Blonding

Chapter 37 : Tobi

Minato froze, his pen hovering above a sheet of parchment. He turned and looked out the wide, stretching windows of his office towards the horizon, staring off at what seemed to be nothing at all.

It was subtle.

But he felt it.

It was like the beam from earlier that week - only much more muffled, more suppressed.

And more... pure?

Minato watched in abject fascination as a thin fissure, the width of a spider's thread, wove its way down the window's frame, tracing from one corner to the other like a droplet of water.

Then, with an explosive crack, the entire window exploded into a kaleidoscope of fragments, the village behind it morphing into a strange segmented pattern, the horizon gone from view.

Minato flinched. Without realizing it, his hand drifted to his kunai pouch and pulled a single blade from within its contents. He twirled the blade around his finger as he stared, the window looking back... mocking him.

Things were about to go bad.

Very bad.

Hiashi skid to a halt, the two boys' wrists firmly held between his hands, the rooftop underneath them kicking up shingles and spitting dust into the air as they landed.

"Are you both alright?" he asked, looking back and forth from Hoheto to Boruto.

Boruto nodded, looking to the other boy expectantly.

"I... think so," Hoheto mumbled, blinking in surprise, teetering on his feet once Hiashi let them go. "Actually, I don't feel so good..."

"Oh, now that's a shame," a voice hummed from all around them.

Hiashi spun around, eyes erupting with veins as his Byakugan flared to life. "What do you want with us, Madara? We wish you no ill will. We simply want to talk to you."

Boruto gulped when the masked man neglected to reply, his hands gripping the pair of shuriken they held until his knuckles were white and the tips pricked blood from his skin.

"I can't see him," Hoheto said, his own Byakugan active. "Hiashi-sama, what's going-"

The village began to shake and tremble, people within the buildings around them screaming as if in pain. Boruto gaped as he watched his one-armed father blitz from one side of the village to the other, dancing a delicate, powerful dance around the strange shark man - Kisame Hoshigaki, if he remembered anything from his history courses at the Academy - as they parried, buildings crumbling beneath their feet.

Naruto paused on the rooftop, eyes narrowed.

Then, he burst into flames.

Boruto yelped in surprise. "Dad?!"

"Your father is a jinchuuriki, is he not?" Hiashi asked emotionlessly at his side, form locked in that of the Gentle Fist's. "Surely you've seen this before."