章 47: PART 4.
There was a funereal chill in the elongated, enclosed space. The torches held by the men whose identity was hidden behind rags around their heads were not enough to heat up the atmosphere a little. All eyes were on him, and the adults who were silenced looked specifically at him.
As if the confidential secret had come to light by a slip, all the men could only stare at the ground so as not to see him in the eye.
Also holding a torch, and creating shadows on the faces of the stunned children, the Old Woman stood like a porcelain doll in Boruto's sight. Expressionless, but with a drop of sweat running down the side of her face.
The children of the future were amazed at what had been revealed. They were outside the bunker, and now they were in the midst of the displacement to a new destination that only the Great Grandmother knew.
But in the course of the outing, Boruto did not hold back to say what he had seen; What he witnessed in that lucid dream was not really a dream; That is what he said to himself, and he reaffirmed it without shame before the great Grandmother.
His astonishment was contradicted by the certainty of his words; Not even Boruto himself knew what to believe. Sarada was one with the others, and even she couldn't say anything to lure him into trust.
Mitsuki, next to her, sadly glared at his best friend with his yellowish eyes; What was said was not something to be taken lightly, and he noticed the older woman's fearlessness in the face of the accusation that the Uzumaki brought to light. She knew more than they realized; Not everything had been shared with them.
"And well... Y-You're not going to answer me? I'm waiting for you, Grandma!" The mustachioed man protests with breaths of unease. Sarada became numb, and could not stop it with her hand. "What I saw wasn't a dream, was it? Was it reality?! Was it thanks to that thing in heaven?!"
"..."
"Answer me!!"
He proclaims. His throat suffers the consequences, and with Mitsuki's hand on his chest as a plea for calm, the snake boy seems to share the same demand for explanations.
"We are in the past... all of us we know, our home; They're all alive!"
"Not that..."
"Is my dad aware of all this?! Is he involved too?!" When He is scandalized, everyone else gasps when the testimony of the Lucid Dream is repeated. "I saw it, I really saw it! Don't come and tell me that I imagined it or that pain makes me dream strange things!! Even Momoshiki himself was in that place!!"
"Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki?!" Those closest to Boruto on the subject, repeated the same thing in their heads.
Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki, the Extraterrestrial god from nowhere; The presence that had faded and is now hidden within.
The Old Woman knew and knew the children's stories. It was Mirai herself who introduced herself and her Young Companions as they lay unconscious.
But things of this magnitude, the Cunin barely knew, and she only explained what was known among the Ninjas under the Hokage's close command.
The old woman knew... I knew the Essentials. He knew the truth of Boruto's origin. He, being the Son of a Hokage, and holding a powerful creature within him. That same power rivaled that of some Bijū in the current era.
Because of that detail, Boruto was a scandal. He had woken up muttering things, and after leaving Sarada confused, he looked with different eyes at the Old Woman who was looking at him with a familiar analysis.
It was the same face that his father put on him, a little before the cataclysm. The face of an adult who protected a child without question.
Boruto began to catch his breath in desperation, and his childhood friend called out to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
Mitsuki had done the same, being seen by all his friends, who, incredulous, watched in silence and nervousness. Others looked at the woman with a mixture of distrust and skepticism, as if Boruto himself accused her of wanting to do them some harm.
She was aware of Boruto's reactions, without changing her empty expression.
"He was the one who told me that it would all end... that they would take away everything that mattered to me.
The Uzumaki's shoulders trembled in bewilderment. Apparently, the presence of the God Ōtsutsuki in that lucid dream was, for him, a confirmation that what he experienced was not really a dream. "It's not crazy, is it?" To think that... they are also victims... Huh?!
"Boruto...!"
"They are victims, Sarada! They don't hide us so as not to discover us!" The Blond silences her with disdain. Growling, he fulminates Grandma. "They are hiding us to divert attention... He wants to save us, in exchange for those of the past being in danger!"
"Enough has been enough!! Your way of jumping to conclusions has to end now!!"
The roar of the Old Woman shook the place. The earth that seeped through the cobbled roof fell on them like a rain of soot while the old woman opened her eyes, and wrinkled her brow with controlled irritation.
His presence currently, seemed to activate another button for his subordinates. All the men stood firm and stiff, looking at the ground. Those who had the torches lowered them to a height sufficient to attach their arms to their bodies. They wanted to make sure that they did not diminish the value of the Great Lady's words.
Boruto, in front of his friends, could only open his eyes in despair. Both in his past training, and the one he lived with the woman, he had learned to remain calm in these situations. But the circumstances were now very different.
The woman gnashed her teeth with a twitch between her eyebrows as she spoke.
"At no time did I say that they were my priority when I accepted that they would stay with me." He says in a harsh tone. He had lost patience with Boruto. "Whether those of Ahora die or not, is not my problem. My role is to protect everyone who is lost in time, and guide them to live for themselves; Instruct him not to kill his own or anyone who has nothing to do with him. And by means of everything, I do not have to meddle in any business; That is not the role I was given. Do you understand now?!"
A puzzle. That was the atmosphere of this moment.
Confusions, lengthening of words, repetitions, excess of unnecessary expressions...
All that was accumulating inside Boruto; A bubble of irritation that threatened to burst. The woman clearly knew what she was being asked, and she knew the reason for the circumstances; But he did not respond as Boruto demanded.
This time, however, Boruto had been perplexed.
With Sarada as pale as paper, and the rest of his friends silent, he made the decision to remain mute, and to be a recipient of the sermon he was receiving. A part of him wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but Grandma had extinguished that flame in him.
"They're not your priority now..." She speaks to the ground, with a tinge of pleading directed at no one. "You are tiny bubbles here; Even if they go and explain everything to them, they will lead them to perdition. You... Now they've been cursed by the moon! Do you have any idea what will happen if you keep meddling?!"
"The moon..." Sarada murmurs, frozen.
"Damn...?" Enko questions in the background, in the same way.
Boruto clenched his fists.
"You talk and talk, but you don't tell us anything!" His tiredness when he screams is noticeable, and he catches his breath in an attempt between his exclaimed inquiries. "I asked you why I saw my father in the same place as Momoshiki, and you come to me with that... Now, what is the Curse?!"
They were all in a cold sweat. What was being discussed was already beyond their fear of heaven. Knowing that the threats were only piling up against him left the vast majority in a stupefaction.
The woman tightened her grip on the torch.
"The moon... is claiming for you. Grandma says to Boruto, listening to everyone." She herself sounded reluctant to continue. "Time is something fine, but infinite. It is natural for the earth to seek to leave you aside by not belonging here. But... Only external forces, such as the moon, have the right to intervene and do something about it. You, coming from a non-existent future, have been marked by the moon of the Sage of the six paths."
The firstborn of the Seventh Hokage could only turn pale, but from the confusion. He understood everything that had to be related to the god that was sheltered within him. But he missed more distant details, even older than the ages of his parents' teachers, or the parents of his teachers' teachers.
"The Sage of the Six Ways..." Sarada repeated what everyone present had in mind, but it didn't mean that she had understood everything.
Boruto saw her for a moment, and began to feel upset when he sensed Sarada's fear of facing something far greater than the Impossible of being transported to the past, in exchange for all the lives of the people they held dear.
"It's a very long story, not even I could tell you clearly because everything is told differently as times change." Calmly, the old woman says. "Despite having a lot of knowledge, and knowing the ways to outwit at the same time... There are still things that escape from my hands."
"What kind of things...?" ChouChou had said to one end of the group of children. The last thing he wanted was to get close to the source of confused doubts.
The old woman stared at Boruto. He was evidently upset. Sweat ran down his face, and his hundred wrinkled the more he furrowed his brows.
The old woman could see nothing but a frightened child.
A boy who had been born into a world where you could be a Ninja from a very young age, and he was lucky enough to live in a time that would be destroyed sooner or later.
"I don't come from the same place as you. I don't know what kind of problems there are between you or your time. I am still part of it, even though in that future from which you come, one of the adults in your village will know me."
She raises the torch, and moves it slowly to illuminate the faces she was not able to see.
"That implies... that, although I have my ways of helping them, it may be that some of them are ineffective. Tell me... Does it exist... Somehow, someone so powerful that they can provoke something like this?"
"Are you talking about the Parchment that brought us here?"
"No." He denies Hoki. "I mean heaven."
Taketori didn't know how to get rid of that doubt. But, long before the old lady let out air to release the pressure, all the children of the future, stiff and cold, turned their heads slowly towards the red-bespectacled Uchiha. It was in unison, like popular knowledge that forced them to act in the same way.
"Eida..." Sarada whispered regretfully. Boruto opened his eyes to his address. He recognized the name too much, and the possessor of it. "So it can't be impossible... Eida may be alive."
"What...?!" The Uzumaki gasped. "E-Eida?! How can she be alive?! She disappeared at the same time as Kawaki!! Both must be...!"
Boruto stopped his protests. He had hit rock bottom.
If his father were still alive, he would give him a long talk about the differences between him and Kawaki; He would defend him tooth and nail, even from his own son.
And while Boruto had nothing against him, and he fully understood that Kawaki's behavior is due to the environment he grew up in and his circumstances... He did not forgive what he had done.
But above all the experiences, and what he had seen, Kawaki was still his brother; Part of his family.
The thought that he, the only person who understood what it was like to have Karma besides him, was dead along with the rest of his family, sank his heart into the pain that tore his veins one by one. Every heartbeat is painful when he thought about it, no matter how many things Kawaki has done.
But Boruto now had two feelings fighting each other in his chest with frenzy: Pain and Hope.
While one part shouted: "I have to comply, and save Kawaki!", the counterpart demanded, "He was the one who took it from us."
He did not know many things, including the whereabouts of his adoptive brother. During the Cataclysm, did you manage to get out of Konoha, and were you a victim as a result of it? Could he have been rescued by a group of Ninjas with the scroll?
And even more enigmatic: Why did Eida disappear right after him? Where did those two go? Are you in it together?
How are they still alive?
"I know all the divine techniques. But that of making everyone fall in love is not one of them."
Together, they looked at Boruto in a glance while he figured out a clarification.
"Momoshiki said something like that...! That Eida's power was not to make people fall in love."
At the same time, the others murmured the equality of words between Boruto and Sarada. In fact, Sarada was not mistaken or upset, and those who questioned her inquiries looked visibly stupefied and cold.
"So, what is your real power?" Mitsuki speaks to him. "What did that do to us from heaven? What is the point?"
"So there is someone, right?" The veteran woman immerses them all in her pronunciations.
He stared at the ground for a few seconds... a slight tremor shook his lexicon as he contemplated the certainty with which Boruto confirmed the existence of that person.
"At no time has the existence of people lost in time been verified or confirmed. But, given the existence of a means by which to bring it, my own existence is vital to take care of the natural flow of both intersecting times. In other words, events that occur naturally as a result of the coming of someone from elsewhere do not have to be interrupted. That is already a natural flow, although it endangers the people of the now."
Hoki was extremely interested. How did the old woman have the role of protecting those who were lost in time, if it had never happened? Now everything was clearer, and she assumed that it was due to a protection to fall back on if the strange case were to occur.
He theorized that whoever left that paper in the hands of the Old Woman was praying that this human error, influenced by curiosity, would not be committed.
Iwabee, just behind Boruto and Sarada, couldn't go on, because the old woman nodded firmly. —
"That's right. Although I warned them not to get involved with them and not to get them into trouble, the situation changes if the problems come to them naturally." He explains.
He could be saying something coherent, and painful, but in favor of them. But even one woman with unknown experiences was hurt to learn that innocent people had gotten involved.
"The world is too big... anything can happen." She adds, almost in a hurry. He drops his shoulders with the torch raised. His subordinates share the discouragement. "What implies the Moon is that person you mentioned. She has to be the possessor of something that is waking up to the moon. And.... whatever he did... if it has affected the people of the Now, then there is nothing left to do."
"A-And what will happen if he wakes up completely? How does a moon wake up, to begin with?!" Metal Lee asks.
"I don't know. The writings that were given to me to study... they mention something through drawings, but it is not self-explanatory." She tells them.
Many eyebrows were raised by the revelation of some Drawings. The only one who did not do so was Shikadai. He suspected that the existence of them was only shared with Mirai.
"But, even someone like me can assure one thing. I can say that someone who is familiar with the moon may be able to wake it up. But only he who was brought, like you, can do it."
"Eida...!" Some murmured.
The woman gestures with her free hand towards Boruto.
"Does everyone know the legend?" Seeing the lack of response, he continues. "On the Moon and the Sage of the Six Paths."
Among all the children, Sarada was the one who was the most clever when the legend was mentioned. He had read many books on the subject, and his mother told him another one just as true, like another warrior in the fourth great Ninja war.
Not to mention, Shino-sensei spoke to them only once about the subject. Afterwards, everything was like water in the past; A sensitive topic that no adult wanted to normalize among students.
"The Sage of the Six Paths created the moon." Uchiha says. "But... during the fourth great Ninja war, it was discovered that he had locked his mother inside, and lifted her up to the heavens so that she would never come down again."
The cruelty of this feat was muttered about, but it dissipated when the veteran woman thought to herself reflectively, and a sigh escaped her.
"A war, um..." For an instant, Sarada had shaken off. "Don't be alarmed, I was the one who asked. Besides, it's not like I go out and talk to everyone. There is no difference in knowing things or not; I will never do anything against or for those who live in my hiding place."
Sarada, dressed like the others, in a white pajama shirt and a grayish jacket with unbuttoned buttons, breathed a sigh of relief. He had to take good care of his mouth if he didn't want to call for the butterfly effect.
"And... What does it have to do with the moon and the curse?" Tsubaki asked.
"Well, that's what's interesting about all this." The woman exposes with a slight doubt in her tone. "I do not know what the origin of the Sage of the Six Paths is, and it is highlighted in the writings and drawings that something related to him can alter something."
"Is that all? Are there no more details?"
"Unfortunately, no." She replies to Tsubaki, equally discouraged. "But... I see that you have already found the answer."
They found out too soon what the old woman meant. She was very attentive, and did not let slip the details that the children had exchanged with each other. The children, more than she and her subordinates, knew more about Sarada and the Chunins than they themselves realized.
Even so, Sarada was left thinking as she stared at nothingness. Boruto did the same. Shikadai looked at them suspiciously. He didn't want to get involved, because he was too focused on the lack of a presence that no one else had noticed, and he looked a little irritated; But that didn't mean he didn't support them.
"The sage of the six paths was an Ōtsutsuki." Boruto reminds them acutely. "And in the fourth Great Ninja War, and in the Cunin exams... Konoha has already faced them."
"Eida appears, someone indestructible to all his prisoners." Sarada joins. "His creator put DNA of a God in him, possessor of endless divine abilities. They Affect Humans, Except..."
At the same time, Boruto and Sarada look at each other in surprise, and at that moment, all their friends joined them.
"The Ōtsutsuki!"
For the first time, the men looked up to see the surprise on the children's faces. They were more stunned by the total ignorance of the woman that they still did not complain. The old woman blew her throat a couple of times to take it in. I didn't need to know everything.
"How can people be transported to different points, if there is only one scroll, Grandma?!" Boruto hurrys up, Sarada shared his despair. "Is it possible?! When we were summoned, many Ninja of our time had also used the same medium to come, but they were separated from us!"
For a moment, the Old Woman let Sarada swallow hard.
"I only got to see him once." The woman with the weight entrusts them with it. I hadn't told anyone that. "It was so big... which, when opened, could roll on its own and cover the entire floor of a village. There is a method of splitting it, and the risk can be just as fatal as the parchment attached... but you have already seen it with your own eyes."
"So it is possible?!"
"I have no doubt. If they try to assimilate the theory that the person they are referring to is still alive... may be possible. I mean, the only answer I have to make sense of the moon's behavior is that."
"But...! What if it wasn't Eida...?" Sarada was about to begin to investigate in a hurry, when Boruto demolished his theory without hesitation.
"That can't be. She is the only explanation for all this." He looks at the Old Woman with palpable tension. "She was well involved in Kara's affairs, and the adults prioritized her too much... considering her ability, she was clearly used to protect Konoha. Don't you see that you were already prepared when we were attacked?!"
"It can't be...!" Renga paled. "But...! She was considered dangerous! Right...? Besides... Wasn't she... in love with Kawaki?" He said. Sai had explained to the Anbu children, vaguely the circumstances of the stranger child. "She wouldn't help Konoha just because. They must have bribed her with something..."
"You don't have to work hard to know what Kawaki has to do with it." Wasabi, serious, crossed her arms. Her companions looked at her worriedly on both sides. "Didn't Kawaki disappear along with her? They must walk together."
"It's still confusing, nothing answers why we were taken back to the past, and why Eida would accept that alternative." Doushu opinions. "I don't see her as crazy enough to accept it so easily... and we have no evidence to hold her responsible for the moon."
"The moon can only be awakened by someone related to the sage."
The Great Old Woman clarifies. Being a listener, he had ordered the reasons why the moon did what he did, jealously in his head.
"A god with endless techniques, and with his DNA... In addition, that makes her someone related to the sage. Ōtsutsuki... they said, I don't know what his skill is, but... If that person is as special as you describe, and is the only one, then he may be the cause. The moon was awakened to illuminate those who have been marked. You already are, so the one who marked you had to be someone with such ability, coming from the same place as you."
"That's why you asked us if we knew anyone..."
"That's right." The woman nodded to Namida. "The moon only stops you at night. I don't know what can happen to them... But the writings of someone affected by the parchment testify that he was a spectator of nightmares involving an infinity of times. I don't recommend putting it to the test."
I could hear the beating of all the children's hearts together. They could all be from Konoha; They could all be Shinobi; But they were overtaken by a power that had only one existence that ascended to another plane more than ten years ago from its original time.
Boruto took the old lady's explanation into account, and decided to take her scolding about "Jumping to Conclusions" seriously. Konohamaru-Nii-chan had said something similar to him once, but he didn't think he remembered it.
Deliberating to himself, the One Uzumaki concluded that it was indeed Eida. Like everyone else, the possibility that Eida was alive was already taken more as a fact.
Meanwhile, Boruto himself highlighted the characteristic that the mysterious teenager had in her eyes: Two crescents, one in each eye surrounding the iris. Those who had the pleasure of seeing her up close, had a hard time remembering that detail.
Apparently, when they were being her prisoners, they couldn't even stare into her eyes without getting upset in some way.
Sarada confirmed the revelation. Even more so if it is a coincidence, it was the only thing they had to leave. Eida's power was unknown, and they could only link that power never seen before, with what they had seen in the sky. In addition, there was the theme of the Ōtsutsuki and the moon.
The same logic was discussed at this level; The same logic used when Eida came into their lives and turned them upside down.
She, according to Amado's old man (the suspicious man who created her and her brother, like most members of Kara), Eida and her brother had the DNA of Shibai Ōtsutsuki, an Ōtsutsuki who ascended to another plane and left his body behind when he achieved his divinity. He had many divine techniques, among them, Omnipresence, which Eida has in her left eye.
What does that have to do with a moon from the past?
Boruto wouldn't know how to answer that, especially if he could find some sense in it. Seeing it all from Eida, one could conclude that she woke up to the moon and made him faint. After all, Eida didn't affect the Ōtsutsuki with his power, and that includes Boruto, who was already one internally.
The only question that came up was why he would have done it, and how. Where was Eida now? Did he survive along with his younger brother? How was it possible to "Awaken" to the moon?
I had a lot of questions, but at least I had a starting point if you took into account the possibility that Eida is alive.
While the passages of the underground divided the narrowest and most dangerous passages, Boruto reviewed the theory in steps from the rest of his friends.
The Old Woman was leading the route in a hurry, and she was advising them as she did so. The paths varied from narrow paths, with only one wall to hold on to and not fall into the void beyond the darkness; Until climbing a steep and rocky wall, having the same dark fate on one side.
In his long career, Boruto recalled his lucid dream with more vivid ones when Denki spoke hopefully:
"Tell me, Boruto-kun. Really the one you saw in your dream... was the true seventh? Could he really be alive? Just like Eida and Kawaki-kun?"
Boruto pursed his lips. The person who stood in front of him in the emptiness of his consciousness was not his father. More or less. He was not the man who had seen him born. It was something like... The man who had not yet seen him born.
The Naruto who was there, was only someone a couple of years older than Boruto himself. He had seen too many old photos, like in his house as in others; Like in the card shop, like in the Konoha Museums; As if on their own, as if against their will. That boy was a Naruto who would never have been interested in his mother to begin with.
He had a silly face, but he looked smart. He had even addressed him with great confidence, not thinking that perhaps he was not in his consciousness, but in a shared consciousness.
He launched himself to attack him, for some reason, unaware that his technique was going to work in such a space. And what was most remarkable about him was his presence.
A screaming child, looking for quarrels and full of confidence. Boruto couldn't stand being around people like him... perhaps because he himself was a screaming child, looking for quarrels and full of confidence.
But his father? The man who scolded him when he made jokes?! It can't be true!
To make matters worse, the Boruto of that plane was not even able to say a word. Momoshiki had a heavy, but not total, control of his consciousness.
The action of speaking had been deactivated from him, and he was also unable to move. When his consciousness dissipated and Boruto no longer saw his father, he saw only black. The voices of his friends in the distance, and Momoshiki's filtering through them.
Boruto's refusal alarmed everyone as they descended a steep path in the underground filled with slippery dirt and solitude. "When I said I saw my father, I didn't mean... to my father.
"Didn't you mean...?"
"Yes." He answered. "The person I saw there, wasn't the Naruto you know as the Seventh Hokage."
A sepulchral cold bathed them when Boruto stopped walking. Even the Great Elder turned to hear it from her own mouth, though she knew what the answer would be.
"The Uzumaki Naruto I saw was nothing more and nothing less than the Naruto of more than ten years ago: A rejuvenated version of him."
"Huh?!"
"W-What are you saying, Boruto?!" Quickly, Sarada gets in the way. Denki had turned as pale as a white sheet. "Haven't you seen wrong...?!"
"You say I don't know my dad enough?" The answer perplexed her, and Boruto looked away with a bit of disdain. "I recognized him, it was him. He was almost as young as me, he couldn't be my dad if I didn't recognize him as such. He looks a lot smaller and idiot than he is... it was, my dad."
Boruto said all this with the same confidence with which he spoke in the near past, such as that time when he swore to Shikadai that a voice spoke to him from the forest near his home.
But, far from so many times in which he showed the same confidence, he brought with him the appearance of having seen him, but also of having denied him at the time. When he awoke, he said it aloud; But he never specified that he had seen the Teenage version of his father.
Unbelief had ruled them all, even though they had known it from the beginning.
They were in the past. Their relatives were alive here, but rejuvenated and without the memories of the acclaimed heroes.
On his way, he explained the sensations that invaded him while outside the others hid in the bunker lent by the old woman. Sarada listened attentively, without looking straight ahead, and never left his side; The same with Mitsuki.
The rest of his friends could hardly give their opinion for themselves.
Between moving confidently up the slippery walls and the echo that reminded him of the loneliness they were in, it was impossible for them to truly grasp the conflict in this. Merely the Chunin among them, they played with the information in their heads, and did not let go of Boruto's testimony.
They had remained hidden and secretly trained to be able to go out and move, because, in the old woman's words, the situation would be similar to filling a balloon filled with air with more air. If they didn't move, who knows what would happen.
Mirai was doing the same thing right now, and that's why she wasn't with them; Because she was walking the path that they would take, and since she was the oldest, she had to do it first.
Boruto had wondered that Shikadai did not question her whereabouts, nor argue anything in favor of the Old Woman.
He thought it was because, like the others, he was taking in Boruto's verdict of seeing his rejuvenated father up close.
She didn't want to pressure him, she knew that, unlike him, the Nara had experienced the trauma of losing her father in front of her eyes. He thought it was better to leave him alone, he would talk more about it and they would discuss what to do next, once they were sure.
For three hours, they did not see any subordinates. The old woman explained that, in the basement that she had built, there were different passageways, as well as false ones for any unwanted intruder.
But that, in consequence of the magnitude of this work, it was not possible to extend it over great distances, and they had to go out, on the one hand, cross the surface on foot, and take the road again through the subsoil from another entrance.
The subordinates were divided into different hiding places in different parts between the land of wind and the land of fire.
Although he confessed that his beginnings were in the land of the earth, he admitted that much of the passages, hiding places, and training rooms lay beneath the deserts and forests of the land of wind and fire, and that it was not safe for him to create such a feat just below a population whose dominant style was to manipulate the earth.
The subordinates they had seen in the first hiding place were few compared to the rest of the places below the windland. Between the roads, there was a restless solitude, and life reigned once one knew where the refuge inhabited by the subordinates with covered faces was.
They were between roads right now. In other words, there was no subordinate. But there would always be some who worked only for the protection of the passages that were shared with other hiding places, and they would soon meet the others again.
"How long will it take us to get there?" Tsuru asked from the back.
The old woman did not turn around, and only raised the torch more so that the children could see where they were stepping. They had the express order to step where she did, since there were traps hidden from every corner.
So many, that she admitted without interest, that she had forgotten the ones she herself had set, and that her subordinates did not even talk to her about the same ones put by them.
"The moon is still crowning the sky, we can't go to the surface now. I'm afraid they'll have to put up with these traps a little longer... It will take us a while to reach the nearest forest."
"Wait a moment, Forest?" Hoki took a few steps forward, his friends behind him. "Are we going to another country?"
The others looked at the old woman's back.
"The land of fire is big enough to keep them hidden from those people who attacked them in the desert." She says. "But that doesn't mean they won't be on the sidelines. We will ascend when we find the forest, and we will descend again when we find another entrance. I can't let anyone see them."
"And Mirai-san?" The name was like a jingle for all the children. Namida rubbed her knuckles anxiously, gently. "Will she know where to find us?"
"Calm down, now is not the time to think about that."
Namida felt her heart bounce as she believed that something had happened to Mirai, and as if it were part of a theater against her, the woman looked at her darkly over her shoulder, and then gave her the ghost of a friendly smile.
"I'm preparing it to your heart's content. You can't see each other right now, but you'll see that before long she'll come on her own."
Seeing Namida smile in relief, the woman shrewdly looked straight ahead as Wasabi peeked his eyes into her eyes.
"Of course..." he recomposed, as if an idea had resurfaced in him. "If it should happen that she ends up in the shelter we left behind, my subordinates will not hesitate to send her to us accompanied by one or two of them."
Namida didn't know anything about the kind of training Mirai was receiving, but she believed it had to be something similar to what they received.
He refrained from asking about it, because he thought another avalanche of unanswered questions and complicated words would come upon him. He passed on that, knowing that Mirai-san was fine.
However, a swarm of tension was sitting in the group walking between the underground passageways.
Sarada and Mitsuki saw Boruto, who was walking with his attention lost; They thought he was still thinking about that dream that he had grown so tired of explaining to others in the last two hours.
The time had come for him to think more about himself and his surroundings, now that the Old Woman was more attentive to his forehead. But, the only ones who carried out this action were divided between one child from each team of three.
The spicy unknown resided in them, and they were afraid to insist on it because they would know that either the subject would be changed, or it would not be appropriate in the current situation. Shikadai was seen by Hoki's blue eyes, with calculating attention.
He never noticed, and confirmed that something really serious was going on above their heads.
Since he was walking right next to team seven, Hoki glanced slyly over his shoulder, taking advantage of Boruto's team's concentration on him. His steps were well taken even when he did not see where he was stepping, and he did not care about stepping on a trap.
Hako, his companion, nodded slightly, and did the same action as the masked boy.
Likewise, Doushu's team reacted, and the Hanabi team too... except Namida. She walked not far from the tenth team.
Denki could only frown sadly when Enko glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. He felt a regret that ate him inside when suspicions increased, and everyone understood that the subject of Mirai did not have to be touched, no matter how curious or Chunin they were.
Embarrassed and a little dejected by Boruto's testimony, he turned to see Metal Lee.
The boy, who had been stripped of his green robes, and instead wore a kind of white long-sleeved robe and black trousers, walked visibly nervously.
His guard was down, and his fists were close to his chest as his back rose a little, as if he were ready to cover himself at any moment.
They had no more doubts now. The world above them was spinning against their will, and they were doing nothing.
The dirt of the passageways and the moving figures of the Children of Konoha, faded from my sight, and the breeze of the real world caressed my cheeks. The dirt road seemed to glow silver when I saw it under the white moon, and the whistling of the wind made the forest around us sing.
I heard the little person, sitting next to me at the roadside stop, sneeze as she hugged herself.
"Tsk... how cold it is..."
That person was my younger brother, Daemon. He, like me, was wearing a cloak that covered him from the cold, but it didn't seem to suit him, either because of its dull colors, or in saving him from this cold night.
While I have my legs crossed, and my hands in my lap, I put the hood of his cape on him so that he is completely covered. Daemon was small, and these things used to make him even more irritable. Although I am willing to stand up to that Daemon and he always obeys me, I am not in the position of unprotecting him.
"It will be a problem if you catch a cold. Cover up."
My brother snorted, making a movement with his own head to see me under the hood. The cloak was not his size; We did not find one of his own for him.
"As if that were possible, Neechan."
I stared at him out of the corner of my eye for a few seconds. More than seven hours ago, a wagon had left us on the road, and we continued alone.
From this point on, we had to continue on the road to our destination without being seen by anyone else, and we were resting. On the other hand, I decided to sit down and use my eye to see correctly what I was going to do, and study each point as I could.
Now that I've tested a lot of things, and talked to a lot of people for silly things (like when I was discussing the matter of Daemon's cloak), I had more or less, a clear view of what was happening to us.
"I'm not sure if your skill will work by then... But it's worth the try."
With Shika-chan's words in my head, I was left with only one conclusion in sight.
It's not that my power doesn't currently work. In fact, thanks to the parchment, my own existence is unique, and it did not adapt to the present time.
I can use my techniques as if I were on my own time, but I can also use my senrigan and witness events that I couldn't before. For example, the day before my birth. In the meantime, I am able to see past events from the present time, but not beyond the age of sixteen... my age.
And what is more remarkable, is my power to have everyone under my control; To make them prisoners.
Nobody; No person who has seen me has seemed to fall into that power that left me down for so long. That power shit didn't seem to work with the people here... or at least, in the case of complying with certain patterns.
For example, I've noticed that during road trips with other people, they would suddenly stare at me or be friendly. In other words, the habitual behavior of my Omnipotent power took effect on them when it was night.
However, it only works when I speak to them. During the day, nothing seems to happen.
"I'm very tired! When are we going to arrive?" Again, my brother has a growth spurt, and as so often, he lies on my lap as if it were a cushion.
I run my hand over his back. I was very insensitive to letting him walk for too long. At the time, I was testing the theory of when and how my ability was taking effect on people in the past. And I didn't want to have him so close.
"Be patient. We have to wait for the clouds to cover the moon. I say, gently rubbing his back." It would be problematic for anyone to see us flying over all this.
At that moment, a tinge of surprise seemed to furrow my brother's expression. In short, some thought had bothered him.
He, with his scandalous habit, asks me:
"Is that dying Code again, Neechan? Is that one bothering you again?"
"It's not about Code... and he is anything but dying." I answer him in a slip. I had just remembered what I had seen him doing thanks to my Senrigan. I remain silent for a few seconds, I know that Daemon pretends to be unaware of these issues. "It's Kawaki-kun."
He grimaces, as I feel his elbow move slightly in my lap.
"No matter how hard I try... even when I give him everything with my power... It doesn't seem like he wants to turn to look at me." My voice, as always, is as if it were ununderstood. I had grown tired of the power to attract many, and long ago I lost the honesty in my voice. "If I had stayed there, he probably would have killed me. And now, with what I just did... He doesn't even seem to remember me anymore."
"He's a cowardly bootlicker, that's what he is." My brother spits. "He must be whining because his daddy Hokage is dead." You're much more mature than that, Onee-chan!"
"..."
I don't answer him, but he knows that my silence and inexpressiveness communicated to him a "Maybe...".
We are sitting, waiting for the moon to go down completely. The country we are heading to is still a bit far away, and with the cold that is already there, I mentally prepare myself with the idea of flying over its skies. I contemplate the idea, and I don't rule it out. It is still the best option.
I think more about what Daemon said about Kawaki.
Coward...
Even if I love Kawaki, I wouldn't describe him as brave in that vision I had to see before the cataclysm. He looked so scared, that he even finished me off when the information slipped in that it had not been Boruto who had killed the Seventh Hokage.
That was one of the two confused visions: In one he killed me, and in the other he spared my life.
But to me, both meant equal to being dead. For he was the only one who does not fall into my power, and he hates me. But, in the vision in which he forgives me for my complicity, he does not even seem to respect me. She treats me like a poor fool who fears being finished off by her hands. Not being a prisoner of my power doesn't just mean that you don't fall at my feet.
It also means that he is the only one capable of killing me.
I pinch my fingers a little bit together. The mere idea of not knowing my own well-being causes me something close to anxiety... although I don't know if this is anxiety. The same, I discovered new sensations when I met Kawaki. But I'm in a different situation right now.
" ... Make no mistake, Daemon." I mean.
"Ah?"
"Kawaki will be a bit of a coward... but he is no bootlicker. More than a scolding," I say in a counseled tone. "He's not crying, and the Hokage isn't dead."
From my spoken words, my brother looks back at the road in front of us, putting more of the weight of his cheek on his fist. His elbow sinks deeper into my thigh, and I lean back further at the back of the bench.
"Being in the past... I wouldn't be surprised, although it would be mind-blowing." I hear my brother say. Even the situation seems to bore him a little because of the lack of violent actions. "Is it strong?"
"Who?"
"The Hokage." My brother clarifies, yawning. "How strong is it? I've never seen it. Is it older than Boruto?"
"..."
However, I am a little silent because of my brother's insistence. It does not seem that we are talking about the same thing.
"It's his father..."
"It's not that, Onee-chan!" Daemon turns to look at me, almost pleading. I must have thought that he was hesitating. "The Hokage of now! It's someone Young! Truth? They say a lot of absurd things about him! How strong is it?"
"... The Hokage, you say?" I try not to make my ignorance evident. "Ah... Are you talking about the one who is about Kawaki-kun's age?"
"That same one!" Daemon applauds.
"..."
My silence endures, until I murmur, returning my vision to the forest.
"Uzumaki Naruto, huh?"
It didn't seem like Daemon and I were referring to the same Naruto...
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