Twisted

Prologue: History of the Kingdom

"This is the story of how I died..."

"You're not dead, Boruto."

Boruto sighed. "Can you at least try to let me make a dramatic intro for once Sarada?"

"But you're not dead. If anyone, I'm the one who got closer to--"

"Alright, fine. This is the story of how I happened upon a really tall tower, climbed it, and met a gloomy princess who had never touched grass."

"Hey!"

"I can't spoil the ending for them! Now... Where was I?"

Boruto opened a pop-up storybook, little eyes staring wide at the sun stretching high over a grassy mountaintop.

"Once upon a time," he began, his voice taking on a mystic and magical tone, "a drop of golden sunlight fell from the heavens..."

He pulled a tab, and a white flower with a shiny golden outline bloomed up on top of the hill. "And from it, grew a very magical, very awesome, golden flower."

Sarada's lips curved into a smile.

"This flower had the ability to give people hope, even in the darkest of circumstances. It was said that soldiers who stumbled across it could continue fighting no matter how many wounds they had; old dying women would find the will to live again, and one glance could bring a smile to the gloomiest of faces."

As he pulled another tab and the scenery darkened, there was a gasp of excitement. "The moon! The moon!"

"That's right... At nighttime, especially on nights when the moon was full, the golden flower would take on a silver hue... And its powers would change. Instead of hope, it instilled power and strength! But it was said to come with a curse..."

Some of the magic in Boruto's voice faded, replaced by a chilling tone with a sad quality.

"The hearts of those who looked upon it would be reminded of their sadness and sorrows, all of their pain... And that was what drove them to act. In the wrong circumstances, this power could make them turn evil, seeking out revenge on their enemies, causing them to grieve the loss of loved ones, and even... taking their own lives."

"But that means they wouldn't be alive anymore!" One of the kids interjected.

"Terrible, right? But it's okay. The sun fixes all that stuff! Now. Some odd years later..." Boruto turned the page to reveal a myriad of houses on an island with a castle at its peak, surrounded by sailboats and even a little dock. "A kingdom sprouted up! There was a king and a queen, and a knight that did all the hard work."

"The king did hard work too," Sarada protested.

"Well... Maybe. But the knight was definitely cooler. Anyways, the queen and the knight's wife were both about to have kids. But childbirth is extremely painful, and very dangerous. And to make matters worse, they both got pneumonia right before the most painful part."

"...Are you sure it was pneumonia?"

"Don't sweat the small stuff. Either way... They knew about the legend of the flower and thought it would give them both hope to survive through the pain. So the awesome knight set out to look for it because the king was too busy sleeping in."

"You know, you really should stop making the king appear completely useless in this story..."

"But he was! Now are you doing to let me finish or are you going to keep interrupting?"

"Interrupting!" One of the kids pointed.

Boruto lifted his head and lowered his finger with a sheepish smile. "Sorry. I'm setting a bad example. Ahem! The knight found the flower right as the queen was having her kid. She tried staring at it, but she wasn't getting any better. So, they plucked the flower and made some tea with it, because that was about all she could handle drinking at the time."