Uchiha Hikari stood quietly, the last rays of sunset draping her in a blood-red glow.
She raised her head slightly. Her beautiful eyes fixed coldly on Boruto.
In those eyes, the Mangekyō Sharingan—the symbol of the Uchiha's greatest power—turned slowly. Its intricate, dangerous pattern radiated a pressure that made his heart clench.
Reflected in them was Boruto's face, shock and confusion giving way to spreading panic.
The air seemed to freeze. The life and stillness of the Oasis had become a suffocating trap.
Boruto opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
He looked into Hikari's eyes. The trust and warmth she had shown when they fought side by side were gone, leaving only a bottomless darkness as cold as the ancient tomb itself.
Boruto forced down the dryness in his throat. His voice trembled almost imperceptibly. "Hikari, what's going on? Where are Shikadai and Shinki? Where did they go?"
Uchiha Hikari did not answer. Her gaze passed over Boruto and swept across the Oasis, a place at once familiar and strange to her.
"Boruto, tell me. After everything you've seen on this journey, what do you think of this world?"
Desperate as he was for answers, Boruto forced himself to consider the question.
He remembered the dungeon's gloom, the sour prison food, the Hyuga Branch Family's abject obedience, the cruelty of the battlefield, and Urashiki's indifference to human life...
He clenched his fists. "It's terrible," he said grimly.
"War never stops. Clans fight each other, lives are treated as worthless, and the hierarchy is terrifyingly rigid. In the Hyuga clan, the line between the Main House and the Branch Family is as clear as the line between people and tools."
"Supplies are so scarce that an ordinary meal is a luxury. Worst of all, there's no humanity. People are