Boruto Light Novel 4

Part 4 (Sarada vs Buntan Pt 2)

Buntan had a smile on her face. But her eyes held clear anger and hatred. There was something else there, something Sarada didn't have experience with. An emotion that seemed to be radiating off of her...

Bloodlust. The unknown something was murderous intent. She was coming at Sarada with the desire to kill her.

Sarada's body trembled. She maintained the façade of a calm physique, but fear was eating away at her insides. The realization was setting in. This was her first time facing someone with so serious. The only opponents she'd faced before this were her classmates and the Uchiha Shin clones. She'd never squared off against a true "enemy" or faced the weight of another's bloodthirsty conviction.

Clenching her teeth, she strained her eyes to look at Buntan, trying not to feel pressured. If she didn't put her best effort into this match, she'd be slaughtered. That was how strong Buntan's aura was.

Simultaneously, Buntan was staring at Sarada—or rather, at her sharingan—with a fierce gaze. A glare that seemed to pierce through her. A relaxed smile on her lips that would never fade.

"Sharingan... I've heard the rumors, but to think I'd be able to have the pleasure of experiencing the real thing up close and personal... What a thrill!"

With those words, the fight began.

Balls of lightning flashed towards Sarada. Buntan's swords slipped in between them, nearly claiming Sarada's life! But Sarada managed to ready a kunai, using her sharingan to see through Buntan's next move: an assault of overwhelming consecutive attacks. There were hardly any gaps in her defense.

Somehow, Sarada was able to weave through just barely, as if threading the eye of a needle. She repelled Buntan's onslaught with a lightening attack of her own.

The fight was intense. Sarada didn't have the room to breathe. If she inhaled, even just a little bit, her body would be pulverized by Buntan's lightning. Buntan's attacks were filled with precision and power, hounding Sarada with overwhelming speed in rapid succession.

There was no time to feel fear. Even the slightest tremor would cause her imminent defeat.

And yet.

Sarada was able to use her sharingan to find those tiny gaps and exploit them. Even though Buntan was incredibly fast, she was still a mere human being. Her stamina was depleting. Very slowly, but the change was noticeable. Breaks were beginning to appear in the density of her attacks. And Sarada didn't miss any opportunity given to her.

"...Now!" Sarada used the kunai in her hand to pierce Buntan's shoulder... Or that was what she intended.

But her kunai only sliced the fabric Buntan's jacket. There, in front of her, was a sword without a wielder. A cloak hanging from a hilt.

It wasn't a normal transformation technique. Buntan simply took advantage of the low visibility the fog provided. She used perceptional deception.

But in this tense battle where Sarada couldn't spare time to breathe, this technique was highly effective.

"You missed!"

Along with the voice, a sword loomed in front of Sarada's eyes. She got lucky. Her body managed to react in time. It seemed that Buntan was prioritizing something else over taking Sarada's life: gouging out her sharingan while she was still alive. And that gave her a narrow window to put up her defenses.

As she blocked the blow with her kunai, the high pitched sound of metal on metal echoed throughout the underground waterway.

Sarada used the momentum from the ricochet to leap backwards and distance herself from her opponent. She didn't stand a chance at close combat. Especially against a sword wielder that was raised in Kirigakure, the land excelling in kenjutsu. No matter how much taijutsu training she underwent in Konoha, she was no more than a withered leaf at the feet of Buntan's swordsmanship.

...That's probably...

Sarada stared wearily at Buntan's sword: the dual lightning swords, Kiba. She heard a bit about them from Chojuro. They were deadly blades that when charged with lightning were the sharpest of all the ninja swords. With the ability to cut objects just by touching them, they were extremely compatible with Buntan's fighting style.

Sarada glanced at the kunai she used to block Buntan's earlier attack. Kunai were made of hard metal, but the one in her hands was now cut cleanly. It was sheer luck that Sarada wasn't cut down along with it.

She dropped the now useless kunai and pulled out another one.

"Still have enough courage to move?" Buntan smiled, shooting a murderous glare at Sarada off in the distance. "With this lightning sword, kiba, I'll gouge out both of your eyes!" She dropped into an attack stance.

"Hmm," Sarada chided, "you want my sharingan that badly, do you?"

The sharingan. A dojutsu, passed down through the Uchiha. One that only manifests within their clan—a Kekkei Genkai. It is said that members of the Uchiha clan harbor an intense love, an affection stronger than anyone else. When they grieve and suffer from the loss or despair of that love, it brings about a transformation in the chakra inside their brain which affects the optic nerve.

The power received in return is nothing short of extraordinary. It gives the bearer incredible dynamic vision, the ability to see chakra, and the ability to use illusions and hypnotism. Depending on the user, one can even combine those abilities and copy the ninjutsu of an opponent.

But all strong abilities come with a price.

There was once a time where many tried to gain the fearsome power of the sharingan by stealing it and making it their own. Sarada found that out through the Uchiha Shin incident. And it was the reason why she assumed Buntan was trying to take her eyes.

"Ha, it'd be an amusing ability to possess. In the Hidden Mist, there's a technique that allows you to extract the eyes of dojutsu users and transfer them on the spot. Rumor has it, people can get the byakugan that way too. It doesn't seem like too bad of an idea to steal your sharingan."

But with Buntan's next sentence, Sarada learned that her assumption was wrong. Buntan's murderous intent was not born out of desire for her eyes.

"You know, I just want to take your symbol of power, your sharingan, I want to take it away from an Uchiha! I'll make you taste a world without light. I'll make you come to despise the world just like I do. I want to watch your clan struggle, to writhe in agony without being able to die."

Her smile disappeared. The bloodlust in her eyes grew in intensity, seemingly slamming into Sarada's body. It was all she could do to shutter, her fingertips slowly going numb.

"W-Why... Why do you have so much hatred towards the Uchiha clan?" She barely managed to squeeze the words out amidst the overwhelming murderous aura. Without knowing the reason for Buntan's intense abhorrence, Sarada didn't have the confidence to endure the thickening atmosphere and fight back.

"...You don't know, you do?"

For a moment, Buntan seemed like she'd been pierced by something invisible. She laughed, her bloodlust flowing out of her and into the air surrounding them. But this time, her laughter was different. It seemed to be a self-deprecating laughter, and yet at the same time, it showed her resentment towards the world. Like there were so many intense emotions bottled up within her that she had no choice other than to release them through laughter.

"Ha, so that's how it was. I see now... You're just a brat. The adults haven't told you anything. Or maybe you think you've already paid for the sins of your clan? It is a matter of the past, after all. Something that ended, huh."

Buntan stopped laughing and stared directly at Sarada. "Do you know anything about the fourth hokage... About Karatachi Yagura?"

Sarada stood without speaking. Buntan seemed to be satisfied with silence as an answer.

"If I say this, maybe you'll come to understand... The ones who stained the Hidden Mist Village with blood and tragedy were none other than the Uchiha! They were the ones who manipulated Yagura-sama."

All Sarada could do in response was to stare on in shock.