Chapter Text
It was supposed to be an easy mission. Supposed being the key word here. When Konahamaru-Sensei informed his three students about their mission, Boruto couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"Finding a missing cat? Isn't that a little too basic?" Boruto scoffed. "I know we're still genin, but I've literally defeated a moon guy from another dimension already.. well. helped defeat him."
"Don't be arrogant Boruto- missions like these help support the community, that's part of our responsibility as ninja of the leaf." Sarada scolded, but she also looked less than pleased about todays particular mission.
"Ha! Responsibility to the community? This is just someone with more money than sense paying so they can have elite ninja find their pathetic pampered pets." Boruto retorted, crossing his arms. Sarada opened her mouth to argue, but Mitsuki interjected.
"It's nice to see you both getting along so well, but the quicker we stop arguing the quicker we can get this mission over with." Mitsuki said, with that eternal smile still in place.
"Exactly." Konahamaru-sensei said, putting his hands on his hips and and fixing his students a particularly stern look. "Boruto, if you think this mission is beneath you then you should be able to complete it in record time, got it?"
"Fine, this mean I'll be able to take the rest of the day off once I complete this thing, which by my estimations, should be in less than an hour." Boruto shrugged. "I'm not complaining."
Six hours later, Ms Furbottom had yet to be found. Boruto, Sarada and Mitsuki had searched the village of Konaha all day, from the tiniest alleyways to the highest buildings and pylon tops. They'd asked questions and handed out flyers, nobod had seen tail nor whisker of the missing cat.
"Well. This is humiliating." Sarada grumbled as they headed into the forest surrounding the village, the one place they hadn't checked, by now, the su was starting to set, casting an oragangey glow in the sky. Boruto nodded in agreement, very much regretting his earlier words, he glared at the picure of the missing cat accusingly.
"This thing is BRIGHT white and hugely obese.. how is it so good at hiding?" He groaned.
"Or maybe the question should be, how are we so bad at finding it?" Mitsuki said, still smiling benignly. Both Boruto and Sarada rolled their eyes at him, but were too exhausted to properly retort.
"Can't you use byakugan to widen our visual field? You are from the Hyuuga bloodline" Sarada asked Boruto.
"I wish." Boruto huffed, suddenly his eyes widened as he saw a small flash of white sarting away from him under the trees "There- " he shouted, chasing it without a second thought, his teamates followed, hot on his heels.
"How on earth is this thing so fast?" Boruto cried, darting through the trees just to keep up with the white blur- on the picture it has looked so fat.
"Maybe it's rolling." Sarada said as she ran alongside him, her sharingan activated- clearly this was serious business. Next to her was Mitsuki, still smiling.
"Here kitty kitty- " Boruto cried out, but it sounded more like a desperate cry for help than something that would actually entice a cat. "I'm brining you back to your owner, dammit! Dead or alive!"
The young Ninja lunged forward, but suddenly felt the ground beneath him start to cave in, next thing he knew, he was falling- but how.. there was no cliffs around here. This must be some sort of trap.
"Boruto!" A voice cried out. He turned to see Sarada looking at him with wide terrified eyes, she reached her hand out, grabbing his hand, but the dirt beneath her feet was shifting, and suddenly she was falling into the ground as well.
When Boruto opened his eyes, it was dark. So dark he could he could hardly see six feet in front of him, but he could see the body of someone lying next to him.
"Sarada?" He cried out, shaking his teammate lightly. To his immense relief, she woke up immediately, rubbing her eyes.
"What.. happened?" She said, looking around. They appeared to be in some sort of pit with dirt walls on either side. "Last thing I remember is falling in here."
"Me too." Boruto said, falling into a trap wasn't the strange part- it wasn't unheard of for ninjas to do that unwittingly in the forest areas- but the face it was already nightfall, that was strange. "Where's Mitsuki? How come he hasn't gotten us out of here and it's night already?"
"Something strange is going on." Sarada said, narrowing her eyes. She wasn't sure what exactly. "We should be on our guard."
Boruto nodded, his face suddenly serious. Sarada was right.. the fact Mitsuki was gone was definitely a bad sign. Silently, the two of them walked out of the pitt using the chakra release technique.
"We should head back to the village. If we're lucky, Mitsuki just went to get help." Boruto said in a low voice. He kept his eyes peeled for sudden movements, and he listened intently for the tell-tale sound of an attack; the metalic clang of kunai, the sudden shift of feet, but nothing came. Stealthily, the two of them ran out of the forest, heading back towards civilisation. Boruto ran behind Sarada, glancing behind every few seconds, checking for assailants. Suddenly, as they reached the edge of the village, Sarada stopped dead in her tracks and Boruto ran straight into her.
"Sarada- watch it- " he started to say, but he was cut off when he saw her expression. She looked utterly lost. He turned to see what she was looking at, and gasped. It wasn't their village. It appeared to be somewhere much smaller, much less developed. There was no monorail encircling the town, no neon flashing lights, or street lamps or developed roads. All the buildings looked like those from old town with their jaunty mismatched structure.
"where are we..?" Boruto said in a whisper.
"I think.. this is Konaha." Sarada replied, pointing to the cliff facing them. On it, were carved the faces of the great Hokages. But something was off, it took Boruto a moment to notice in the dark.
"Sarada.. why are there only six faces?" He whispered.
Tenma Namikaze stubbed out a cigarette on a nearby tree and glanced up at the sky. He guessed it was about time to start heading home. He had only started smoking to piss of his old man- It had worked, of course, pissing off his father wasn't exactly a difficult feat- but now Tenma found himself smoking regularly, at least a couple of times a week. He could add a nicotine addiction at thirteen to the ever-growing list of reasons he's the family disappointment. Smoking certainly wouldn't top the list by any means, that had to go to his failure to graduate from the academy earlier this year. The only one in his family to have that particular accolade.
It just didn't make sense. Practically everyone in Tenma's family was a genius, here's the list;
Elder sister, Kizashi Namikaze: Already a Jonin
Mother, Sakura Haruno: World-renowned medical ninja.
Father, Menma Namikaze: Hero who defeated Hanzo of the Salamander during an invasion.
Maternal Grandmother: Died defending the village
Maternal Grandfather: Hokage who also died saving the village.
Paternal Grandmother, Kushina Uzamaki: Jinchuriki and powerful Kunouchi
Paternal Grandfather: Current Hokage, and world reknowned 'yellowflash'
By rights, Tenma should be a powerful ninja just like every other person in his family- or at least, a passable ninja. At this point he'd be satisfied with just that. He wondered if he really was his father's son, it just didn't make sense, was he swapped at birth or something? He didn't even really look like his father, or his mother for that matter. He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice the two people stood in front of him until he practically walked into them.
"Sorry." he said, quickly. Living in a village with powerful ninjas when you were weak taught Tenma the importance of apologizing quickly when things like this happened. The two kids looked about his age, a boy and a girl. He stopped suddenly when he saw what the boy looked like.. He had spikey blonde hair and bright blue eyes, with black whisker scratches on his cheeks. He was the spitting image of Tenma's father. Maybe the whole being swapped at birth thing wasn't so crazy after all. Feeling strangely dazed about the whole thing, Tenma turned to leave, but the boy stopped him, grabbbing his arm.
"Hey wait!" He said, sounding desperate. "You need to tell me- what the hell has happened to Konaha?"