"Of course it matters!" Boruto shot back, his voice rising.
"If this world, including everything we cherish, is fake—just an illusion—then wouldn't everything we've fought for, our Ninja Way, and everything we've risked our lives to protect lose its meaning? Then..."
"Then what would you do?" Shikadai interrupted. He looked Boruto straight in the eye, his calm almost cutting.
"Would you give up and decide nothing you did mattered? Or would you think that because the world might be 'fake,' you could do whatever you wanted without a care?"
Boruto froze.
Seeing his stunned expression, Shikadai softened his tone. "Boruto, even if we grant that this world really is what Senior Sasori showed us in his Genjutsu—an illusion created by the Infinite Tsukuyomi..."
"For those of us living in it, you feel pain, I get hungry, Mom worries about us, Uncle works himself ragged for the village, Uncle Naruto fights to protect Konoha, and Himawari is happy all day when she gets a new toy."
"Are those feelings fake? Are the memories of us arguing, working together, and helping each other since we were kids fake? Are the bonds we've built with our families and friends—the ones we can't sever—fake?"
Boruto opened his mouth to argue, but Shikadai's words were like a key turning in a door that fear and doubt had locked inside him.
"You can't just dismiss all that with a casual 'the world is fake.' You can't simply cast it aside."
Shikadai's voice grew gentler. "Those things make us who we are. They define us and shape where we're going."
"If you reject everything your life is built on because of a claim you can't disprove, that's when you truly lose your way."
He paused, then offered a simpler comparison. "Besides, the question of what's real is