Reanimation

10: The Day Naruto Died (Part 3)

(FLASHBACK 3 of 3)

The smoke covering the entire area suffocated him while he ran senselessly deep into the woods. They shouldn't be too far from here. His mentor followed closely behind, making no attempt to stop him. Sasuke was yelling something to him but his ears were still too busted to understand a thing – that or he just didn't bother to listen.

Almost frantically, he looked around as he reached a clearing – nothing, just smoke everywhere from his own father's doing. Sasuke landed right behind him, firmly placing his hand on the young man's shoulders. Boruto quickly shoved him off.

"You can feel his chakra! Tell me where he is!" Boruto shouted, smoke quickly filling his lungs.

"I can still sense his chakra but I cannot locate him," Sasuke replied, trying to keep his voice steady.

"You were able to detect him from across dimensions before! Now you can't?" Boruto asked as he stepped closer toward Sasuke, his eyes scanning him for a sincere answer.

"I don't know why I can't, Bolt. Must be the barrier preventing me from tracing him," Sasuke mumbled as he raised both hands over his mouth in utter frustration. He could only imagine how his student felt – probably ten times worse than how he was feeling now.

Without realizing it, Sasuke began pacing. Boruto watched, slowly facing the fact that the most powerful man alive in the world right now, besides his father, was just as clueless as he was.

"Why would he do that?" Boruto muttered, not really waiting for a response.

Sasuke looked at his student, who was already staring dumbfounded at the ground. His heart sank. He remembered the night he felt most helpless as a child – the first time he suspected something was wrong as he raced back to the Uchiha compound. He remembered the feelings of foreboding swallowing him whole even before he found out what happened to his family.

Now he was watching as another child anticipated for the worst.

Blasts roared in succession like thunder, all of them coming from Konoha, and there was nothing Sasuke or Boruto could do but look up at the sky toward its direction. Whatever Naruto was doing, or saying, it was enraging Kawaki and he was taking his wrath out on what the Hokage cared for the most – the village.

"Go back to the village!" Sasuke yanked Boruto as his right eye turned red and three tomoes spun into place.

"What?! Hell no! I'm not leaving!" Bolt tried to pull away, his blue eyes glaring back at his mentor's sharingan. "If I refuse to go, what are you going to do? Force me to leave with your genjutsu?!"

"No. I'm not asking you to leave. I'm asking you to get backup – a search team. It's about time we inform the shinobi forces about what's really happening now, even without the Hokage's orders," Sasuke said, his features softening as Boruto's resistance relaxed.

The Hokage's son stared at Sasuke for a moment with the most despairing eyes the raven-haired man had ever seen. "Then I can come back? With them?"

"Do what you have to, Boruto. It is up to you. You know what's best for you," Sasuke answered sincerely, to which Boruto just nodded.

The young man said something to Sasuke before he ran but another set of explosions drowned his voice. As he disappeared into the woods toward the direction of Konoha, Sasuke thought he heard Boruto thank him for looking after his father.

-----

Inside one of the abandoned monumental halls, over which the Hokage mountain towered, the people took shelter. What began as an unusual, isolated case grew rapidly; the incident that first occurred to strangers managed to reach their own homes, eventually victimizing their fathers, brothers, sisters, and children, although most of them were shinobi. The people took heart in the fact that the injuries being caused were far from fatal, although the resulting permanent lack of chakra was still very disconcerting. With the situation still intensifying almost relentlessly, no one had the courage to wonder what effect this incapacitation would inflict upon the village.