An Inch of Gold

Interlude II

Boruto awakens in a dimly lit chamber, blinking in confusion up at the stone overhead. The sensation of pain is the first thing to come back to him, a stinging hot pain in his shoulder.

Right. My first real stab wound.

He briefly considers soldiering through the pain of it; it's what Dad or Uncle Sasuke would do. Then again, Dad can heal himself and Uncle Sasuke has Aunt Sakura to fix him up. And he's already lost an arm, maybe to sepsis.

Okay, scratch that, get up and get this healed.

His body feels like one giant bruise, as if he has been knocked around or thrown down a flight of stairs whele he was unconscious. He can't believe all this came from the one fight with—

Memory rushes back to him in technicolour—the ghost man, Big Bro Konohamaru and Mitsuki wounded, Sarada running off into the distance, something hitting him in the back of the head—

"Sarada!" he says suddenly and sits up in a hurry. The ceiling is so low that he hits head upon getting upright, and is sent back down holding his head. Moaning in pain, he turns onto his uninjured side and surveys his surroundings.

He is underground, in some kind of a cavern—more of a crevice—and there's no one else there but Konohamaru. Mitsuki and Sarada are nowhere to be seen.

Growling through his pin, Boruto crawls over to Konohamaru and begins to go through his pack, trying to find something to help. There are general anaesthetic pills, which he gulps down eagerly, and soldier pills. He warily grabs hold of the needle and thread for stitching, not entirely sure he's ready to try sewing himself or Konohamaru up. It probably wouldn't be a good idea with the way their wounds are now, burgeoning with infection.

And even if he does, what do they do next? They're in some kind of hole underground, who knows where it twists and turns off to?

Boruto kicks at the ground in frustration, at a loss at what to do next. Sarada is the planner, not him! He just likes to react to things as they come, and right now, he can't do that!

His vision flickers, two scenes superimposed on one another, and out of the corner of his right eye he notices something glowing around Konohamaru's wrist. A huge collection of chakra just sitting there.

Blinking his eye back to normal, he reaches for his sensei's sleeve and pulls it back, emitting a startled laugh when it reveals the Kote.

"And here I thought we weren't supposed to use those!" he teases Konohamaru, but it is mostly a relieved kind of jest. There's bound to be something in the chamber for healing.

It takes several frustrated tries to empty the chamber of offensive jutsu, none of which will help them right now, before he stumbles upon a cartridge with Sakura Uchiha's seal upon it.

"Yes!"

Without wasting time, Boruto snaps the cartridge back into place and squeezes the trigger. An orb of green healing energy grows in his palm, warming his entire body.

"You just watch, Big Bro," Boruto grunts as he presses the energy into Konohamaru's shoulder. "We're going to fix you up...and then get out of this place...and find Sarada and Mitsuki. And if you're really nice about all this, I won't tell my dad you brought this on our mission."

つづく

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