Indra POV – The Orbital Laboratory, Sky Hammer Station
The silence after Adult Sasuke's non-answer stretched, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was the silence of calculation, of two strategic minds weighing variables across a gulf of time and experience. Boruto shifted nervously beside his mentor, his eyes darting between my face and the breathtaking, impossible view of the planet below through the panoramic viewport.
The orbital lab hummed around us—a low, steady thrum of advanced systems, climate control, and the faint buzz of the chakra-reactor core. Screens displayed data streams from Thunderhead, from the agricultural grids, from the Eagle Clan patrols. This was the nerve centre of my design, a place of pure intellect and purpose. And now, it housed two anomalies from a fractured future.
Indra: "Thinking is acceptable. Hesitation, in the face of what you've described, is rational. Urashiki Ōtsutsuki is a predator from your stars. I've seen… flashes. Glimpses of chakra being harvested, of worlds drained. My fortifications aren't just for the wars of this earth. They're for the storms that come from the dark between."
I walked to a console, my back to them for a moment, bringing up a schematic of the prosthetic arm. It was a masterpiece of bio-synthetic engineering, woven with chakra-conductive filaments, micro-seals for chakra shaping, and a neural interface that would make it feel more natural than his original limb.
Indra: "The arm is a tool. A signifier. You came here missing a piece of yourself, a testament to battles fought. I'm offering not to give you back what you lost, but to give you something you never had. An advantage. Clean, efficient, without the phantom pains or the limitations of regrown tissue."
I turned, my Eternal Mangekyō still dormant, but my gaze sharp.
Indra: "But an arm is a small price for the data you carry. Your Rinnegan, your Mangekyō integration… It's a unique fusion. A map of how Ōtsutsuki power can be forced to coexist with human biology. And the boy's Karma…" I glanced at Boruto, who flinched. "…is an active implantation. A living record of an Ōtsutsuki's attempt at rebirth. Studying it could provide the key to dismantling such seals, or immunising against them."
Adult Sasuke: (His voice was gravelly, tired) "You talk about studying power like a medic talks about anatomy. You dissect. You improve. You see people as… systems."
Indra: "People are systems. Biological, chakra-based, psychological systems. To ignore that is to be ruled by sentiment over survival. Sentiment didn't save the Uzumaki from annihilation. It didn't save the Uchiha from the slaughter. It didn't save my father."
The name hung in the air. I saw Sasuke's visible eye narrow. He remembered Fujin. The kind uncle. The link.
Indra: "You asked how I knew. How I stabilised the Sharingan's curse without… fratricide." I activated my Eternal Mangekyō. The intricate, geometric pattern glowed softly in the lab's light, casting faint prismatic shadows. "My father, Fujin Uchiha. The second-in-command of the Konoha Police Force. A man loyal to his clan, but more loyal to his family. He saw the rot in Konoha's shadow. He felt Danzo Shimura's gaze on the Uchiha."
I deactivated the eyes, the memory a cold stone in my gut.
Indra: "Before the massacre, he visited us one last time. He didn't bring toys or stories. He brought a sealed scroll. Contains every Uchiha technique, theory, and historical record he could copy or summarise. Research on the Sharingan's biological triggers, on Mangekyō degeneration hypotheses from the clan archives. He gave me a library and a warning: 'The village is sick, son. The shadow beneath the tree is hungry. Use this to understand your power, so it can never be used to chain you.' Then he sent us away, using his last favour to get my mother and me to Lightning."
I walked to the viewport, looking down at the swirling clouds over the Land of Lightning.
Indra: "He died that night. Trying to protect the clan children, from what I later pieced together. He wasn't in the police station planning a coup. He was in the nursery district, forming a barrier. He was killed by a single, precise strike to the heart. A technique favoured by a prodigy known for flawless execution."
I didn't need to say the name. The tension in Sasuke's frame screamed it.
Adult Sasuke: "Itachi."
Indra: "Yes. Itachi Uchiha. Your brother. The hero of Konoha's shadows. The man you spent half your life venerating, then hating, then… understanding?" I turned, my expression neutral. "Tell me, Sasuke of the future. In your timeline, when you learned the 'truth,' when you stood before him as he died… how did he justify it? The children? The infants? The non-combatants? My father?"
Sasuke's jaw tightened. Boruto looked between us, lost and increasingly distressed.
Adult Sasuke: "He was given an impossible choice. Danzo manufactured the coup. He threatened to start a civil war that would destroy the Uchiha and Konoha. Itachi chose to… minimise the bloodshed. To take the sin upon himself so the village could survive. To spare me."
The words were rote, a mantra he'd built his post-redemption identity around. But here, in this sterile lab, facing a man whose father was part of that "minimised bloodshed," they sounded hollow.
Indra: "Minimize." I let the word hang. "An interesting term for the slaughter of over two hundred men, women, and children. For the murder of the clansmen sitting down to dinner. For killing toddlers in their beds." My voice remained calm, analytical, which made it cut deeper. "Did he explain the methodology? The psychological efficiency? How to kill a cousin who thinks you're playing hide-and-seek? How to slit the throat of an aunt who's offering you tea?"
Adult Sasuke: (A flash of anger) "You don't understand the pressure! Danzo—"
Indra: "DANZO!"
The word wasn't a shout. It was a detonation of controlled fury that made the air in the lab crackle with static. Boruto stumbled back a step. Sasuke's hand went to the hilt of his kusanagi—a reflex.
I didn't move. But the temperature seemed to drop. The screens around us flickered.
Indra: "Let's talk about Danzo Shimura. The man you blame. The convenient shadow." I took a step forward, my eyes locked on Sasuke's. "After I stabilised my position in Kumo, after my inventions began to shift the balance of power, he noticed. An Uchiha survivor? Not just surviving, but thriving? A potential repository of Uchiha secrets and Uzumaki ingenuity in the hands of his rival? Unacceptable."
I began to pace, the memory fueling a cold, precise rage.
Indra: "First, it was bounty hunters. Iwa, Kiri, missing-nin. All with Konoha's seal on their payment scrolls if you knew where to look. Then, it was ROOT. Dozens of operations. Ambushes on missions. Poison in supply lines. Sabotage of my lab prototypes. I killed them. Efficiently. They were tools, and I broke them."
I stopped, my back to them again, my voice dropping.
Indra: "Then, he got creative. He learned about my mother. Delia Uzumaki-Uchiha. A medic who wanted no part of shinobi politics. A woman who saved the Lightning Daimyo's granddaughter once, earning us our sanctuary. Danzo sent a team. Not to kill me. To kidnap her. To use her as leverage."
The memory was crystal clear, playing behind my eyes. The alert from my home wards. Rushing back. Finding the ROOT agent's blade at my mother's throat. The fear in her eyes, quickly replaced by defiance. She'd been holding a medical scalpel, ready to go for the jugular.
Indra: "I arrived in time. I made examples of that team. Their remains were… difficult to identify. I sent a message back to Danzo, wrapped in a ROOT headband. He didn't stop."
I turned, and now my Sharingan was active, the tomoe spinning slowly.
Indra: "His final play was a masterpiece of cynical strategy. He orchestrated a sabotage attack on our grain silos—a blatant, flashy assault designed to draw the attention of my newly activated Thunderhead system and my personal focus. And while I was dealing with that, he used a spatial marker planted by his agents to guide a precision Kamui jump directly into my living room."
Boruto gasped. "Uncle Obito…"
Indra: "Yes. Obito Uchiha. The ghost. Danzo's temporary ally. He phased through my roof, reached down for my mother as she stood defenceless in her own home." The memory of that moment—the violation, the sheer arrogant reach of that shadowy hand—sent a pulse of wrath through my chakra that made the lab lights dim. "That was the night my Mangekyō awakened. Not from grief. From a rage so pure, so cold, it crystallised. The fury of a protector whose sanctum has been defiled."
I deactivated the Sharingan; the emotional surge locked down.
Indra: "I drove Obito off. I exposed Danzo's collaboration with an international terrorist. I presented Konoha with an ultimatum backed by irrefutable evidence. And I forced them to bring their monster to heel."
I walked to a different console, pulling up archival footage—not from a scrying technique, but from a Samurai observer's sealed recording, part of the reparations agreement.
It showed the summit hall in the Land of Iron. The sealed alloy box. The samurai opens it. Danzo, broken, his Sharingan arm severed, his power sealed. The hollow, defeated shell of a man who believed he was the village's necessary darkness.
Indra: "The Raikage and the Lightning Daimyo demanded a public execution. A symbolic cleansing. The Samurai of Iron carried it out. A single, perfect stroke of the sword. No last words. No grand speech. Just the quiet, final sound of a rotten limb being severed from the body of the shinobi world. His head was displayed for three days at the border as a warning. Then burned, and the ashes scattered in a storm."
The footage ended. The silence returned, thicker now.
Adult Sasuke: (He looked pale) "He deserved it."
Indra: "He was a symptom. A particularly malignant one. But the disease was the philosophy that created him. The belief that some souls are expendable for the 'greater good.' That children can be collateral in a grand scheme. That a brother can be turned into a weapon to murder his own family for the sake of a village that will never know his sacrifice."
I looked directly at Sasuke, my gaze piercing.
Indra: "Itachi was Danzo's masterpiece. The ultimate sharpened tool. He didn't 'make a choice.' He accepted Danzo's framing. He internalised the logic of the sacrifice. And he executed it with a cold perfection that still chills me to my core."
Adult Sasuke: "He suffered! He lived with that guilt! He died for it!"
Indra: "Did he?" My question was soft, deadly. "Or did he die satisfied, having manipulated you onto the path he wanted, having secured his legacy as the 'tragic hero' in your eyes? Guilt implies a recognition of wrongdoing. What I saw in the records, in the aftermath… was the clinical report of a mission accomplished."
I could see Sasuke's knuckles white on his sword hilt. The narrative of his brother, the complex, painful truth he'd built his adulthood around, was being dismantled brick by brick.
Indra: "You speak of his justification. Of the 'grand scheme.' Let me show you what that scheme looked like from the ground. Not from the perspective of the Hokage's office, or the tortured mind of the weapon. But from the eyes of the children who thought their big brother was coming to save them."
I raised my hand. My left eye, the Dialga eye, began to glow with a soft, silver light. The geometric pattern within seemed to rotate, like the inner workings of a cosmic clock.
Indra: "My Mangekyō power over time is not just acceleration or reversal. At a deeper level, it is the authority to witness. To pull a thread from the tapestry of duration and observe its true colour. I cannot change the past. But I can make you see it. Not as a memory, or a story. As it was."
I focused. The air in front of us shimmered. Not an illusion. A window. A rent in the flow of time, stabilised by my will.
Indra: "This is the Uchiha compound. The night of the massacre. The view is from a security seal my father had placed in the main family's garden—a failsafe, meant to record intrusions. It recorded… everything."
The scene resolved. It was dark, lit by flickering lanterns and the occasional flash of fire release. The sounds were muffled, as if heard through water, but clear enough: distant screams, the clash of steel, the sickening thud of bodies falling.
And then, he walked into view.
Itachi Uchiha. Thirteen years old. Dressed in ANBU gear, splattered with blood that wasn't his. His face was a blank mask. His Sharingan—the normal three tomoe—was active, spinning slowly, dispassionately. In his hand, a standard chokutō, dripping.
From around the corner of a traditional house, two small figures ran. Twins, a boy and a girl, no more than six. They were crying, holding hands. They saw Itachi and stopped, their tiny faces filled with terror… then confusion.
Boy: "I-Itachi-nii? Is that you? There's… there's bad people!"
Girl: (Sobbing) "Mama and Papa… they fell and won't get up…"
Itachi looked at them. For a fraction of a second, his blank mask seemed to… settle. He knelt, bringing himself to their eye level. In the window of time, we couldn't hear his words, but we saw his lips move. Gentle. Calming.
The children's terror eased slightly. The boy nodded, sniffling. Itachi reached out as if to wipe their tears.
His hands moved in a blur.
Two precise strikes to the cervical spine. A clean, medical kill. The children's eyes went wide for an instant, then vacant. They collapsed into his arms. He laid them down side-by-side on the path, arranging them almost… neatly. He closed their eyes with his fingertips.
Then he stood. Wiped his blade on his trousers. And walked on, his chakra signature a flat, cold line. No spike of regret. No tremor of grief. Just the steady, mission-focused hum of a shinobi completing an objective.
Adult Sasuke made a sound—a choked, airless gasp. Boruto turned away, hand over his mouth, his face green.
Indra: "That was Hikaru and Akari Uchiha. Their father was a carpenter. Their mother taught calligraphy at the academy. They were not a threat. They were not part of any 'coup.' They were children who trusted their clan's prodigy."
I didn't stop. I waved my hand. The scene shifted. A nursery. A young Uchiha mother, barely more than a girl herself, huddled in a corner, clutching a swaddled newborn to her chest. Itachi stood in the doorway.
Young Mother: (Voice ragged with panic) "Itachi! Please! Take my life! Spare her! She's not even a month old! She doesn't have a name yet! Please, in the name of our clan, our blood!"
Itachi didn't speak. He raised his sword. The mother screamed, turning her body to shield the infant.
The blade pierced through her back and the bundle in her arms in one thrust. He twisted it, withdrew. The bodies slid to the floor. He didn't look at them. He checked the room, saw it was clear, and moved on.
Scene after scene. A boy of ten, trying to use a practice shuriken to defend his younger twin brothers, offering his own life in exchange for theirs. Itachi killed all three with a single wind-release enhanced swing.
An elderly couple, the man blind, the woman trying to lead him to safety. Itachi killed them from behind, a twin kunai throw.
Each kill was efficient. Flawless. Each was followed by that same, chillingly flat emotional signature.
Indra: "My father, Fujin, appears here."
The scene shifted to a wider courtyard. Fujin Uchiha, my father, stood with his back to a group of cowering children and two elderly jonin. He had a barrier seal active—a shimmering dome of blue light. He was bleeding from a cut on his arm, but his stance was firm, his three-tomoe Sharingan active.
Itachi approached, his sword held low.
Fujin: "Itachi! Stop this madness! Look at what you're doing! These are our people! Your family! This isn't protecting the village, this is insanity! Danzo is manipulating you!"
Itachi paused. For a second, he seemed to listen.
Itachi: (His voice, when it came, was monotone, hollow) "The Uchiha clan's coup must be stopped. Civil war must be averted. This is the only way."
Fujin: "There is no coup, you fool! It's a fabrication! Open your eyes! Look past the orders! These are children!"
Itachi: "The order is for the clan. All members. No exceptions. Step aside, Uncle."
Fujin: "Over my dead body."
Itachi moved. Not with anger, but with the serene, deadly grace of a falling leaf. Fujin was a capable jonin, but Itachi was… something else. He parried Fujin's fireball, closed the distance in a shunshin, and his blade flickered out.
It wasn't a dramatic blow. It was a simple, perfect thrust. Through the heart. Fujin's eyes widened. He looked down at the blade in his chest, then up at Itachi's impassive face. The barrier around the children flickered and died.
Fujin: (A wet gasp) "My… son… Indra… he'll…"
He didn't finish. Itachi withdrew the blade. Fujin Uchiha fell to his knees, then onto his side. Itachi stepped over his body and approached the now-screaming children.
I closed the window. The silver light faded from my eye. The lab was silent, save for Boruto's ragged breathing and the low hum of machinery.
Adult Sasuke was on his knees. He wasn't crying. He was trembling, a full-body tremor, his face buried in his hand. The image of his brother, the hero, the tragic figure, killing their uncle—a man Sasuke remembered as kind—with such detached efficiency… it had shattered something.
Indra: "You felt nothing from him, did you? In all those scenes. No rage. No sorrow. No conflict. Just… purpose."
I walked to another console, this one sleek and white, with a neural interface headset.
Indra: "Memory is subjective. Emotion is the core. My inventions include a device I call the Empathic Resonator. It doesn't read thoughts. It measures and projects the raw, unfiltered emotional state of a subject at a recorded moment in time. I used it to analyse ROOT operatives, to understand fanaticism. I also… used it on the residual emotional echoes in the Uchiha compound. The echoes are faint, but for a powerful event, for a mind as potent as Itachi's, they linger."
I picked up the headset.
Indra: "You defended his actions as part of a grand scheme. He felt guilt. That he suffered. Put this on. Experience the 'grand scheme' from the architect's own emotional perspective. Just for one minute. The minute he spent killing our parents—Fugaku and Mikoto."
Sasuke looked up, his eyes bloodshot. Horror and a desperate, fading denial warred in his expression.
Boruto: "Uncle Sasuke, don't! You don't have to—"
Adult Sasuke: (He cut Boruto off with a sharp gesture. His voice was a broken thing) "…Yes. I do."
He took the headset. I activated the console, calling up the specific emotional frequency, a ghost of pain and ice from thirteen years past.
The moment it engaged, Sasuke stiffened. His back arched. A raw, silent scream was trapped in his throat.
What he felt wasn't guilt. It wasn't sorrow.
It was a profound, yawning emptiness. A void where emotion should be. A sense of duty so absolute it had erased everything else. A cold, logical calculus: Targets eliminated. Proceed to the ext objective. And beneath that, a single, sharp, focused spike—not for the act of killing his parents, but for the next step. For the act he had to perform on Sasuke. For the Tsukuyomi. That spike was complex: a twisted knot of love, cruelty, purpose, and a desperate, surgical need to sculpt. To create the perfect weapon of vengeance. That was where Itachi's emotion pooled. Not in regret for the dead, but in focused intent for the living tool he was forging.
The minute ended. The device powered down.
Sasuke tore the headset off and threw it across the lab. It clattered against the wall. He vomited, violently, onto the pristine floor. Boruto rushed to his side, but Sasuke shoved him away, crawling to a corner, curling into himself, shuddering.
After long minutes, his breathing slowed. He looked up at me, his face a ruin. The last vestiges of his defence, his understanding, were gone. Burned away by the cold fire of absolute truth.
Adult Sasuke: "He… he felt nothing for them. For any of them. It was… a mission. A task list. And me… I was… a project."
His voice was hollow. Dead.
Indra: "Yes. Danzo ordered a purge. Itachi executed it with the emotional investment of a gardener pulling weeds. He reserved his only flicker of true, chaotic feeling for you—not out of love, but out of a possessiveness over his creation. You were his masterpiece. His legacy. The proof that his sacrifice had 'meaning.'"
I walked over, standing above him, not with pity, but with the cold clarity of shared lineage.
Indra: "So, when you ask me to understand his 'sacrifice,' to see his actions as part of a tragic necessity… I see a child who was broken and rebuilt into a perfect, heartless scalpel. I see my father's body on the ground. I see the twins, Hikaru and Akari, lying out like dolls. I see a nameless infant dead in her mother's arms. Your brother may have been a victim at the start, Sasuke. But by the end of that night, he was a monster. And monsters, even tragic ones, don't get to be heroes. They just get to be dead."
I extended a hand, not to help him up, but as a gesture of offering the truth.
Indra: "You carry his name. His eyes. His guilt. But you don't have to carry his lies. Not here. In this timeline, that narrative is ash. Danzo is dead. Itachi is a missing-nin, a ghost serving a greater monster. And the Uchiha… are not extinct."
That made him look up, confusion cutting through the despair.
Indra: "A week in this lab, stewing in the past, is unhealthy. Even for time-travellers. Come. There's something you need to see. Something that exists because I chose a different path."
I turned to Boruto, who was helping a shaky Sasuke to his feet.
Indra: "You too, Boruto Uzumaki. I think you'll find it… educational. And maybe even fun."
One Hour Later
Kumogakure, Uzumaki Residential District
We descended via a private transport tube that connected Skyhammer directly to a secure terminal within the Raikage's tower. From there, we walked. No fanfare, no guards. Just Indra, leading two shell-shocked visitors through the vibrant, bustling streets of a village at its zenith.
The difference from Konoha was staggering. Konoha had warmth, tradition and a certain rustic charm. Kumo was alive with directed energy. Buildings were taller, built with reinforced materials and elegant, aerodynamic lines. Chakra-lights glowed with steady, clean energy. Floating platforms ferried goods and people between levels. The air hummed not just with conversation and industry, but with the underlying bass note of the Thunderhead barrier—a feeling of immense, watchful security.
People nodded respectfully to Indra as he passed. "Commander." "Lord Indra." They looked at Sasuke and Boruto with curiosity, but no hostility. Their confidence was palpable. These were people who knew they were safe, who knew they were led by genius, and who were building a future with their own hands.
Boruto: (Whispering, wide-eyed) "It's… It's like the stories of the Golden Age before the Fourth War… but… more."
Adult Sasuke said nothing. He observed everything with his Rinnegan, taking in the chakra flows, the advanced seals on the infrastructure, the sheer, organised potency of it all. The weight of what he'd just experienced was still there, a lead cloak on his shoulders, but his survivor's instincts were forcing him to analyse his surroundings.
We entered a district that felt different. The architecture was still modern Kumo, but there were touches of older styles: spirals and whorls carved into doorframes, red and white colour accents. The people here had a distinct vibe—vibrant chakra, often fiery red hair, but not always. There was a palpable sense of community, of loud laughter and fierce debate from open cafes.
Indra: "The Uzumaki District. Officially, Residential Sector Gamma. Home to the fifty survivors I repatriated, their families, and… others who have joined them."
As we walked, people called out.
Uzumaki Woman from a bakery window: "Indra! Late for dinner again? Rias will have your head!"
Indra: (A genuine, easy smile) "Just giving a tour, Aria-san! Save me some of those cinnamon buns!"
Uzumaki Man teaching children sealing basics in a park: "Commander! These brats are trying to argue that a tetrahedral seal matrix is more stable than a pentahedral one for spatial anchoring! Back me up!"
Indra: (Chuckling) "For basic anchoring, pentahedral is superior due to chakra distribution. But for a mobile anchor under dynamic stress, a tetrahedral with a rotating core has merits. I'll send you the papers I wrote, Haruto."
The casual, intellectual, familial atmosphere was a world away from the sterile lab or the horrific visions of the past.
We arrived at a large, elegant compound. It was modern, but built around a central, traditional-style garden. The plaque by the gate read: Uzumaki-Zeoticus Household.
Before I could knock, the door flew open.
Rias Uzumaki stood there, hands on her hips, wearing comfortable training clothes, her crimson hair tied in a loose ponytail. She looked from me to my guests, her sharp eyes missing nothing.
Rias: "There you are. You were due back hours ago. I was starting to think you'd gotten into a philosophical debate with a cloud and lost track of time." Her gaze settled on Adult Sasuke, taking in his cloak, his missing arm, and his Rinnegan. A flicker of surprise, then analytical assessment. "And you've brought… guests. From very far away, by the feel of it."
Indra: "Rias, this is Sasuke Uchiha. And his… charge, Boruto Uzumaki."
The name 'Uzumaki' made Boruto start. Rias's eyebrows shot up.
Rias: "Uzumaki? From where?" She stepped closer, peering at Boruto's face, then his hair. "Blond Uzumaki… unusual, but not unheard of with certain mixed lineages. The eyes are wrong, though. More… Namikaze." She looked at me. "Time-travellers?"
Indra: "Perceptive as always. Yes. They're from a future branch. Chasing an Ōtsutsuki named Urashiki. They're our… guests, for now."
Rias: "Hmph. Well, guests are guests. Come in. Mother's been cooking enough for a small army, as usual."
She led us inside. The interior was warm, tastefully decorated with a blend of modern Kumo minimalism and Uzumaki artistry—seal diagrams framed as art, tapestries with spiral motifs. The smell of roasting meat, herbs, and baking bread was intoxicating.
In the spacious living area, we were greeted by a scene of domestic chaos.
Venelana Uzumaki, Rias's mother, was directing two floating cooking pots with precise chakra strings while arguing good-naturedly with a massive man with fiery red hair and a booming laugh—Zeoticus Uzumaki, Rias's father.
Venelana: "—too much pepper, Zee! I told you, the Land of Snow saffron is delicate!"
Zeoticus: "Nonsense, Venny! A steak needs character! It needs to fight back a little!"
At a large table, a handsome man with sleek red hair and an air of calm authority—Sirzechs Uzumaki—was discussing trade route tariffs with a Kumo bureaucrat, while simultaneously helping a little girl of about five with a complex-looking puzzle that seemed to involve interlocking chakra crystals.
And around them, running, playing, or reading, were children.
Several children. Their ages ranged from toddlers to early teens. And what made Adult Sasuke freeze in the doorway, his Rinnegan spinning involuntarily, was their hair.
It wasn't just Uzumaki red. It was a mix. Some had the classic vibrant crimson. Others had hair of deep, Uchiha black. And many, many of them had hair that was a striking, impossible blend: strands of brilliant crimson shot through with raven black, or vice-versa, creating a unique, marbled effect. Their eyes, too, varied—some blue, some dark, some a vivid Uchiha black.
One boy, about eight, with marbled red-and-black hair, ran up to Rias, holding a slightly smoking seal paper.
Boy: "Aunt Rias! Look! I almost got the fireball matrix stable! It only backfired a little!"
Rias: (Sighing, taking the paper and examining it) "Kaito, you're focusing too much on the output ignition and not enough on the chakra containment funnel. Remember the third law. Here, watch." She took a blank paper, and with a few precise strokes of a chakra-charged stylus, drew a perfect, miniature fireball seal. It glowed, then released a tiny, controlled ball of flame that hovered above her palm. "Stability before power."
The boy, Kaito, nodded eagerly, his eyes—one blue, one dark brown—shining with admiration.
Boruto was staring, open-mouthed, at the children. At their hair. At the casual use of sealing. At the whole, vibrant, alive scene.
Boruto: "They're… Uchiha? And Uzumaki? But… how?"
Zeoticus noticed us then, his booming voice cutting off his culinary debate.
Zeoticus: "Indra! Good, you're here. And you brought strays! Welcome, welcome! Any friend of Indra's is family here! Sit, sit! Food's almost ready! You, tall and broody, you look like you could use a drink. Sasuke, was it? I have a bottle of Fire Country whiskey that'll put hair on your chest—or in your case, maybe just more on your head!"
Sirzechs looked up, his polite diplomat's smile becoming more genuine. "Ah, Indra. We were beginning to worry. These are the individuals from the orbital lab? Fascinating."
The children, now curious, gathered around, staring at Sasuke's Rinnegan and Boruto's weird clothes.
A little girl with pure black hair: "Mister, your eye is funny! It has circles!"
A boy with marbled hair: "Are you a friend of Uncle Indra? Are you strong?"
The normality of it, the sheer, bustling life, was a physical shock after the horrors of the lab. Sasuke seemed unable to process it. He just stood there, looking from one mixed-hair child to another, his Rinnegan seeing not just their features, but the potent, healthy, blended chakra within them. Uzumaki vitality. Uchiha potency. Harmoniously coexisting.
Indra: (Answering Boruto's question, my tone casual, as if discussing the weather) "Ah, the children. Yes, it's an interesting side-effect. When the Uzumaki first arrived, some were in poor health after years in hiding. Malnutrition, chakra depletion. My mother and Venelana-san oversaw their medical care. In a few critical cases, standard chakra supplements weren't enough. Their Uzumaki cells were rejecting synthetic treatments. As a last resort, we used direct blood transfusions. My blood."
I walked over to the table, accepting a cup of tea from Venelana with a nod of thanks.
Indra: "I am, as you know, a hybrid. Half-Uzumaki, half-Uchiha. My chakra is… stable. A perfect synthesis. We theorised it could act as a catalyst. We were correct. The transfusions not only saved them but caused a fascinating… integration. The recipients' own chakra systems were adapted, incorporating traits from both lineages. The hair colour is the most visible manifestation. Some developed enhanced physical strength akin to the Fanalis branch. Others showed sharper sensory perception. All of them have a remarkable stability in their chakra pathways."
I took a sip of tea, looking at Sasuke, who was still staring at a young girl who was trying to levitate a spoon with what looked like a beginner's version of the Sharingan's predictive telekinesis—an ability only seen in advanced Uchiha.
Indra: "They call themselves the Storm-Born Uzumaki. They are being raised with the history and skills of both clans. They learn Uzumaki fuinjutsu alongside Uchiha taijutsu and chakra theory. They are not one or the other. They are both. A new expression of the legacy."
Adult Sasuke finally found his voice. It was hoarse. "You… you merged the bloodlines. On purpose."
Indra: "Not initially on purpose. It was a medical necessity. But once we observed the results, we… encouraged it. Why cling to purity? Purity is stagnation. A dead end. The Uchiha's purity led to the Sharingan's curse and eventual genocide. The Uzumaki's purity made them a target. Fusion. Adaptation. That is the path of survival. That is evolution."
I gestured to the children, to the whole, happy, powerful clan around us.
Indra: "This is what I built, Sasuke. Not just walls and weapons. A future. A place where the children of two doomed clans can laugh, learn, and grow strong together. Where a child' worth is measured by their potential, not by the purity of their blood or the ghosts of their ancestors' sins."
I locked eyes with him, my gaze unwavering.
Indra: "You asked me about my anger at Danzo, at Itachi. This is why. They represented the old world. The world of shadows, sacrifice, and slaughter. A world that sees children as tools, as collateral, as inheritors of hatred. I burned that world down. And from the ashes, I am building this."
Dinner was a loud, joyous, overwhelming affair. Plates piled high with food. Debates on everything from seal theory to the best way to cook thunder-fish. The children interrogated Boruto mercilessly about his "weird jutsu" (which they sensed even if he didn't show them) and his blond hair.
Boruto, after his initial shock, thrived. He was a social creature, and the open, accepting, energetic Uzumaki family was like a dream to him. He was soon showing a couple of the older kids a basic lightning-release exercise, grinning when they picked it up with scary speed. He even managed to get a laugh out of a still-taciturn Sasuke by accidentally setting his own sleeve on fire with a misfired spark.
After dinner, as Venelana and some of the older children cleared up, Rias pulled me aside in the garden.
Rias: "They're from the future. The one with the Rinnegan… he's an Uchiha. The Uchiha, from your stories? The last one?"
Indra: "In his timeline, yes. In this one… he's an echo. A visitor. He carries weight we can't imagine."
Rias: "And the boy? Boruto Uzumaki? He feels… familiar. And not just the name."
Indra: "He's Naruto's son."
Rias's eyes went wide. She looked back towards the house, where Boruto was now being taught a complicated clapping game by a group of giggling children. "Naruto… has a son. In the future." A soft, wistful smile touched her lips. "He must be a great man, then."
Indra: "He is. In every timeline, it seems."
Later, I found Adult Sasuke standing alone on a balcony overlooking the sparkling lights of the lower village. The noise and warmth of the house were behind him. He looked isolated again, but the crushing despair had been replaced by a deep, contemplative sorrow.
Indra: "It's a lot to take in."
Adult Sasuke: "You have no idea." He didn't look at me. "In my time… the Uchiha are a memory. A cautionary tale. I am the last. My daughter… she is half Uchiha, but she carries the name of her mother's clan. To see this… children, laughing, training, with our eyes, our potential, mixed with the Uzumaki's life… It's like seeing a ghost of what could have been. What should have been."
He finally turned, his Rinnegan reflecting the city lights.
Adult Sasuke: "You showed me the worst of my brother. The truth I never let myself see. And then you show me… this. The antidote. Was that your plan? Break me, then rebuild my perspective?"
Indra: "I plan to secure my people's future. You and Boruto are variables. Dangerous, knowledgeable variables. I needed you to understand the foundational truth of this timeline: the old paradigms are dead. Danzo is dead. Itachi's martyr narrative is dead. Konoha's moral authority is shattered. And a new power, built on synthesis and strength, has risen. Your quest, your war with Urashiki… it exists within my strategic reality now. I need to know if you're an ally who understands that, or a relic who will cling to dead ideals and cause chaos."
He was silent for a long time.
Adult Sasuke: "The arm. Your offer. If I take it… I become indebted. Tied to you."
Indra: "You become allied. You gain a weapon to fight your enemy. I gain data to fight future enemies. And you get to protect the boy," I nodded towards the house, where Boruto's laughter echoed, "with greater efficacy. It's a transaction. A clean one. No lies. No grand schemes. Just mutual advantage."
He looked at his missing arm, then out at the city, then back towards the warm light of the Uzumaki house, where the sounds of his descendant's joy mingled with the sounds of a clan reborn.
Adult Sasuke: "I will think about it. But… I am listening."
That was enough. For now.
Boruto, over the following days, became a fixture in the Uzumaki district. He was insatiably curious. He trained with the kids, their raw power and innovative seal-based techniques challenging him. He pored over Uzumaki scrolls in the clan archive under Sirzechs's amused supervision. The scrolls, protected by bloodline and conceptual locks that required Uzumaki chakra or a specific mindset of "unbreakable will," opened for him with surprising ease, while they remained stubbornly sealed to even Adult Sasuke's Rinnegan-enhanced attempts.
Boruto: (One afternoon, grinning sheepishly) "I don't get it! This one just… wants me to read it? It's like it thinks I'm stubborn enough to be family!"
Sirzechs: (Smiling enigmatically) "The Uzumaki legacy recognises spirit as much as blood, young Boruto. Your father's son, indeed."
Boruto learned about the clan's history, the true horror of Uzushiogakure's fall (which hit him harder than he expected), and the philosophy of "Fierce Heart" that Indra preached. He saw a clan not defined by loss, but by resilience. Not by hiding, but by proud, open strength. It changed him. Softened some of his future-brashness, gave it a sharper, more purposeful edge.
One evening, as we prepared to return to Skyhammer, Boruto pulled me aside.
Boruto: "Lord Indra… thank you. For showing us this. For… not locking us up. Dad… my dad, in your time, he's just a kid. But seeing all this… it makes me think he'd be really happy to know the Uzumaki get to be like this. Not just him alone."
I placed a hand on his shoulder. "He will build his own version of it, Boruto. In his way. But yes. This existence proves his dream isn't foolish. It's possible. Remember that."
As the transport tube ascended back into the starry night, carrying two time-travellers who were no longer just prisoners, but witnesses to a reborn world, I looked down at the glowing tapestry of Kumogakure.
The storm was fortified. The clans were restored. The ghosts of the past had been faced, and their power harnessed for a new dawn. And now, a threat from beyond time had entered the equation.
The calculus was complex. But the foundation was unshakeable.
Indra: (To myself, a silent vow) "Let them come. The ghosts, the Akatsuki, the Ōtsutsuki. Let them all come. They will break against the mountains we have built, and the future we are raising."
In the quiet of the ascending capsule, Adult Sasuke finally spoke, his voice firm with newfound resolve.
Adult Sasuke: "Indra. About your offer. I have an answer."
The next phase was about to begin.
[System Notification: Template Update: Victor Von Doom – 40% Completed. Reason: Successful psychological recalibration of a major temporal variable. Solidification of sovereign legacy and demonstration of superior social paradigm. Integration of future-knowledge assets begins.]
[System Notification: Warning: Temporal integrity sensors detect faint, localised fluctuations. Source: Low-orbit, near-station Skyhammer. Correlation: Presence of Time-Space Turtle artefact. Monitoring advised.]
The game had just expanded to include the dimension of time itself. And I was the only player with the authority to set the rules.
End of Chapter – 44.