Sarada followed Sakura through the woods of the Land of Fire. It was the dead of night and not a soul budged in the vicinity. For extra precautions, they were both subjected to heavy disguises. Sarada became a young girl with blond hair and green eyes, while Sakura transformed into an elderly women with greying hair, which made it all the more peculiar that they were travelling at high speed.
With the moon and stars masked by the dense, dark foliage, the two had to rely on their personal torchlights to illuminate the way. The rustlings of leaves were the only sound that was present. The two kept quiet for fear of drawing undue attention – although that, for now, seemed unlikely.
They were closing in on the Kyuubi, at least according to Sakura. The dim trees flashed by them as they leapt from branch to branch.
Sarada's mind returned to Boruto. The boy must be back in his Konoha now. Knowing him, he must be feeling devastated about the whole affair. Mitsuki was on point: he had meant well, even if they disagreed on what was right. Boruto would probably be trying his hardest to find his way back, though Sarada felt dubious about his chances of success. All of a sudden, a sense of remorse coursed through her – their last parting was tense and acrimonious. They left each other yelling, screaming, slandering.
"Sarada, you look troubled. Is there something wrong?" Sakura asked, noticing Sarada's perturbed expression.
"Nothing, Sakura," Sarada replied. "Just thinking about Boruto."
They arrived at the foot of a vast, rocky cliff embedded with derelict temples and carved with weathered Buddha statues and fading, blurring sacred sutras. The supposed location of the Kyuubi.
It was dusk. There was a melancholy air about the place, like the wistful exclamation of something once great and mighty as it peters out into oblivion. Indeed, monasteries vibrant and full of activity once flourished around here. Ascetics, monks in the Fire Country – long before the establishment of the Five Great Shinobi Villages and the foundation of the Shinobi system prior to the revolution – would meditate in caves here, abstaining from all the earthly desires love, desire and greed, harnessing and honing their chakra in hopes of attaining some form of spiritual enlightenment. But those times were long gone. All that remained were the temples that had long fallen into disrepair, never to be resurrected again. Nonetheless, a convenient location to contain a tailed-beast, owing to its obscurity.
"This place is… beautiful," Sarada whispered to her companion. "Beautiful and sad."
Sakura nodded: "Just goes to show how all things come and go."
"Yes," Sarada replied, attempting to shake off this feeling of awe. She activated her Sharingan, sweeping her vista through the region in attempt to detect potential threats. "There's nothing…." she frowned. "Or rather, I can't see anything. There's a feeling of something being blocked."
"That's when the knowledge from the scroll comes in handy," Sakura said assuredly. "Watch out for any guards."
Darkness.
His five senses escaped him as he levitated amidst a strange void. Numb and helpless, he continued to drift, drift, drift…
Who am I? He began to ponder. What is my place in this world? Why am I here?
Nothingness. Oblivion.
But he was there; he was conscious.
No, he declared to himself. I have a name. I am Boruto Uzumaki, son of Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuuga, genin of Konoha and member of Team Konohamaru. And-
His eyes flew open.
He was in someone else's room. The sun was up. The sky was a bright blue. It was fairly early in the morning.
Where am I? He contemplated, surveying his surroundings quizzically.
There were old posters of action movies he had never seen or heard of before, coupled with a few old photos of a young boy, a familiar young boy. A boy laughing with his parents.
"Boruto, are you awake?" rang Takashi's voice from the outside.
He was in Takashi's house.
But why?
And where was his father?
Naruto was nowhere to be found. Where was he? Was he left behind? Did he make it? Or was he stuck in that other world for unfathomable reasons?
Boruto leapt out of his bed and left the room.
Takashi was cooking breakfast. Judging from the smell, it was a mixture of toast, bacon and eggs.
"Takashi, why am I here?" Boruto asked, utterly confounded by the circumstances he found himself in and the absence of his father.
"I found you on the street, passed out. I had to do something so I carried you to my house. I had a spare room where I used to stay when I was young – back when, well, there's no point in me saying much about that. Anyways, I put you in that room and basically waited for you to wake up," Takashi explained rather cheerfully. He seemed like the optimistic kind of guy, Boruto concluded.
"Well, thank you Takashi," Boruto said gratefully. "Speaking of which, what's going on exactly?"
The man shrugged and said, "I'd last to ask you that, to be honest. You did vanish without a trace a few days ago."
"That is … uh, none of your concern," Boruto pouted.
"Just curious," Takashi said, surprised that his question was rebuffed.
"But thanks anyway Takashi," Boruto said. "I don't know how screwed I would be if I continued to stay passed out on the streets."
"No problem," Takashi replied. "That being said, you won't come back to the Hokage's office, right? I saw your resignation papers. They were personally signed by the Hokage."
"No," Boruto confirmed, deliberately trying to be elusive. "I… I won't stay here for long either."
"Okay" was all Takashi said before handing over a plate of breakfast to Boruto. "Come on, let's eat!"
Boruto nodded.
"So," Boruto ventured for conversation. "Anything in the news?"
"Well, there appears to be a surge in rebel activity earlier today – some of my more… elite colleagues have been summoned to missions," Takashi said.
Sarada. Mitsuki. Boruto mentally crossed his fingers and hoped they would be okay.
"Are you… alright?" Takashi asked, after seeing the colour drain from Boruto's face. "Is there something I can do to help?"
"Not much. I'm fine, thanks for asking," Boruto answered. "It's just… You're not suspicious are you?"
"Of you? About what?" Takashi questioned bemusedly. "That you were a rebel spy? Given that the Hokage personally authorized your resignation and given that you were decidedly absent from the torture chambers, unlikely."
"Nice analysis," Boruto complimented jokingly. "Yeah I suck at hiding stuff."
"Believe me, I can tell when someone is pretty antagonistic towards the regime," Takashi continued. "I've seen too many."
"Also, when you found me, was I alone?" Boruto asked with his father in mind.
"Yes," Takashi confirmed his worst fears.
"Oh."
His father was not with him; Boruto was alone again. The fear of it all descended upon him. His heart fell. There will be no help from the Nanadaime in this struggle.
"What's the matter? You don't look very happy," the man queried after witnessing Boruto's rather downcast expressions, which emerged immediately upon his answer.
"Okay, Takashi… I'll tell you something, but you can't tell anyone," Boruto said wearily. "I went back to find my father. We came to Konoha again and were walking on its streets and I passed out."
A half-truth.
"I see," Takashi said sympathetically. "I'm sorry I can't be of any help with that. Does… does you father engage in any form of 'suspicious' activity? Sorry if this question sounded indelicate."
"Not that I know of," Boruto replied, realising that Takashi clearly had Hi no Ishi or other forms of dissident activity in mind.
"My father did – my father and my mother both did," the man said abruptly. "I didn't know anything about it either, until the secret police came into my house one day. I was 15 then, just celebrating a chunin promotion with my friends. I came home late and they weren't there anymore. There was only a letter that said they had been incarcerated for crimes against the state…"
Takashi couldn't continue anymore as he choked on words.
"Are you okay?" It was Boruto's turn to ask.
"My apologies," Takashi smiled as he took a few moments to recollect his demeanour. He was obviously shaken by his own (accidental) revelation, which opened a chapter of his life that he'd rather not revisit. "I spoke too much about this – Ayame would go nuts if she found out. It's no big deal anyway. I'm fine. It took me a while to get over this, but hey, I ended up becoming a jonin with a fairly solid job. Life goes on."
Well, Boruto thought, this conversation took a darker turn.
Boruto stared at the man in front of him, complicated emotions swirling inside. He seemed like the kind of person who just wanted to get along with life, but Boruto suspected that deep inside, Takashi would always be haunted by the fate of his parents.
"Do you miss them?" Boruto could help question.
Takashi was silent for a minute or two. An awkwardness descended upon the table as Boruto began playing with his bacon, delicately slicing off strings of unwanted grease, waiting for the man opposite him to speak.
"…Yes, Boruto, I do," Takashi said.
"I'm… I'm really sorry for getting all personal," Boruto immediately began apologising.
"It's alright! You seem like a decent person," Takashi replied. "Although we really shouldn't be talking about stuff like this. And, really, we should stop apologising to each other for asking questions– it's getting a little tedious."
"Agreed," Boruto said.
"Now," Takashi continued speaking as he got up from his chair. "I'm about to go off to work. What would you like to do? Stay here? Go elsewhere? It's really up to you, you know. I have a spare room, my old room before I moved into my parents'. It's your call."
To leave or not to leave? Boruto mused internally. He'd be pretty secure at Takashi's house, he reckoned. Yet the image of Sarada and Mitsuki struggling overtook his mind.
"It was nice to meet you again, Takashi. But I've got to go. Thank you for your hospitality, though, and uh… good luck with Ayame in the future!" Boruto told the man cheerily and then ran up to him in a hug. Takashi closed his eyes and returned it.
Boruto was going to the one place where one was guaranteed to encounter Hi no Ishi: Sayuri's bookstore.
This was the cave they were looking for, Sarada realised. It corroborated perfectly with Sakura's descriptions – four pillars away from the temple facing the rising sun, which had shone onto a mystical edifice's now rusty decorations. They no longer reflected a golden glow.
Come closer and one can see faded inscriptions, a language no longer spoken or written, erased from living memory. Now they just had to warp their chakras to operate the correct seals that translated these engravings into an opening. Sakura already had the instructions.
Whatever these indecipherable inscriptions were though, Sarada contemplated, they were impeccable at masking things: when she activated her Sharingan, she could sense nothing behind the walls. Neither could Sakura with her years of experience.
"Watch out!" Sakura yelled as a kunai flew towards Sarada. The girl dodged just in time, backflipping nimbly.
The ANBU.
A man in a nefarious tiger mask threw a punch at Sarada, who sidestepped it and grabbed his arm, throwing him off-balance temporarily. Several shuriken flew at her from the distance, which she deflected easily – shurikenjutsu had always been her forte. Yet the force of the attacks caused both of their disguises to peel off.
A female ANBU began weaving a few hand signs. Sarada immediately recognized the makings of a fire jutsu. She smashed the ground, forming a protruding earthly barrier just as roaring fireballs descended upon the duo, blockading them from the worst scorching excesses as the retreated to avoid any damage.
"Nice one there!" Sakura complimented, recognizing one of her signature moves. There a small flicker of pride, which was replaced by alertness almost instantaneously. The fight shifted onto the surface of the cliff as they dodged attack after attack. She then dug her fists into the ground, creating a crater on the rocky walls of the cliff, causing several ANBU to lose balance and tumble down into oblivion.
Sarada concentrated chakra into her fists until it glowed a dense blue colour, she pummeled another ANBU with it, sending him flying into the surface of the cliff, sinking into like an engraving.
A cat masked female ANBU almost knocked her off balance with a kick. Sarada channeled all her strength and chakra into the walls, digging her fingers through its surface until it formed a solid hold and then swept her legs up with a powerful burst, blocking an attack from the female ANBU. She the regained stability, retracting her hand and pursued to throw an explosive kunai at her assaulter.
One brief glance told her that Sakura had finished off many enemies. The woman dodged, punched, kicked with a lethal grace.
An ANBU with apparent mastery over the Earth Style made a few signs and his malignant chakra seeped through the walls.
Sakura flew back to Sarada in an instant.
"Stay close with me," the woman whispered. "I think I know what he's going to do."
Sharp edges protruded out of the surface, one by one, approaching the duo with an aim to destroy.
"We've got to get close to him and knock him out," Sakura explained. "Or kill him."
"Got it," Sarada nodded resolutely. "I might have the perfect way to counter this."
The two set off, circumventing the sharp obstacles that often bent and moved to attack them. It was as if the entire wall transformed into the domain of the attacker: it bent to his will. Sakura smashed a spiky column out of the way, pulverizing it into dust as Sarada followed close behind.
But they were still too far and the longer they take, the more the cliff's surface became a reflection of the ANBU's control. They had to act faster.
"Sakura," Sarada asked as she dodged another attack. "Can you use water style?"
"Yes," the woman replied. "A little."
"Enough to conjure a decent amount of water out of nowhere?"
"Definitely."
"Can you get up to near the top of this cliff and release a water jutsu? I'll take care of the rest," Sarada offered.
"Are you sure this will work?"
"About fifty percent chance?"
"I'll take a gamble."
The pink-haired woman leapt upwards, avoiding the profuse onslaught of sharp rocks. The attacker then refocused his attention towards Sarada, being slightly perplexed by the sudden turn of events.
Sarada bared her knuckles. She was so ready for this. She deflected a series of high-velocity rocks and waited for new developments, barely moving.
A sudden barrage of water crashed down – Sakura did her job. Now it was Sarada's turn.
It was a jutsu that her father had taught her during one their few training sessions (most of his time was occupied on Boruto, to her slight dismay.) They called it chidori. She weaved the necessary hand signs one by one, anchoring her feet to the surface of the cliff securely.
And when all the preparations were done she flew into the air and landed back on the walls, hands first. The electrical energy erupted from her palms just as they collided with the cliff, overrun by flowing water. It shocked the entire surface, submerging with waves of lightning, powerful lightning that consumed every single ANBU member on it. Sarada doubled down on the chakra in her fists and the shocking continued. The sharp columns and protrusions were shattered, that one ANBU lost his connection with the cliff surface and members of the ANBU started falling down and down and down.
Sakura utilized this opportunity to charge down at them, knocking the still remaining ones off.
Soon, there were none left.
"We did it!" Sarada gasped.
Sakura smiled at her as they proceeded back to the cave.
Now comes the hard part.
A/N: Well, what can I say? I suck at writing fight scenes -.- But, hey, I tried.
Takashi's revelation was somewhat planned - I guess he was meant to represent those who suffered under an authoritarian government but decided to go the pragmatic way and get on with life as if nothing had happened. I think I'll just leave him there... for the moment.
Soooooooooo, Sarada and Sakura get closer to the Kyuubi and Boruto sets off to find everybody. I mean, what could go wrong? ;)
Tell me how you found this chapter in the reviews! Believe me, I've read every single one of them :D