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

A Memory That Couldn't Be Held

The air stilled.

Wind curled through the battlefield like breath held too long. Smoke rose in ribbons from cratered earth, the slow hiss of dying flame whispered against silence.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, breath heavy with exertion. 

Jigen hadn't broken a single sweat. 

Sasuke's entire body went still.

His voice broke out of him without thought. "Y/n...?"

The figure paused, then smiled. But it wasn't soft. It wasn't warm. 

It was empty.

"You remember me?" she asked, as if it were a question that didn't matter.

Naruto, still held down by the rods, opened his mouth to speak, but, a sharp hiss cut through the air.

A snake, smooth as silk and sudden as lightning, shot from the sleeve of Y/n's cloak. 

In a blink, it had wrapped itself around Naruto's neck, coiling tight, squeezing.

He gasped, eyes wide, chakra flaring too late.

"Y/n!" Sasuke barked, muscles seizing to move, but he didn't.

He couldn't.

His body didn't respond.

Y/n didn't even glance at Naruto.

"I wasn't talking to him," she said, voice level. "I was talking to you."

She walked forward. Her boots barely touched the ground, or maybe he just couldn't hear anything over the pounding in his head.

Sasuke's Sharingan searched her face, hoping, begging, for something. 

Anything. 

But her gaze was carved from ice.

"You look different," she murmured, stopping just close enough for him to feel her breath. "But that eye still works, doesn't it?"

His throat tightened. "Why..."

She tilted her head slightly. "Why what?"

"Why are you here, with them?"

The question lingered, unanswered. 

She didn't blink.

Instead, she reached up. 

Fingers brushed the side of his face, gentle and unhurried, and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.

Just like he had once done to her.

He stopped breathing.

The battlefield around them faded. 

The smell of ash, the cry of flame, none of it registered. 

Only her. Her voice. Her eyes.

"You're still asking the wrong questions," she said. "You always did."

He wanted to speak. Scream. Plead.

But he couldn't even move.

She leaned in closer. And then,

A whisper. Barely audible. 

Just for him.

"...Dad."

His heart cracked in the center of his chest.

The word struck like lightning. 

No build-up. No warning. Just devastation.