Boruto Uzumaki POV –
One second, he was drowning in the electric-blue chaos of a time-space rift, Uncle Sasuke's yell of "Boruto, stay close!" ripped away by the screaming void. The next, he was vomiting onto soft, unfamiliar moss, the world spinning violently around him.
The air was wrong. It smelled of pine and distant rain, not the metallic ozone of Urashiki's crumbling temporal trap. The light was different—softer, filtered through older, denser trees.
Boruto: "Ugh… my head… feels like Lord Katasuke used it for a vibration-test…"
He pushed himself up, wiping his mouth. Uncle Sasuke was already on his feet, his Rinnegan and Sharingan scanning the environment with hyper-focused intensity. His posture was rigid, every muscle coiled.
Sasuke: "We're displaced. The Turtle's energy was chaotic. This isn't the temporal coordinate we targeted."
Boruto: "Where are we? Is Urashiki here?"
Sasuke: "Silence."
The command was sharp. Boruto fell quiet, activating his own Jougan instinctively. The world shifted into chakra outlines. The forest was alive with normal, ambient nature energy. But in the distance… a massive, dense concentration of human chakra. A village. But the chakra signature felt… different. Less familiar.
They moved silently, ghosts through the trees, until they reached a ridge overlooking a vast, familiar-yet-alien landscape. The giant stone faces carved into the mountain…
Boruto: "Konoha…? But… it looks…"
Sasuke: "Older. Less rebuilt. The Hokage faces… only four." His voice was a low murmur, laced with a tension Boruto had rarely heard. "The Fifth's face is not there. This is not our past. This is a divergence point. An earlier divergence than I calculated."
The next few days were a whirlwind of surreal, heart-wrenching, and terrifying discoveries. Disguised and using every covert technique Sasuke could muster, they infiltrated the village during what turned out to be the Chunin Exams.
Seeing his dad was the first punch to the gut.
Naruto Uzumaki, but not his dad. A scrawny, loud, brightly-orange-clad kid his own age, maybe a little younger. He was grinning, shouting about ramen, getting yelled at by a pink-haired girl—Aunt Sakura. Young, forehead smooth, fists clenched as she berated him. And watching them, aloof but present, was Uncle Sasuke. The younger version. Dark hair, dark clothes, a scowl that Boruto recognized as a family heirloom of angst.
He saw his mom. Hinata Hyuga. She was a shadow, peeking from behind a pillar, her face a storm of shy adoration directed at the blond idiot. It made Boruto's chest ache in a weird way. She was so… small. So vulnerable.
He watched them bicker, train, and struggle. It was like watching a badly dubbed, low-budget play of his parents' childhood stories. The stories had always been epic, heroic, tinged with the glow of nostalgia. Seeing the reality was… pathetic and heart-breaking. His dad was a lonely, shouting brat. His mom was a terrified mouse. The younger Sasuke was a ball of silent fury.
Then came the Jonin Exhibition. The stadium was electric. And out walked the two people who made the air itself seem to bow.
Indra Uzumaki-Uchiha. He looked maybe a few years older than Boruto, but he carried himself with the weight and grace of the Five Kage combined. His spiked black hair, the sharp Uchiha features softened by what must have been his Uzumaki heritage, the calm, observant eyes that missed nothing. And beside him, Rias Uzumaki. Crimson hair like a waterfall of blood, eyes like amethysts, a presence that was both elegant and fiercely dangerous. They moved in sync without even looking at each other.
The fight began. And Boruto's jaw hit the floor.
It wasn't a fight. It was a conversation in violence, a dance of impossible skill. They moved faster than his Jougan could easily track. Indra didn't just use ninjutsu; he rewrote the space around him. He'd vanish from one spot and reappear in another without a seal, the air folding. Rias's spear was an extension of her will, shifting from a hairpin to a monstrous weapon in a heartbeat, weaving through barriers of lightning and earth Indra created not to block her, but to guide her attacks.
He saw Indra use the Blue Flare. But it wasn't the same one Younger Sasuke had used. This was the original, the masterpiece. A vortex of blue-white fire so hot the air above it crystallized, not exploding, but consuming light and sound in a perfect, controlled sphere. Rias met it not with a counter, but with a spear-thrust that seemed to pierce the very concept of heat, dispersing it into a shower of harmless sapphire sparks.
He saw Volt Tackle. But again, elevated. Indra didn't just coat himself in lightning. He became a living, focused law of motion and electricity. He didn't charge; he appeared at points of impact, each touch a localized thunderclap that Rias parried with spinning, spear-shafts that rang like giant bells.
They were holding back. He could feel it in his bones. This was a demonstration, a show for the audience. And even at that level, it was the most terrifyingly beautiful thing he'd ever witnessed. The power was one thing. The synergy was another. They weren't covering each other's weaknesses; they had none to cover. They were amplifying each other's limitless strengths.
A hot, confused jealousy mixed with awe in Boruto's chest. This guy was maybe 18. And he was… this. What had he been doing at that age? Playing video games and complaining about dad being Hokage. And Rias… she was every bit his equal. They were a pair, a unit. It made his parents' dynamic, or Aunt Sakura and Uncle Sasuke's, look like… well, like kids playing house.
Boruto: (Whispering to Sasuke, who was a statue beside him) "They're… they're like gods…"
Sasuke: (Eyes fixed, Rinnegan spinning slowly) "They are what happens when genius escapes destruction and is given purpose. And partnership."
The feeling of their combined chakra was staggering. It wasn't wild like a Tailed Beast. It was deep, vast, and perfectly controlled—an ocean of power with the discipline of a mountain. He'd only ever felt something like that from his dad when he was fully synced with Kurama. Indra and Rias together felt like they had that much raw power each, and it was all their own.
After the exams, Uncle Sasuke decided they needed to understand the roots of this world's divergence. That led them to the sealed archives.
The files on Danzo Shimura.
At first, it was just depressing history. A bad guy doing bad things. Boruto got it. Every timeline had its villains. But then they got deeper. The numbers. The lists. The cold, clinical reports.
File E-7: Project Bloom – "Vitality Synthesis"
*Subject Log #443: "Uchiha child, male, age 4. High spiritual energy detected. Infused with Senju-line cell strain #12 to test for Wood Release precursor. Result: Systemic chakra rejection. Body consumed by accelerated floral growth. Termination necessary."*
Attached: A blurred photograph. A small, pale form on a slab, vines and grotesque, colorful flowers bursting from his mouth, eyes, and chest.
Boruto's stomach lurched.
File E-11: "Ocular Maturity Acceleration"
Hypothesis: The Sharingan's evolution can be forced through induced trauma in prepubescent subjects, bypassing the need for natural emotional catalysts.
*Subject Log #890-899: Ten children, ages 5-7, acquired from border skirmish orphans. Subjected to genjutsu cycles simulating the death of loved ones.*
*Results: #890, 891, 894: Catatonic. Chakra pathways severed. #892, 895: Success. Two-Tomoe Sharingan awakened. Subsequent attempts to force third tomoe led to cerebral hemorrhage. Terminated. #893, 896, 897, 898, 899: No awakening. Psychological breakdown. Deemed useless. Transferred to "Endurance" testing branch.*
He couldn't look away from the small, neat handwriting detailing the "termination" of a seven-year-old who had just awakened a bloodline limit.
Then they found the picture folder. Sasuke had warned him not to look. He looked.
Black and white, grainy, but horrifyingly clear. Rows of small, still forms on metal tables. Some with extra limbs grafted on, sewn clumsily. Others with strange, bark-like skin. One with its skull open, a Sharingan clumsily implanted in the forehead, the eye milky and dead. The ages listed: Newborn. 18 months. 3 years. 5 years.
The room tilted. The clinical descriptions were bad. The pictures were a violation of reality itself. This wasn't a villain trying to take over the world. This was a monster playing with a child's building blocks, using living, screaming children as the pieces.
He stumbled back from the table, a hand clamped over his mouth. The bile was a burning tide. He barely made it to a corner waste bin before he was violently, utterly sick, heaving until his stomach was empty and his throat was raw. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the sour taste in his mouth. He cried for the kids in the pictures. He cried for the sheer, pointless evil of it. He cried because this was a part of the hidden history of his own world, and he'd never known.
Sasuke's hand was on his shoulder, a rare gesture of comfort. His face was pale, his jaw clenched so tight Boruto heard the muscles creak.
Sasuke: "Breathe. This is why we fight. To ensure this never exists again. Anywhere."
But Boruto couldn't stop shaking. The image of that flower-bursting child was burned into his mind. He was a shinobi. He'd seen combat. He'd seen death. But this was different. This was making death, twisting life into a cruel joke in a sterile room. Danzo wasn't a person. He was a disease. And learning that in this world, he'd been caught, exposed, and was awaiting execution… it was the only piece of light in that whole dark room.
Leaving Konoha felt like escaping a haunted house. Crossing into the Land of Lightning was like stepping into the future from one of those old sci-fi scrolls Dad liked.
Boruto: "Whoa… is this even the same planet?"
The roads were smooth. Not a pothole in sight. The towns were clean, bustling, and everyone looked… healthy. Well-fed. Busy, but not desperate. They passed public training grounds where kids were doing chakra-control exercises with laughing instructors. Billboards advertised things like "Uzumaki-Zeoticus Trade Guild – Apprenticeships Available!" and "Stormworks Foundry – Shaping Tomorrow!"
And the people… they talked about the Uzumaki clan not as tragic refugees or powerful hermits, but as neighbors, leaders, celebrities.
Market Vendor: "...best spices come from the Uzumaki greenhouses up north. Old man Zeoticus himself ensures the quality."
Blacksmith: "Aye, the alloy for this comes from the Uzumaki-Stormworks patent. Tougher than steel, lighter than feather. That young genius Indra, bless him, came up with the process."
Mother to Child: "If you study hard, you could work at Lady Venelana's hospital. She's the best medic in the world, they say."
Everywhere, the name "Uzumaki" was spoken with pride, with gratitude. It wasn't a whispered curse or a title of pity. It was a name associated with quality, innovation, and protection.
A fierce, unexpected swell of emotion hit Boruto. This was his mother's clan. His clan. In his world, being an Uzumaki meant being his dad, and him, and a few scattered people. It meant carrying a heavy legacy of loss. Here, it meant being part of a thriving, powerful family that was actively making the world better. He felt a sting of envy for the red-haired kids he saw laughing in the streets, wearing their heritage openly and without fear. He unconsciously touched his own blond hair.
Then they saw the car.
It glided down the main thoroughfare of a larger town, silent as a ghost, the Lightning Daimyo's crest gleaming on its side. It wasn't just a vehicle; it was a sculpture of motion, a statement of technological supremacy.
Boruto: "No way… that's a floating car! How is it even doing that? Chakra repulsion? Anti-gravity seals? That's… that's insane! Lord Katasuke would have a meltdown! I want one!"
For a moment, the horror of the archives was pushed aside by sheer, boyish wonder. This world had flying cars! And his clan was partly responsible!
As they journeyed closer to Kumo itself, the scale of Indra's influence became mind-boggling. They saw the "chakra-grain" fields, the self-repairing bridges, the public chakra-lamp posts. It was a world that worked. It felt… secure. Like the entire country was wrapped in a giant, invisible blanket of safety and progress. It was everything the Hidden Leaf Village tried to be, but perfected, streamlined, and implemented with ruthless efficiency.
They were walking a narrow mountain trail, miles from the main gate but within sight of Kumo's towering, fortified peaks. The air was thin and cold. Boruto was daydreaming about getting a ride in that car.
Boruto: "Do you think they'd let us take a picture? Maybe if we said we were engineers from a far-off land studying—"
Sasuke: "Quiet."
Sasuke stopped dead, his Rinnegan flaring. Boruto's Jougan activated on instinct. He saw it then—a hair-thin, almost invisible lattice of blue chakra lines woven through the air around them, like a giant, delicate net. They'd walked right into the center of it.
Before either could move, the lattice contracted.
Not with force. With absolute, silent authority.
A perfect sphere of shimmering, cobalt-blue energy, twenty feet in diameter, snapped into existence around them. The light from outside refracted through it, casting everything in an aquatic, slow-moving glow. Boruto tried to step forward. His leg moved, but with impossible, dreamlike slowness. It felt like wading through solid diamond. He tried to form a hand seal. His fingers crept together at the pace of a growing glacier.
Boruto: "Wh-what… is… this…?" His own voice was dragged out, deep and distorted.
Sasuke was straining, the muscles in his neck cording. Purple chakra—the outline of a Susano'o—flickered around him for a millisecond before being utterly suppressed, snuffed out like a candle in a vacuum. His Rinnegan was spinning wildly, but the sphere seemed to absorb the very concept of space-time manipulation he tried to invoke. His Amenotejikara, his ability to switch places with objects, simply… didn't trigger. It was like the space inside the sphere had been declared a sovereign nation where Sasuke's laws didn't apply.
Sasuke: (Each word a monumental effort) "…Time… and… Space… locked. Not a barrier… a… stasis field."
Panic, cold and sharp, shot through Boruto. They were trapped. Not just held. Frozen. Helpless. Who could do this?
Indra Uzumaki-Uchiha POV –
He had felt it for days. A faint, persistent itch in his perception of space-time. Like two grains of sand moving against the flow in an hourglass. At first, he'd dismissed it as a lingering effect of his new template integration, his senses adjusting to the deeper layers of reality.
But it persisted. During a leisurely market day with Rias, buying exotic fruits for his mother, the sensation spiked. Two presences, moving on the edge of the village's sensor net. Their chakra signatures were expertly masked—almost perfectly. Almost. But they couldn't hide the residual "scent" of their journey. It clung to them like static—the unique, acrid tang of violent temporal displacement. They had crossed timelines. Recently.
It was the same sensation he'd theorized about when considering the implications of his Dialga template, but fainter, less controlled. They were not masters of time. They were survivors of a temporal accident.
Rias: (Noticing his distraction) "Indra? You've been staring at that lemon for a full minute. Did it offend your architectural sensibilities?"
Indra: (Setting the fruit down) "A minor anomaly. I need to check the perimeter sensor logs. Something is… out of phase."
Rias: (Her playful smile fading into sharp focus) "Trouble?"
Indra: "Uninvited guests. Possibly interesting ones. Go home, I'll meet you for dinner."
Rias: (A nod, no further questions needed) "Don't be late. Mother's making your favorite."
Once she was gone, his demeanour shifted. The relaxed young man vanished, replaced by the Commander of Thunderhead. He accessed the sensor grid through his neural link. The Emotion-Sensor Barrier had flagged nothing—whoever they were, they felt no malice towards Kumo. The chakra sensors had registered only faint, generic signatures, easily dismissed as wandering monks or merchants. But the dimensional resonance scanners, a pet project he'd integrated after his encounter with Obito's Kamui, showed two clear, pulsing anomalies moving in a slow arc around the village's eastern mountains.
They were observing. Gathering intelligence. And they were wrapped in a bubble of distorted time.
He didn't summon eagles or alert the guard. This required precision, not force. He used Body Flicker, but a new version—Spatial Step. He didn't move through space; he simply redefined his location relative to the targets, appearing on a high peak a kilometer from their position, his arrival silent and without the usual puff of smoke or rush of air.
From there, he observed with his Eternal Mangekyō. He saw them clearly: a tall, cloaked man with an unusual prosthetic arm and a teenage boy with spiky blond hair. The man's chakra… it was immense, complex, and carried the chilling, familiar weight of the Rinnegan and a powerful Sharingan. The boy's chakra was vibrant, fierce, and contained a dojutsu Indra had never seen—a pale, pupil-less eye that saw chakra pathways with unnerving clarity.
Recognition clicked. From the stray, otherworldly memories that came with his transmigration. Fragments of an anime his past self had watched. The boy was unmistakable. Boruto Uzumaki. The man could only be an adult Sasuke Uruchiha.
Time-travelers. From a future that should not be able to reach here. The implications were staggering. And a potential threat. Their very presence was a causal anomaly. They were riddled with "time-lag," their cells and chakra struggling to sync with this reality's flow. It made them walking vulnerabilities, but also unpredictable.
He needed to contain them without a fight that could damage the local spacetime. He raised his hand, focusing not on his Mangekyō, but on the deeper understanding from his Palkia (Spatial) and Dialga (Temporal) templates.
This wasn't a genjutsu. It wasn't a seal. It was a decree.
Indra: "Chrono-Stasis."
He combined the concepts. From Palkia: He defined a spherical volume of space, isolating its coordinate set from the rest of the universe. From Dialga: He assigned a temporal value of near-zero flow to that volume. The result was a bubble of hyper-dilated time. Inside, seconds would feel like hours, movement like trying to swim through frozen cement. It was a prison that attacked the very perception of reality.
He saw the sphere snap into place. Saw their slowed, struggling movements. Perfect.
He stepped down from the peak, walking calmly towards the shimmering blue sphere. To anyone else, it would look like a bizarre weather phenomenon or a mirage. To him, it was a perfect containment field.
He entered the sphere's effect without hesitation. Within it, time normalized for him—he was its architect. To Boruto and Sasuke, he suddenly appeared in front of them, moving with normal, fluid speed while they were trapped in molasses.
He studied them up close. The man's face was lined with hardship and wisdom, his eyes holding a storm of history. The boy's face was a mask of teenage defiance and fear, already so like Naruto's yet uniquely his own.
Indra: (His voice calm, echoing slightly in the distorted space) "A Rinnegan. A unique dojutsu. Chakra signatures laden with temporal backlash. And familiar faces from… elsewhere. You are not of this timeline."
He saw the shock in Boruto's slowed eyes. Saw the intense, calculating focus in Adult Sasuke's.
Indra: "You represent a significant causal irregularity. A risk I cannot leave unaddressed. But you also represent information. A fascinating paradox."
He made a slight, twisting gesture with his fingers. The sphere's properties shifted. Time and sight were restored to the occupants, but the spatial lock remained. They could see him, hear him, and move their heads and speak at normal speed, but their bodies were still pinned in the solidified space.
Boruto: (Voice full of shock and awe) "H-how…? Who are you? What is this?"
Sasuke: (His voice was gravelly, controlled, his Rinnegan fixed on Indra) "You are Indra Uzumaki-Uchiha. The Lake Maker. Your control over space-time is more advanced than reported."
Indra: "Reports are for those who need them. You, Sasuke Uchiha from a future that branches from a darker root, and you, Boruto Uzumaki… you are living reports of a path not taken. You are also in violation of my sovereignty. You have been observing my village, my country, for weeks."
Boruto: "We didn't mean any harm! We're after someone! A bad guy! An Otsutsuki named Urashiki!"
Indra: "Otsutsuki." The word landed with weight. His Indra Ōtsutsuki template gave a silent, resonant pulse of recognition and disdain. "That explains the severe temporal distortion on you. A fight across timelines. Reckless."
He paced slowly around them, analyzing. "Your presence here is a tear in the fabric of this world. You are leaking causality. I could unravel you both, smoothing the timeline back to consistency. It would be the cleanest solution."
Boruto's eyes went wide with fear. Sasuke's gaze hardened, chakra flaring impotently against the spatial lock.
Indra: "But… clean is not always informative. And the mention of an Otsutsuki operative in my reality changes the threat calculus. You have data I lack."
He stopped in front of them, his own eyes meeting Sasuke's Rinnegan. "I am going to release you into a controlled environment. You will not be able to use space-time ninjutsu or dimensional abilities there. If you cooperate, we may find our interests align. If you attempt hostility, you will learn why my enemies call this mountain range 'The Storm's Graveyard.' Understood?"
He didn't wait for an answer. With another gesture, the blue sphere vanished. But before Boruto could even slump in relief, the world blurred around them. It wasn't a Body Flicker. It was a spatial relocation. The forest vanished, replaced by the sterile, bright lights and hum of advanced technology.
They stood in the center of a large, circular laboratory. The walls were seamless white alloy, covered in holographic displays showing complex chakra flow charts, molecular diagrams, and real-time maps of the continent. One wall was a vast window looking out into the inky blackness and glittering stars of outer space—they were in the orbital surveillance platform, Skyhammer. In the center of the room, a three-dimensional model of the Ten-Tails rotated slowly next to a schematic of the Gedo Statue.
Boruto: "Wha—where are we? Is this… space?!"
Indra walked over to a console, his back to them, seemingly relaxed. "A secure location. No one enters or leaves without my direct authority. Not even the Raikage." He turned, leaning against the console, his arms crossed. The casual power in the gesture was undeniable. "Now. Start talking. Who is Urashiki? Why is he here? And what, exactly, is the nature of the future you come from?"
He was no longer just the prodigy or the commander. In the heart of his greatest invention, having captured time-travellers with casual ease, he was the sovereign in his sanctum, and they were the curious specimens who held pieces of a puzzle he needed to solve. The storm had not just gathered; it had learned to think, to calculate, and now, to interrogate the very fabric of time itself.
End of chapter – 42.