Fractured

Chase

Mid-slumber, Himawari awoke from her sleep when she heard some muffled banging sounds coming from somewhere down the hall. Her eyes that so closely matched the color of her brother's barely cracked open, lids heavy with sleep. She stared at the sliver of light coming from the crack beneath her door. She pulled a tiny fist from under the covers to rub blearily at her eye.

Was she dreaming? She wasn't sure, but she could still hear the faint murmuring lull of the TV downstairs indicating her parents were probably still watching a drama. A few more sounds echoed from down the hall. Her brother must be doing something upstairs, then. Or Kawaki.

She smiled, tucking the blanket closer under her chin. That's right, she thought. She had two brothers now. Happy at the idea, she slipped easily back into the holds of sleep.

-¤-

Sasuke finished the seal to connect to the Yamanaka Sensory network. "Ino," he spoke quietly. A moment passed.

"What's up, Sasuke," Ino's voice rang back in his mind.

"Patch me through to Shikamaru, but I need you to listen in and contact appropriate parties," he said, clipped.

"On it." Ino was used to Sasuke's terse way of speaking by now, but despite Sasuke's usual even tone in almost any situation, Ino could generally tell when he was just being short and when he was being urgent. This was one of those 'urgent' moments.

Sasuke watched as the auburn-haired Kara member seemed to make some final communications and preparatory stretches. Sasuke slipped silently down the backside of the tree he was occupying, careful to stay out of the line of site of the intruder.

"Talk, Sasuke," Shikamaru's voice appeared in Sasuke's mind. At that same moment, Code started moving due west of the village. He's moving awayfrom the village? Shit. Sasuke was becoming surer of his hunch at each passing moment.

"It's Code," Sasuke relayed. "He's here. He appeared where we thought he would." He waited a moment before tailing Code at a safe distance.

"Dammit. What's his position?" Shikamaru wasted no time.

"That's just it. He's not attempting to infiltrate the village or, at least, not so far as I can tell. He also seems to be communicating with at least one accomplice via a claw mark on his body, but I don't sense any other new chakra signatures in the area, so they are likely remote. Code's heading West, currently. I'm keeping a close tail."

"West? I can have my scouting party on the west side of the village rendezvous with y—"

"Before that," Sasuke interrupted. "He mentioned something about going to confront an Otsutsuki."

"Confronting an Otsutsuk—what?! Hang on a second."

"Before you get all worked up," Sasuke continued, "what are Boruto and Kawaki's positions?"

A beat passed and Sasuke could practically hear the gears click into place in Shikamaru's genius mind, along with all the accompanying implications.

"Dammit! Ino, what's Nishi's status on Boruto and Kawaki? I'm dispatching an ANBU cell from HQ to head towards the wall right now."

A few moments passed as Ino patched Nishi into the conversation.

"Nishi reporting," a new voice joined the group. "Ino filled me in, so I'll get to point. I've been posted outside the Hokage residence all night. I sense both the Hokage's kid and Kawaki's chakra's signatures from inside the house. Last visual was about forty-five minutes ago. Kawaki took out some trash, fell into a bush, then went back inside. About a minute later, Lord Seventh's kid came through the front door, looked around, then went back inside. Both chakra signatures now seem to be confined to a single room. It's been pretty quiet since."