Reanimation

Chapter Nineteen

After reaching for his son's hand beside him, Naruto squeezed lightly, his other arm prodding Sasuke for any wound or injury he might have caused.

Naruto could not understand, the tailed beast bomb did not seem to have caused any physical damage. His mind raced; his chest painful with each breath.

Nothing made sense.

He was sure Kansuke's control over him completely faltered the moment he discovered Sasuke was down. But why and how did it end up like this?

Naruto recognized the overwhelming rage he first felt on the bridge at the Land of Waves, so he turned to his son, to keep his emotions grounded, to remind himself that there was still someone he needed to protect.

Boruto coughed up a huge amount of blood on his own sleeve and Naruto pulled him close. He wrapped his arms around Boruto and placed pressure on the wound he'd created on his son's shoulder.

"Boruto, please, not you too," Naruto began to panic when the young man rested his head on his chest and his eyes started to close.

"Dad," Boruto called out his face lightening up in spite of the pain, "Don't worry, we'll be fine," he smiled.

"Hold on, please," Naruto barely whispered, his hand mindlessly ripping Boruto's sleeve in a hopeless attempt to attend to the wound. He began to channel Kyuubi's chakra toward it but Boruto had already lost too much blood. He was slowly struggling to breathe.

"Dad," Boruto called out again. "Maybe you don't really trust us, do you?" he said, although he was smiling widely enough for Naruto to know he was just joking. "No wonder Sasuke-san was mad at you," Boruto chuckled, bumping his fist lightly against Naruto's chest.

As Naruto stared, at a loss with what to do, "Don't... worry too much," Boruto muttered with his remaining strength, before his hand fell to the ground and he began to sleep.

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Everything was on fire - her eyes, her face, her hands, and her core. Although her vision was still blurry, she could now recognize her surroundings perfectly, decently enough to fight.

If Mitsuki did not have sage mode, she would have easily broken out of his grip. But it seemed her teammate was determined to keep her in place.

If looks could kill, Kansuke was a dead man already. Ironically for Sarada, with her sharingan, looks could really kill someone right now.

"Listen to me," Mitsuki murmured clearly behind her, with emphasis on every word uttered.

Sarada gritted her teeth. How could she listen to anyone if her papa was dead?

"There's still something your dad needs you to do," Mitsuki added.

"How would he even know what's going on now, he's gone -" she hissed between clenched teeth.

"It's all going according to plan," Mitsuki said.

Sarada shook her head in disbelief, trying to make sense of everything. Nothing was going according to plan. How could this be the plan?!

"Remember what your dad taught you? The intense drills he had made you go through for months right after Kawaki's assault? The trainings he gave you with the crow?" Mitsuki asked, hoping Sarada would finally make sense of it. "When you said he was teaching you a technique you were not - and you probably would never be - ready to use?"

Finally, something in her mind clicked, how could she forget?

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