yeah, sorry I brought them," Naruto says with an awkward smile. "It's just that - they are her teammates, you know? They want to help. And I promise I will take care of them, so don't wo-"

"It's okay, Naruto," Sakura says, smiling softly. "Us three would have done the exact same thing back in the days."

Boruto smiles at Sarada's mother's kindness.

"Besides," Sasuke says, snatching his attention, "I think I know exactly how they can help."

Sarada has been running down dark, narrow corridors for what feels like hours. She keeps turning right, again and again, and when it doesn't get her anywhere, she starts turning left, again and again. But that doesn't get her anywhere, either. She still can't find an exit, or anything else that isn't darkness, and gray walls, and damp, suffocating air. It is like she is in a labyrinth. She is growing desperate, terrified.

And the voices, the steps, are still right behind her. And she hears more by the minute: the shadows appear to be multiplying. And every now and then, Eien's voice stands out from the other noises, screaming, "I'll get you, little girl! Your eyes will be mine! Stop wasting our time! You are mine!"

Abruptly, Sarada stops, presses her back to the wall, digs her nails on her palm, and closes her eyes tightly. She breathes – in, out, in, out, in... Calm down. She needs to calm down. She can't breathe, she can't speak, she can't move. This is panic, and it's not helping at all.

"Saraaadaaa!"

They are getting closer. But what is she supposed to do now? She already tried to fight them, and all she got from that was exhaustion. The shadows just duplicate, effortlessly, and though they aren't big opponents, they are wearing her out, which is exactly their plan. If she lets them do that, she will be too tired to fight Eien when he finally decides to do so – which is also exactly their plan. So no, she can't keep fighting them. That's why she started running. But that isn't any more helpful. She is just running around like a trapped mouse, also just wearing herself out. It's pointless. It's all damn pointless.

She is trapped here.

Gasping, she sinks to the ground. Her knees have grown weak; she just can't move. All she can hear now is the frantic thumping of her heart. Panic – it's turned her useless. What kind of shinobi lets that happen? She's such a failure, such a failure...

They are on the same corridor now, on the opposite end. Without her Sharingan, Sarada can barely see their blurry silhouettes in the darkness. They aren't moving nor making a sound, just watching her. Mocking her with their silence, a silence of victory. She leans her head against the wall, feeling dizzier by the second. The figure in the front of the crowd, surely Eien, takes a step forward, and she shuts her eyes, overpowered by the peace of surrender.

Suddenly, there is an explosion, but it is far from here; it is aboveground. It startles her back into consciousness, keeps her from fainting. She looks up at the ceiling, as if she could see anything. She can't, but she can sense it. Sense them.

"Papa! Mama!"

In an instant, their presences get stronger, closer, and relief washes over her like a wave of fresh water on her burning body.

"Well," Eien says, "this just got more annoyingly interesting."

They created one hole first. Naruto's rasengan enveloped in Sasuke's chidori got far, but not far enough. Then, down that hole, they sent Boruto's rasengan. That one truly worked. It penetrated the ground, reaching deeper than any other attack would have due to its special nature, just as Sasuke expected. He cannot help but secretly feel proud of his student. He might reward him later with an extra lesson on shuriken.

The rasengan created an opening, through which they can clearly sense his daughter's chakra, along with that psycho's and his clones'. They're all down there, Sarada on her own, and all those pieces of shit trying to harm her... The simple thought is making his blood boil. The only thing that is keeping him composed is the knowledge that his daughter is there, still alive, and they are going to save her soon.

Sakura efficiently widens the opening with her fist in order for everyone to get through it. Once it's done, Sasuke moves desperately, ahead of everyone else. He just wants all of this to end already. He wants to kill that bastard, make sure his existence is completely vanished from this world, make him suffer before mercilessly obliterating him. Then, he wants to have his daughter in his arms and run back to the village, get her inside their house, keep her safe, keep her safe and sound forever. He does not want this ugly world to ever get its hands on her again. She doesn't deserve it. She deserves happiness and safety and all the good things he lacked when he was her age. It is all he wants, more than he wants to be alive.

The hole ends right above a corridor. Sasuke stops there, as the others land on the ground behind him. Sharingan and Rinnegan on, he looks around, inspects his surroundings: low ceilings, no lights, humid air, the scent of dust... This is like a dungeon. He can't believe his daughter was kept here for hours.

"They're that way," Naruto says, pointing to the right end of the corridor. Sasuke can barely see him or the others in the dark; he can only hear and sense him, and see his blurry silhouette.

"Uh, I think it's actually that way," Mitsuki pipes in, pointing to the opposite side.

Sasuke turns to Sakura. He catches her gaze, green and brighter than anything in this darkness, and sees the doubt in it. She is also not sure which way it is. Briefly, Sasuke wishes he had brought with him a sensor, someone who would get them to their daughter quickly and efficiently. But there is no turning back now; they are here, and they need to move.

Just as he is about to propose they should split up into two groups, they hear a scream.

"Papa! Mama!"

It's to the left, then.

He starts running before his mind even commands his body.

The corridors are eternal despite the fact that Sasuke is running at his full speed, leaving the others several steps behind. He just can't seem to get there soon enough. He wants to be there right now, grab his daughter, destroy the enemy, and take her as far as he can, back home, back into safety. Such desperation, such powerlessness and urgency – it is making his heart race and constrict.

All he can think about is that time, eight years ago, when he felt something pretty similar. It was not as intense as what he feels now, only because his daughter had not been taken, had only been in danger of it. He remembers being in a far off dimension, still looking for traces of Kaguya, and suddenly and inexplicably having a bad feeling. It worried him, which he found unreasonable, yet he decided to listen to his gut. He exited the dimension and began traveling south, towards Konoha.

Not even an hour later, a messenger slug reached him with a single message. His stomach sank. He knew immediately that good news couldn't be this urgent.

"Sasuke-sama! There's an emergency regarding Sarada!"

No more words needed to be uttered. Sasuke immediately began running, at full speed, just as he is now. He was several miles away, almost already out of the Fire country, yet he arrived to the village in less than half an hour, out of breath not from running, but from having his racing heart right in his throat.

He barged in through his house's door and found Sakura sitting on the floor, with Sarada's small body in her arms. The house was a mess: broken furniture, scattered papers, holes in the walls. In a distant corner of the living room lay three dead bodies, their bones visibly shattered, undoubtedly by Sakura's ruthless fists.

"What..." He could not even finish the question. All he could see now was the green glow of his wife's hands upon their daughter's pale face, and the limpness of the little girl's body, and the blood on Sakura's dress and hair, and the tears running down her pale cheeks.

"She's alive," Sakura said in a trembling voice, not taking her eyes off their daughter. "But they... did something, to her eyes, before I... I couldn't... in time..."

Sasuke took a few steps and dropped to his knees in front of his family, his only family. He felt light-headed, as if he were about to faint. He wanted to scream, to cry, to murder, but his body was unresponsive, numb. He could only put his arm around his wife's shoulders and silently watch her heal their child.

"They wanted her eyes," Sakura told him later, when Sarada was put to bed, with only a slight fever, and they had calmed down. "I don't know why, or who they even are, but I'm sure they came for her eyes, Sasuke-kun. They're valuable, word is spreading about it, and these men tried to steal them."

When his wife had finally fallen asleep at the edge of their daughter's bed, Sasuke cleaned up the house, got rid of the bodies, and went to talk to Naruto about reinforcing security on Sarada. Afterwards, when he came home, Sakura, puffy-eyed and pale, was waiting for him in the living room with a cup of tea and a tired yet welcoming smile.

They sat on the broken couch, her head on his shoulder and his eyes closed as her familiar scent enveloped him. "I didn't see it coming. Sarada got home from school only minutes before I came back from the grocery store. They were already here, waiting. That's why they had time to... to hurt her. I'm so sorry-"

"No," he said, pressing his cheek to her forehead, "don't be. You saved her. It is all my fault. I should have been here to protect, Sakura, to keep them from laying a finger on her. God, I would have never left if I'd known this could happen..."

"But I promised you to protect her. I promised you she would be safe and you didn't have to worry. I have failed you."

"No, you haven't. You did all you could. It was I who failed, because I left it all to you." He put the tea away and pulled her against his chest with his sole arm. "I can't go again, Sakura. I can't let this happen again"

She looked up at him with sad, desperate eyes. "You must go, Sasuke. Your mission is important. We all need you."

"But our daughter is more important, and she needs me more."

"Darling..." Her eyes filled with tears again. "We took a decision three years ago. Don't forget the purpose of it all. Remember what I told you then?"

He nodded and quoted softly, "'You ought to protect her future. Leave her present in my hands.'"

"This will never happen again," she promised. "I will protect her present, even better now, until you come back."

That night, he stayed in the village. He made love to his wife, slept for a couple of hours, and left at sunrise. For the next years, whenever he felt the urge to go back to stay, he remembered what she told him then. She was right, as always: their child's future was his responsibility, while hers was her present. And he trusted her completely, more than he trusted himself.

She kept her promise. Something of the sort never happened again. That incident costed them their daughter's eyesight, but thanks to Sakura's healing abilities, Sarada only needed a pair of glasses to go back to normal. A shinobi with glasses, let alone an Uchiha, was not ideal, but Sasuke cared only about her wellbeing and her happiness. While Sakura protected them from the inside, he did it from outside the village by investigating anyone that could be interested in stealing his child's eyes, and then killing them efficiently, which is why the investigation of Kaguya took him a little more time.

After that time, nobody harmed their daughter again – until now.

Eien summons twice the clones. They crowd the narrow corridor, serving as an obstacle between Sarada and her rescuers. She loathes him deeply right then; she wants to scream at him to leave her alone, please leave her alone, she doesn't want to suffer, she is so exhausted, she wants her parents, her village, her peace. But she is too weakened to even utter a word. When she finally glimpses the silhouettes of her rescuers – Papa's tall figure, next to Mama's shorter, and then the Hokage with his cape, and two other figures with spiky hair, her teammates – she can only sigh with gratitude.

Maybe this will finally be over soon.

"Oh, so you found us!" Eien screams, sounding both angry and delighted.

"Give me back my daughter, you rotten piece of-"

Her mother interrupts her own furious sentence with a punch towards the first row of clones in her way. The walls and the floor shake, and Sarada smiles faintly, both scared and proud of her monstrous strength.

"You don't scare me, woman," Eien says casually, unaffected. "Your fancy marks, your apprenticeship with a former Hokage, your big punches – they are meaningless, because I know your weakness."

Out of a sudden, he teleports, appearing right behind Sarada. She lets out a gasp and freezes when she feels his cold fingers around his throat, his long nails tangling with her hair, and his foul breath against her shoulder. "I have it right in my hands," he laughs maniacally.

Mama growls again, punches again, but Eien is unfazed. He keeps laughing, as if enjoying this, like a lion playing with his preys before devouring them.

Then, two voices scream in unison, "Rasengan!"

There is a flash of light, against which she closes her eyes. Eien's grip on her neck disappears a moment after, and she senses his presence, and her heart tumbles with joy, before she even hears his voice behind her, behind Eien.

"Not for long," Papa says, and then there is a sizzling sound, like a thousand birds screaming, and Eien joins them with his own scream of agony.