Now commencing level four.

Boruto blinked open his eyes. Purple curtains surrounded the bed frame, his body enveloped in a soft pillowy mattress.

At first, he thought it was the same room. He thought that maybe they failed the level and had to restart. But when sat up and took a look around, he found an unfamiliar bookshelf. Wooden rafters arched over the ceiling. A mirror reflected the light from a small window. And strangest of all, the walls were covered in paintings.

I guess that wasn't the end...

He stole a glance to the left, and then to the right. He climbed out of bed and inspected the room in various places, peering behind the mirror and under the armchair. He looked up into the rafters, eyes narrowed as they slowly scanned every beam. He silently listened for the breath or the beating of another human's heart.

Only after confirming that there was not another soul present did he allow the childish grin to stretch across his face.

She was smiling, he thought like a lovestruck dork, recalling Sarada's expression as they danced. And the flustered look on her face at the end... The way she almost kissed me back...

His nose squashed up against the sheets as he fell back into the bed. Despite the suffocation, his cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling too wide. His heart skipped like a stone across water. Lifting his head for a moment, he softly touched his lips to the cottony surface of his pillow, then flopped his arms back against the bed, face stretching into an even wider grin. "I wonder if she'd dance with me when we get back... Hot dang she looks good in a dress... Ugh, why does my chest feel like it's caving in?"

He kicked his feet up into the air and flung them over the bed, using momentum and gravity to throw him upright. "I wonder how many stories we have left... And if I get to kiss her for all of them?" It was then that he noticed a black chameleon peering out at him from underneath the bed skirt.

He froze solid, smile dropping immediately. "Please tell me you're not... S-S-Shikadai?!"

The chameleon nodded. His half-lidded eyes stared unamused at Boruto's antics.

"Just now... That wasn't... I mean..." He flopped back into the bed face-first, his red ears still poking out from behind his hair. The weight of the embarrassment caused him to tuck his knees into his chest, curling into a fetal position atop the bed.

Shikadai made a gurgling noise in his throat. But it still took Boruto a good five minutes to even peer out from behind his hands.

"...Well, putting that aside..." He pulled himself into a sitting position to see Shikadai testing out his color changing ability. "Do you know how to get out of here? I don't think I know this story..."

The chameleon narrowed his eyes in disbelief.

"What..." Suddenly, Boruto realized what the look was for. "Oi! I still wanna get out of here, ya know!"

Again, disbelief.

"...Fine... I don't... Happy? At least tell me if you know what story this is."

Shikadai shook his head and crept over to the window.

Swallowing down his embarrassment, Boruto followed after him. When he looked over the edge, the 50-foot drop nearly made his eyes pop out of his head. "Is this a tower?! Are we trapped up here?"

Another gurgling noise. Boruto inspected the room again, this time for an exit. There was a door at the far end, but it only led into another room. And in that room, there were no doors.

"Trying to escape already?"

Boruto spun around. Orochimaru sat in a large armchair and glared at him with his beady yellow eyes, long black hair sweeping to the side with the breeze. Shikadai crawled up Boruto's black pant leg in attempt to hide.

"I see you made it back into the story. The girl had more courage than I thought."

"...You..." Boruto's fingernails dug into his palm as he remembered the world without Sarada and Shikadai. "You tricked me!"

Orochimaru chuckled. "I did no such thing. I merely followed my orders... Albeit, I decided to twist them a little."

"...What are you talking about?"

"That is not for you to know. I was testing the boundaries of this world." Orochimaru smiled slyly. "It seems like they don't stretch very far..."

If he could use jutsu, Boruto would have thrown a punch. But judging from his situation, he had no chance in a fight. "How did you get in the game..."

"I was in here to begin with," laughed Orochimaru, glaring down at Boruto. "But it seems the me that you're thinking of and the me that I am are two different beings. Now... Your princess will be here momentarily. But even if she climbs up, you have no hope of escaping together... If you give me a strand of your hair, I may reconsider killing you both upon her arrival."

"Killing us?! Wait... My hair?"

"I need your DNA for a certain... experiment. Give it to me, and I'll let you exit this tower. Refuse, and I'll tie you up, kill her, and take it anyway. Quite the deal, wouldn't you say?"

Boruto's eyebrows furrowed. That wasn't a deal at all. It was downright suspicious. Was his hair worth that much? Was he tricking him a second time? Either way... It didn't seem like he had much of a choice. "Fine... Take my hair... But even if she comes and climbs it, how do we get down from this tower?"

Orochimaru's lips pulled back into a snake-like grin. "Once you had over the hair, I'll give you the power to escape."

Reluctantly, Boruto plucked a single strand of hair from his head and placed it in the handkerchief that laid atop the greyish hand.

"Very good..." Orochimaru's yellow eyes gleamed dangerously as they focused on the hair, one corner of his mouth upturned. "Here. As promised, the power to escape."

Boruto didn't feel anything different. But just to be safe, he tried building up chakra in his feet.

To his surprise, it worked.

He wasted no time in turning around and leaping out the window, Shikadai clinging to his jacket for dear life.

. . .

Sarada opened her eyes and nearly fell through a small hand-made window.

"What are you doing!" Kawaki grabbed her arm. "Careful!"

"S-Sorry..." She was still a bit shaken by the ending of the last story, her heart not quite calm. It had only been for the sake of progressing to the next level... But then why did his face look... So happy? So satisfied? So... infatuated with her? Her heart fluttered at the thought.

No. Stop. It's just because we're in this weird game... It's because I was in a dress. Yeah. That's it. He'd look at Sumire the same way if it was her.

"We don't have much time. Get the crown, and come back," grunted Kawaki, holding the rope that was now snug around her waist.

Sarada's hands flew towards her cheeks, a sound smack resounding through the air. When she pulled them away, two red hand marks remained on either side of her face. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about Boruto. She needed to focus.

"...Are you really ok?" This time it was Mitsuki who asked her.

"I'm fine." She shook off the mental fog that accompanied her memories. Directly below her was a golden crown surrounded by four guards in fancy hats. "You just need me to grab that?"

"Just? Acting as if this is some easy task. Hm. I guess you really are fine."

"We'll lower you down," Mitsuki said, his hands on the rope. "Just take the crown, signal, and we'll pull you back up."

Eyebrows furrowing, Sarada neared the edge of the hole. Suddenly, she realized. The ends of her hair were tickling the back of her neck. And she had glasses. I'm myself again! But... "Isn't this... stealing?"

Kawaki rolled his eyes. "Duh. We're thieves. Did you hit your head or something?"

"Ahh, right..."

As usual, she had no clue what was going on. But until she did, she would play along with it, even if it meant stealing.

"Lower me down."

She felt the rope dig into her stomach as it went taught in Mitsuki and Kawaki's hands. Fortunately, her stomach muscles were strong enough to put up some resistance. She reached out towards the metal headpiece, body tense. But in that moment, one of the guards sneezed.

"Bless you." The words reflexively fell from her lips. She slapped her hand over her mouth with one hand, wincing as her fingers curled around the crown.

"Thanks. Hm?"

But by the time the guard turned around, Sarada was already back on the roof.

"Rider!"

Rider, thought Sarada, isn't that a boy's name?

Either way, they were now being chased by guards.

Sarada leapt from rooftop to rooftop after Mitsuki and Kawaki, feeling more like a ninja than she had in days. With a smile on her face, she jumped off of the edge and ducked into a roll, sprinting towards the woods, arms trailing behind her.

"...Why are you running like that," asked Mitsuki, giving her a weird look.

"Because it makes you go faster, duh," said Sarada, a smile on her face. "We just have to outrun those guards right?"

"Heh," Kawaki laughed, "easier said than done."

All of a sudden, Sarada heard a sound similar to the roar of the thunder train. When she looked over her shoulder, horses were stampeding towards them at an alarming pace. They ducked under trees and leapt over bushes, all in effort to lose the pack that was hot on their heels. Just when they thought they were gaining some ground, they stumbled into a dirt wall that reached far above their heads.

"...Rider's the lightest... But we don't trust you," said Kawaki. "Give us the crown, and then pull us up."

Sarada rolled her eyes and placed the crown in Kawaki's hands. "It's not like I wanted this in the first place."

Eyeing her with suspicion, Kawaki and Mitsuki formed a human tower which she easily climbed up. And then she saw ten horses. She had to make a decision. If she wanted to find Boruto, getting captured was not an option. Kawaki, Mitsuki, and the crown weren't important to the story... right?

Turning tail and leaving them with the stolen item, she kept running.

Kawaki cursed her at the top of his lungs as she ran, but she didn't turn back. Her boots thudded hard against the ground as she used momentum instead of chakra to propel her forward. Ducking under trees, making sharp turns, and taking every narrow route available to her, she ran, thighs burning, chest cramping.

Just when she thought she had lost every horse, she looked over her shoulder to find one still chasing her, Cho-Cho's father sitting atop it.

Great, thought Sarada.

Scrambling into a tree, she prepared to mask her presence. And then she remembered.

She couldn't.

Curse this stupid story and its lack of chakra, thought Sarada as the horse drew closer, her heart slamming against her chest, eyes squeezing shut.

Suddenly, a gust of wind surged through the air and knocked the horse and its rider backwards. A rough hand wrapped around her waist and pulled her into a tree. A second hand slid over her mouth. And as she opened her eyes, they came into contact with a pair of blue ones mere inches away from hers.

Boruto?! She gasped but didn't move. Her heart was doing backflips in her chest as his bangs brushed against her forehead, his eyes on the horse and a clone of her that it was now pursuing.

When he took his eyes off of the clone and met hers, she felt more uncomfortable and confused than she had ever felt in her entire life. The swirl of emotions passing through her brain wasn't exactly unknown, but they were so strong that it was making her dizzy. His smile caused blush to invade her face like wildfire despite her wishes.

Calm down Sarada. It's just Boruto! Just Boruto.

The second the threat was out of sight, he took his hands away from her and leaned back against the tree trunk.

"Boruto," Sarada breathed, relieved that she was finally free of the onslaught of emotions. "You can use jutsu?!"

"For the time being," he said, his gaze consuming the rest of her body. "That being said... Why do we look like ourselves?"

"I'm not sure..." She had to admit. That was only making her emotions worse. "Is Shikadai with you?"

Boruto extended his hand. Shikadai the chameleon crawled out onto it, staring at Sarada with large green eyes.

"Great... He can't talk."

"I tried asking him earlier... It seems like he doesn't know this story. That, and Orochimaru is up to something fishy," he said, leaping out of the tree.

"Orochimaru?"

Without thinking, Sarada leapt after him, fully prepared to absorb the landing with Chakra.

Boruto on the other hand, was thinking. He caught her just in time, holding her like a princess in his arms. "Careful," he said softly, "you might break something."

Blush crept up her neck. Why did he have to be so nice all of a sudden? And so... close? And making her feel like this while he looked like himself?

As he set her feet on the ground, she barely managed to mumble her appreciation, certain that her entire face was redder than a rose. "Thanks..."

"Sarada?"

She hid behind her hair.

"What's wrong? You get a fever or something?"

"...It's nothing."

When he didn't retort back, she looked through the cracks in her hair to notice that his cheeks were dusted with pink. "...Sorry... Are you still embarrassed about the ending to the last story?"

"A little..." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "I know you only did it to move us onto the next level..."

"...Yeah."

Sarada looked over at him. He was facing away from her, his hands in his pockets. A sign that he wasn't telling her everything. "You did have to do it to end the story, right?"

"...Hey, Sarada, we should probably start running," He changed the subject. "I'm not sure when my ability to use jutsu is going to wear off... Or how long your clone will stall that horse. I'll explain about Orochimaru as we go."

Sarada shook off the blood rushing to her head and ran after him, wondering why on earth he avoided the question.