2,512Sarada was in the middle of a meeting with her war council when it happened.
Sentoki froze, eyes wide, an almost restrained expression of pain twisting his features. At the monk's side, Naruto stumbled, knees weak, swaying on his feet. They turned, as one, to the east.
"By the Sage..." Sentoki gasped, muttering a short prayer under his breath.
"Naruto?" her father asked, setting a hand on his best friend's shoulder. "What is it?"
"Death..." he mumbled brokenly.
There was one thing, one person, that connected Naruto and Sentoki that also happened to be in the east.
Sarada knew something was wrong. She closed her eyes, the power of her Mangekyō burning through her synapses, and thrust herself into her precognition. She shied away from the fog of Tsuki and turned her gaze inwards, towards her own people, and the paths of the future frayed before her.
Bolt had, ever since she forged the Yagokoro bridge with him, become more and more clear to her foresight. He grew even more clear as they slowly reforged their broken bond of friendship. In the back of her mind, Sarada felt the ghost of Not-Bolt guide her sight, pushing her away from the more likely futures and towards the rarer, darker futures. There were many such futures on Tsuki, but each one before her eyes was more terrible than the last.
Not-Bolt helped refine her search, as did Not-Mitsuki, sharing his own unique bond with Bolt with her, different in subtle but critical ways. Bolt wasn't in danger, they said, but something was wrong. Something terrible had happened. Sarada narrowed it down to a handful of futures, each more apocalyptic than the last, and she knew there was no more point in divining the truth of events— all were equal in horror.
When she opened her eyes, Sarada saw Sentoki openly weeping, hands clasped in prayer, and Naruto was trembling, caught between anger and grief. "Dad," Sarada spoke softly. "I need you to make a portal. Bolt's encampment."
Her father nodded, gaze already turning east. "I'll come with you," he said, brokering no argument.
A few moments later, space rippled, like the water of a disturbed pond, and Sarada could see ninja mulling about on the other side. Sarada stepped through easily, causing the ninja to straighten in respect, all but a few bowing shortly.
The smell hit her first. Fresh, wet copper-iron, pungent enough to make her wrinkle her nose. A short girl with muddy red hair ran up to her and it took Sarada a moment to realize it was Aihana, Bolt's apprentice, so twisted her features were by fear and relief in equal measure.
"Thank goodness, you're here— I, we didn't know what to do. It just happened so suddenly! I, I—"
"Calm down," Sarada told the panicking girl. "What—"
"No..." Sarada heard her father gasp in horror behind her. Beside him, Naruto stared out across the plains with wide eyes and a slack jaw.
She followed their gaze and beheld a scene straight out of Naraka. Bloody fields for as far as the eye could see, nothing but red-red-red, her Sharingan burning the sight of bodies stacked so high they crested houses into her memory.
"Where's Bolt?" Sarada demanded.
Aihana worked her jaw uselessly, trying to answer her, but failing. "H-Hikari..." she said uselessly.
Not-Bolt and Not-Mitsuki instantly guided her to a new vision and her stomach dropped into her boots. Sarada swore under her breath and summoned her Susano'o. With a single beat of its wings, she shot through the sky and towards the hellscape and the city beyond.
"Sarada, wait!" her father cried, but she didn't listen.
Inside the city was even worse. Sarada, for the first time in a long time, deactivated her Sharingan. She didn't need to remember the bodies, the faces twisted in agony, the red—
Not-Bolt pulled her forward, guiding her, easily finding his real counterpart. Sarada found Bolt sitting in the city square, a Tsukian banner looming over him. The flag had been torn away and a corpse had been strung up, an Ōtsutsuki man, whose dying expression was one of terror. As Sarada stepped forward, she could see that the back of the man's skull was missing and ropes of his brain fell down the back of his neck like a ponytail.
Sarada ignored the corpse and moved to kneel before Bolt.
He stared back at her with empty eyes. She'd seen more life in the glassy eyes of dead fish.
"Bolt?" she murmured softly, taking his— bloody— hand in hers.
At the touch, he stirred, and took a long, deep breath.
"I thought revenge would take away my pain," Bolt croaked, voice hoarse and dry even as tears welled in his eyes. "It didn't. Didn't make me feel better. Didn't bring her back. All it did was make me feel..."
"Empty," her father finished sadly from behind them.
Naruto rushed forward and scooped Bolt into his arms, hugging him fiercely. To Sarada's surprise, Bolt let him, and instead closed his eyes and rested his head on his father's shoulder.
"Believe me, Bolt," her father said, so quietly Sarada wasn't sure if he meant to be heard. "I know better than anyone."
The journey back was quiet.
Sarada tried to give Bolt as much time as she could, but in the end, the need to understand what had happened didn't allow for more than a day for him to grieve. The former Kage were anxious. She was anxious. All she had been able to gleam of the situation was that Hikari had been killed in battle and Bolt had snapped before disappearing into the night to, apparently, kill and exsanguinate every Tsukian man, woman, and child within a hundred miles.
Bolt Uzumaki, the Thunder God, the former One Shadow, the strongest shinobi she knew, stood before the assembled leadership of Earth, and Sarada had never seen him more brittle. He stared with hollow, empty eyes and his skin looked milky-pale and translucent. He looked like a stiff breeze would send him to his knees. But there was something unspeakably dark in his countenance, like that same breeze would cause him to erupt into mindless, slavering violence at any given moment.
Wisely, no one poked the dragon. For that, Sarada was thankful.
Bolt wasn't ready for this. But Sarada had to. She was the One Shadow now and she had a war to win. She couldn't afford weakness or their entire alliance would dissolve around their shoulders and the Ōtsutsuki would crash down upon them.
The world leaders shuffled nervously and Sarada cleared her throat. "Bolt, if you could?" she prompted.
"... What do you want to know?" he asked.
Sarada didn't think it was pertinent for everyone present to know why Bolt snapped, only what his actions were, and how they were brought about. She could give him that, at least. "If you could explain how the—" Slaughter? Genocide? "—battle ended... as it did."
Bolt's lifeless eyes gazed past her, looking somewhere distant. "It was a bioweapon," he answered eventually. "We called it Muramasa."
Orochimaru leaned forward, eyes just a little too wide and lacking in his characteristic sinister demeanor. "Elaborate," he insisted.
It took a few moments for Bolt to begin speaking. "My team and I, in the early days of the formation of the new Akatsuki, discovered the corpse of Danzō Shimura in a lab that belonged to the old Akatsuki. His body had been untouched by time, augmented by the cells of Hashirama Senju. We were looking into similar research but decided that there wasn't enough genetic material for a similar procedure."
Sarada thought she had seen interest in Orochimaru's eyes, but it wasn't, she realized.
It was fear.
"And...?" Orochimaru prompted with seeming reluctance.
"And we decided to weaponize what little genetic material remained," Bolt answered, faster this time. "We crossbred the Hashirama cell line with an engineered hemorrhagic fever supervirus, granting it the vitality of the Senju, and then augmented the bioweapon further with fūinjutsu, causing the infected to lose the ability to use chakra temporarily."
The silence was deafening, surpassed only by the visible horror on each and every face in the room as they realized what Bolt had created.
"Are you insane, boy?!" Orochimaru erupted. "There is a reason no village has ever dabbled in bioweapons! It's dangerous, far too dangerous!"
Some life seemed to return to Bolt as Orochimaru berated him. "Precautions were taken," he said, simply, as if that explained it.
"Precautions?! What 'precautions'?" Orochimaru demanded.
"The virus is inert in its base form. It requires a genetic marker to 'target,' so to speak. Without it, the host would be asymptomatic. A carrier, still capable of spreading the disease, but not affected themselves. I merely gave it a general target, the Ōtsutsuki."
Sarada saw much of the raw fear empty from the other world leaders at Bolt's words, but not Orochimaru. The snake sneered. "And what if the virus mutated outside of your control, boy? You cannot control nature, no matter how much you would like to, no matter how hard you try."
The shadow of pride crossed Bolt's face. "As a last resort, my chakra is antithetical to the virus. Its presence causes a fūinjutsu script to activate and terminate the virus. I'm not as foolish as you believe, snake. I'll raise nothing I cannot put down myself," he sneered back.
There was silence for a long few uncomfortable moments before Sarada asked the one question that had been at the forefront of her mind since Bolt began his explanation.
"And what was the original purpose of such a weapon?"
The life drained from Bolt once more. It took him a few moments to find the words, and when he did, they chilled Sarada to the bone.
"To kill them," Bolt pointed at their fathers. Naruto looked floored and her father's eyes were narrowed dangerously. "How can you defeat gods? You don't. Not on the field of battle, at least. But take away their power and what are they? Only human. Then... you walk up and slit their throats as they lay in their sickbeds."
The enormity of what Bolt had planned dawned on everyone in the room and there wasn't a face that hadn't blanched white as bone.
Had the Ōtsutsuki not attacked, would Bolt have... used this Muramasa to kill Naruto and her father? Without them, the two strongest people on the planet, and Bolt having already defeated and killed nearly every other major Kage...
He might have won.
He would have won.
Sarada felt sick.
"Where did you get our DNA?" her father asked, the only one in the room able to speak.
"I used my own to get my father's marker," Bolt answered. "... As for yours, since you were... unavailable, I had one of my agents burgle Sarada's apartment. They stole hair samples."
Sarada felt dizzy at the rush of memories, finding her apartment pristine and untouched, nothing taken nor moved, but her trap disturbed, letting her know someone had been in her apartment. She and Leaf ANBU had looked into the matter but never found anything conclusive. Now, though...
"And would she have been harmed, should your Muramasa have been released?" Sasuke asked.
Bolt's eyes fell to where, Sarada noticed, her father's hand rested on the hilt of his sword. Then his eyes found hers and held their gaze. "No," he answered, the word echoed by Not-Bolt in her head.
Sarada's relief was tempered by Not-Bolt informing her that was because he-they would have wanted to defeat Sarada in combat themselves.
Her father's hand released the hilt of his sword and fell to rest at his sides. "How fortunate," he commented, deceptively lightly.
Worriedly, her Mangekyō told her that Bolt had just avoided death.
Even more worriedly? It told her Bolt wouldn't have even fought back.
"Enough posturing," Orochimaru hissed. "How certain are you that this Muramasa cannot jump to humans, brat?"
"I have faith in my work," Bolt answered easily, and if Sarada hadn't known it she would never have guessed the dark thoughts behind those sad blue eyes.
Kohaku, the new Uzukage, coughed and spoke up. "If I could see a copy of the script, I could double-check the work. Just to be certain," he offered.
Sarada supposed there was no harm in allowing Kohaku to see the fūinjutsu of Muramasa, as the weapon could not be replicated without the bioengineering, something she was much more afraid of Orochimaru learning. Her Mangekyō told her Bolt would not object. "Please," she agreed with a nod.
None of the other leaders seemed to have any further questions, except for Orochimaru, who looked like he wanted to throttle Bolt. With an exertion of chakra, Sarada took control of the room. "Regardless," she spoke with authority, the weight of her power pressing down on their shoulders ever so slightly. "We are not here to commit genocide. We have allies among the Ōtsutsuki, and there are innocents as well. People who have never raised the fist of war against us. People who may not even condone what their Empire has done to the galaxy but are helpless to stop it. We need the cure, Bolt."
Bolt looked to her and, slowly, the oppressive darkness weighing on his shoulders lifted and his face twisted with confusion. "Cure? What cure?"
Orochimaru exploded with a bestial sound that might have been words but were too badly mangled by his sibilant tongue. "What?! You said you 'wouldn't raise anything you couldn't put down'. Was that idle boasting, boy?!"
Sarada— and the other leaders, she saw— were taken back by the shrill fear in the legendary Sanin's voice.
Bolt wrinkled his brow in thought. "For 'curing' a single individual, I can manually run my chakra through their system, destroying the virus. But there is no cure that inoculates the population. It was designed to be an immortal disease, present in every person but harming no one but the target. There would be nowhere to hide, not even if you ran to the ends of the Earth, so long as you lived among people. A 'cure' defeats that purpose."
Orochimaru stood, both hands gripping the edge of the table, eyes wide and mouth agape as he stared at Bolt in disbelief. "You're mad," he uttered softly, disbelievingly. "You've doomed an entire sentient species to extinction. If we're lucky, it'll only be the one."
And that was something coming from Orochimaru.
Bolt just shrugged callously.
Sarada couldn't— wouldn't— sit idly by and let such a thing come to pass. She looked to her mother, who was even more horrified— and, worse, disappointed— than Orochimaru. "I'm ordering the medical corps to begin an immediate investigation into the nature of the Muramasa virus with the goal of creating a cure," Sarada commanded.
"I'll help," Mitsuki volunteered.
Sarada shared a smile with her teammate, who elbowed Orochimaru in the ribs, startling him from his reverie. "As will I," the last Sanin agreed.
Her mother nodded. "I'll get started right away," she said, quickly departing.
"If that's all..." Sarada began and continued when no objections were raised. Several people looked eager to be as far away from Bolt as possible. "Then this meeting is adjourned. Bolt and Omoikane, if you could stay behind, please."
Bolt stood listlessly, staring with blank eyes, but he didn't leave. Sarada took Omoikane to the side. The look on the ancient Tsukian's face wasn't the one Sarada expected. She expected him to be angry, or sad, or disgusted, or even afraid, but she didn't expect... pity?
"You knew," Sarada accused.
Omoikane nodded. "Yes," he said softly.
"... Why? Why didn't you— just, why..." Sarada demanded.
Omoikane smiled thinly, like a teacher with a particularly stubborn pupil. "Sometimes, young seer, sacrifice is necessary. Unfortunate, but necessary. To wield the power of my eyes is to be the arbiter of sacrifice. To see so much, to know so much. It is... a heavy burden. Would that I could, I would gladly wish none but me to suffer such a fate."
Sarada's eyes flicked to Bolt, empty and hollow and dark, and then back to Omoikane. "Is it worth it?" she asked, feeling like something was caught in her throat.
Omoikane laughed lightly under his breath. "If you ever find the answer to that question, Sarada, please do inform me," he said. "I do not think it is up to us, to any of us, to decide the worthiness of our actions. All we can do is what we are able to do, nothing more and nothing less. It is only at the end of our journey that we can look back and decide if it was worth the pain."
Sarada couldn't imagine that. To be the architect of a plan thousands of years in the making, deciding who lives and who dies, even her own people, not ever knowing if the deaths would ever mean something, if the sacrifices of good people were made in vain or not. That wasn't how she worked. Sarada didn't want to work like that. She believed in good, in righteousness, in justice.
Omoikane smiled knowingly. "You are far stronger than I, though, so perhaps..." he shook his head. "Don't lose that fire, Sarada. If you let it burn out, you won't ever get it back. Remember that, if nothing else."
Sarada nodded mutely and Omoikane left, stopping only momentarily to bow ever so slightly to Bolt, which Sarada thought was strange. She moved to stand before Bolt, who was still in a daze, and Sarada gently took his hand and guided him to sit at the war table.
Sarada sat next to him and took a breath. "I'm relieving you of your duties, Bolt. Temporarily, at least," she added firmly.
"I can still fight," Bolt sneered at her.
"I know you can. That was never in question. I don't think that has ever been in question, Bolt," Sarada said wryly. "And that's the problem. You never, not once in your life since you left home, stopped fighting. It's okay not to fight. It's okay to grieve. And when you've healed, then you can fight again. But not before."
Bolt looked at her down the bridge of his nose like she was an ant.
"And there are other ways you can contribute that aren't fighting, too," Sarada continued. "I could use you here, Bolt. As my advisor. My right hand. Like we could've been."
The pressure built between them before suddenly deflating and Bolt visibly slumped under the weight of it before nodding in agreement.
The silence that followed was tense, but strangely... comfortable, in a way. The two of them were still learning their friendship again, learning how they fit together, worked together, fought together. This would just be... another step in that direction.
Sarada took another breath. "Bolt, I am... so sorry," she started awkwardly. It was a struggle to form the next words, and Sarada felt her Sharingan burn comfortingly, offering the power to get it right, but Sarada wanted to do it on her own. So, she pushed forward. "You saw the way Yurui looked at you, didn't you?" she decided on.
Bolt looked at her in confusion.
"He was... happy, Bolt," Sarada said gingerly. "Happy that you're suffering. Happy that you're finally getting what you deserve, in his mind. For all the pain you've caused these last ten years. Muramasa is just another piece of evidence in a long line of abuses. Just another excuse."
Bolt's eyes went glassy and he nodded slowly. "You all do," he said hoarsely. "I suppose... it's only fair."
Sarada's hand shot out before she could stop it and took Bolt's hand in hers. She squeezed firmly. "Not me," she said resolutely.
Bolt looked at her for a long moment before sighing. "... No, not you," he agreed, abashed as he averted his gaze. "But you're better than them. Better than most. Certainly better than me."
Sarada sighed, feeling a weight on her shoulders, a pressure in her chest, a burning in her eyes. Why was this so hard?
"I don't think it's a matter of being better, Bolt," Sarada began haltingly. She paused for a moment. "Do you want to know why I still believe in you, even after all these years, after all that you've done?"
Bolt hesitantly met her gaze and there was a look of fear in his eyes that he couldn't mask. Not from her. He swallowed nervously and nodded.
Sarada shared a small, reassuring smile with him. "I have... a theory. Or a philosophy, if you prefer. I don't think good and evil are simple binaries. I can't think that. I don't think I'm good and you're evil. Good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. I think... I think there's this line, stretching between good and evil, that we're all standing on. Some people might be standing closer to good, and some people might be standing closer to evil. But it's not about where you're standing, Bolt. It's about the direction you're facing. You can always turn around and start walking the other way. All it takes... is a single step."
Bolt's jaw was clenched and, despite how hard he tried to hide it, his hand was trembling.
"I know you're not incapable of taking that step, Bolt," Sarada proclaimed firmly. "Yurui casts stones because he feels safe in his morality. He's good, you're evil, so it's okay to take pleasure in your suffering. But Bolt, you could prove him so wrong. Prove them all wrong. All it would take..."
"... is one step," he murmured, finishing for her.
Sarada smiled and nodded. "So, please, Bolt, take that step."
Bolt looked at her with wide eyes and jerkily shook his head. "I- I can't, Sarada. Muramasa— all those people— how far I've already come— I..."
"You can!" Sarada exclaimed. "You can, Bolt. Look how far you've gone! It was in the wrong direction, yes, but you had the strength and the will to go so, so far, Bolt. You've already proven you have the strength. All you have to do is change direction, put one foot in front of the other, and start walking. And that strength will carry you just as far. Think of what our world would be like if you'd never started walking in that direction. Think of who you would be."
It was something Sarada had spent a lot of time thinking about herself. How different things could have been, in a different life, in a different world. Her, Bolt, and Mitsuki. And Himawari. How much good they could have accomplished if they had all worked together, worked towards making the world a better place, worked on building instead of destroying.
Bolt was lost in thought, absently nodding his head, and Sarada wondered if his vision of the world was the same as hers.
"... And what if I get lost?" Bolt eventually asked.
Sarada laughed lightly. "What are friends for?"
Bolt snorted derisively, but he was smiling.
"... Okay," he agreed, after a few moments.
Sarada smiled so hard her cheeks hurt. "Yeah?" she asked.
"Yeah," Bolt confirmed with a nod.
With reluctance, Sarada released Bolt's hand and stood. "Good," she said, genuinely happy for the first time since... well, she couldn't remember. A long time. "I have a briefing tomorrow morning, if you're feeling up for it, and—"
"Sarada, wait," Bolt called out, stopping her in her tracks.
Sarada quirked a brow as Bolt hesitantly walked up to her and took her left hand in his own. After nervously meeting her gaze, his hold shifted to her forearm, and he pressed a thumb to the soft flesh until the pressure was bruising. Sarada froze as she felt his chakra brush against hers, then push in.
There was a feeling of pins and needles that crawled up her arm, leaving it numb and tingling but also uncomfortably warm. Sarada saw black ink crawling beneath Bolt's skin, down his fingers, and then under her skin.
It took surprisingly little time. When Bolt removed his hand, a small seal dotted her forearm, standing in stark contrast to her pale skin.
Some small part of her was waiting to drop dead, but Sarada didn't believe Bolt was going to hurt her. She was proven right as Bolt cupped his hand and Sarada sucked in a breath as she beheld what he had summoned: a death mask. It was her first time seeing one up close. It was made of silvery ivory, like moonlight, smooth and flawless, depicting a snarling demon whose eyelids had been stitched open.
With a flick of his hand, it was gone, and Sarada felt a not-weight settle in her forearm. She looked up at Bolt with wide eyes and he met her gaze.
"I do want to take that step, Sarada," he said softly. "I do."
Kohaku had said Bolt had made a death mask, but there was a difference between knowing and seeing. The enormity of the importance of what he was trusting her with... life after death, immortality. Of a sorts, anyway.
Sarada nodded and favored Bolt with a small smile, idly rubbing at the smarting seal.
This time, it felt like she actually got through to him. This time, it felt like things would be different. Sarada could feel the shift between them, like the ground quaking and settling beneath her feet.
Sarada hadn't even gotten three hours of sleep before she was awoken by an urgent, panicked guard, who told her they were under attack. Her heart galloped in her chest and her pulse rang in her ears as she leapt out of bed and quickly dressed. Her advisors and some of the higher ranking officers were camped near her and she could see them stumbling out of their tents, half dressed and hopping on one foot as they struggled into their boots.
Sarada felt the hair on the back of her neck and her arms stand on end as Bolt joined them, fully dressed with dark circles under his eyes. Sarada saw his eyes shift as he brought his Byakugan to the fore and she moved to stand by him.
"What do you see?" she asked, keeping a wary eye on her assembling forces.
Bolt narrowed his eyes. "Nothing. Just a lot of... wounded being brought into camp," he answered.
"No one giving chase?"
He shook his head. "Not within a dozen miles."
Sarada nodded to herself and started to make her way towards where Bolt had seen the wounded coming in. Hopefully one of them would be able to tell her what happened.
They didn't even make it halfway there before glimmering barriers of green energy reached skyward before collapsing inwards into a dome. Sarada darted forward, only to be physically tackled by a medic that had been sprinting her way. More medics, garbed from head to toe in suits of green plastic with sealing tags adorning them, appeared, shouting to be heard over the roar of people and pointing away.
"Back away!" one of them barked, and Sarada recognized the woman as one of her mother's chief doctors. "We are establishing a quarantine, back away!"
Sarada went cold. She turned around to ask Bolt and—
He wasn't there.
Sarada swore under her breath. Stupid, dumb, fast, piece of...
Not-Bolt tilted her head ever so slightly, guiding her gaze through the throngs of people, where Sarada could just see a head of blond hair moving towards the danger, not away from it. A doctor from the medical corps was trying to herd him away, but Sarada could tell that the man was likely more afraid of the Thunder God than whatever was behind him.
With a flick of a wrist and a pleasant dose of pain behind her eyes, Sarada plucked Bolt back and away with a fleeting use of Amenonuhoko. Bolt glared at her, annoyed, but he was safe, and dutifully followed her as she beckoned him away to let the medical corps do what they were trained to do.
"What do you think happened?" she asked him as the two of them made their way towards the part of the camp set aside for the One Shadow and her administration to lead from.
Bolt shrugged. "... Didn't get a good enough look," he answered.
Liar, Not-Bolt whispered in her ear.
Sarada luxuriated in the burning of her eyes as Not-Bolt spoke to her, guided her thoughts, navigated the perilous mental gymnastics required to understand a person as twisted and complex as the Thunder God.
Liar. Truth, but not. Suspicion. Fear. Growing fear, growing panic, growing stronger. Losing control, hand slipping, fingers bloody, knuckles white.
So Bolt knew what had happened, or suspected he did, but didn't know how? Or why? And he was afraid, slipping, losing control— of himself, or something else?
Yes.
The flow of her thoughts abruptly shifted, old patterns discarded, like a branching river violently rushing apart after a fork, and Not-Bolt guided her to new thoughts, new answers, a new avenue of understanding.
The sun, cresting the horizon. A new dawn. For him, for them, for everyone— for the world. Faces, names, dreams. Strengths and weaknesses. Pleasures and pains. A thirst, a hunger, for knowledge. Ravenous. Hungry, like a ghost, never satiated. Never satisfied. Never slaked. But prideful. Sin without measure, without understanding, without caring. The best, the brightest, the most— eclipsing. Have to know, have to understand, have to show them, have to show the world.
Here I am.
Bolt was smart, in many ways. He was frighteningly intelligent and cunning when he wanted to be. But he wasn't a microbiologist. Muramasa was not made by him and him alone. Bolt had help.
... Katasuke.
Sarada bit her tongue to keep from swearing.
Yurui was having a damn good week.
His reformed army had— carefully— gained more ground after Ryujin had been driven back by the late Tsuchikage. He had slowly, carefully, secretly began rebuilding the power base of old Cloud. He had finished developing a new Kage-level technique in conjunction with Samehada. Then, karma struck. There was cosmic justice in the world after all. Bolt Uzumaki had been, for once in his miserable life, soundly trumped, and lost something precious to him, giving him just a little taste of all the pain he had caused their entire people.
Then the truth of what happened came out.
Yurui considered himself a true son of the Cloud. He was raised to be unyielding and resolute. He'd hardened his heart at a young age. He considered himself a man capable of killing without hesitation or regret. But Bolt proved himself a monster— a demon— in human skin. Yurui honestly wasn't sure who had killed more: the Tailed Beasts or the Thunder God. He reveled in death and pain; enjoyed it, savored it like another man might savor a fine rice wine.
That, Yurui would never do. Could never do.
Muramasa was beyond the pale. Beyond articulation. Yurui couldn't fathom single-handedly dealing death on such a scale. How stained must his soul be? How black was his heart? How bloody were his hands?
In Yurui's mind, Bolt Uzumaki was not a man. He was the lowest of evil creatures, beyond redemption and beyond saving. For killing his father, yes, but also for the death and pain he sowed so gleefully.
And Sarada was blind to his evils, even enabling him at times.
The whole alliance was a sham, Yurui thought. A house of cards erected by necessity for survival. He could see the same truth reflected in the eyes of the "former" Kage. They held their tongues, hid their pride, and debased their honor, but Yurui knew that the strength of the Kage had not been smothered like Bolt and Sarada had hoped and planned. Once these Ōtsutsuki were dealt with once and for all, things would go back to how they always were.
And when the time came, Yurui would be ready. The Hidden Cloud would be ready. They played the part of a paper tiger now, but at the end of things, when Bolt had his back turned? Yurui would delight in skewering him with Samehada. Then the world could finally begin returning to normal.
But, more than anything, Yurui had learned to not get his hopes up. To pray for the best but to expect the worst. That way, he was never disappointed. So when he was roused in the middle of the night by a pale-faced guard from Cloud, he only sighed.
Nothing good lasts forever.
That was how he found himself standing in the cold tent of the vaunted "One Shadow" at a forsaken hour of the morning. The other Kage and world leaders were equally as haggard and glassy-eyed, yawning and blinking away watery eyes. Yurui stewed in his thoughts as he waited for Sarada to deign to tell them what they had been summoned for.
Still, Yurui felt energized by the sight of Bolt, sickly pale with empty eyes and hollow cheeks. He looked gaunt, in a way, with dark rings around his eyes. His pallor made the scars on his cheeks stand out in stark relief and his blond hair fell limply around his ears.
It was better than any cup of morning tea.
Still, Yurui shuddered. He might not have a dōjutsu, but he could see the monster lurking just beneath the skin. Pained, wounded, and shirking away from the light, yes, but Yurui knew a beast was most dangerous just before death, when it had nothing left to lose.
Yurui stood up straighter as the pink-haired chief of the medical corps stepped into the tent, grim-faced and fists clenched in a white-knuckled grip.
Sarada cleared her throat. "Now that everyone is here, we can begin," she said quietly into the damp, cold morning air.
Sakura Uchiha stepped forward, resting her splayed hands on the war table, and let loose a long sigh. "It wasn't a battle, but it was an attack," she began. "Our vanguard didn't know what it was, at first. They just saw ninja dropping like flies, bleeding without wounds. They called a retreat. A sound decision made with all the available intel they had."
Sakura shook her head. "It was only after the third and fourth waves reached the forward medics that my people realized what we were dealing with," she turned to look at Bolt. "A bioweapon. The same one you unleashed, but with a marker for humans, not Ōtsutsuki."
Bolt didn't even blink. Yurui clenched his jaw. Just hours ago, that smarmy, evil bastard had sworn...
Orochimaru erupted into motion, slithering across the table and lunging at Bolt before any of them could so much as twitch. The snake had Bolt's shirt in his fists and was bodily holding him aloft. "I should kill you where you stand, boy," he hissed lowly.
Then, the legendary Naruto Uzumaki was there, a firm hand on Orochimaru's shoulder, eyes red and slitted and Yurui couldn't help but take an unconscious step back as the caustic chakra of the Nine-Tails warmed the air. Sasuke Uchiha, in turn, grabbed Naruto by his shoulder, while Mitsuki moved to restrain his father.
Yurui's hand rose to the hilt of Samehada on his back. He saw iron sand start to move at Shinki's feet. Likewise, Kagura rested a hand on the hilt of his sword, and Sekki had slipped into a low stance for Earth Style. Everyone present had taken a few steps away and either were about to draw their weapons or had slipped into a stance.
The tension was palpable.
Still, Yurui's lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. He would love for nothing more than a front row seat to the last of the Sannin eviscerating Bolt Uzumaki where he stood. The other part of him hoped cooler heads would prevail, because he would rather not be ass-deep in an all-out brawl to the death with so many Kage-tier opponents.
There was a crackle-pop sound that heralded Bolt's hand rising and clasping around Orochimaru's wrist. His expression was twisted with rage and madness, one eye open wider than the other, pupils dilated, a lop-sided smile on his lips that bared too many teeth. Lightning danced through his blond hair.
The air was so pregnant with the combined might of all their chakra that Yurui found it difficult to breath, having to focus on the in-out of his diaphragm.
Shit, were they really going to do this?
Fuck it, Yurui liked his odds. He'd get to see if his new technique stood up to the almighty Thunder God sooner rather than later. That was fine by him. Yurui had been mid-step when the weight of half a mountain fell on his shoulders. He stumbled, nearly falling, and his thighs burned as he struggled to stay standing.
"Enough!" Sarada yelled, voice echoing with authority as her Susano'o and its spear flickered into existence in the too-small tent.
No one moved, either to attack or to retreat. The pressure continued to mount until Yurui had to use Samehada as a crutch.
Then Orochimaru released Bolt. Naruto released Orochimaru and Mitsuki hovered at his side, gently pulling his father away.
Bolt's lips twitched into a scowl as he tangibly wrestled with some inner demon. He looked to Sarada for a few long moments and the One Shadow slowly nodded. With an audible huff of air, Bolt released Orochimaru, and everyone took a collective sigh of relief and returned to their previous positions.
Only then did Sarada release them.
"That is enough," Sarada growled.
Yurui was taller than Sarada, but looking at her, he felt small. Or, rather, she felt large— larger than life, bigger than her bones. She filled the room with her presence, making him feel two feet tall. The blood-red of her Sharingan gleamed menacingly in the light and her face was cast in shadow.
Yurui shivered as those cursed eyes danced across the room, watching them each for but a moment, as the last fiery chakra of her Susano'o faded.
He understood why the Uchiha had been feared.
"We will not devolve into infighting," Sarada— no, the One Shadow— commanded. "We have come too far, fought too hard, lost too much, to lose here, now, because we lost our heads!"
"You can't seriously be defending this whelp, girl!" Orochimaru snarled.
Instantly, Orochimaru, the last of the Sannin, was on his hands and knees, the air visibly shimmering and dancing, as if heated.
Yurui looked to Sarada and met the black stars of her Mangekyō, gleaming darkly as if lit by candlelight.
He swallowed nervously.
"Does anyone else have any objections?" Sarada asked the room coolly.
No one spoke up, the bunch of cowards. Well then, Yurui would say what the others thought but couldn't find the courage to say.
"... With respect, One Shadow," Yurui began, lying between his teeth. "I believe what Orochimaru was trying to— indelicately— say, is that Bolt Uzumaki is responsible for the deaths of not just the Ōtsutsuki, but our own ninja as well. Their deaths are on his hands— hand, excuse me."
Yurui enjoyed the slight twitch of the eyes he got at that parting jab.
"I see," Sarada said slowly, casting her gaze about the room. No one met her eyes. "And do the rest of you agree with Yurui's opinion?"
Slowly, one by one, the former Kage backed him.
It was hard for Yurui to hide his smile.
"I see," Sarada repeated, almost disappointingly. "Tell me, if you were Kage, and one of your subordinates committed some grievous offense, risking an international incident, what would you do?"
The other former Kage shifted awkwardly on their feet.
If one of their ninja started something with another country, they would've hung them out to dry. Publicly, they would've grit their teeth and smiled.
Privately?
Privately everyone knew the other Kage, the other village, was ultimately responsible.
Yurui's thoughts drifted to the infamous Gold and Silver Brothers and their fate. It didn't escape him that both brothers were also from the Cloud.
Wisely, looking up into the One Shadow's blood-red eyes, none of them voiced the truth that they all knew.
"So what you're really saying," Sarada spoke for them. "Is that I'm the one responsible, aren't you? After all, Bolt— like all of you— serve me. Your actions are, ultimately, my responsibility. Yes?"
Yurui averted his gaze, taking stock of the other former Kage. They were nervous.
The silence was just ever so slightly too long, just long enough for them to stew.
"Well, you're right," Sarada eventually, thankfully, declared.
Yurui blinked owlishly at Sarada, as did the other former Kage.
Sarada stood straighter, shoulders back, head tilted up ever so slightly so that she had to look down her nose at them. She wore her power around her shoulders like a cloak, like a crown. It pressed down around their collective shoulders like a tangible weight.
She had the bearing of a true Kage, Yurui thought.
"I am the One Shadow," Sarada intoned slowly. "I alone have the responsibility— the duty— to rule. The moment Bolt swore himself to me, his mistakes became my mistakes. Just as your mistakes became my mistakes. As One Shadow, I alone bear the full responsibility for those mistakes. And mine will be the hand that fixes them."
Sarada slowly shifted her gaze, her red eyes meeting each of theirs, before moving to the next.
When each of them had been cowed, she spoke again. "I understand your frustrations and your fears," Sarada continued passionately. "We have people from the old guard and the new. Former enemies now forced to be allies or be destroyed. But if we fight among ourselves, we'll only be doing the Ōtsutsuki's work for them!"
Sarada spoke with a force, a conviction, a righteousness, that could not be denied. That quieted all protests, even Yurui's, so that they could listen.
"The same principles that founded the Union after the Fourth War live on in the United Shinobi Empire. I know it doesn't feel like it, I know none of you ever expected this kind of all-encompassing change even once in our lifetimes, let alone twice. I dreamed of being Hokage as a child, yes, but I never imagined I would be standing here, now, as the One Shadow. I didn't ask for this, but I will serve as dutifully as your One Shadow as I would have the Leaf's Hokage."
Sarada swept her crimson gaze across them again, a fire burning in her eyes, reaching out to them.
"I'll swear this here, now, from one leader to another. The same oath I swear to myself every night. So long as I am One Shadow, I will suffer no lesser evils, I won't turn a blind eye to injustices, great or small. We will win this war, but we will win it justly, with honor. No longer will our people have one foot in the darkness. We don't merely fight for survival, we fight for good. The good of all people, human or Tsukian, for the countless dead that have already died and the countless living yet to be born after."
"I know many here don't think much of me. You think I'm too young, or too inexperienced, or too compromised to lead. And you're right, in some regards. Many of you here have decades of experience in leadership over me. Many of you have differing views on leadership. I acknowledge that and I have asked and continue to ask for your guidance and counsel. I will make mistakes, I will fix them, and I will learn from them. But I have the one quality that every leader before us has lacked."
"... And what's that?" Yurui found himself asking.
"Conviction," Sarada declared sharply. "Not conviction of ideals, but in truth. That our people are an ugly one. That since the moment the Sage of Six Paths gave us ninjutsu, we've never laid down our sword. That even when we come together in peace, we do it with fake smiles and hidden kunai clutched behind our backs. That we say we want peace but never want to fight for it, that we turn to war at the first hint of trouble. That, for all our powers, all our strength, we are weak and afraid. Too weak to trust, too afraid of change."
Yurui wasn't sure what to say. Deep down, in his heart of hearts, Yurui knew what Sarada was saying was true. It stung, but it was true. But was that a bad thing? People— shinobi— couldn't be trusted.
Sarada straightened and held her head high. "But there's no longer any time for weakness or fear. This is it. The war to end all wars. The last war. Either we will lose and be destroyed, and the last hope of the galaxy dies with us, or we will face our inner darkness, look it in the eyes—" Sarada had eyes only for Bolt. "—and banish it, once and for all, and emerge victorious, cleansed and reborn anew."
Yurui averted his gaze. Bolt looked at Sarada with wonder, like he had found religion. Yurui had to suppress a scoff.
Sarada took a breath for what seemed like the first time. "As One Shadow, that is what I promise you. A brighter future. It might not be perfect, it might not be easy, but it will be better."
Yurui felt a small flame of hope flicker in his breast. He didn't believe— didn't want to believe— but the way Sarada spoke, the passion, the righteous conviction, her steadfast dedication...
Well, it made him doubt. Doubt his pessimism, doubt his fatalism.
It made him want to believe.
Sarada comported herself and her red eyes were as hard as steel and as cold as ice, the Uchiha fire blazing in clear challenge. Unyielding, resolute. She met each of their gazes and each of them, in turn, looked away.
When Sarada had cowed each of them a second time, she spoke again. "Unless, of course, one of you wishes to challenge me?"
Fucking Uchiha. Power was in their blood just as much as evil. If it was just him versus her, Yurui liked his odds. The so-called "Thunder God" might have been hailed as the strongest of their generation, but Sarada Uchiha was no slouch either. If they had been kids, Yurui might've doubted himself. But now? With Samehada, with his newfound experience, he had every confidence he could kill her.
But it wouldn't be just her he would have to fight, would it? The Leaf's nepotism reared its ugly head as Yurui looked to their corner. The former Seventh Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki, and his children, Himawari and Bolt Uzumaki, as well as Sasuke Uchiha, and his wife, Sakura. Then there was Mitsuki, and by extension, Orochimaru, the last of the Sannin.
The Leaf had the single largest bloc of power within the Union. They maintained that monopoly in the United Shinobi Empire.
Yurui and the other former Kage could do nothing but grit their teeth and bear it.
"... No, One Shadow," they all eventually, reluctantly, acquiesced.
"Good," Sarada nodded her head decisively. "Then we can proceed to actually solving the problem. You look to Bolt and see the hand that swung the sword, and you would be right. But you should be looking at the sword's architect: Katasuke Tōno. He's gone rogue."
It took a few long moments for Yurui to parse that. Gone rogue? There was nowhere to go rogue to.
"You mean... he's joined the Ōtsutsuki?" Shinki eventually asked.
"Yes," Sarada confirmed. "It wasn't an accident that Muramasa so quickly jumped from the Ōtsutsuki to humans. It was purposeful. The development of a cure is our top priority. Our second? Find Katasuke Tōno and end him."
And that was that.
For now, Yurui thought.
Himawari breathed a sigh of relief as tensions fully and finally relaxed. She had been certain that the war council had been about to come to blows. But Mitsuki was not so subtly keeping his father "calm," and she, her father, and Uncle Sasuke were keeping Bolt from gleefully giving Orochimaru what he wanted.
Himawari was of half a mind to let them fight. Orochimaru couldn't die, right? He'd be fine.
But the stress of the last few days and weeks weighed heavily on her. First Shikadai had lost his father. Himawari hadn't been that close with Shikamaru, but he had been a distant uncle-esque figure in her life for as long as she could remember, having been close friends with her father and working with him closely during his time as Hokage. She had gotten to know Shikamaru— and Temari— more after she started dating Shikadai, as a prospective, kinda-maybe-sorta father-in-law. Her cheeks and ears warmed slightly at the thought.
He had been... intense, but in a relaxed sort of way? Himawari got the impression of a sleeping giant from him. Lazy and content to go with the flow, but if you ever angered him, or threatened what he held close, then the giant would wake.
Now he was dead and gone and Shikadai was drifting. She could tell he was in pain but Himawari didn't know how to help him.
Then Hikari died. Conversely, Himawari hadn't been close with Hikari at all. For the longest time, she had been just a faceless enemy. Another member of the new Akatsuki, a tool of her brother's. But then it had become personal, in the final days of the fighting. And in the first days of peace after that.
Hikari had been... quiet. She didn't say much, and when she did, it was short and to the point. She had been rigid and professional, and that came across as awkward the few times she had visited with Bolt. Himawari wouldn't have even known she had been dating Bolt if it hadn't been for the long looks the two of them thought no one else noticed.
When her brother looked at Hikari, that brittle, dark shroud he wore like armor lifted, and Himawari could see an echo of the boy he had been in her childhood. Himawari wasn't certain if they had been "dating" or if they had been something more, but when Hikari died, the absolute devastation she had seen in her brother's eyes had soundly convinced her that they had loved each other deeply.
And now Hikari was dead and gone and Bolt was drifting and Himawari didn't know how to help two of the most precious people in her life and it was killing her.
Another part of her was deeply uncomfortable with what Bolt had done after Hikari died. She understood war— hated it, loathed it, despised it, but understood it. But what Bolt had done... Himawari had a difficult time seeing the justice in it. He had killed innocents. Non-combatants. Even children. And he didn't just kill them. A swift, clean death she could maybe understand. But he drew it out, made it painful, made sure they died screaming so that they would remember their sin when they arrived in the Pure Land.
Himawari shivered at the memory of Bolt explaining why he had made Muramasa. The cold, empty void of his blue eyes, and the well infinite of darkness behind them. How he wanted to use it to kill their father and Uncle Sasuke.
That? That she couldn't abide. Couldn't forgive. Not after their mother had died. Had been taken from them. How could Bolt hate their father so much? Or how could he love the vision of a future that only existed in his mind's eye so much? Was it because Hikari died? Or was it something else? Something deeper?
Kinslaying took a particularly heinous type of evil. One that Himawari thought— hoped, prayed— her brother didn't have in him.
She had been wrong.
She had been wrong and that scared her. Himawari thought she knew who Bolt was. Or who he was becoming. He had been changed, twisted, but the bedrock was still the same. It frightened her that the capacity for that kind of evil had remained hidden from her because if she had missed that... what else had she missed?
But... Bolt hadn't unleashed Muramasa on their family, had he? He didn't use it. In the end, he didn't use it. It was only here and now, after the death of a woman he was in love with, that he had used it. What did that say about him? Was his hand stayed because Bolt didn't have that evil in him? Or was his hand forced because of the pain of loss and grief? Was there a deeper meaning? Or was she just looking for one because she didn't want to see the truth?
Circles within circles.
Himawari shook her head. It didn't matter. It wasn't for her to decide. Bolt was here, now, alive and on their side. Nominally. All they had to do was keep fighting. All they had to do was win. And then it would be over and Himawari could finally breathe and sort out the mess in her head and try to fix the broken pieces of her life, of the people in it.
Himawari smiled as the war council adjourned, enjoying the way Yurui stomped off. Prick. Mitsuki smiled apologetically as he guided his father away even as Orochimaru hissed curses under his breath. To Himawari's surprise, Sarada's mother joined the two of them as they departed.
Himawari shifted awkwardly from foot to foot as she waited outside. Shikadai was hunched over the table, whispering furiously to a stalwart Sarada. She could tell they were arguing by the way he was talking with his hands, gesturing sharply to emphasize his words. Bolt was standing a yard or two away, staring blankly at nothing— or at Sarada. Himawari couldn't tell which.
It only took a few moments before Sarada raised a hand, silencing Shikadai, and saying a few words which caused him to clench his fists and shake his head before stomping away.
Himawari nervously fretted before stepping into line beside him. Shikadai said nothing, face tight, fists still clenched, and Himawari could see unshed tears welling in his eyes.
"Shika," she called softly, gently uncurling one of his fists and lacing their fingers together.
The two of them walked for a while until the crowd of people thinned. Himawari led them towards a small copse of trees that hadn't been cut down to make way for tents. One small bastion of nature adrift among a sea of civilization.
They stood alone, hidden among the trees, for a few minutes.
"I'd like to be alone for a bit, Hima," Shikadai eventually said, turning away from her and removing his hand.
"Shika, what's—"
"Please, Hima?" Shikadai pressed.
"... Okay," she reluctantly agreed, morosely wandering off.
Fuck, she hated this.
Himawari meandered back into the encampment and idly noted the buzz of activity, actively having to avoid being trampled by the mass of bodies. It was like someone had kicked a beehive. She saw Sarada standing tall and proud, barking orders, and Bolt was standing listlessly ten or fifteen feet away, as if he had been forgotten in Sarada's wake.
She came to a dead stop as her worries and confusion came rushing back at the sight of her brother. She didn't know how to feel, what to do, and that, more than anything else, was killing her. She was tired of being confused. Tired of being afraid. Tired of being tired.
Bolt turned to look at her with empty eyes as if puppeted. He blinked a few times, life returning at the sight of her, and Himawari shivered at how unnatural the movement seemed. She smiled weakly and waved at him and that seemed all the invitation needed to slowly make his way over to her. The two of them stood away from the hustle and bustle, sheltered in the shade of a large barracks tent.
"... What's wrong, Hima?" Bolt eventually asked, fretting.
The more accurate question would've been what wasn't wrong, Himawari thought. Still, in that moment, the weight of her emotions hit her like a punch from Aunt Sakura. She didn't even see it coming. One moment she was holding it together and the next she had burst into gasping tears.
She couldn't even explain the magnitude of the sheer fucked up everything had become since— and, as she thought about it, Himawari couldn't remember how long. Since she had accidentally killed Kagari, at least, but probably even before that. Had she ever really been not fucked up?
Her father had sacrificed his family to be the Hokage and her brother had become a rogue shinobi and a criminal of the worst kind. Then she had the shadow of two giants looming over her, all eyes watching to see whether she would follow in her father's footsteps and become their world's greatest hero, or if she had the spark of madness in her, like her brother. Or would she just be a failure? A child content to sit on the sidelines and watch as the world burned around her because of her family.
That was a lot of pressure for a little girl of ten to be under. Too much pressure. She was damned if she did, damned if she didn't. There was no winning move, Himawari had realized some time ago, staring up at the ceiling of her tent at night. To be a shinobi, to put your heart under a blade, was by its very definition, to lose.
Himawari had lost so much already. She dreaded what she would still lose in the battles to come. By the Sage of Six Paths— if he existed— she was so tired of losing. Losing the people she loved. Losing the pieces of herself she had to cut away to fight and kill.
"Ssh," Bolt shushed her, folding his arm around her. "It's okay, Hima. It's going to be alright."
Not that it was alright, but that it was going to be alright. Himawari didn't know if that was true or if it was a lie. It felt like the kind of lie parents told their children. A lie to preserve their innocence, even if just for a year or two more, before life smothered the hope out of them.
Himawari couldn't breathe. It felt like there was a stone in her throat, choking her.
Then, suddenly, she could.
Like someone had pulled the plug on an overfull bathtub, she felt her pain empty from her. At the same time, a false energy filled her vessel, buoying her spirits. It left her feeling hollow and brittle instead of happy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong—!
Himawari gasped a sob and weakly struggled against Bolt as he whispered quiet assurances to her and rubbed would-be soothing circles against her back. She felt the ground drop out from beneath her feet as she tangibly sunk. She felt something wet, viscous, and cold lap at her legs, like mud, like quicksand, as she continued to sink.
Her hands came up to grasp weakly at the collar of her brother's shirt and Himawari looked up into a stranger's face with golden eyes.
"I'll protect you, Hima," the golden-eyed thing wearing her brother's face whispered to her. "Soon, this war will be over, and no one will ever hurt you again."
Wrong, wrong, wrong— so wrong—!
Himawari tried to push him away but her arms wouldn't work. There was no strength in her. She opened her mouth, gasped, tried to beg him to stop, but she couldn't form the words. As she did, the quicksand reached her neck, then her mouth, and slipped past her lips, flowing down her throat and oh no, not like this— can't breathe— please stop— please don't!
Golden eyes, reaching into her, through her, in her head, in her heart, thinking her thoughts for her, feeling her emotions for her, changing her—
P̗̒̐ͮl̗͗́ͥ̏e͉̲̝̻aͯͥ̈́s̖̋͗̋ͮ͐ͭe̪̝̫̳̦̹,̟͉̜̼̫ ͯͩͨ̉̿ňͬȍ̯̮̈́̃!̳̦̍̍̄͋͊
Himawari breathed the clean air deeply, vision white, ears ringing, pulse pounding in her skull. She gasped weakly, like a fish out of water, so robbed of her strength she was on her hands and knees. As she blinked away the stars in her vision, she saw a carrion bird pecking at Bolt's face and eyes. That lasted all of a moment before a crackling arc of lightning ended the creature's life.
Her brother— blue eyes— then turned to her and she saw in him the realization that she fucking knew.
Bolt reached out to her, eyes wide. "Hima, wait, no, I can explain—!"
An anger so primal and righteous filled her, it obliterated all weariness and pain. All it left her was rage and fear, the fear at what had just happened to her, what had almost happened to her, what her brother had just tried to do to her.
"Get the fuck away from me!" Himawari snarled, surging to her feet. She felt the power of Nature snap to attention, filling her with strength and standing at her back.
Bolt recoiled as if physically burned. "I wasn't— I wouldn't— I was just trying to—!"
Himawari wasn't consciously aware of what was happening until she felt her fist meet Bolt's jaw with a satisfying crunch. His head snapped back, eyes glassy, knees like jelly, but it lasted only a moment, his right leg stepping forward to bear his weight.
He took another step towards her.
"I said!" Himawari screamed, and the wind howled like a demon, echoing her words. "Stay the fuck away from me, you monster!"
He brought his arm up to block her next punch and it hit him square in the guard before sending him flying. Bolt crashed through the nearby tent like a rocket to the sound of timber snapping and fabric tearing. All around her, ninja began to cry out in alarm. Himawari ignored them, stomping forward, and her skin felt like it was sun-kissed, such was her rage.
Her breaths came in ragged breaths as she loomed over the prone form of her brother. Bolt looked up at her, pained, his arm laying limply at his side.
"You- you- I can't believe you!" Himawari screamed, crying, tears steaming as they ran down her cheeks.
"I was just..." Bolt protested weakly. "Trying to take away your pain."
"And it was my pain to bear, Bolt!" Himawari cried. "All you had to do was be there for me, listen to me! But no, you can't do that! Because- because you're fucking sick, Bolt!"
"Hima, please, just listen to me, let me—"
"No! No, for once in your miserable life, you listen to me!" she yelled hoarsely. "You're sick, Bolt. So sick. When you ran away, something broke in you. I don't know when, I don't know how, and I don't know why. But you broke and became something sick, something barely human."
Bolt said nothing, just opened his mouth weakly.
"You're such a fucking hypocrite. You can't stand being controlled. You hate it more than anything. If anyone tries to control you, you buck that control. Violently and disproportionately. But at the same time, you can't stand not being in control. It eats at you, doesn't it? On a fundamental level, you can't trust people. You tell yourself you can't trust them because they won't do the right thing, but that's not it, is it? You're so fucked up because you can't trust them not to hurt you, Bolt, and that scares the fuck out of you. So you try to control everything, control them, and in the process, you hurt people. Hurt me. And you don't even think about it, do you?"
Himawari was gasping for breath at the end of her tirade, the fire of anger finally starting to burn itself out, and Bolt just looked up at her with naked fear.
It was, perhaps, the most honest her brother had ever been with her.
"You didn't care that I was hurting, Bolt," Himawari began anew wearily. "All you cared was that I was hurting and you didn't want me to be. So you- you fucking tried to take that from me. You just- you violated me in a way I didn't even know people could be violated. You, my family, one of the only two people I have left that I'm supposed to be able to implicitly trust!"
Himawari looked down at the pitiful creature at her feet that stared up at her with absolute desolation.
"We're done, Bolt," she stated with finality. Somehow, it felt freeing. Like she had finally shed a weight she had been carrying for years. "You're done, Bolt. What you tried to do with Muramasa to our father. What you just tried to do to me. I can't forgive that. I shouldn't forgive that. I'll work with you, if I have to, if Sarada asks me to. But you and I? It's over. Stay away from our father, stay away from me. After this war, I don't want to see your face again."
Himawari caught her breath and took a step back, taking one last look at the man who had been her brother, and then walked away.
Her steps faltered. "And Bolt?" she added. "If I ever catch you trying to do what you just did, to me or anyone else, if I even think it, I'll—" she let the words hang unspoken. "Maybe you'll win. Maybe you won't. But I'll fight. Never again, Bolt. Never again."
She fled, the sobs coming hard and fast despite having no tears to cry. The bond between them, frayed and worn but still there, even at the height of their fighting, had finally broken. It was an ugly, messy, ragged break, but it was a break and now it could start to heal. If it ever did.
Shikadai caught her before she got too far. Himawari cried into his chest as he held her.
She had been wrong.
She still had so much to lose.
There was still so much that could be taken from her.
A/N:
The big 1,000,000 words! I never thought I'd hit this milestone, but here we are.
I've been thinking of writing some omakes post-story, and/or supplementing my regular chapters with omakes. Would anyone be interested in those? If so, what would you like to see? These are chances for short stories from other points of view during past or present events that you wouldn't otherwise see.