Naruto blinked as he looked at himself in the mirror. Despite the fact that the Nanadaime Hokage was usually up with the sun, he wasn't a morning person and usually didn't actually wake up until sometime during his morning shower. Usually two cups of heavily sweetened coffee would finish the job, and he'd finally be out the door for another draining day as Hokage. That had been why he hadn't noticed that he was in a filthy bathroom that looked naggingly familiar until his shower was done. Turning to look in the mirror, he'd noticed another oddity.

He'd known that his wife and some of his friends had been planning a birthday surprise for him behind his back, but he hadn't expected...This. He wasn't sure how he felt about This. While childhood had been great for some, this time of his life hadn't exactly been the best for him, and finding himself at around the age he had been when he'd graduated the Academy wasn't the pleasant surprise it would've been for the likes of Sakura or maybe Kiba or Shikamaru. Honestly, about the only person in his group of friends who would be less happy with looking into a mirror and finding their twelve year-old self looking back at them would've been Sasuke, with Sai, Kakashi-sensei and possibly Iruka-sensei being close runners up.

Examining the body that went with the face in the mirror, he found that, however it was done, it was an excellent job and matched everything he remembered about how he'd looked when he was last twelve. He honestly didn't know how his friends could've done it.

Quickly quashing the panic inducing thought that his friends hadn't done this and that he'd somehow gone back to the past and erased EVERYTHING that had come since then, he reminded himself of that one time he'd gone time traveling and met his dad, and that time travel didn't work that way. Had he gone back to the past, he would be the same age as he would've been when he'd left the future, not twelve. The way he'd been sixteen when he'd gone back and met his father.

Sighing as he tried to figure out exactly when and how his friends would spring the rest of the "surprise" that was waiting for him on him, Naruto grabbed the stale, ragged towel that was the only one available to him, wrapped it around his waist, and headed into what would either be his home or somewhere else.

Naruto was, as he discovered, in what he thought might be an exact replica of the apartment he'd had prior to Konoha having been destroyed by Pein. Since he didn't have total recall and hadn't set foot in his old apartment in close to fifteen years, he wasn't entirely sure if that was the case. Sitting at the edge of his old bed staring at him were Boruto who was only eight but tried to act twice his age and Boruto's six year-old sister Himawari who was very much like Hinata until she wasn't. And, Himawari was SCARY when she wasn't.

Deciding that being undressed in front of his children - Thank God it was just his children, and not half the village! - was completely inappropriate, Naruto went over to his dresser, grabbed some clothes - Damn, he hadn't seen that tracksuit in YEARS! - and hurried back into the bathroom to get dressed.

Naruto mentally debated cutting his hair back to a length he was more used to as he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror a second time, but decided that there was no time, and that Hinata would probably kill him if he got it wrong since cutting his hair was her job. Leaving his hair as is, he proceeded to get dressed.

Fully attired in his old Orange and Blue tracksuit and feeling slightly naked without Iruka's old Hitai-ate which had gone with it, Naruto stepped out of the bathroom a minute after he went in and back into the main room where his children were still sitting on the bed, this time staring out the window at a Hokage monument that had only four faces in wide-eyed shock as if it were someone who'd abruptly had a head grow out of their stomach in the middle of what had until then been a perfectly ordinary conversation. Boruto seemed to be the first to sense that he'd returned, and whirled around to face him.

"...Dad?" Boruto hesitantly asked.

"Yes Boruto?" Naruto replied.

"What's going on?" Boruto asked, his eyes wide and somewhat fearful.

"I think your mother and some of our friends have arranged a birthday surprise for me." Naruto replied somewhat embarrassed by the obvous effort that his precious people had put into this surprise since it didn't feel like a Genjutsu at all, and acting on his first instinct, which had been to dispel whatever Genjutsu he might've been in when he'd first seen his twelve year-old self in the mirror that morning, had resulted in a big fat nothing.

Boruto looked utterly confused by this.

"Why are we here?" Boruto asked, making an expansive gesture that took in the whole of Naruto's apartment and what could be seen of Konoha outside the window.

"Well, this is the apartment I used to live in when I was this age." Naruto said, feeling ashamed at how grotty it was and how poorly his child self had kept the place for the first time. "And, that is what Konoha used to look like back then."

"I'm guessing you two are here because my birthday wouldn't be complete without you." Naruto continued, smiling at both of his beloved children, knowing how badly he would've freaked out if he'd woken up and found himself in what looked like his child body in his childhood home and that his children were nowhere to be found.

That would've been BAD.

"Yeah right. Your last two birthdays were fine without us." Boruto grumbled at the same time that Hmawari said "It really wouldn't?" in a hopeful tone of voice that cut the Nanadaime deeper than Boruto's comment had.

"Well, you two, it looks like we'll be having a full day ahead of us." Naruto said as he moved towards the door trying to figure out exactly where his friends wanted him to go before he and his children reached whatever special surprise had been arranged to cap off the day.

Considering the fact his friends, and possibly quite a few villagers had gone all out to create this painful replica of Konoha, it looked like it would be a full day indeed. The only things that were keeping him from curling back up in bed and refusing to go anywhere until someone came and dragged him out of the replica of his apartment were the knowledge that his friends had meant well, and the curious and, above all, hopeful looks on the faces of his children.

Sage of the Six Paths on a goddamn cracker! Naruto thought five minutes after he'd left his apartment with his children in tow. Did they really have to go THIS far?!

Walking through the village that he knew wasn't a Genjutsu thanks to a number of discreet slices he'd made by running his thumb along the shuriken he'd kept in his pocket, he could see and feel the semi-hostile stares and hear the whispers which had turned curious as his children trailed after him.

"Boruto!" Naruto snapped as his son gave one of the villagers a rude handsign that he must've picked up during his month at the Academy, because the boy sure as hell hadn't picked it up at home, and all of his and Hinata's friends had learned to watch their language - all of it - around the kids before they could walk.

"Sorry dad." Boruto grumbled, clearly not sorry at all.

Deciding to cut his little tour of the replica of Old Konoha short because Himawari was wilting under the glares of the "villagers" and Boruto was getting that look in his eye that the Nanadaime Hokage knew signaled the sort of trouble that would end with a train crashed into the Hokage Monument or something just as massively costly and destructive, Naruto asked himself where his friends would be in all of this.

Before he could narrow down the choices which ranged from "Ichiraku Ramen" to the "Hokage's Office", a matronly looking old woman came out of a bakery and started trying to lure his kids away from him. He had been about to let his kids go in and get whatever treat had obviously been arranged for them when the woman who had been trying to get his children inside her bakery said "You don't want to be associating with THAT boy!" before giving him That Look. The one that he hadn't forgotten even after more than a decade and a half.

Feeling like he'd had a bucket of cold water dumped on him, he grabbed his children back and said "My children and I will never be frequenting your establishment. Not now, nor in the future." in a cold tone he rarely used with anybody who wasn't an enemy, and frequently, not even with enemies.

"His WHAT?!" someone exclaimed before the whispers that followed him and his children increased tenfold.

Naruto didn't like this. His old danger instincts were triggering around what were supposed to be his fellow villagers, the fight side of his fight-or-flight instincts was struggling its way to the fore, and his children were here which made things ten times worse. Deciding that things would be better if his children were in what should be the most heavily guarded part of the village, Naruto made his way to where he remembered the Academy being before the village had been rebuilt, since there was a good chance that there would be a replica Academy there considering that there were replicas of just about everything else he remembered being in Old Konoha everywhere else.

The old and much smaller Ninja Academy was a blast from the past. Despite the fact that it had been about two decades since he'd last walked its halls, he found that he could remember where just about everything was. Deciding that this was a logical place to look for his friends so he could get his present and end this mess that was getting on his nerves rather than making him happy as they'd intended, since this was where they'd all met, Naruto headed to where his old classroom had been, his children trailing behind him.

Opening the door to the room was like stepping into a flashback. The class was about half full of students, some he only vaguely recognized. Rather than it just being the "Rookie Nine" as they'd been briefly known, even some of the washouts were here, and some of his friends weren't. As he actually stepped inside of the replica of his old classroom, Boruto and Himawari ran past him yelling "Mom!" as they made their way to a small figure hunched over a desk in the back of the room, causing everyone to turn and look at them.

Glad to see that his children were safe with their mother, Naruto said "Alright guys, this - whatever this was supposed to be - has been fun, but can't you please just get out my birthday present and end this?", doing his best to sound cheerful if slightly impatient so his precious people wouldn't be hurt by the fact that he hadn't enjoyed the gift they'd tried to give him.

Everyone in the room turned to look at Naruto as if he'd grown a second head.

"Who'd give you a birthday present?" a boy whose name Naruto vaguely remembered had something to do with a cooking grill sneered.