The five boys stood in the chilly hallway, and Neji immediately began to weave a hand sign.
"Byakugan—"
"Stop!" Sasuke shouted, grabbing Neji's wrist before he could activate the jutsu. Sasuke's eyes were sharp and angry.
"Are you trying to get us caught? The Samurai on guard are sensitive to chakra. If you activate your Byakugan now, they'll sense us like a fire in the dark. Use your head."
Neji frowned, pulling his arm away. "And how else do you suggest we find it in this maze without wandering like lost children?"
They argued back and forth in hushed, angry whispers until Lee stepped between them.
"Please, my friends! I shall solve this with the power of polite communication!" Lee quickly ran back down to the lobby and asked the clerk from earlier where the springs were.
He returned a moment later, pointing toward the ground floor.
As they walked down the creaking stairs, Sasuke stopped at the landing, his eyes landing on Naruto and Lee with a sharp glare.
"I am serious about this," Sasuke said.
"We are supposed to be refugees from different land in front of the Samurais and Travelers in the eyes of the Hotel, not loud-mouthed brats..."
"When we get to the spring, keep your voices down. No 'youthful' shouting, and no acting like animals in the water."
When they reached the bath area, an old man greeted them and handed them five sets of yukatas.
"The outdoor spring is very beautiful tonight," the man suggested with a bow.
"No," Sasuke said firmly. "We want the indoor spring. We'll take the private hall." He didn't want to give the Samurai on the rooftops any chance to watch them from above.
As they entered the steam-filled room, Sasuke turned to the others with a very serious face. He pointed to their old clothes—the ones they had worn into the city.
"Listen to me," Sasuke warned.
"Do not leave your old clothes here for the hotel staff to wash. And do not leave them scattered. These clothes have the crests of our clans from Konoha on them..."
"If a Samurai sees the Uchiha fan or the Hyuga flame, the mission is dead. Keep them together, fold them, and keep them in your sight at all times."
"I hear you, Sasuke-kun!" Lee whispered back with intense energy. "My noble garments shall remain as pristine as a winter morning!"
Mini-Sasuke clutched his small robe, his face pale from exhaustion. He gave Naruto a look of pure death.
"If you splash me once, Usuratonkachi, I will drown you in the spring and tell everyone you slipped."
The boys stripped off their gear and stepped into the hot, bubbling water. The heat felt amazing on their tired muscles. Mini-Sasuke almost fell asleep the moment his shoulders hit the water, his small face turning a deep pink.
Naruto sighed loudly, leaning his head back. "Finally! I thought my toes were going to fall off in that snow dattebayo!"
Neji sat quietly in the corner of the pool, still keeping a mental map of the area even without his Byakugan. Lee was trying to see how long he could hold his breath under the water to 'train' his lungs.
The indoor spring was filled with a thick, white fog. The hot water bubbled softly, hitting the stone edges of the pool with a rhythmic sound. The air was heavy and wet, making it hard to breathe. The five boys sat in the heat, their bodies partially hidden by the swirling steam.
Neji leaned his back against the smooth, cold rock. His long hair floated in the water like dark silk.
As a calculative man, Neji's mind was a storm of logic. He looked across the pool at Sasuke, whose pale shoulders were slick with water.
Neji's gaze fixed on the left side of Sasuke's neck—the place where a jagged, purple-black seal usually pulsed with dark energy.
'Should I tell him? 'Neji wondered, his eyes narrowing.
'If I reveal this, I shift the balance of our current reality. But the missing of such an important source of power in a mission of this scale is a risk we cannot afford.'
"Sasuke.." Neji's voice cut through the sound of bubbling water, cold and precise.
"The mark. It is gone."
The reaction was instantaneous. The peaceful heat of the bath was shattered as the water splashed violently.
"Mark? What mark dattebayo? What are you talking about, Neji?!" Naruto yelled, standing up half-way and squinting through the steam, his chest heaving as he looked back and forth between them.
Lee stopped his underwater training, popping his head above the surface with wide, blinking eyes.
"Which mark, Neji? Is it a battle wound? An injury from the mist? Which mark!?"
Sasuke didn't move at first. He looked at Neji with a bored expression, his mind still thinking about the survival. He didn't realize Neji was talking about the Curse Mark.
"What are you talking about?" Sasuke asked coldly. "If you're complaining about a bruise from the fight earlier, forget it. I'm fine."
In the corner of the pool, Mini-Sasuke stayed very still. The water came up to his chest. He didn't say a word.
He just watched the older boys with quiet, black eyes. He had no idea what a 'mark' was, but he could feel the tension in the room growing.
Sasuke slowly reached up his hand. His fingers began to crawl over his own skin, searching for the jagged, painful bumps he had lived with for weeks.
'How could I be this stupid? Sasuke's jaw tightened so hard it ached.'
"Why did you have to bring that up, Neji!?" Naruto yelled, his voice bouncing off the tiled walls. He splashed the water aggressively toward Neji.
'I am a shinobi. I am an Uchiha. My body is my only weapon, and I didn't even notice a part of it had changed. He felt a wave of disgust at his own lack of focus.'
"We were finally having a nice, warm bath! Why do you have to remind him of that creepy purple thing? You're ruining the vibe!"
Neji didn't flinch as the water hit his chest. His pale eyes remained sharp.
"It was necessary, Naruto. We are on a mission where every detail matters. Ignoring a physical change in Sasuke isn't 'vibing'—it's negligence. I am being realistic."
"You're a failure!" Sasuke muttered. "You let your guard down."
'I had been so much busy on reaching Konoha and everyone that I forgot my own self. How foolish! ' a voice spoke in his mind.
"It's fine! It's a good thing!" Naruto turned toward Sasuke, giving him a big, forced grin.
"Don't listen to him, Sasuke. You've just recovered! Your body finally beat that snake-guy's junk. We're in our time only, and you're finally healthy. That's all it is!"
'Maybe it's the seal Kakashi placed on me', he thought desperately. 'Could the weight of the seal have finally crushed the mark out of existence?' Sasuke's thoughts were racing,
"Don't be a fool," Neji's voice rose, cutting through Naruto's optimism like a kunai.
"Look at the logic. A curse doesn't just vanish because you had a good meal. My theory is different. WE ARE IN THE FUTURE."
'No... that's impossible. A seal is a cage, not an eraser.' Then, a darker thought surfaced. 'Is Orochimaru... '
Neji continued, "We are in the future. We must have traveled forward to a time where Orochimaru is dead. Without the master, the mark on the servant fades away. It's the only explanation that fits the facts!"
Sasuke thought, 'IS DEAD... '
If the source of the curse was killed in the 'present' time, would the mark fade away? Sasuke's heart hammered against his ribs—the lack of the mark didn't feel like a relief; it felt like he had lost a limb he didn't even like.
Lee popped up from the water, his face glowing with intensity as he backed Naruto.
"I agree with Naruto-kun! Our youthful spirits have led us to a place of healing in the present! To say we are in a future where our enemies are dead is to lose the fire of the challenge! We are here only, in our time only!"
As Naruto and Lee continued to shout in the background, Sasuke felt a cold drop of sweat roll down his temple.
'If the mark is gone, am I still me?'
Without that power, he felt vulnerable. But more than that, he was terrified of what this meant for the timeline. If something as permanent as the Curse Mark could just vanish, then nothing was safe.
"NO!" Neji shouted back, losing his usual cool for a split second.
Sasuke looked at Mini-Sasuke across the water. The boy's skin was perfect, untouched by tragedy.
Sasuke's hand began to shake as his thoughts were racing, 'If I am in a place where that mark was never given to me... then I don't know where I am...
'I don't know what happens next. I've lost my only map of the future'
Neji continued to shout, "The present doesn't explain how a permanent seal disappears in some weeks from travelling! Use your brain, Lee! We are in the future!"
While the three of them shouted, the water around Mini-Sasuke began to ripple. The boy had turned a ghostly shade of pale.
He didn't understand what a 'Curse Mark' or 'Orochimaru' was, but hearing these older versions of his friends talk about death, future timelines, and disappearing marks made his stomach do loops.
He clutched his small knees under the water, feeling like the world was spinning out of control.
In the center of the noise, Sasuke was drowning in his own mind.
'The present? The future?' He cursed himself again.
'Idiots. They're all idiots.' He felt a cold, hollow pit forming in his stomach.
If they were in the future, he should feel stronger, but he felt... empty. If they were in the present, his skin should still be crawling.
'Possibility one is maybe Kakashi's seal worked but that's impossible.'
'Possibility two is that Orochimaru died but that's highly unlikely. '
'And the last possibility...possibility three...'
His eyes drifted to the small boy in the corner. His heart hammered against his ribs.
'Possibility three is the one I am too scared to say. If the mark isn't there, it's because the bite never happened. I'm not in the future. I'm not in the present.'
'I'm in a time where I haven't even met him yet.'
The fear of what came next hit him harder than any punch Naruto had ever thrown.
If he was in the past, he was a ghost. Everything he knew—his revenge, his power, his pain—it hadn't even started.
---
📊 BATTLE REPORT: 51-IRON 📊
LOSER: Uchiha Sasuke 👁️📉
SNEAK PEAK LINES 💬
"Shut up. All of you."
"If we truly are in the past... then what is the point of going to Konoha?
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—With love, one forehead poke away from collapse,
Sakura Shinomiya 💫
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