Chapter 223: The Rejected Handshake

 

Tonbo completed the final hand seal for Contact Evolution.

If he remained alive in the visitors' future, he would have placed his nerves in every Academy graduate he could reach. Sasuke would certainly have received them. So would any student whose experience might contribute to the growth of the technique. Human bodies contained knowledge already tested by life; he had never intended to ignore it.

Two distant connections answered.

Tonbo almost laughed. The nerve filaments hidden inside the adult Sasuke and the boy called Boruto were more refined than anything he could create in the present. They had survived for years without revealing themselves and responded to his chakra as soon as the technique awakened them.

Information flooded back.

Sasuke's body carried changes Tonbo did not recognize. Some resembled Orochimaru's work. His eyes contained structures beyond the Sharingan Tonbo had studied in youth, though Tonbo found no trace of the Yin power he expected from the stories preserved in Inner Archive. The absence could mean the power was gone, hidden, or never present in the form he imagined.

Boruto was stranger.

Tonbo found patterns resembling Naruto and Hinata, surrounded by additions that did not belong to an ordinary human body. At the levels of cells and inherited structure, more than a fifth of what he sensed was unfamiliar. The underlying body remained human, yet something had written new information into it without simply replacing what came before.

Was this the next generation's Child of Destiny—or an Ōtsutsuki alteration?

Tonbo followed the unfamiliar pattern deeper.

An immense presence met him.

The contact hurled his awareness back through the nerves. His thoughts stopped for an instant beneath a burst of pressure, and he ended the deep probe before the recoil could travel farther.

For that instant he perceived scale rather than detail: a reserve compressed beyond the altered tissue around it, separate from Boruto's ordinary circulation and capable of resisting inspection on its own. It was not the Nine-Tails. The shape and reaction fit an implanted power more closely than a sealed beast, which made Kāma the strongest explanation he possessed.

On the field, Boruto faltered.

Naruto's foot struck him across the face and sent him sliding backward. Boruto recovered before he fell, one hand touching his cheek while he searched inward for whatever had brushed against him.

"I got you!" Naruto shouted.

His own face bore far more bruises, but the single clean strike delighted him. Boruto was close to his age and moved better than Lee. Naruto had spent most of the spar being knocked around; landing one kick felt like proof that the gap was not absolute.

Boruto looked toward the trees. "Something touched my chakra."

The sensation was already gone. He could not identify it, and the chance to hit his father at the same age was too enjoyable to abandon.

"Again," he said.

Naruto grinned and made another set of clones.

Boruto met the first with a palm strike, ducked the second, and let the third pass before sweeping the original's ankle. Naruto replaced himself with a clone at impact and attacked from Boruto's blind side. Boruto blocked, but less cleanly than before. The unexplained contact had cost him one exchange and made him divide his attention between the fight and his own body.

Adult Sasuke had noticed the hesitation as well. "You lost focus."

"I know."

"Battlefield Simulation was designed to train that exact failure."

Boruto grimaced. A future version of Tonbo had helped refine that system with the Technology Development Bureau. If Boruto had relaxed during the Academy sessions, Sasuke would make certain the omission followed him home.

Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon watched from beyond the sparring line.

"He's stronger than Tenyu and Maki," Moegi said.

"Probably stronger than all three of their team together," Udon replied.

Konohamaru folded his arms. "Of course. Anyone who can fight Big Brother Naruto has to be strong."

He chose not to mention that Naruto had landed only one strike.

Hidden among the trees, Tonbo sorted what he had learned. The presence inside Boruto fit the little he knew of Kāma. If that was correct, then his future self had left the nerve connection in place despite the danger. Perhaps the future Tonbo could not defeat Jigen alone. Perhaps he intended to study Kāma through Boruto, or had already found a way to turn an enemy's power into another stage of Contact Evolution.

The possibilities irritated him because none lay within his control.

Time travel made the problem worse. Sasuke and Boruto might belong to his own future, creating a closed loop in which the information Tonbo gathered now helped produce the nerves that delivered it. They might come from a neighboring history altered by different choices. Even their presence could change the future they expected to return to.

No amount of cleverness would settle the question from a single encounter.

Strengthening himself remained the only reliable answer.

If the nerves had been planted by his future self, their refinement proved Contact Evolution continued to advance. Their concealment, transmission speed, and resistance to the foreign power all surpassed his present work. Tonbo could not yet reproduce them, but he could observe how they carried information without exposing their paths. The future had given him evidence that his project remained possible.

Tonbo resumed the connection more carefully. He kept away from the immense presence and collected the shallower patterns of muscle, chakra circulation, cells, and ocular structure. The future nerves transmitted far more efficiently than his current versions. He studied their construction at the same time as the bodies they inhabited.

Boruto felt no second intrusion. Sasuke showed no outward reaction.

Tonbo considered stepping into the clearing and rejected it. The visitors had come for a reason, and their attention remained fixed upon Naruto. An immediate confrontation might close the only chance he had to observe them—or drive the unseen Ōtsutsuki to act before Tonbo understood where he waited.

Sasuke's presence revealed the likely target. An Ōtsutsuki who had followed them into the past would seek the Nine-Tails inside the young Naruto.

Tonbo would wait for that hunter to approach.

On the field, Boruto slipped between two clones, struck the original in the ribs, and drove him back. Naruto answered with three more clones and an attack from below. Boruto avoided it, but the delay left one clone close enough to catch his sleeve.

"Better," Sasuke said. "Still predictable."

Naruto rounded on him. "Whose side are you on?"

"The side that survives its mistakes."

The answer sounded enough like Kakashi to annoy Naruto further.

Tonbo ignored the argument. His attention remained upon the two future bodies and the space around them. He continued gathering information through the nerves already hidden there, never touching the deeper power again.

The enemy had crossed time to reach Naruto. Let him believe the past was waiting unaware.