Chapter 5:

After an hour in the same cell, Sasuke left to take a break. The only useful information he got was learning that Sarada was quite possibly an Uchiha, considering her Sharingan. He told this to Shikamaru and the others and they weren't sure what to make of it. It didn't necessarily mean she was telling the truth, but if she really was an Uchiha, this was startling news.

Sasuke walked quickly down the hall, uncharacteristically frazzled by the ordeal. He was so distracted, he hadn't noticed the small snake Mitsuki planted on Sasuke's person shortly before leaving.

Shikamaru went through the children's confiscated items in a separate room. All their weapons were standard for the Leaf, as were their bags. Their headbands had been taken and examined for authenticity and as far as anyone could tell, they were legit. Except for their ID cards, everything on this table was real, supporting their claims.

He noticed Sasuke being in a hurry to get out of that room and thought he understood the reason. It was probably the same feeling he had when looking upon that boy claiming to be his son. They looked too much alike to be coincidence. He even had the same jutsu. That girl claiming to be an Uchiha must have gotten to him, too. He had to admit, they did have similar features. The Sharingan was just a bonus. The girl certainly looked like him. She sounded a lot like Sakura.

Maybe he was just curious. Shikamaru felt drawn to these children and he was confident it wasn't because they were somehow related. It was the things they said and did that snared his interest.

He had to speak with them again. He didn't care what the others thought.

"It's pointless," said Boruto. "We can't stay here. They're never going to believe us. And good behavior doesn't matter if their minds are made up. Face it, you guys. We're going to have to fight our way out of here."

"And then do what?"

"Find that scroll and undo this wish."

Shikadai sighed. "Remember what we talked about? Getting out of this cell is one thing. Escaping an entire village of highly skilled shinobi is another. You couldn't even get past Sasuke."

"That's only because I got thrown off when he used jutsu I've never seen him use before. Now that I know what to expect…"

"And how many other shinobi are going to have different skills in this world?" asked Shikadai. "You can't be reckless. What's stopping them from killing us?"

"So, we give up and sit here?" Boruto couldn't do that. Not for another minute.

"It's the safest route, you idiot," Shikadai told him.

"Doing nothing will get us nothing."

"We'll still be alive."

"Unless they decide to kill us because they think we're spies," said Mitsuki. "Then it won't matter what action we take."

"See? Mitsuki's got the right idea. If we all work together-"

"Boruto, just stop." Sarada pulled her legs closer to her body. "You couldn't take on one shinobi even with your clones and now you're hurt. So's Mitsuki."

Boruto put a hand to his injured shoulder. "It's nothing."

"You were bleeding. And Mitsuki still got hurt trying to help you. Even if we work together to escape this cell, we don't stand a chance against a whole village of shinobi."

"She's right, Boruto," said Shikadai. "Use your head. We're outnumbered and in a strange place where everything's messed up. My dad might have the same skills but Sasuke didn't. How many others are we going to face like that? There's so much we don't know. Striking now would be reckless and stupid. We could get seriously hurt and there's a chance not all of us will survive."

"But-"

"I side with Sarada on this one. As long as we don't act like a threat, things might go in our favor. If we attack, it's all over. They'll never trust us and they might kill us thinking we've shown our true colors. Let's not make things worse."

If Boruto didn't have his friends on his side, there was nothing he could do to win. He wasn't foolish enough to think he could take on an entire village by himself. He would get caught before he got out of the building. There was no point in doing this without them, either.

If he did find the scroll and use its power to reverse things, he had no way of knowing how it would affect his friends if they weren't there with him when he used it. He would run the risk of them being stuck in this reality forever while he changed things back for himself. They might not exist in the regular world if he left them behind in this one. There was so much he didn't know about the scroll's magic. He wasn't willing to risk messing things up again.

The door behind him opened and Shikamaru came in alone. Boruto turned to face him but didn't move towards the wall with his friends, staying where he was. Shikamaru closed the door and rested his back against it as if to keep it closed.

Shikamaru eyed each child in the room with an unreadable expression. "Who are you really?"

Boruto sighed. "We've been over this. I'm going to start making things up just to keep it interesting."

Sarada kicked him.

As she pulled her leg back, she felt something in her pocket.

"There's no record of any of you in this village," Shikamaru told them. "Everything you carry is legit except for your ID cards. Did you take those supplies from a fallen shinobi?"

"No, we didn't. And those IDs aren't fakes."

"We don't use that formatting in this village. There are special things hidden on every ID card that acts as a kind of secret code to prove authenticity. That way, no one can make their own because we'd know how to spot the difference. I won't tell you how to spot it for obvious reasons, but that's how I know they can't be real."

Boruto sighed heavily. "They are real. You just don't use them in this reality, so you think they're fakes. I saw my dad's old card and know you update those things. You just didn't update them the same way…"

He wasn't sure why he was trying to reach Shikamaru. No one believed them and Boruto was making himself sick trying. It really was like trying to talk a brick wall into moving aside.

"The information you know is somewhat true," Shikamaru went on. "But you do have your facts mixed up. However, that doesn't mean you're lying."

Boruto looked up hopeful. "You believe us?"

"I'm not saying that," he answered. "I'm saying that when we had a shinobi root around in your minds to find the truth, we couldn't find it. It was more of the same. It's not a foolproof method but it does help detect liars."

"We're not-"

"In order for one to lie, you'd have to knowingly say something different from the truth. It's a conscious decision on your part because you have to fabricate something. However, there is a difference between lying and being mistaken. If someone were to give you inaccurate information, then you wouldn't actually be lying because you're taking them at their word."

Shikadai understood. "That's what you think's going on here."

Shikamaru nodded. "I do. Someone gave you this information you believe to be fact but it isn't. That's why we can't detect a lie. This is what you truly believe."

"It is the truth," Boruto insisted. "Everything I've told you is the truth."

"You think it's the truth because you don't know any better."

"It is the truth," Boruto repeated more firmly. "You just don't know it because you're different."

"How?" Shikamaru asked him in an indifferent tone. Everyone knew he was skeptical. "How can both people be telling the truth about something that's so different and having nothing to do with perspective? An entire history of events? How two people can know each other despite one party saying they've never met? Explain it to me."

When Shikamaru said this, everyone understood what he was actually asking. It wasn't that he needed it to be explained. He wanted them to tell him what they knew and how they knew it. This was still an interrogation.

This had nothing to do with brainwashing or being fed inaccurate information and Shikamaru knew it would be a lot easier to understand what it actually was if they explained it to him.

Boruto started from the top. Shikamaru did not interrupt.

"I wrote my old man's name down on that scroll and it sort of glowed. I just didn't know what else to do to stop the fighting. Everyone was touching it, so that's why we think we're the only ones who know what's going on. When we came back to the village, we found you and you pretty much know what happened after that."

"So, you're saying you altered the timeline by writing one person's name on some magic scroll?"

Boruto frowned. "You don't believe a word of this, do you?"

"Of course not. It's outrageous. It makes no sense."

"It's the truth," Boruto said tiredly. "We just want to fix things so everything goes back to normal the way it was before I made the wish."

Shikamaru scoffed. "And I'm supposed to believe all this without any proof of what you're saying? Not only is there no record of you, but no record of a Naruto Uzumaki having ever been in this village. We even pulled files on other shinobi from the other villages and nothing. He's a figment, as far as we can tell."

"We're here," said Mitsuki. "Does that make us figments?"

"No, just spies. Or orphans. It doesn't matter," said Shikamaru. "There's no evidence supporting your claims. So, it would seem, we're at a stalemate."

"I have proof," said Sarada, standing with something in her hand. "Look."

Shikamaru did not come closer, leaving Sarada to come to him. She slid a photograph under his nose. It was a small photo of Kakashi posing with young versions of Sakura and Sasuke and a blond boy Shikamaru didn't recognize, though he looked similar to Boruto.

"This was in my pocket," explained Sarada, "which must be why it didn't change."

Shikamaru examined the picture closely. It was a similarly posed photo to the one he took with Azuma and his teammates as Genin. Based on this, it must have been a team photograph, which meant Kakashi did passed a group of Genin and these were them. Sasuke and Sakura, just as they said.

He turned it over to examine the back and front in the light of their cell. The most obvious explanation was that this was a doctored photo, but he had no explanation for how they could have gotten ahold of these shinobi in these poses. The lighting and shadow all indicated that this was not a doctored image. They were Kakashi, Sakura and Sasuke when they were younger. This was a team photograph everyone took to commemorate the formation of their team.

If this was a fake, it was a good one. Too good.

"And this." Sarada shoved another photo into his hand.

This was another group photo but with more people. One that had Shikamaru bringing it close to his face in awe.

It was him and his teammates, all the ages they were now. They were posed in the background, children posing in the foreground. Ino was standing beside a man he didn't recognize wearing the same outfit she wore today. In front of them was a child with Ino's hair and the man's complexion smiling awkwardly at the camera. Choji was posed next to a woman Shikamaru had only seen in battle a handful of times. A girl with Choji's girth and the woman's complexion was posing seductively in front of them; much to the annoyance of the boy positioned front and center. The boy calling himself Shikamaru's son was standing beside the girl with his brow raised, gaze hastily averted towards the camera when the photo was taken.

Shikamaru's mouth fell open when he saw the adults standing behind the boy.

That was him, alright, though that outfit wasn't in his wardrobe. He looked amused in the photo, standing proudly behind the boy and beside a woman who oddly enough looked happy as well. It was the woman from the Sand Village, only he had never seen her look like this before.

Standing in close proximity to the Shikamaru in the photo, she looked oddly pleasant. Feminine. She was even smiling and it wasn't a sneer. Her outfit helped give her a more feminine form, the color bringing out her eyes.

She looked… pretty. For the first time ever, Shikamaru found Temari pretty.

Shikamaru lowered the photo quickly and looked at Sarada. "Where did you get this?"

"Our parents were putting together a photo album and asked for some pictures. My mom had taken this photo while I was off on a mission with my team. She was going to add it to the book, but they already had a copy, so I kept it. I must have forgotten to take it out of my pocket. Along with that one."

Sarada was grateful to have the pictures, but regretted not having one to prove her claims of being Sakura and Sasuke's daughter. She had proof of their parents being teammates but never being married or having a child. She hoped this would be enough to sway Shikamaru into believing what they had been trying to tell him this entire time.

Shikamaru looked back at the photo, shaking his head. "Impossible. There's no way."

"For crying out loud, it's right there in a freaking photograph," complained Boruto. "What more do you want?"

Still shaking his head, Shikamaru frowned at the image of him and Temari together, standing happily alongside his friends and teammates. "How? Why? What did I see in her? I would never marry her. What the hell was I thinking? This cannot be right."

"Well, you did," said Shikadai. "You're lucky this is an alternate universe or Mom would kill you for saying that."

"There's no possible way I'd ever marry that woman," declared Shikamaru shoving the photo back to Sarada. "She's awful."

"Don't talk about Mom like that, Dad."

"I'm not your father!"

"Yeah, you are! Look at the photo."

"It makes no sense," said Shikamaru, still in denial. "She hates me, her brother gave me the scar on my brow and we're always fighting. She's an enemy of the Leaf and the Sand deems me an enemy, too. We're at war because our villages can't stand one another. Why would I even marry her? There's no way she'd be chummy with my friends either. How could I ever love someone like her?"

Shikadai clicked his tongue, folding his arms. "Who knows? I guess she's not the person you thought she was. You said Mom could be gentle and loving when she wanted to be. Even vulnerable."

"Vulnerable? Her?"

"That's in battle. Have the two of you ever talked?"

Shikamaru shut his mouth. There was never a time to have a conversation with her because they were always in battle whenever they saw each other. How he was in a fight was different from how he was recreationally, so he assumed she would be, too.

Still, the idea of actually being with Temari was a lot to wrap his head around. He never found her attractive before. Although, seeing her in that photo did spark a very mild interest. Nothing romantic, but he was curious. Having never seen her like that before had him intrigued.

"Can you at least give what we've been trying to tell you a chance now?" Boruto asked.

This was the best evidence they could have provided and it did have Shikamaru's head reeling.

Something was bound to break; the question was what. The next generation hoped this would be enough to prove they had been telling the truth and receive the help they needed. Though hopeful, Shikadai was skeptical, knowing his father. Shikamaru would always have a backup plan in case the mission hit a bump or two. When faced with impossible information like this, he would likely assume they were lying. His father might have been slightly different in this reality, a succession of unknown and altered events shaping him into the man he was now, but he was still Shikamaru.

Shikadai watched his father's eyes in an attempt to read his next move. It seemed to him that Shikamaru was grappling with his own hatred in addition to believing this unbelievable tale. A possible reality where he was married to a woman he couldn't stand. Would he want to fight for that?

This was the world Shikamaru knew and now these children were trying to change it. This wasn't just about getting him to believe them; it was about his willingness to have his world altered.

For a long time, Shikamaru was quiet. He kept his eyes to the ground most of the time. They hoped this was a good sign.

"This world you say you come from…" Shikamaru asked slowly. "In your world, what's the status on the other Shinobi villages? Are we still at war and if so, with whom? And how many casualties did we endure?"

"There is no war where we're from," said Sarada in an effort to appease Shikamaru. "Naruto brought all the other villages together. We're allies with them, even the Sand."

Shikamaru scoffed. "They've been trying to kill us for so long, I don't see how that's possible. They even launched an attack during the Chunin exams years ago."

"Yes. In our world, too," said Sarada. "But the fighting ended there."

"How?"

Sarada looked down. "I can't say for everything. But… But I can tell you what my mom told me. She said that it was Naruto. Gaara was going crazy and attacked my parents and Naruto defended him. My mom got hurt protecting my dad so she didn't see a lot of it. But she knew and my dad told her what she missed. Naruto, too."

"Naruto befriended Uncle Gaara during that fight," said Shikadai. "I heard all about it. He got Uncle Gaara to stop and change his ways. He was Gaara's first friend. Now he's the Kazekage of the Sand. Everyone loves him."

Shikamaru scoffed again. "How? Everyone was always afraid of him. There's no way."

"I told you, he changed. Because of Naruto. That's why the fighting stopped. They became friends and the two villages became allies. They even helped us fight."

Shikamaru was quiet again. Then he asked, "How? How could this Naruto person do what no one else could do? Befriend a monster?"

The group was silenced by the utterance of that word. They had never heard Shikamaru use that word to describe Gaara. It was a little hard for Shikadai to hear, knowing that was his uncle he was talking about. His mother was so protective of Gaara, too. She would have smacked Shikamaru for saying such a thing.

Mitsuki looked at the ground, wondering if Shikamaru would think he was a monster, too.

Boruto, after a moment of stunned silence, puffed out his chest in anger and said, "Because Naruto had something in common with Gaara. They were both Jinchuriki. They must have bonded over that."

Boruto and the others hadn't been given the details of certain events and were unaware of their parents' feelings during such time. It was more than just having something in common between the two. Naruto could relate to being called a monster and saw in Gaara what he could have become. Gaara found someone just like him who understood and still wanted to give him a chance. Naruto was not afraid of him and told him that they were so much alike that they shouldn't be fighting. That Gaara could be loved.

Even if they were aware of the details, it might not have changed Shikamaru's reaction to learning what Naruto was.

"In your world, there's two Jinchuriki and one's the Kazekage?"

"And the other is the Hokage. Naruto. He's the Hokage where we're from."

"And nobody minds? Nobody's using them for war?"

"Of course not. We told you, everything's peaceful in the different villages. We're all allies."

"And it's been that way our whole lives," said Shikadai, already knowing his father would argue.

Shikamaru rubbed his forehead. "It sounds like a fairytale…"

"You saw the pictures. It's real. Naruto made it happen."

Shikamaru looked at them. "How can one person do all that?"

Sarada's jaw stiffened. "I don't know exactly. Most of this happened before we were born, but… Naruto can bring people together. That's how."

"Even if he didn't have a hand in it directly, he did influence people to make a move. To change, to try, to do something," said Shikadai. "I think he inspires people is how he does it. The things he doesn't do with his own hands, at least."

Shikamaru had his doubts about one person being that influential. The things these children were telling him didn't seem feasible but they were so insistent. He supposed it could be possible, some of these things, if certain conditions were met. Gaara changing just because he found someone who could relate didn't seem feasible. Neither did all the villages coming together and becoming allies. Not all of them.

"Tell me more about this world you come from," Shikamaru told them and they obliged.