AN: Prompted by an anon on Tumblr to write an Uzumaki sibling bonding fic. Thanks to alabasterink for letting me borrow some of her headcanons and a special shoutout to my brother, the biggest butthead I know and the one who taught me the horrors and wonders of having a sibling.

Hinata hummed as she firmly moulded a rice ball in her hands, taking extra care to wrap the rice evenly around the red bean filling paste in the center. She shaped it into a soft triangle and wrapped a piece of seaweed around it before adding it to a plate topped with more rice balls.

The sound of the front door distracted her from her task and the long suffering sigh that drifted down the hall and into the kitchen told her it was Boruto, home from another day at the Academy. Slow footsteps thudded along the wood floors, not at all like the trained, light, measured steps of a shinobi.

"Boruto? Would you like something to eat?" Hinata called out softly as she heard the steps draw closer.

Boruto appeared in the doorway, his shoulders hunched forward, and his blue eyes narrowed in irritation. His spiky blonde hair and training clothes were ruffled and dirtied from taijutsu class.

"Hey, what's the matter?" Hinata frowned in worry as she turned to face her son. Boruto huffed in irritation and shook his head.

"Nothing," he muttered moodily before disappearing from the door. A moment later, his bedroom door slammed shut.

Hinata wracked her brain for anything that might've gone wrong. No, it was just another normal day. Lessons in the morning, taijutsu practice in the afternoon, likely some extra weapons training at the end of the day. The day was bright and sunny and Naruto had been home all weekend to spend time with all of them, which lifted everyone's spirits immeasurably.

"Boruto? Can you talk to me?" Hinata inquired gently as she knocked on his door. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing!" came a muffled yell, considerably more irate than before. After a moment's debate, Hinata hesitantly opened the door open a crack.

"Boruto?"

"I said nothing, Mom! Go away!" To emphasize his point, he half-heartedly threw a pillow against the door. Shocked, Hinata quickly closed the door and stared in confusion at the dark wood separating her from her son.

This was strange. This was wrong. Boruto never shut her out. His mischievous nature he got from Naruto but his sensitivity he inherited from Hinata. It was often why, when he was a baby, he always reached out for Hinata first when he cried or wanted something. Naruto would pout but laugh it off saying he understood the power of Hinata's empathy. That didn't change when he grew older. Boruto would come home from a playdate or school and seek Hinata out to talk or to just be around. They even started a knitting project together, in their spare time.

So for him to very abruptly close himself off from her with such finality was jarring, to say the least. Hinata wavered between letting herself in to try to talk with him again or just leaving him be. Her hand was drifting up to the doorknob once more before a knock from the front of the house interrupted her. She gave a defeated sigh and turned to answer the door.

"Mama, Mama!" Himawari bounced in, shrugging her bag off and hanging it neatly on the coatrack. "We got the prettiest flowers at the shop today! Look, Auntie Ino let me have some of them!" Himawari thrust a fistful of lilies up and Hinata felt the tension in her forehead smooth out as she smiled at her daughter.

"They're very beautiful," she assured Himawari. Turning to Ino, who stood amusedly at the doorway, she added, "Thank you for watching her."

"Of course, anytime!" Ino waved a hand, smiling. "Hima's a huge help in the shop and she's getting really good at caring for the plants. It's alway a pleasure to have her."

"Himawari, what do you sa-?" Hinata turned to Himawari only to find the spot she was standing in was empty. The pitter patter of her steps down the hall alerted Hinata where she was. "Himawari!"

"It's ok," Ino laughed. "She was talking about showing Boruto the lilies since the moment she saw them. You're really lucky they dote on each other so much!"

"They have their fair share of fights," Hinata admitted with a wry smile, recalling several memorable incidences.

"I would be concerned if they didn't," Ino shrugged. "Do you have a minute, actually? I wanted to talk to you about Himawari."

"Did something happen?" Hinata's mind instantly jumped to conclusions. Did Himawari make a mess? Was she unduly rude? Had she injured herself in some way?

"No, no, don't worry, nothing extreme happened," Ino assured her, reaching out to grasp Hinata by her shoulders, having read the worry that flooded her friend's face. "It's just, well, I caught Himawari in the back room of the flower shop today looking at some of my more specialized plants…."

The girl in question was far removed from the conversation centering around her, having darted in the house to beeline to the living room where she usually found Boruto doing his homework. She beamed as she considered the orange lilies in her hands, sure he would like them as much as she did.

She pouted when she skidded to a stop and found the living room empty. Her bright blue eyes scanned the room, noting the half-folded pile of laundry, the books on the ground that she should probably pick up before someone scolded her to do so, and Boruto's bag strewn rather carelessly on the couch.

Humming in thought, Himawari headed to Boruto's room and knocked decisively on the closed door.

"Go away!" came the irritated yell.

"Boreeeee," Himawari sang out. "It's me! I want to show you some flowers I got from Auntie Ino!"

"Himawari, now is not the time." Himawari ignored his warning and tried for the handle. She managed to jiggle the door open a crack before it stopped, evidently blocked by a chair.

"Are you doing something that'll make Mama and Daddy mad at you again?" HImawari asked curiously, trying to jam the door open more.

"Himawari. I mean it. Go away." Boruto's tone dropped, his voice low and menacing. Himawari instantly got the message and backed off from the door.

"What's gotten you in a fuss?" she asked curiously. She absent-mindedly stroked the flowers in her hands.

"It's just something that happened at school, ok? It's not a big deal, whatever, but I don't want to talk about it."

Himawari frowned, picking up the slight hitch in Boruto's voice and his quiet but heavy sigh. She chewed her lip, thinking of what she could do. After a moment's thought, she nodded to herself. She set the flowers down by the side of the door so when he did come out of his room, they were in sight but not in the way that he might step on them. She straightened up and turned to head to the kitchen and almost bumped into Hinata.

"Ah, Himawari. Auntie Ino was telling me about what happened at the flower shop today," Hinata smiled at her daughter.

"Oh yeah!" Himawari lit up, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "Auntie Ino wouldn't let me bring home the wolfsbane plant right away, she said I had to ask you and Daddy first. I was going to tell you when Daddy got home tonight."

"Alright, that sounds like a plan," Hinata agreed. Her lavender eyes drifted up and came to rest on Boruto's closed door, and a worried frown creased her features once more.

Himawari saw her mother's attention shift away from her and the concern that dragged her mouth down and pinched her eyebrows together. As Hinata made to move to step around Himawari, intent on knocking on Boruto's door once more, Himawari blurted out, "Actually, Mama, could I borrow your cinnamon roll recipe? I want to try making it."

Surprised, Hinata stopped and looked down at her daughter once more.

"I thought you didn't really like baking, Himawari," Hinata commented mildly. Nonetheless, she changed course and headed towards the kitchen instead. Himawari breathed a quick sigh in relief as she spared a glance at her brother's door before trailing after her mother.

"I'm just not very good at it," Himawari corrected her with a small pout that Hinata couldn't help but laugh at. "I want to try again though!"

"Alright," Hinata smiled, pulling down a recipe box from the shelf and rifling through it. She pulled out an index card and handed it to her.

Himawari chewed her bottom lip before asking, "Can I do this by myself, Mama?"

A bit confused but more amused than anything else, Hinata nodded her consent. "I need to stop by the compound quickly anyway. Do not put it in the oven until I come back though, alright?"

"Auntie Hanabi still has to come over and train with us sometime," Himawari noted, plucking the card from her mother's hand and rummaging around the cabinets for pans and measuring cups.

"I'll be sure to tell her," Hinata laughed as she headed out the kitchen. A moment later, the sound of the front door opening and closing alerted Himawari that she now had the kitchen entirely to herself.

Time to get to work then.

Himawari washed her hands and scrounged around the kitchen looking for the necessary ingredients and baking utensils. She giggled to herself as a plume of flour puffed out from when she hefted the bag of flour onto the countertop.

Mixing bowls she retrieved from the top shelf of the cabinet easily by standing on the high chair that she technically was not supposed to use in such a manner, but who was going to tell on her? As she located the spice pouches, she inhaled the fragrant scent of cinnamon and nutmeg, taking extra care not to spill any. The sugar she was a little less careful of and a sparkling trail traced her path as she heaved the bag onto the counter beside the flour.

Himawari hummed to herself as she glanced at her mother's neat handwriting on the card before following the instructions. She happily measured, mixed, poured, and sifted. Flour coated the front of her shirt and the surface of the countertop like frost and she was pretty sure she managed to get some vanilla extract in her hair by accident.

Entirely unconcerned, she absent-mindedly brought the back of her hand to wipe her whiskered cheek free of flour and was surprised when she smelled the scent of cinnamon left its stead. She grinned happily. It reminded her of the big sloppy kisses Daddy would give Mama, especially if she was eating a cinnamon bun. She left the cinnamon on her cheek, pretending it was a kiss from Daddy.

The fragrant aroma of fresh dough mixed with the heady scent of cinnamon and rich butter as she rolled the dough onto the floured surface of the counter. She brushed the melted butter onto the dough and gleefully dumped the sugar and cinnamon powder mix onto the glistening surface. She doubled that particular part of the recipe but the more cinnamon and sugar, the better, right? She nodded in agreement to herself and covered the dough liberally with all the cinnamon and sugar.

Now came the hard part. Well, the hardest part for her was always the process of putting it in and out of the oven. It always seemed to burn. The second hardest part was doing the twist. She could do the simple swirl of a typical cinnamon bun, and that was the one Mama preferred, but Boruto liked the braided ring the best. That was tricky and even Mama had a hard time getting it right sometimes.

But Himawari was not one to back away from a challenge. She rolled her sleeves up higher and got right to it.

She focused single-mindedly on carefully rolling the dough neatly and tightly into one long tube before retrieving a kitchen knife and slicing it down the middle. She scrunched up her nose in determination as she took a strand in each hand in preparation for the twist.

"They'll fall apart like that," Boruto's quiet voice admonished her. Himawari glanced up, pleased to see her brother entering the kitchen, the orange lilies held gently in his hand. He took his time filling an empty vase with water, arranging the flowers, and setting the filled vase in the center of the kitchen table.

Boruto washed his hands and took the strands from Himawari's hands. He split them in half so they both had two strands each.

"If you're going to braid them, you should do them properly."

Hinata came home an hour later in a rush, mentally bemoaning the elders' tendency to ramble on and on without pause or space for even a polite break in conversation. She only hoped Himawari hadn't made too big a mess in the kitchen. The last time she let Himawari take control of the reins during baking, most of the flour in the flour bag was on the ground being spread and shaped like snow as Himawari laughed delightedly away. Though to be fair, that was an awfully long time ago and baking adventures since then proved that Himawari had become much neater with the ingredients. Or just sneakier in playing with them.

Hinata swept through the front door and was striding towards the kitchen when her sensitive ears picked up Himawari's familiar laughter. A moment later, a deeper, quieter, but no less sincere laugh joined her. Slowing down, a smile crept up Hinata's face as she peeked into the kitchen.

Himawari twisted strands that were falling apart in her hands in a poor mimicry of Boruto's deft movements. Several neat braided wreaths of sugar and cinnamon powdered dough lay waiting on a buttered pan, clearly Boruto's handiwork. Himawari's pan was home to several blobby looking figures and animals she was sure were meant to be foxes. Flour, sugar, and cinnamon was smudged all over the counter and on their faces and clothes but the lighthearted laugh and smile on Boruto's face was worth it.

"Hima, if you keep twisting them they're just going to keep falling apart." Boruto shook his head over his sister's attempts.

"I think they're more fun when I get to shape them the way I want anyway," Himawari grinned cheekily. Regardless, she relaxed the twists and nudged the dough, trying to poke them into shape.

Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, Boruto slid the braided wreath he'd been working on over to her. "Here, you can have one of mine."

"Really?" Himawari lit up and beamed in delight.

"You were making these for me anyway. I think it's only fair." Boruto shrugged but a fond smile tugged his lips up. "Just don't get used to it."

"You bore," Himawari teased, knocking him in the side with an elbow.

"Hime," Boruto responded, drawing out the affectionate nickname their father gave her into an irritating drawl. He reached over to ruffle her indigo hair with floured hands. Himawari sneezed in laughter as flour rose like a cloud around her head. "Got'cher head!"

"Hey!" Himawari sneezed again, this time more in indignation. She rolled her hand on the floured countertop. After a moment's thought, she reached out and slapped his back, leaving a distinct, white imprint of her small hand on the back of Boruto's black jacket.

She grinned mischieviously at him, pleased to see the happiness framed with cinnamon and sugar smudges on his face once more. "I got your back."

xXx

It was 3am and Boruto was pretty sure that without the magical substance that was black coffee, he probably would be passed out somewhere embarrassing by now. As it was, the eighteen-year-old medic-nin only yawned and took another hearty swig from his mug, wincing at how bitter it was.

That's the last time I let Sakura-sensei make the coffee, he thought with a grimace, though he couldn't deny the bitterness was partially why it was so effective.

The hospital was quiet. It was a calm sort of quiet though, the kind one could only find during peacetime. Most of the patients that had to stay for longer than a day were civilians. Most ninja were cared for quickly and easily and were sent off within the hour but for a few exceptions. The most exciting and nerve-wracking patients were usually the ANBU these days. Their arrival often heralded the controlled chaos of surgeries, extractions, and transfusions.

Boruto had a love-hate relationship with them. On one hand, he hated seeing the people he knew and loved bleeding to death in front of his very eyes from wounds he could and couldn't see, wounds he knew he may not always be able to heal.

On the other hand, he gained invaluable experience following Sakura-sensei's instructions in the operating room and lab, learning precisely where to cut, what to extract, what to pinpoint, what to eradicate, what to repair, and what to monitor.

Boruto worked fiercely to save and protect the people he loved. This, Sakura saw and understood all too well. It was part of the reason they worked and understood each other so well, as sensei and student but also as peers and friends.

He didn't like to admit that he would wake up in a cold sweat some nights from nightmares of his father shredded to pieces, too far gone for even Kurama to save him; of his sweet mother with her eyes gouged out and abdomen split wide open, her innards bare for the worlds to see; of Himawari stumbling into the ER bleeding from every orifice of her body, her usually bright and cheerful eyes full of fear and utterly without hope in even the brother she adored and trusted with her life.

But he never had to tell Sakura because they both knew they had demons of their own to wrestle with, demons not quite dissimilar from each other's.

He used to scream himself awake, before Sakura taught him how to forcibly stimulate his dopamine levels when lucid dreaming in order to relax and calm his body down just enough to hold back his more visceral reactions. It took a while until he got the hang of it.

"Practice makes perfect," was Sakura's bittersweet advice.

But it wasn't always about mangled bodies and tense races against the clock. Boruto was reluctant to admit it at first, if only because it gave Sakura-sensei an excuse to shove more paperwork onto him, but he very much enjoyed working in the lab. His natural talent, admirable work ethic, and intense curiosity and passion in various subjects across the medicinal field meant that he worked confidently and productively between surgical pathology, parasitology and virology labs.

Boruto's particular interest of focus was internal medicine, like Sakura, but ever since Himawari approached him a couple years ago about helping her in her study of poisons, he'd begun to work extensively in the toxicology and immunology labs to better help her.

He didn't like to think that he was always also taking notes on how to cure and treat Himawari, should she ever be admitted into the hospital dosed under some concoction she mixed up. He always breathed a little easier though, knowing Sakura was one of the most capable people certainly in all of Konoha, probably even in the five nations, in handling poisons and breaking them down and identifying core chemical structures and compounds quickly enough to devise an antidote.

It was inspiring, really, working with her.

He'd only been studying medicine for five years but under Sakura's tutelage and occasionally Tsunade's, he'd grown in incredible leaps and bounds, his progress often compared to Sakura's when she was taught by Tsunade. His parents were undoubtedly and undeniably proud in him. Himawari was delighted too.

"The better you know the human body, the more you can help me come up with different mixes of poisons I can use!" she cheered gleefully as she saw him heft tome after tome of intense medical books and scrolls home to study.

They would spar often too, their training in the Gentle Fist style helping both of them understand the human body and the pathway of chakra coils. Their lack of the Byakugan meant that their precision would always fall short of those possessing the doujutsu but heavy training supervised and taught by Hinata, Hiashi, and Hanabi ensured that both Boruto and Himawari knew close enough approximations of all the tenketsu points to accurately hit and alter them. It also had the added bonus of refining their chakra control, and Sakura-sensei commented on more than one occasion how powerful his chakra control was. It made him particularly handy in surgeries.

Himawari actually often made the perfect sparring partner for him, not so much in that her skills matched his, though what she lacked she more than made up for in creativity and cunning, but because she knew the most precise ways to get under his skin. Sparring with her was just as much a mental exercise as it was a physical one.

Plus it was always a good way to settle a fight peacefully and productively without worrying their mother unduly.

Sometimes Boruto would wonder in the back of his mind how he was so lucky to get Himawari as a sister. She knew when to tease him to cheer him up and when to jab at his sides when he would ramble on and on about medical terms that absolutely no one else but himself could understand. She knew (mostly) when to prod and push him to open up when he clammed up and when to back off when he needed space.

He wasn't surprised, in a way, that she knew him so well. Himawari had been attached to him before she knew even how to walk and talk. He'd spend hours twiddling his fingers and bouncing toys in front of her face when she was a baby, trying to get her to laugh. Her very first word, incidentally, had been an approximation of his name.

"Bore, bore!" she'd squealed and Naruto and Hinata had laughed in delight at her attachment to her older brother.

Boruto wouldn't admit it, but he loved it. He loved that Himawari giggled the most for him, that she would trail after him like an annoying shadow, that there'd been that time when she was around 5 where she'd mimic every action and motion that he did. She still did, to some extent, and Boruto would tease her about it whenever he caught on.

He was fiercely protective of her. From the day she was brought home, he felt a kind of responsibility to her that he took on whole-heartedly and without question.

With the thought of his sister and the most recent mission she'd been sent on with her squad at the front of his mind, Boruto headed down to the lower levels of the hospital to the toxicology lab to continue a side project. Himawari had come to him before she'd set off on her mission with several mushrooms she harvested on another mission to Grass with the intent of figuring out how lethal their hallucinogenic properties were.

Of course, by 'figuring it out', she really meant 'handing it to the brother who had access to all the fancy lab equipment'. She did offer to cover his chores for a week though so he took her request in good humour.

He was also the one Himawari came to when she wanted to dose herself with some of her poisons in order to build up her immunity. Boruto had been exasperated but intrigued the first time though in hindsight, monitoring her in the living room while her body fought to build antibodies to combat a concoction of hemlock and belladonna she created wasn't the best idea they ever had judging from Hinata's reaction when she came home.

Boruto had never seen their mother in such a panicked state nor had he ever received such a scolding from both her and their father that night but he happily shoved most of the blame onto Himawari (which was technically accurate anyway) and from then on most of their mithridatism adventures was done in the hospital.

It was part of the reason why he always agreed to analyze whatever piece of fauna she brought to him. He wanted to know exactly how much she could take before the effect became unmanageable and he wanted to understand its properties enough to able to combat it for her if her body failed.

It was, after all, what good older brothers did.

He barely sat down in front of his work before his pager beeped urgently at him. Code Pink flashed across the screen and he was flying out of the lab and into the ER as fast as his legs could carry him.

Boruto froze and swore for a moment he was dreaming when he came through the door and saw Himawari being transferred to a gurney, her squadmates almost passed out from the floor in exhaustion, and Mirai, her jounin-sensei, rattling off the situation to the nurses. He caught the words 'surprise assault' and 'massive blunt trauma to the head' and that was all it took for his heart to drop frighteningly fast to the bottom of his stomach.

Everyone's heads turned when he came to the center of the room, stopping by Himawari's side.

"Bore..." she murmured weakly, her small hand reaching out for him before she blacked out, her body going limp. A fierce surge of anger and helplessness shot through him, his heart clenching viscerally when she uttered his name, so much like the very first words she spoke as a baby. He stood frozen for just a heartbeat, but it was the longest heartbeat of his life as he saw her eyes lose their sparkle and close, her expression so close to the ones in his nightmares that for a moment he wanted to scream so he could wake up.

But this was not a dream and he had a sister to save.

His hands glowed green with medical chakra before he could even think and he snapped into action, bringing them up to scan her head.

"She's got extensive damage to the cerebellum and occipital lobe," Boruto rattled off. His voice was steady and the panic in his mind had numbed to white noise as his focus came sharply into play. A pause, and then, "The damage is mostly on the left but it's spreading to the somatosensory area. It it's spreading out there's a high chance the damage is also deeper than I can currently examine and may reach her brain stem. This may have started out as a subarachnoid hemorrhage but it may have developed into intracerebral. We need to operate yesterday."

The assisting nurses nodded, flying into action, wheeling the gurney down the hall while some raced ahead to prep the emergency operating room. Yori, the assisting surgeon, hesitated as she followed Boruto into the prep room.

"Uzumaki-san? Are you sure we shouldn't call Haruno-san? I'm afraid your relationship with the patient may make this difficult for you."

All doubts in her mind withered and died the moment Boruto turned to face her, his blue eyes burning so fiercely she felt seared.

"She is my sister and I will not let her die."

Boruto pulled on scrubs, mask, and eye protection glasses before he snapped on his gloves and strode into the operating room. He never faltered for a second as he approached Himawari's body already laid out on the chair covered by sterile drapes, her beautiful indigo locks dropping to the ground as the anesthesiologist cleared the area to cut open.

It was 3am but Boruto never even noticed the late hour that previously dragged his limbs. Adrenaline and fear woke his mind and lit his hands green with the glow of chakra that would save his sister. His fingers never trembled once as he sought out the ruptured blood vessels around the grey matter of brain tissue. In less than a blink he cleared clots and tied up the larger blood vessels to redirect the blood flow. Yori soaked up the excess blood with a sponge to maximize his range of vision as he worked as quickly as he could.

Time was running, running, running and Boruto never worked more quickly or more desperately in his life. He had to stop the bleeding wreaking havoc in Himawari's brain before the damage was irreversible, before the pressure built up and pressed against her skull and suffocated her brain. His glowing fingertips sought out every possible broken vessel to repair, determined not to leave even an ounce of damage behind.

Time slipped and Boruto ran.

He worked almost frenetically, hunting down clots with ruthless abandon and trying not to think how it just seemed like the more he fixed, the more broken vessels appeared. He didn't let that deter him though and was merciless in getting his hands on every single last one.

Boruto ran a secondary scan when he saw he fixed the blood vessels on the surface didn't know if he wanted to scream or cry. The trauma Himawari suffered was as bad as he feared, the hemorrhaging leaking all the way to the brain stem. His face fell for just the briefest of moments as he realized what he had to do, and praying he had skill and time enough to reach the heart of the problem without damaging the brain.

Boruto felt the hands of those assisting on his back and immediately a fresh surge of energy and chakra coursed through his body and he knew this was it.

Boruto widened his hands over Himawari's head and his chakra glowed fiercely around his fingertips before lengthening out into strings that stood poised in the air, waiting for his command.

He took a deep breath and delved in.

Himawari had always said his healing chakra felt like her favourite blanket from when she was small. Boruto hoped that somewhere in her consciousness she felt his presence and knew not to worry because he was there and that he wouldn't let her down.

Because all his training, all his dedication to medicine and healing was for her. He was afraid to admit it, but he would never be able to handle losing those closest to him especially if he had the power to save them.

He would be damned if he allowed Himawari to become a memory to haunt his nightmares.

Never had Boruto been more careful or aware of his precision as he guided his chakra strings through the grey and white matter of her cerebellum to reach the areas around her brain stem. Never had his chakra been more responsive to his demands, the strings jumping into action almost before the thought materialized fully in his mind.

Never had Boruto hated the sound of the clock ticking away in the OR more. His own drumming heartbeat was the timekeeper of his fear.

If he had been ruthless in repairing all the broken blood vessels on the surface of her brain, he was unstoppable in fixing every single vessel he identified as he scanned her brain again and again. He absolutely refused to allow himself any margin of error. He distantly felt a hand disappear from his back and registered a laboured gasp before a body dropped, one of the assisting passing out from chakra deprivation.

Boruto pressed on, single-minded in his task.

He worked until every single broken blood vessel was cleared of clots and neatly tied off. He took note of any swelling and sent a surge of his chakra to lessen the inflammation. He scanned her brain again and again to check for any problems that he might have missed and took note of irritated areas as he withdrew his chakra strings.

Boruto breathed out deeply through his nose, closing his eyes for a moment to reassure himself that he did the best he absolutely could.

"Close her up."

The rest was up to her.

And that terrified him, knowing that this was a part of the battle he couldn't help her with.

But Himawari had always been stronger than she looked, always scrappier and more resourceful and bright-spirited than the average person. No one, Boruto knew and had to remind himself, would pull through with more style than Himawari.

It was 1pm, 10 hours later from when his nightmare started, when he stumbled out of the OR and into Sakura-sensei's arms, his strength and energy utterly gone the moment Himawari was sewed up and her anesthetic agents reversed, ready to be transferred to the postanesthesia care unit.

"Rest," was the last thing he heard before he blacked out, completely drained of chakra. "I will take care of the rest."

He slept without nightmares.

When Boruto woke up, he felt like he was breaking the surface after a long, deep, and disorienting dive. Slow to wake he might've been but he was quick to recall the reason for blacking out and was throwing the thin hospital sheets off before he registered Hinata's presence at the side of his bed. She blinked into instant wakefulness the moment movement registered in her mind and the relief flooded her face had Boruto reaching out to clasp her hand.

"Oh thank goodness," Hinata couldn't hold back a sniffle, reaching up to cradle his face tenderly with her free hand. "You had us worried there for a while, Boruto."

"How long was I out?" Boruto asked, his eyes taking in the deepened stress lines on his mother's forehead and the dark circles that ringed her beautiful lavender eyes. His heart squeezed tightly at his mother's distress and he wished he had the power to wipe away her fears.

"Four days," Hinata admitted. She paused, then added, a shaky smile on her face, "Would you like to see Himawari? She woke up earlier this morning actually. You two always seem to get into trouble together."

"Double trouble, as the saying goes," Boruto shrugged with a half-hearted smile. "Let's go see how Hima's doing then." He slipped out of the bed, ignoring how his limbs felt like jelly and his brain like mush. His chakra simmered like low-burning embers instead of the bright fire it usually was in his veins.

Boruto towered over Hinata by at least a head and a half and he'd been taller than her ever since he hit his growth spurt at sixteen but as Hinata took his hand to lead him out, he marveled how his mother still had the power to make him feel young but never small.

Hinata led him down the hall, down the stairs, and came to a stop outside room 118B. Several residents, doctors, and nurses had nodded respectfully, even bowed in some cases as they passed by them, not seeming to mind that he was dressed in his ratty fleece fox-patterned pajamas that he was sure his dad brought from home and his hair hopelessly ruffled into a bird's nest on top of his head.

Boruto didn't know what to make of it but all thoughts of their behaviour flew out of his mind the moment the door opened and he saw Himawari reclining in the hospital bed, looking ever so small and pale against the stark white sheets. Her eyes were open and bright and lit up so delightedly the moment she saw her mother and Boruto.

"I'm going to go get your father," Hinata released Boruto's hand and brought the heels of her palms up to wipe her eyes. "I am so relieved you two are ok."

"We always pull through, Mom," Boruto gave his mother a quick hug. She wound her arms tightly around him for a moment before she stepped back and out the door, out of sight.

"You look like a mess," Himawari's voice filled the silence. She sounded a bit frail but her spunk was clearly as strong as ever.

Boruto gave her a half-hearted smirk and shot back, "You should see the other guy."

"I know," Himawari laughed weakly before pointing at the bruises on her cheeks and around her eyes before running her hand over her head, stopping just short of the bald patch on her head that was covered by a thick wrap. "He really did a number on me."

Boruto sat at the edge of her bed, reaching for the medical chart at the end of the bed and reading through the notes. "You're feeling ok? You're on some medication to reduce any swelling but that shouldn't cause you to feel any more pain than usual."

"The biggest pain I ever have to deal with is you," Himawari rolled her eyes good-naturedly but she added, "No, I'm feeling fine. Well, as fine as one could feel after neurosurgery."

Boruto was quiet as he continued flipping through her charts, not really reading the information printed out on the sheets but remembering her terrified eyes as she was first wheeled into the hospital, the red map of her blood vessels stretching across the grey matter of her brain, the fragile white bones of her skull, and the sensation of reaching into the heart of her brain.

He looked up at her and drank in the sight of Himawari watching him knowingly, her oh-so-blue eyes clear and soft, the whiskers on her cheeks twitching up as she smiled guilelessly at him, her indigo bangs framing her pale face, her small hands relaxed on top of her lap.

"You scared me, Hime," Boruto whispered, his voice hoarse, his throat dry.

"Bore," Himawari huffed in laughter and Boruto thought his nickname had never sounded better, "I know you'll always pull through for me. And I couldn't disappoint you by dying after all the work you put into me."

Himawari paused when the pinch around his eyes and mouth didn't smooth out into a smile. She gave a grin, leaned forward, and added, "I guess you can say you got my head."

A bubble of laughter popped out of Boruto before he even realized it, the memory of those cinnamon twists they made together long ago surfacing up in his mind at her words.

He finally smiled at her, relieved to see the life glow from her eyes and smile once more. "I think you owe me big for this one next time, Hime."

"Bore, don't you worry," Himawari laughed. "I always got your back."