Ten years after the Covenant of Heart-Trace had been sealed, the wind in the Leaf had grown used to carrying the fragrance of flowers and the sound of hearts as it passed.
A few strands of pale white had appeared at Boruto's temples, yet every day he still went fishing by the river. His fishing rod was peachwood Sarada had carved by hand, the line was light-thread Mitsuki had twisted from the Gap Net, and the hook was never baited. He said the fish of the omni-dimension had long since come to understand the human heart; those willing to come would naturally come, and those unwilling did not need to be forced. A crowd of half-grown children often gathered by the riverbank, listening to him tell stories of the Boundary Guardian, of the night the Void Nether retreated, of how the omni-dimension awakened from deathly silence when the Heart Lock first lit up.
"Grandpa Boruto, did the Boundary Guardian really become us?" A little girl with pigtails tugged at his sleeve, her eyes bright as newborn stars.
Boruto set down the fishing rod and lightly tapped the faint, almost invisible heart-trace on her brow. "It never left. When you cry and remember your mother, when you laugh and remember your friends, when you're afraid and hold tight to the hand of the person beside you—that is the Boundary Guardian, in your heart, in everyone's heart."
Sarada's children's bookhouse had long since expanded into the Omni-Dimension Library, storing every record from the Shinobi World to the Glaze Clan, from the Water-Drop Beings to the Stardust Clan. It was no longer something to be passively read; instead, the pages would light up according to one's heart, allowing readers to see the memory they needed most. Beings from beyond the realms often traveled