Chapter 11:

The priestess walked at her own pace towards Sai and set a pouch beside him. Opening it, she handed Shikamaru a bowl and told him to grind the herbs she placed inside into a fine powder. After that was done, she added water and told him to smear the paste around the mouth of the wound in Sai's stomach, which would slow the bleeding so they could remove the sword.

"His survival is about 50-50. But you probably already knew that."

As they worked to save Sai, Boruto tried to find the right time to ask his question, but, seeing no perfect opportunity, Boruto tried asking now. "Um, priestess lady, how...?"

"I was touching the scroll as well."

"Oh." Boruto tried asking another question. "So… Um, about the scroll… There is a way to undo my wish, right? Get everything back the way it was?"

She didn't look at him. Not even once. "Possibly."

"The monks were trying to tell us something about its power, I think," said Mitsuki. "As a guardian, you must also know."

"I do."

"Could you please tell us?" Boruto asked her.

"Why would I do that?" she asked, still refusing to look at him.

Boruto didn't have time for this adult's childishness. However, he understood it. He remembered that in the cave, there was something she desperately wanted as well.

"Listen," said Boruto. "I'm sorry I used the scroll and kept you from getting your wish. But what I wished for wasn't what I wanted. Now I need to reverse it. I get that you're mad at me, but don't take it out on my friends, too. They didn't do anything and I messed up."

The priestess started to remove bandages from her pouch and placed them on her lap.

"Is that so?" she asked.

"Please," Boruto begged. "I didn't mean to do all this. I just wrote down a wish to get you guys to stop fighting. You were killing each other. I just…"

The priestess stopped folding the bandages on her lap. "The scroll does not grant wishes. Not in that way."

Boruto was silent for a long time. "It… doesn't?"

"That was a rumor that spread years ago due to the unknown power of the scroll," she told him. "People will often fill in the blanks when they do not know something, even if there is no merit to it. It is a falsehood that the scroll grants a wish. It does and it doesn't. Basically, it does, but only if your wish is one of destruction."

Boruto's heart skipped a beat. "Then… what does it actually do?"

The priestess placed her hands over the neatly folded bandages, never taking her eyes off them as she spoke. "Whatever's written upon the scroll vanishes, erased from existence."

Boruto exhaled sharply, feeling dizzy and sick.

When he had written his father's name, wishing to spend more time with him, he was actually wishing him away. His birth never happened. That explained everything.

Shikamaru winced in disgust. "I knew it was dangerous. If Sasuke had made is wish, he wouldn't be bringing back his clan, he'd be destroying what was left. He would have disappeared."

"Along with Sarada," said Mitsuki.

"That won't stop the village from wanting it, will it?" asked Shikadai. "Knowing it could eliminate enemies with the stroke of a brush would appeal to them, especially in a time of war."

Shikamaru nodded. "More reason to be rid of it."

"Wait," said Boruto, looking at the woman. "Then… if you wanted it…"

In the cave, she was desperate to write something upon the scroll. Boruto stopped her.

"What were you going to write on it?" Boruto asked suspiciously.

She kept her eyes down. "My name."

The collective gasps didn't raise her gaze in the slightest.

"But why?" asked Sarada.

"Because my whole life was about that scroll. Since I was a child, I trained to be a guardian. As a teen, I had to leave my family to live in a remote cabin in the mountains, people venturing up only to check on my wellbeing on a weekly basis. It's so far, few wish to visit me and I am not permitted to visit them, never leaving my post. I can never marry or have children of my own. I cannot attend festivities in the village below. I could not attend my childhood friend's wedding. Isolated, caring for a scroll that may or may not be taken at any moment by adventurers or thieves hearing whispers about its supposed purpose which were nothing but rumors started by those who knew so little and made their own assessment."

During her training, she was told what was expected of her but it never prepared her for the life she would actually lead. The previous guardian didn't have to venture up the mountain to take her post until adulthood and she expected the same for herself. Instead, she had to live alone in the mountain cabin as a teenager, still learning her craft. There was so much she missed out on. So much she had to rush through in preparation. So many lonely nights in the mountain, flinching at every noise, wondering if it was an animal or prowlers. Fearing she would not be found for days if there was an accident or an attack. Erecting friends out of cloth and oddly shaped vegetables to combat her loneliness. Weeping at everything she was missing and the life she wished she could have had it not been for her duties.

"If it weren't for that blasted scroll, I could have had a normal life."

"Then why not write the scroll down and it won't exist anymore?" asked Shikadai.

"It doesn't work that way. Believe me, I've thought of it."

"But you'd rather write your own name down?"

"If I had never existed, I wouldn't be suffering. Taking my own life now would only cause my family and friends pain. They would mourn me and I will not put them through that. I am not that selfish. But if I had never existed, they would never have known me and that would be that. I would never have wasted my life with all that training and never have devoted my life to that ridiculous scroll, waiting for a possible day where someone might come for it. So many women wasting their lives worrying about something that never happened within their lifetimes."

"But once it's been used, it loses its power," said Mitsuki. "You would be able to have a normal life."

"A lot of good that did me," she said angrily. "I'm still here wasting my life protecting those objects that go with the scroll. That stupid scroll! He used it and my fate is unchanged. I thought it might solve my problems, but here I am, still devoted to this place. Same would hold true if someone else used it, unknowingly massacring whoever's name is written upon the scroll and causing pain to others."

She reached to remove the sword from Sai's stomach but he protested. "Speaking of pain, perhaps you should wait until you are not so upset to remov- augh!"

She yanked the sword straight out and tossed it down, blood bubbling out of the wound and oozing. She pressed the bandages to his stomach and pressed down as he moaned loudly.

Boruto picked up the scroll and showed it to the priestess. "My wish is still written on here, but in this reality, we were never born so I could not have written on it. But it's here. Which means we can still use it, right?"

"It cannot grant another request," she told him. "However, the request given to it can be reversed as long as it is done within a week's time. After that, everything becomes permanent."

"Then there is a way to change all this."

"Yes. You must remove your request from the scroll."

Boruto looked at the name written on it and frowned. "How? Do I cross it out, or...?"

"Maybe you rip it from the scroll?"

"What if I do and we're wrong?"

"What's he supposed to do?" asked Sarada.

Without looking at them, she pointed. "The brush's partner. There are two items that rested within the cave. One creates, the other destroys."

"Like an eraser?"

Sarada shook her head. "There is no erasing when it comes to using ink stones. It's ink."

"Soap and water?" Boruto tried desperately.

"I don't think so," said Sarada with a raised brow.

"But there's nothing here besides a brush and an ink stone."

"What about an ink stick?" asked Shikamaru. "That should be with the stone. You have to rub the two together to make ink and then you dip the brush in it."

Boruto looked around at what they had to work with. "This thing?" Boruto held up a rectangular object that was all black expect for gold writing on the side.

Shikamaru nodded. "Looks like it."

Boruto looked at the woman. "Is this it? Is this what I use? How do I fix this?"

Shikamaru looked at the woman. "Should he fix this?" he asked firmly. "What are the consequences to him using this thing again?"

"He cannot make a second request," she said just as firmly. "All it does is reverse what has already been requested. Like it never happened."

"But we won't exist anymore," breathed Sai.

"Not these versions of you. This is merely how you would be if Naruto never existed," said Shikadai. "He touched all your lives. Not knowing him means this is how you would have ended up. Frankly, I don't like it."

Sarada looked at Shikamaru. "I know this is the world you know, but it's not ours and it was never meant to be yours. We altered reality. This world is cruel and there are so many people who don't exist. But we can make it right."

"We're halfway decent shinobi because of Naruto," said Mitsuki with a smile. "That's what it seems to be, at least. I have to say, I prefer his influence on the Leaf Village to this one. It's too… callus."

"It doesn't matter to me what you do," said the priestess. "Whether I help you or not won't change a thing for me."

"It might," said Shikamaru, looking at her. "If Boruto uses the scroll to erase what he wrote, he does not get another request. It cannot be used again, right? So once the world is the one he's familiar with, the scroll will be useless. Right? Meaning your job has ended. You won't need to live here alone anymore. You can return to your family without the guilt of having someone use the scroll unknowingly and altering things. It will be powerless and nothing will have changed."

The priestess's eyes widened at his words. "You're right. You're right! Everything will be undone, no harm no foul, and the scroll's power will be gone. Yes, you're right. That would work."

Boruto held up the objects. "Then tell me how to use these."

"You must take the ink stick and place it over what you have written. Move it backwards over the writing as if to go back in time, from where you ended your writing to where you began. It should smudge the name."

Boruto held up the ink stick. "This one, right?" Boruto tried to demonstrate over the closed scroll. "I do this, right? Backwards over the name?" He mimicked the movement he was supposed to make with the ink stick. "That's it, right?" He wasn't going to mess this one up. He couldn't afford to.

"That's correct. Make sure it's flat. Use the ink stone for support if you must. Or your thigh."

Sai looked away, breathing deeply. "Sai, right? That's my name in your world?"

"Yeah," said Sarada.

"And it is as you say it is?"

Sarada pulled out the photo of their parents and showed it to him. "See for yourself. That's you with your wife and son."

She held it above Sai's face since he couldn't lift his head and he gave it a good look.

He saw himself smiling an honest smile beside a woman with long blond hair being affectionate with him. A boy stood in front of them, smiling awkwardly but happily.

"I… have a son?"

"In our world, yes. His name's Inojin."

"Inojin?" Sai glanced away momentarily. "The one who knows my jutsu…"

Mitsuki nodded. "Yeah. You taught him. He likes to draw. Talks about it a lot."

Looking back at the photo, Sai gave it a blank expression. "I look… happy."

"You are happy."

"Because… of this Naruto person...?"

"Yes, yes. You're friends. You were on the same team," said Boruto.

"My mom said you're like family," said Sarada.

"Family...?" Sai felt his chest burn. "My family… My… brother…"

"Brother?" Sarada asked, curious.

Sai breathed slowly. "There was something I wanted to show him… Something I took from my bag years ago and left behind… in a drawer…" He shut his eyes tightly. "But I… can't remember."

"Where it is?"

"No… What it was I wanted to draw… To show him… I can't… remember…"

Sarada was worried. Sai's voice was getting weaker. "Sai?"

They could barely hear him. "That name's… growing on me…"

Shikamaru leaned forward, observing Sai's condition. "He's passing out. He's lost a lot of blood."

"Will he be ok?"

The priestess pointed. "Use the scroll and he will be. This will never be reality. Return to the real one and make sure this never happens."

"Ok." Boruto unrolled the scroll. "I just have to use this ink stick and basically cross out the name I wrote. Right? Like this, right? Oh, I gotta get it flat. Hang on."

Sarada looked over Boruto's shoulder. "Boruto! Behind you!"

Boruto jumped over Sai's body to avoid Sasuke who attempted to stab him from behind. Boruto landed between Shikadai and Sarada, scroll in his hand along with the ink stone and ink stick.

Badly beaten and suffering from several broken ribs, Sasuke was ready to finish what he started. "Give me that scroll...!"

"It doesn't grant wishes," said Shikamaru. "We were mistaken!"

"Liar!"

"He speaks the truth," said the priestess. "And it cannot be used again. Something has already been written and it only works once."

"I don't care!" screamed Sasuke. He raised his weapon and froze.

With shadow in place, Shikamaru gave the children a warning. "Go! Change this! I'll hold him off!"

Sarada pulled Boruto to his feet. "It's not safe out in the open. In the cave!"

Everyone ran to the cave. Shikadai looked back at his father, concerned.

"Go, Shikadai! I got this!"

That was the first time this Shikamaru called him by name.

Shikadai nodded. "Thanks, Dad!" He ran inside after his friends.

Shikamaru smirked, looking away from the cave and back to Sasuke struggling against his shadow's grip. "That name's growing on me, too."