An Inch of Gold

29

Author's Note: As usual, unedited. And it's a little shorter than the other chapters, but I'm sure I'll fix that when I come through with the final edits. For now, just enjoy! (Woot, my November Nano Challenge to finish IOG is shaping up well!)

Estimated Time To End of Fic: 4-5 Chapters

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Sarada's fist connects with the wall, the power of her tightly controlled chakra surging out of her with purpose. Sweat beads upon her forehead as she concentrates all of her being on maintaining a constant force, of hitting that one spot in the wall just the right way.

Cracks spiderweb outward, tearing across the uneven stone and rippling across floor and ceiling. The solid layers of stone beneath bend and strain against the pressure exerted by her strike, and finally give.

Cracks split open, slicing through the seals upon the vortices of the ward circle on the ceiling and floor. The intricate characters vanish at the same time as the barrier is broken.

Boruto tosses a shuriken into the space once occupied by the circle, and it bounces to the ground without a scratch.

The disintegration field is turned off.

"Nice!" Boruto cries, and immediately starts toward the cage. "Alright, let's blow this thing!" Again, wind gathers in his palm, preparing to hurl one of his vanishing projectiles, but Sarada stops him.

"Don't just destroy it," she says.

"What? Are you kidding me?! That's the whole reason we came down here!"

"You can only destroy it once. What happens if the whole thing has become self-sustaining, or there's a back-up that can only be turned off by the main computer? Then it won't matter if you destroy this machine! Let's try turning it off before we blow it up."

"We don't have time for this!"

"Actually, I think time has become completely irrelevant," Mitsuki remarks.

"Fine. Time issues aside, I like existing. What happens if you destroy it and we get ripped apart by some kind of fallout?"

This causes Mitsuki to pause. "That makes sense. It might be, this machine acts like a giant magnet. Suddenly reversing the poles of a magnet can cause attraction and pull them together—possibly causing them to crash into each other."

"And we don't want anything crashing or exploding into us! What if the machine suddenly stops pushing the paradox outward? It might contract in on us. But maybe if we slowly turn it off, the damage could be lessened."

"Even if that were the case, none of us are exactly geniuses with computers," Boruto points out in irritation. "Without someone like Denki, we could stand here pressing buttons for ages."

"I believe I could figure it out," Mitsuki volunteers.

"Huh? You?"

"I grew up surrounded by computers. And this model looks familiar. I suspect it even runs on the same operating system. I could probably find a function that allows for a slow decrease of power-levels."

Boruto doesn't look entirely convinced, and Sarada finds her suspicions about Mitsuki's background swimming to the forefront of her mind just then.

We don't have time for that conversation.

"I still think we should blow it up," Boruto mutters, but he approaches the cage around the terminal and begins to pick the lock on it.

"We can still do that if Mitsuki doesn't figure out another way," Sarada insists.