A Master and Student Mini-Fic

He’d always found peace beneath the trees. In the quiet swish of leaves. In the kaleidoscope of light and shade shifting with the wind. The unity of a forest, so many trees making up a singular whole.

Boruto had been reluctant to break the silence his master cherished beneath the trees in the early days after their escape from Konoha, back when Sasuke was still struggling with his student’s identity.

It seemed as if the older shinobi had been fighting a war within his own head, the sidelong glances he gave Boruto as he sifted through his changed memories. Grappling with his perception of his past. Knowing it had been altered by the power of gods.

It was as though Omnipotence had torn a hole in the canvas of Sasuke’s history, not only leading him to question his memories of Kawaki Uzumaki, but forcing him to revisit his own past as well, searching for hints of falsehood.

It was hard not talking, especially when talking was what twelve-year-old Boruto did to stop himself from thinking, but he recognized his fortune was built on faith. Sarada’s faith in him. Sasuke’s faith in Sarada. And he had to have faith in them as well.

About a week into their exile, they’d stopped for lunch in the branches of an ancient elm. Salted fish and berries. A far cry from burgers and fries. But Boruto knew better than to complain.

He sat on a branch while gnawing on the chewy mackerel, swinging his legs back and forth. Sasuke stood above him, his shadow on Boruto. One hand on the trunk, gazing out on the forest but focused on nothing physically present.

Boruto looked up, craning his neck to see his Master and catching sight of the tree’s canopy impossibly far above them both.

Sasuke glanced down, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“It’s a really tall tree, Uncle... No, Master Sasuke.” The stupid words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to rein them in.

“Hn.” Instead of glaring, Sasuke tilted his head up, looking at the myriad of leaves touching the distant expanse of blue above. “It has to be, doesn’t it? If it wants to reach the sky and touch the ground below.”

Boruto cocked his head to the side. “What?”

In a move of lightning fast grace, Sasuke lept from the branch above to a spot right beside Boruto, the motion not stirring a single leaf as he landed.

“Do you know how trees become a forest?” he asked Boruto.

Boruto shook his head, wondering if that was something Shino was supposed to have taught them at the academy.

Sasuke put his back to the trunk, staring down at the forest beneath them. “The first species that grow are intolerant to shade. They put down roots fast. Grow fast. Die fast. Their only purpose is to create shadows in which taller trees can grow.”

“Oh.” Boruto nodded as though he understood, popping a mulberry into his mouth.

“Beneath their leaves, other trees grow. Trees like this one.” Sasuke patted the trunk of the tree with his gloved hand. “Trees that need both sun and shade. They grow taller than their predecessors, cutting off the light and killing them and the shadows they created.”

“Right.” Boruto looked down, hoping the confusion in his head wouldn't translate to his eyes. Then, he caught sight of a smaller tree growing beneath the elm. A sapling. About as tall as he was.

“But not all of them, right?” he asked Sasuke, pointing to the young tree.

Sasuke shook his head, his dark hair covering his ruined eye.

“The species that are gone will never come again. But it’s shade from leaves on trees like this elm that let young trees grow. Young trees that are not greedy for light, who will be able to share the sky. Each generation protects the next so they can thrive.”

Boruto sucked a seed out of his teeth. “Is this a lesson?”

“Not for you,” Sasuke said.

Even if it hadn’t been meant for him, Boruto thinks of that conversation often, now more than ever. That the purpose of older trees is to let younger trees grow. That the purpose of their towering heights is to protect others.

The young shinobi rests his head against the smooth gray bark of the gnarled tree he’s sitting beneath, its twisted trunk, its deformed limbs. The once-green grass surrounding it slowly fading to a similar sickly color.

There was a time he found comfort in that tree, waiting for the branches to sprout leaves. To give him shelter. To give him shade.

But even when the seasons changed, the tree remained bare.

Naked.

Leafless.

Lifeless.

A single tree alone. No forest around it. No young trees above. No old trees below.

“He didn’t save you so you could spend all your time brooding,” Koji says, the cloaked shinobi appearing out of nowhere as he always does, a string of freshly gutted fish in his hand. “We have to train.”

“I know.”

Boruto stands, suppressing a sigh Koji would have admonished him for. But as he always does before leaving, the young shinobi turns to face his master’s body caged within the tree. One arm hangs out, half of his face, his black hair bleached from years in the sun.

He reaches out, pushing back the worn fabric of Sasuke’s sleeve, pressing two fingers to his wrist to check for the slow, steady pulse pumping there.

Time.

They still have time.

“Just a little longer, old man,” he whispers, wondering if Sasuke can hear him. Then he picks up his sword—his master’s sword—and follows Koji, knowing it’s his turn to protect the forest growing beneath him.