Itachi Uchiha's son Shinra Uchiha

The morning was bone-gray, with mist crawling low across the rocky field. Thin rays of sunlight pushed weakly through the overcast sky, doing little to warm the stone beneath Boruto's boots.

He sat alone near a jagged ridge, the sealed scroll in his lap.

The paper felt heavier than it should've. Not just by weight—but by presence. It pulsed faintly with residual chakra, layered and complex, like it had been sealed by someone who didn't want it to ever be opened carelessly.

He inhaled slowly and unraveled it.

No instructions.

No diagrams.

Just a long, curling script of symbols—chakra-coded patterns he'd never seen before. They weren't written in any known elemental language. Not wind, not lightning, not even the sacred seals passed down through the Hokage line.

He blinked, tracing the lines with his fingertip. As soon as his chakra touched the scroll, the symbols shifted—rearranged themselves as if responding to the rhythm of his thoughts.

> "It's not meant to be read."

The voice came from behind him—calm, steady.

Boruto turned. Shinra stepped out of the mist like he'd been forged from it, his black cloak trailing behind him, red-trimmed edges flickering like embers.

Boruto stood, holding the scroll. "So what's the point of this thing?"

Shinra walked forward, eyes dropping to the open parchment. "That's not a scroll. It's a gate. One you either walk through... or fail trying."

Boruto frowned. "What kind of gate?"

"Simple," Shinra replied. "Land a strike on me. With your sword."

Boruto blinked. "That's it?"

"That's everything."

There was no challenge in his voice. No pride. Just a statement of fact.

Boruto's stomach tightened. The last time he fought Shinra, he couldn't even read his movement—like shadow fighting shadow. And now he was supposed to hit him with a sword?

"This isn't about strength," Shinra added. "It's about clarity."

Boruto nodded slowly. He pulled the scroll into his belt, hand drifting to the hilt of his sword.

Shinra held out a single kunai and stabbed it into the earth between them. "Let's begin."

He turned and vanished into the mist.

---

The terrain changed quickly.

They entered a half-crumbled ravine riddled with old shinobi structures—fallen watchtowers, stone traps etched with moss, weapon caches long empty. The ground was scarred with the remnants of ancient duels: kunai still stuck in bark, burn marks in the rock, craters covered in vines.

Boruto recognized some of the trap designs. Sand shinobi. Mist techniques. All from wars long forgotten by the new generation. But something about this place felt alive—like chakra still lingered in the bones of the fallen.

He gripped the hilt of his sword.

> "No time for ghosts."

Shinra stopped in a clearing surrounded by broken pillars and fog that moved like a living thing. His voice floated through it.

"Try."

Boruto rushed in.

His sword came down in a clean arc—angled, fast, guided by instinct.

Shinra stepped to the side without effort.

Boruto spun, flipped the blade into a rising slash. Missed again.

> "He's reading me. Not reacting—*predicting.*"

Boruto tried a feint, dropped low, came back with a lateral swing enhanced with wind chakra.

Still missed.

Shinra hadn't lifted a finger.

Boruto dropped back, breathing hard. "You're not even trying to fight."

"I'm not here to fight," Shinra said. "I'm here to show you where you fall."

Boruto's grip tightened. He dove in again. His blade whistled through the air—three, four strikes in a blur.

Shinra moved like fog through every attack.

Boruto's frustration rose.

He struck harder, faster, until his vision blurred. One step too quick, he stumbled. His knees shook. Sweat pooled at the base of his spine.

> "I couldn't stop Sasuke from becoming a tree... and now I can't even land one hit?"

Then something stirred in his arm.

A brief shimmer. A pulse.

The Karma seal flickered—once. Black glyphs crawled halfway up his wrist… and stopped.

He froze.

> "No. Not now. Not like this."

Boruto shook it off. If that power activated now, he wouldn't control it. It wasn't trust. It was panic.

And panic would get him killed.

He dropped to one knee, breathing deep.

The mist thickened around him.

"You're still swinging like a boy who wants revenge," Shinra's voice came from somewhere unseen. "That blade doesn't answer to your grief. It answers to your will."

Boruto's hand clenched around the hilt.

"I'm not angry," he said quietly.

"Then why do you look like someone trying to punch a storm?"

Boruto didn't answer.

Then, from across the field, he saw it—his scroll.

It now lay open in the center of the clearing. The script had shifted again.

No symbols.

Just one word:

> "Stillness."

Boruto exhaled.

He stood slowly.

He sheathed his blade.

Closed his eyes.

His feet spread shoulder-width. One hand at the hilt. The other floating.

He listened—not with his ears. With everything.

The grass twitched. A stone shifted. The air cooled behind him—slightly.

> "Feel before you strike."

He moved.

No jutsu.

No scream.

Just a step and a draw.

The blade sliced cleanly through the air.

> Resistance.

Not steel. Cloth.

Boruto opened his eyes.

Shinra stood just beyond his blade, a single cut drawn across the outer hem of his cloak.

> A hit.

Boruto staggered back, half in disbelief. "I… did it?"

Shinra didn't move.

Then, with one hand, he released a seal on his wrist.

The scroll burst into flame—silent and red—and vanished.

"You stopped chasing an enemy," Shinra said. "And started seeing yourself."

Boruto sheathed the sword. "That was the test?"

"That was the first step."

Shinra turned his back and vanished into the fog.

And Boruto, standing alone in the ruins of shinobi past, understood for the first time—

He wasn't being trained to win fights.

He was being reshaped into someone who would never need to lose them.