We're Different. | The Other Uchiha ✓ (Boruto)

Under the Same Sky

She moved like a ghost these days.

I caught glimpses of her only in passing, a flicker of pale hair at the edge of the hallway, the low sound of Code's voice instructing something I couldn't quite hear, the subtle limp in her gait when she thought no one was looking. 

The lake, once a place we visited every evening, had fallen quiet. She hadn't met me there in weeks. And even before that, our visits had grown shorter. Quieter. 

Something else had begun to gnaw at her time and her body. I knew what it was. 

Or at least, I knew the shape of it, training. 

The room they used was off the main corridor, a heavy metal door bolted into the stone wall, without a window, without a sound.

Built especially for her, that's what I'd overheard. 

Only Jigen, Code, and Y/n had access. 

Even the rest of Kara stayed away. Some of the outer members whispered about it. Some looked uneasy when she walked by, coated in blood and silence. 

But no one ever asked. You didn't ask questions in Kara.

I did, once. Weeks ago.

She'd just emerged from the training room, sweat slicking her forehead, her breathing labored. 

There was a deep cut along her collarbone, poorly bandaged, seeping slightly into the collar of her uniform. 

Her eyes were dark, unfocused. I remember asking, "What the hell is going on in there?"  and I remember how she looked at me. 

Blank. Not cold. Not angry. Just... unreadable. 

As if she wanted to say something but couldn't. Or wouldn't.

Since then, I stopped asking.

But I watched.

She never limped. Not openly. But sometimes, when she walked past me in the halls, I noticed the way she curled her fingers tight around her tray in the cafeteria, as if keeping her hands from shaking. 

I noticed how she never used her right shoulder when reaching for a cup. And once, only once, I passed her room in the early hours of the morning and heard her retching behind the door. 

Still, she never complained. Never explained.

Not once.

It should've annoyed me. It usually would have. 

But instead... it just made me uneasy. Restless. 

Like something was pulling taut in the background, and I didn't know when it would snap.

Today was no different. I'd been waiting near the corridor where the lake path began, in case she decided to show up. 

I waited too long. She never came. 

I was about to turn back when I heard footsteps behind me, slow, purposeful.

"Kawaki."

I tensed at the voice before I turned. Jigen stood at the far end of the hall, arms folded, his shadow long in the hallway light. 

His expression was unreadable, but the raised brow said enough.

"You weren't at the lab when you were supposed to be," he said simply.

"I forgot."

He tilted his head slightly. "Try again."

"I'll go now," I muttered, jaw clenching.