Chương 50: PART 3.
About two hours passed since that exchange of theories and subsequent hypothesis.
A brown sack, filled with dust, was thrown onto the stone floor, kicking up soot and itself the dirt on the ground, forming small clouds of dust.
A gasp from the Old Woman was heard thanks to the fervent effort.
He stretched out his arm to lend the torch to the nearest boy, and asked to light the candle that lay protected under a glass jar in the wall.
As the old woman stepped into the darkness, the boy chosen to light the candle (who, by the way, turned out to be Doushu), stood on tiptoe to open the chandelier hanging on the wall, and did as he was asked.
The small dark room suddenly turned into a spectacle of dancing shadows.
Most of the children, Genin and Chunin, were in the corridor that continued in the direction of the chosen Tunnel to go outside, peeking into the small room without doors or windows; To realize after coughing and wiping his eyes because of the dirt, that it was an assorted warehouse.
The curious eyes did not evade the urgency of wanting to see what the Old Woman was doing. The same, who a few days ago showed them how her old body stayed in shape, spinning in the air and running as much as her legs allowed; Now he snorted as he bent over, and picked up sacks of who knows what, pushed them out of the way, throwing them to the ground.
Doushu moved a little closer to her side to shine the torch, in case the light of the chandelier wasn't enough for her. At that moment, the bunch of children closest to the entrance of the warehouse took the initiative to enter to search the site with their eyes.
The room was dirty, but there were an immense amount of large shelves with boxes of different sizes and types; Cardboard, wood and even plastic. The largest boxes were the wooden ones, and these were mostly on the floor away from the shelves and piled up on each other, or on top of the shelves.
Sarada, with her cloak on, was the first to enter with curiosity. He looked up, trying to discover with a simple glance, what was kept in this warehouse. The others entered at ease.
"This..."
"Here the food of my subordinates is kept; Those who travel between the tunnels, and those who work on the surface."
"Huh? Food... Do they stay on the surface that long?"
Sarada ignored the searches that her colleagues were making, peeking through the shelves or walking around the place.
The Uchiha girl approached the back of the old woman, who was lying bent over at the bottom of a large wooden box, going through some containers and reading them carefully. "Weren't you supposed to be involved with your Present?" Why do your people hang around up there?
"Um... I'm not omnipresent, you know?"
The woman took a moment to read something in a can, and then she took the paper out of it, and repeated the same thing on the cans that looked like the first one. He piled all the chosen ones, one on top of the other, on the floor.
"If it were the case that you had taken another course and had not reached me, they would have found you."
Sarada looked at her calmly, perhaps imagining the scenery.
"They go incognito to all the continents, to make sure that everything is going well. You have my express order not to get involved in ANYTHING, unless you are a refugee from the Parchment."
At this time, the old lady's back tightened a little in Sarada's eyes, and she muttered inaudibly:
"Although they have more reason to be more alert now. I can't waste so much food, if some take this tunnel..."
"Um? Alert...?"
Sarada's question was met with deaf ears, except for Boruto: The one Uzumaki had ceased his scrutiny in the warehouse, and looked with both raised eyebrows at his childhood friend, who had failed to get Grandmother's attention with her question.
Before Boruto even had time to approach and ask more about it, the Old Woman stood up, groaning. Again, Boruto and Sarada grimaced at what they were witnessing. They knew little about the woman who had received them in a good way to her hiding place, but they knew THAT side of her; The side of her that was good at combat.
It was clear that her vague attempt to push aside the questions was to play the real old woman.
"Very well, now that we are all here, make a line and each one take a can of tuna, that will be your dinner." Grandmother said, with an amusing air.
He still had his back to Sarada and the rest, pulling himself together from the SUPPOSEDLY awkward pose he'd been using to stack the cans. He was careful not to make them fall, laying them on his chest. A detail went through his head, and he decided that informing them of the rules of use of the warehouses was the best option.
"If you haven't noticed, I carry out my work based on the equivalent change." He says, turning to them. She listened quietly as some whispered things inaudible to her. "To be refugees from the parchment, I don't know if the subject will be traumatic for you... but be that as it may, that will be their life from now on, and they must preserve it. Take my rules as practice. Look, here are some cans of tuna for you, but instead you will have to leave each one of you with a gun. I know that for safety you carry Kunais, please leave each one, One, And then..."
His explanation was half-paused, of his own volition.
And it is that he did not come across something surprising, or terrifying. The most expected were questions that questioned that 'Equivalent Change' of which he was speaking, and the reason behind the decision to use that term to put the Parchment to work. She was determined to explain it if doubts appeared, but what she saw forced her to keep quiet about her explanations.
Because, with the Uchiha and the Uzumaki being the closest to her, all the children were covering their noses.
Some with only one hand, others with both. The more discreet preferred the forearm or simply looking over the shoulder, but the act was the same.
She, with the cans of tuna in her arms, could only watch the strange behavior, in silence. Later, she asked those who were practically in front of her.
"What's going on? What is happening to them?"
She examined the others from her position, and returned her attention to Boruto and Sarada when she was not satisfied. However, both children took a step back as she approached, wrinkling their faces awkwardly as they covered their noses with both hands.
"Huh?! W-W-What's up?! Do I smell so bad?! Or did something stick to me...?!"
"Uoh..."
"N-No, this... Hm!"
Once again.
Boruto had been the one who had the courage to open his mouth under his hands to clear up the misunderstanding, but even that was not enough to dampen the disgust. Almost at the same time, Sarada had shuddered, and she took a few more steps back with Boruto in front of her.
He took his eyes to the rest. Yes, something was definitely going on, they all had the same face, as if a dead mouse was rubbing itself in their faces. Others even left the Warehouse, such as Denki's Team and a part of the Ino-Shika-Chou.
And those who were sure that they would no longer smell the stench that bothered them, murmured the same thing:
"It smells bad..."
"What is that Smell?"
"Why suddenly... Does it smell so bad here?"
One straight answer after another, which pointed to the same thing: A stench she couldn't perceive.
Instantly, when her slight movement with the tuna cans moved them, causing Boruto and Sarada to back away again, the Old Woman began to connect the dots. Or at least, those who believed were destined to unite, with the bright moon as the main basis for guilt.
"It must be a joke... Right? They can't be so cruel..."
Her murmur was heard by everyone, but none had the courage to look at her. They feared that if they did, the stench would seep through their nostrils and disturb them again. Sarada and Boruto were simply frowning as they looked over their shoulders at the old lady, half-heartedly.
The assumption had caused a knot in his stomach. Mirai had left, and she had made the Old Woman promise that she would take care of them. He would even do it without being asked by the one with the red eyes, because that was his job; The reason why she was the only connoisseur of the Scroll, besides the guardian, who was still alive.
How was I supposed to keep them strong and healthy, if the problem transcended to more direct things?
I had never cared for someone who could not eat, and knowing that there may be alternatives to food, the case of the children of the future was different to an immense degree compared to normal situations.
To begin with, she being from the 'Past' in the time of children, it will be impossible for her to give her food through the roads. Nutrients and so on were not an option; they were ruled out from the beginning.
Someone from the past cannot take blood from someone from the future who was not born in the present, so the body of the person who will draw the blood will interpret the child or unborn person in the present as something that does not exist.
That is, either the blood will evaporate when it is extracted, or the nutrients it tries to pass will not even have an effect; Well, they would be executed by someone from the 'Before' in the eyes of the children.
"I was afraid this would happen, but not at this point."
Everyone looked up or turned around as they felt the smell disappear. At just the right moment, the cans of tuna caused small noises as they collided with other cans in the drawer. The old woman was returning them to their place, and put the sacks back on the tin box.
"What...?" Namida aspired to say.
But the Old Woman stepped forward firmly.
"Go to the tunnel, you have to get out quickly."
"Ah?! Excuse me?!" Boruto led the surprise of his friends.
The old woman approached Doushu, and took the torch that he was still holding. Over the course of those seconds, Hoki had come over to be the one to ask about the contradictions the woman was making. First they had been ordered to evacuate and avoid the moon; Now, they were commanded to do the opposite.
However, his words did not have time to come out when the woman gave him a melancholy expression.
It wasn't sadness or pain... it was something closer to sorrow; To the impotence of wanting to do something for someone, and not being able to. Hoki opened his eyes silently, and the Woman, as very few times since they met, used a condescending and kind tone, sympathizing with their situation, and granting them understanding.
"I already explained this to Mirai in due time, and to you later." She said softly. "Do you know that your bodies, Atoms, and all of you, act as if you were still in your Original time?"
There was a long silence, but she interpreted it as an affirmation. If not, he had received waves of questions.
She let out a deep sigh, letting air out of her nose as she approached the door, grouping herself with the number of children who had previously tried to flee the unknown stench.
"The Scroll individualizes them from This Present to prevent the world from killing them instantly. It's as if they were strained. Therefore, I thought that what you felt as hunger, was going to be reduced just by ceasing to feel appetite, but not by being unable to consume food from here... but I see that I was very naïve, I beg your apology."
"What do you mean that we cannot feel appetite...?"
Waiting for a question from the Taketori, the old woman checked her slight confusion to the group of children, finding honey eyes staring at her dumbfounded from the corridor of the Tunnel.
The sole survivor of the Akimichi clan from a non-existent future, she clenched her hands from beneath her cloak. She was not hurt, but she was stunned.
Again, another silence fell, while everyone watched Chou Chou in confusion. The Old Woman had no choice but to answer.
"That's what I thought, but like I said, I've been foolish enough to underestimate the cosmic power of that damn Scroll." The Great Elder growls. Going out to the Tunnel, those who were inside the Warehouse follow him. "I thought that simply his senses like hunger and sleep, were going to be 'Deactivated'. In other words, they wouldn't be able to feel them, but that doesn't mean they don't need them. I thought that teaching them to follow an exact schedule for eating and sleeping, even if they didn't feel hungry or sleepy, would be enough. But I failed."
"Are you saying we can't eat or sleep...?" Inojin says, in a thread of voice that revealed his impact. Beside ChouChou, the pale boy opened his eyes widely, while cold sweat slipped down his face. "B-But so far, we've eaten everything you put in front of us, you can't say that now!"
Shikadai firmly put his hand on Inojin's shoulder. I was asking him not to continue. However, although her friends took it as a warning for the old woman to explain herself, she had taken it very personally.
The apple-green eyes watched her with a calculating coldness, in that profiled and youthful face. He did not seem to be seeing the face of a child who supposedly lived in a world where peace had triumphed. Shikadai was daring him to continue.
She believed that the fight with Mirai had made Shikadai think badly of her. Not that she cared, she wasn't a babysitter. But he did care about the well-being of the children of the future individually; She had sworn to give her life for anyone who was lost in time.
But Shikadai didn't think so about her. I was seeing her as a liar to keep an eye on.
He ignored that latent gaze that pricked his hundred from a distance, and looked at the ground while finding the right words to tell the children the truth.
"To be direct: You can't consume anything from the past. No food, no water; Nothing. Everything about you acts as if you are in your original time, the future. So the food in front of them will be interpreted as old food that is more than ten years old, although it is not really so."
An impact was painted on the faces of the Genin and Chunin present, but there were few who exclaimed against it.
"He must be kidding! What you say is not true, it is a farce! Surely the stench of before means something else!" Wasabi exclaimed.
The cat girl left her two friends behind to approach. Her height, for one of the girls, was surprising in front of the old woman. The brunette had anxiety covering his entire face.
"As Isakin said, we ate everything you gave us! All that must be—
"No, it's true."
A voice sowed a new doubt. Wasabi had put into words what everyone had in mind: Something must be wrong with the Old Woman's statement, they were capable of eating.
Nara Shikadai, who was responsible for denying in favor of the Old Woman, was watched by everyone. No one saw in him the same withering and circumspect face that was addressed to the old woman. The detail only left her a little out of place, what was that little boy thinking, agreeing with her?
It was his chance to sow weeds, and if things went well, he might have even convinced everyone to go after the one with the red eyes.
But the act of NOT doing it, left her somewhat waiting.
"We've been losing our appetite the last few days, when the opposite should have happened." The black-haired man reflects aloud. "We exercised tirelessly, but our hunger was diminishing. It must be a kind of adaptation."
"Adaptation...?" Surprised that the Nara had brought up that detail, it caused Wasabi a slight feeling of stress.
Almost at the same time, everyone turned to see the oldest of the group. The Great Old Woman had decided to explain it for herself anyway, but the sum of the black-haired man's opinion had puzzled her. So, to get a wrong idea out of his head, he gently denied to himself.
"The things I know about the parchment, it is because I have studied what was DOCUMENTED from the first parts of it." She tells them. "I don't know most of the things, but you can be sure that this is not one of them. The Parchment was created for people to return to a past accessible to them; It was not created for those who are less than the chosen past. For that very reason, I think that perhaps, one of your disadvantages, is that you will be unable to feel hungry. That's counterproductive if they want to survive on their own."
High risk of injuries, diseases and attacks caused by the Past; The impossibility of consuming foods from the Past; And the dangerous possibility of not feeling pain, or in the worst case, feeling a wound that could cause imminent death.
Those were the side effects of the Parchment, which made an appearance in a physical way.
Was the appetite they were losing these days due to that?
"When you treat a wound, it takes time to heal. It is the same situation for refugees."
The old woman informs them, heading in the direction that continued with the hard walk of before.
"Your superiors, or at least, if they knew about this, could not approach you so carelessly. They, Adults at the limit of time; And you children out of bounds adapt differently. If they mixed in the early days, many things were likely to go wrong, whether the foods they ate didn't feed them properly, or their organs didn't work. But now that's the least that matters, the Scroll is already having an effect on them."
"And now...?" Boruto murmurs. He immediately visualizes situations in which that would be a bigger problem. "How are we—"
Again, speculation was about to seep in between them, when the woman raised her free hand to stop them. In a solemn voice, he spoke:
"Now, now, don't be scared. It is clear that the objective of the Parchment is to ensure their lives, killing them would be a contradiction." The woman dismisses the worrisome scenarios, gesturing her hand.
Her tone of voice, worthy of a senile old woman, didn't seem to be taking the subject so seriously, so she earned some tired looks.
"I have an idea. If your theory that that moon-eyed girl has outwitted the scroll ends up being reality, then we can do the same!
"Can we outwit the Scroll to feel hungry again?" ChouChou questions from the back of the group.
In different circumstances, stinging glances would have been thrown at the brunette. But, quite the opposite; Both his sad attitude, as well as the apparent surrender of his friends, merited an honest concern.
They had fled the cataclysm and lost their loved ones, and after going through all that, they didn't want to end up dying of a hunger they were unable to feel.
"That's impossible, that's the price you had to pay." Declares the older woman.
"And how do we make fun of him?" Mitsuki, being one of the few times he does it, investigates. His teammates watch him.
"Their bodies continue to act as if they were at home. That makes me think that the only possibility that you can eat something without feeling disgusted, and with the assurance that you can be fed properly, is simpler than you think: Create your own food, yourself."
"Hunting food?" Instantly, Boruto wrinkles his face and holds his chin. "Ah, well, personalized food... Maybe...?"
"Does that make a difference, Boruto...?"
The one Uchiha let out a small snort of saddened weariness. Not that she was extremely hurt by something so insignificant, but the fright of a long time ago still lingered in her nerves.
Breaking the awkward situation with a resigned sigh, intermingling it with one of relief, Hoki composed himself and was the next to question:
"However, we can't go out now, right?, The original plan was to wait for the sun to rise, because with the moon..."
"And that's going to continue to be the plan, believe it." The woman answers, turning to the large group and piled up as if it were a fan. "And I want you to always remember it, avoid the moon. But it seems to me that this is the ideal opportunity to show you how to do it without falling under the blankets of moonlight."
Hoki hardened his expression. He had removed a few hours ago, the Shinobi headband for safety. Now his brown hair, a little fluffy, stood up on all sides as he showed his serene gaze, with vague serious experiences being an Anbu under Sai-san's command.
The Great Grandmother opens a single eye, showing a strange expression of complicity. Given his secretive and contradictory manner regarding his friendly scolding behavior, Hoki felt only a slight mortification.
"Put on all the hoods of your cloaks, we are heading for a forest on the way up." He tells them. "It won't affect them if they have that on them, and, in addition, they are protected by a tree stage. There is no better opportunity for teaching than to brush up on danger a little."
And with those strange, reckless words, the children of the future continued walking, guided by the Great Old Woman into a long, deep tunnel beneath the windlands. In a short time, they would reach arboreal lands: The land of fire.
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