Thanks a bunch to everyone who favourited and reviewed chapter 1! We've got more cover art for the story, but well, FF doesn't allow image insertions so I can't show it off here. If you'd like to see it, it's up on AO3. Just search my username Anjelle or my wife's Blackberreh to take a look!

For the update schedule: It'll be a new chapter every 1-2 weeks, but not on a specific day. It'll depend on how much I can get written between updates. I'm ahead right now and I'd like to keep it that way, if only to make sure the updates are semi-consistent.

Kakashi Hatake was used to being called into the Hokage's office at odd hours of the night. His days in ANBU saw more than a few sleepless nights brought on by last minute missions of grave importance, and he could count more than a few times where he'd set out with a team before the break of dawn. So when Lord Third relayed to him that he was being assigned a mission, he wasn't surprised. Leaving ANBU didn't change much. There were thoughts, though, of what he would do with his team of genin if he were leaving the village.

He wasn't leaving the village, it turned out, because his mission involved one of his very own charges.

Naruto Uzumaki was a name that had carried his interests for many years now. He was the son of Minato and Kushina, the son of his sensei, and the jinchuuriki for the nine-tailed fox that terrorized Konoha twelve years before. Naruto was a magnet for chaos and it came as no surprise that trouble would follow him home, whether he liked it or not.

Even Kakashi had to admit that this trouble was very Naruto-shaped, though.

The boy was twelve, maybe thirteen, coming up a little taller than Naruto. Visually, the boys had remarkable similarities, from their faces to their eyes and hair. This kid even shared the markings Naruto had on his cheeks, which had been a trait unique to him up until then. To someone who didn't know better, they could be mistaken for brothers. Minato and Kushina only had one son, though.

That wasn't something Naruto would be aware of.

Kakashi sighed, fixed to the rooftop of a neighbouring building. From where he sat, he could make out both boys sitting in Naruto's apartment through the window and decided that was as good a place as any to camp out. With the latest volume of Icha Icha, of course.

He could see were Lord Third—or, more to the point, Iruka—was coming from with his concerns. For all that he was determined to prove himself, Naruto was a gullible child. Some kid shows up out of nowhere, looking so much like their jinchuuriki, and then makes friends with him? There was something there that didn't sit right. But from what he observed, and he could have been wrong, it didn't feel like a scheme. At that current point in time, this Boruto kid had shown no signs of any transformative or deceptive jutsu that could cause him to look the way that he did. Behaviour-wise, he was awkward. There was something very human about that awkwardness, something that didn't mesh well with the malicious intent that Iruka was certain the kid was hiding behind that eerily familiar face. It was like he didn't know how to act, what to do or say.

Lord Third instructed him to use his own judgement in determining the intent of this strange new variable. So far, Boruto was benign. That could change.

The night was long. Halfway through his book, Kakashi observed the new kid standing over Naruto's bed. There was a strange, far off look in his eyes as he placed a hand on Naruto's chest. Then there was light, bright and loud and blinding as the boy's arm lit up like fireworks. Kakashi shoved his book into his pocket and readied his kunai when the glow abruptly faded, the boy stumbled back.

Boruto was out the door, flying down village streets like there were demons on his heels.

As much as he'd have loved to pursue, that was not one of the main priorities of his mission. The first and most important task he was given was to assure Naruto's safety.

He dropped down to the streets and entered through the gaping doorway of the apartment. There was no need to check for a pulse; Naruto's breaths were visible in the rise and fall of his chest. Even if they weren't, the faint rasp of snoring broke the quiet. He was okay. Looked all kinds of tired, but unharmed.

With a sigh, Kakashi tapped the boy's cheek, eliciting a groan. Soon, barely-aware blue eyes fell to him. "Naruto. Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere?"

Naruto hissed, rubbing his forehead as he tried with faltering coordination to pick himself up off the mattress. "Kakashi-sensei?" he questioned, blinking away his exhaustion. "What're you doing here…?"

Then he shot up, looking left and right and left again, his eyes wide. He patted himself down, grabbing at the fabric of his shirt where Boruto's hand once rested.

"Where's Boruto?"

Kakashi watched his panic with a critical eye, allowing it when Naruto rose to his feet and stumbled to keep steady. He may have looked recovered, but the drain on his energy was still evident.

"He left," Kakashi said simply, anticipating it when Naruto made to pursue and grabbing the back of his shirt to prevent it. "Now, now. I think you should rest up a bit."

Naruto didn't put up much of a fight when he was tossed gently back onto the bed. "What… What'd he do to me? I feel like I just ran a marathon or somethin'."

Kakashi sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. From the little he saw—and it was only a little, that much was obvious—there were a few possibilities. Naruto being otherwise unharmed eliminated three of them. "By the looks of it, he drained some of your chakra. Not much, mind you. You'd be out cold if he'd taken any more."

"My chakra?" Naruto echoed, staring vacantly down at his lap, folding his hands together. "But why?"

"Who knows?" Kakashi shrugged, getting himself up from where he was crouched by Naruto's bedside. "I need you to stay here until I can find out."

"What? No, I gotta—"

"I'll go look for your friend. You need to stay put." More than anyone, Naruto was the perfect candidate for a chakra drain like that. If this boy aimed to amass chakra for something malicious then Naruto's reserves were just what he needed. "Try to behave. I'll have him back before you know it."

Naruto's head hung low. He curled into himself with a muted nod. It was rare for the boy to be so obedient. "Make sure he's okay, would ya?"

"Of course."

Kakashi clapped Naruto on the shoulder, offered a reassuring squeeze, and set out into the night. He stretched, letting out what must have been his third sigh, and stared at the village bathed in pale moonlight.

"Alright, then," he breathed. From what he saw, he should avoid Boruto's open palms if they were to engage in combat. That… may make things a little troublesome.

With one final roll of his shoulders, he leapt into the air and vanished into the night.

Boruto's lungs burned with crisp, chilled autumn air as he skidded to a stop amidst the trees. He pressed back against a tree trunk, using it to keep himself upright as he caught his breath. The last time he ran like that was so far back in his memory that he couldn't recall just what it was that he was running to. Or from.

By the time he stopped, the village was a long ways back, no longer a figure in the distance. It was surprising that he covered so much ground in so little time. There was that energy, that chakra, tingling with life in his arms and legs. And now that he caught his breath, he was up to another run. Wasn't the least bit tired.

Huh.

He brought his hand up, stared at it, waited for the faintest hint of black ink still surfaced on his skin, but nothing. The voice was quiet, too—that strange, wordless voice. It kept urging him, nudging him so long as they were near people. Or, near sources of chakra, rather. Human chakra. He could sense it now, somehow. There was nothing around and it was only then when the urge died out within him.

"The hell is happening to me?" he muttered, more to himself than anything.

Boruto slid down the tree and huddled at its roots. He wrapped his arms around his knees and burrowed his head against them, and just breathed.

He wondered what Mom made for dinner tonight. He wondered if she was worried about him, or if she expected him to be away overnight for the mission. They were told they might camp in the ruins of the Hidden Time before they set out. Did he tell her that? He wasn't sure.

Dad probably wouldn't notice, even if he was gone for three, four days. He was always stuck up in his office, working for the sake of the village. Then again, maybe after a good few weeks his shadow clones would pick up on something when he didn't catch a glimpse of his son at home or in town, or maybe it would take Mom going to him, worried and desperate, for him to finally take notice.

Boruto was fully aware of just how bitter he was. This was nothing new.

Go back.

He twitched. The voice, the so perfectly translated intent, started back up again. A slight burn blazed across his arm and he rolled up his sleeve to watch the return of black ink bleeding across his skin. The markings returned. Instead of freaking out like each time before, Boruto stared hard, analyzing the patterns of their movement, trying to place the symbols that twisted and changed as they flowed up his arm. They were characters—unfamiliar characters like pictograms, and his mind supplied him with images of engravings along the walls of the World Temple. It was a part of the Hidden Time's culture, though that came as no surprise knowing that it was a Hidden Time scroll that did this to him.

But how did a scroll have that kind of power? No, it wasn't the scroll itself. There was something else—something that triggered when he touched the scroll. Was it a curse mark, maybe? A seal?

Boruto sucked at this kind of thing.

I'm hungry. Go back.

He twitched again, and his face contorted into a sneer as he clenched his fist. "Yeah, well, so am I!" he exclaimed. After that run, he regretted not finishing his ramen at Ichiraku. "Suck it up. I'm not going back to the village jus' so you can stuff your face with someone else's chakra."

It was in that moment that Boruto realized that maybe, just maybe, he was talking to a curse mark. He scrubbed his hands down his face and let out a drawn-out groan. There was a part of him that wondered if he was still sane. Maybe that was the curse's aim—for him to lose it and be incapacitated by his own overwhelming insanity.

Even more insane was the fact that it listened. There was silence, and once more the markings dispersed into nothing. Boruto gawked openly at his arm. "Um." He flexed experimentally, as though the movement would jostle the curse back into visibility. "...Thanks?"

With a steadying breath, Boruto closed his eyes and focused. Something felt… different. About himself. It was more than the strange voice he was hearing—the voice that said no words yet could still be understood—and the markings that came and went on a whim. As he focused on himself, he felt something new, something foreign within him, and latched onto it. This thing wasn't a part of him. It wasn't him but it was there, inside him.

Deep inhale, hold. Exhale.

Boruto retreated inward. He wasn't sure how or why, or where to go from there, but he got a look into what he suspected was… his mind. Or something else internal, anyway. There was nothing but blackness stretching across the infinite expanse surrounding him, a void so empty and real that his curiosity faltered and he wondered just what he was trying to do. But that foreign presence was there, stronger than before, right there before him.

Through the darkness, pinprick yellow eyes stared back at him.

Boruto jumped, doubling back. I'm so lame. He broadened his stance, alert and ready for attack, but those eyes just stared, and stared, and continued to stare. So Boruto, the creative genin that he was, stared back.

The longer he stared, the easier it became to see the faint streams of chakra ebbing away from whatever was lurking in the dark. This chakra felt different from his own. It felt raw and chaotic, harder to control but oh so destructive. It seeped off the beast in waves. No wonder that thing was hungry, if its chakra was just bleeding out of it like that and it was a creature that fed off chakra.

It was then that Boruto realized that the chakra leaving the beast was flowing out into the rest of his body, so much so that he couldn't even feel his own. The more he thought, the more he wondered if there was any of his own left.

"Hey," he called, metaphorically puffing out his chest, his mouth drawn into a thin line and fists clenched at his sides. "Did you eat my chakra?"

His only answer was an empty stare.

Boruto stomped his foot and strode forward a few steps. "You did, didn't you? That's why I felt so tired before. What the hell?" He noised his frustration in a sound that could be called a hiss and marched on. The effect was instant, the shadowed beast bristling at his advance, and he wouldn't back down. "Who do you think you are?! You can't just—just go around stealing chakra with my body! I'm not just gonna sit back and let you do whatever you want, y'know!"

Despite the vague threat, no matter how fast he walked it felt like he made no advance. Those eyes didn't get any closer and Boruto felt as though they wouldn't unless the beast wanted him to get close. So Boruto stopped, crossed his arms over his chest, and huffed. "...What are you, anyhow? Some kinda… curse, demon-thing?"

I'm hungr—

"I know that you're hungry!" he snapped, digging his nails into his sleeve. "What am I supposed to do about that? I have my own problems to deal with right now. And—Sage, if something happened to Dad because of what you did—"

He stopped. Quiet fell as he rolled over those words, wondering just where he'd been heading. Dad would be okay… right? Boruto pulled away as fast as he could, and that thing was still hungry, so it couldn't have gotten all of Dad's chakra. What would have happened if it did, if it just absorbed every ounce of chakra a person had? He didn't want to find out, but worried that one day soon he would.

Everything about him sagged. His shoulders slumped. He kicked at the formless ground and stole glances at that thing now sharing his headspace. It didn't seem all that malicious—not towards him, at least—but it was definitely hungry. Boruto could feel it himself, this strange, hollow emptiness that needed filling. It was… confused, Boruto decided. Disoriented. Maybe angry. Angry and demanding to be fed.

Throwing a temper tantrum because Boruto told it 'no.'

Boruto only realized he was asleep when he woke up. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, the physical exhaustion of his body catching up to him. Even with all of that chakra stored up within him, it wasn't like it healed physical fatigue. The time he spent sleeping gave his muscles time to rest, and now they ached.

He didn't have to wonder what roused him; a source of chakra had entered his space. He followed its presence internally, sensing it move through the trees, and pried his eyes open when he felt it enter his personal bubble.

A half-lidded eye stared back at him and there was only a moment before he felt the cool brush of a kunai's edge to his throat.

Kakashi's eye crinkled in a smile. "I'll take it that you're Boruto, then."

Boruto swallowed and fought back the disorientation of sleep. "Kakashi." He bit back the urge to call him 'old man,' but using the former ANBU's name at all was clearly a mistake, and so was the familiarity with which it was said. "Did Naruto send you?"

"Well. Something like that." That lazy stare searched his person in a matter of moments before the kunai was lowered, Kakashi rising from where he was crouched before the boy. "Now. You're going to be coming with me."

A pulse rocked his body and Boruto bit his lip, reminded of the dream he was roused from. He wasn't so sure that it was a dream, after all. "I can't."

"You're going to," Kakashi stated with a breathy air of confidence. The kunai twirled around his finger before he set it back in its pouch. "Things may not go so smoothly for you otherwise."

Boruto let out a frustrated noise. "Bad things will happen if I go back there. I think. I don't know what's going on, I—"

"Bad things will happen if you stay here, too," Kakashi sighed. He bent down and grabbed a firm hold of Boruto's wrist to pull him up.

The moment that he did, everything stopped. Suddenly Boruto was an observer in a body not his own. His hand twisted and his fingers coiled around Kakashi's own wrist and then there was that burst of energy. Kakashi noticed—because of course he noticed—and tried to tug away but it was no use, the chakra leaving his body at an alarming rate. A noise escaped the jōnin that sounded like a cross between pain and surprise, his knees buckling beneath him.

Boruto stood and stared down at Kakashi with cool indifference. The markings were there, glowing a path of blue-white light up his arm and to his neck. That emptiness inside filled quickly but unlike last time, there was no abrupt stop. It just kept going and going and going and everything was burning—

He snatched away his hand, shaking from the sheer surge of power, and stared down with horrified eyes at the crumbled form of the Sixth Hokage lying motionless at his feet.

"K—" He choked on the name and tried again, "Kakashi?"

Boruto knelt down, nudging Kakashi's shoulder with no response. He pressed his fingers to the man's jugular and breathed his relief. There was a pulse, steady and strong. For a moment there, he thought he killed his father's teacher.

He stood back up and came to find that the voice was quiet. The foreign entity within him felt content, and everything was right with the world, save the unconscious man at his feet.

He shoved his hands into his pockets to hide their shaking. "...Sorry 'bout this."

With reluctance and a new surge of power that he didn't know what to do with, Boruto started walking. If he stayed, Kakashi would try once more to take him back to the village. Or, worse yet, he would see what happened as an attack on the village. And then what? Would ANBU be sent after him? Where would he go if he couldn't return to Konoha?

The Village Hidden in Time. He needed to get back there, to get answers, or find his way back to his time, or to figure out if all of this was real or—or something. He didn't know. But he couldn't be there. Couldn't stay there.

Boruto's walking stride picked up, the crunch of dry grass beneath his feet shifting into the muddy splat of saturated dirt as the river neared, and then he was running.

The Seventh Hokage was familiar with the World Temple only through pictures that the archivists brought to his office when requesting he send a team to assist them. In person, it held a far more withered look to it, as though the roof could collapse at the slightest bristle.

Of course, if it so happened that Boruto fell victim to a collapse they certainly would have found the kid beneath fallen rubble by then, so he wasn't too concerned.

Konohamaru came on as his lead, with the other two members of their squad left at home for this particular misadventure. They couldn't risk Sarada or Mitsuki disappearing, too. If anything happened to Sarada, Naruto wasn't sure whether he feared Sakura or Sasuke's wrath more.

"Right this way, Lord Seventh," Konohamaru muttered as they turned through a fake wall, lacking his usual energy as they descended what had been a hidden passage. "We have reason to suspect that he came this way. The traps left by the ancients had been triggered."

"I see."

Triggered with nothing trapped. Well, at least his son had good reflexes. Maybe he could take pride in that while mercilessly scolding the brat for worrying them sick.

The journey was long. The temple's underground catacombs were far more vast than its main body on the surface implied, stretching beneath the surrounding ground, beneath even the crumbling, weakened figures of residential housing that encircled it. Eventually, their walk came to an end before the already opened stone door of a guarded room. Within it stood an empty pedestal. Then, on the ground atop a cloth tarp rested an opened, blank scroll. Two archivists hovered over it, muttering to one another, their gloved fingers finding fixed points on the empty, yellowing paper.

The moment he entered, Naruto could already feel the small, fading traces of his son's chakra. He tensed as it billowed about the room, dispersing, and very soon it would no longer be recognizable.

Naruto clenched his fist but managed to keep the frustration off his face.

"We think he was here," Konohamaru stated, his eyes averted to the scroll. "When I entered, I found that on the ground. I thought it may provide us with some clues to what happened here, but… there's nothing on it. Right now the archivists are trying to find out if something used to be written there."

He nodded and his steps echoed through the room as he strode in further. His son's chakra was there, yes, so achingly familiar. But there was something else, something old and weathered with time but still standing tall and firm against age and decay.

There was another source here, coming from the pedestal.

Naruto crouched before it, his eyes looming over ancient stone markings until they settled on a small, sloppy seal. His mouth twitched. There was a moment where he hesitated but that moment was short and unimportant. Fingers came up to brush along the seal's lines, and with one fell swoop he smudged it with his hand.

The seal broke and the moment that it did, everything lit up.

From behind the pedestal, Naruto could see familiar black pants bleeding through the still-fading light. He rose to his feet and before him stood a boy half his height, shuffling his feet, looking no one in the eye. His hands were together, forming the sign of the ram.

"Boruto—" Konohamaru stepped forward but Naruto held up a hand, halting him, and they waited.

"Is this—" Boruto ducked his head, his eyes finding the spot where the smudged seal resided. "Is this even working?"

He wasn't seeing them, and this wasn't Boruto. Not really.

Boruto rubbed the back of his neck and his sleeve slid down his arm. Glowing blue markings peeked out from underneath. Giving the boy a thorough glance-over, Naruto could see the same markings climbing up his neck. It looked similar to a curse mark. Similar, but not quite, and the symbols weren't any that he recognized.

Boruto's hand slid down from his neck and he stared at it. "You'd better not be pulling anything, y'hear? Here goes." Boruto faced forward, staring at a space above the pedestal, a space that ended up being Naruto's chest. "My name is Boruto Uzumaki," he stated. "I'm a genin from Konoha, from the time of the Seventh Hokage. I'm not… really sure who's gonna find this, so I thought I should get that out of the way first."

It was pre-recorded. Naruto figured as much.

"That's," one of the archivists looked up from the scroll with a raised eyebrow, "that's the imprint jutsu. The one we sent to Konoha. How did he…"

Naruto twitched but said nothing, a slow-growing understanding upsetting his stomach.

"I was on a mission with my squad—I hope you're the ones finding this. Don't tell Dad."

Naruto sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

Boruto shoved his free hand into his pocket. Apparently, he had to keep the other still to keep the recording going.

"Sorry for, um. Going off on my own. If it is you, I mean." Boruto kicked the ground. His movements made no sound, and it was eerie. "I found this place. Or I was led here… by this thing inside of me. It's… I don't know what it is—that's not the point."

Boruto's eyes had shifted downward with time, drawn to the ground at his feet. They snapped back up, straight ahead, and for a moment it felt like his son was seeing him. "I grabbed a scroll. It was stupid, I know, but nothing to do about it now. When I did, it…" A frustrated growl rose up from his throat. "I'm not sure if this is an illusion, or if I really ended up in the past. Right now I'm banking on time travel because this ain't going to be any help otherwise."

Naruto shifted his weight, watching his son with crossed arms and a hard stare. Time travel, huh? Only his son would make such a fantastic mess out of a C-rank mission.

"In my current time, the Seventh Hokage is twelve years old."

Oh.

"That's the best landmark I've been able to find," he confessed. "I know it's not much to go on. Sorry."

The boy didn't know how lucky he was that the very same man he used as a landmark was the one listening to this message. For Boruto to know his father's age, they must have met up. That meant they either met on a mission or, more likely, the boy made his way back to Konoha. That was good. That meant that he knew his way, knew how to get around.

It also meant that he found Konoha and left again, and that set off a few alarm bells. Naruto wondered about that.

"I don't think there's much I can do where I am," Boruto said softly, and for a moment the image of him flickered. The glow of the markings on his arm blackened briefly before lighting back up. "I'm hoping someone back home can do… something. I think I found a good place to ride this out. There's a cave past the trees." Another flicker. "The coordinates—"

The image of Boruto froze mid-sentence, his markings now an inky black, and it stayed like that for a moment before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Naruto closed his eyes and focused on breathing. He had to stay calm. He knew there were eyes on him, watching him, waiting for him to grieve his son, but he wouldn't let it end like that. He wouldn't because this wasn't a time for grieving, it was progress. Any progress was good progress.

He opened his eyes, lingering on the empty space where Boruto once stood, and turned around in a flourish. "You two," he called to the archivists, who jumped at his voice. "Have you found anything?"

One jumped to attention, rising to her feet. She almost tripped over her partner in her haste. "It appears there was writing on the scroll before. There are faint impressions left behind," she explained. "We can try to recover what's missing, Lord Seventh, but it's going to take time."

"Thanks. Do that." He looked over his shoulder at the rather distressed jōnin lurking by the pedestal. "Konohamaru," he called, and the man jumped to attention.

"Yes, Lord Seventh?"

Naruto smiled. It was tired, and a little forced, but it was warm and assuring and necessary. "We'll find him. Stay strong."

He meant every word.

Only twelve hours gone and he was already missing the kid's stupid, indignant face.

Like hell the future Hokage was going to sit back and wait. Naruto was a man of many things, but sitting on his arse waiting for someone else to get answers wasn't one of them. That wasn't his style. No, he was the type to do things for himself, whether anyone liked it or not. It didn't matter if he was disobeying his squad leader's orders, or that he didn't know just what had happened earlier that night. Nothing changed.

A friend fled into the night after a brief confrontation. Naruto wasn't about to let him leave like that.

Despite what many people thought, Naruto wasn't stupid. He knew that if he followed after Kakashi, he would be caught. Then Kakashi would throw him in the direction of Old Man Hokage, or otherwise incapacitate him, and he'd have no choice but to wait out the night. So, Naruto held back. He filled his stomach with instant ramen, chugged two cups of water, and did a lot of fidgeting.

A lot of fidgeting.

Naruto sprang up from bed with an impatient growl, deciding that enough was enough and he was going to set out, whether Kakashi liked it or not!

He hesitated at the wall. This was to be his first time outside of the village; so far his only experience as a genin was running stupid D-rank errands around town with his squad. But he wasn't about to chicken out now, halfway there!

Naruto couldn't climb walls yet, he hadn't learned how, but he knew this village like the back of his hand. It wasn't hard for him to find a way over, even lacking such abilities; he was used to climbing Hokage Rock and used it to get around the wall. Simple. Honestly, it was a little too simple. Unsettlingly so. But that was a problem for another time because Naruto had a friend to find!

He knew that Boruto couldn't have stayed in the village, that much was obvious. Sure, it was a possibility if Boruto wanted to keep snatching up chakra from people, but it'd be super dangerous, too. Konoha was the strongest of the Hidden Villages, after all. There were plenty of strong ninja around, and if Boruto went around attacking a whole bunch of civilians, he'd get ANBU on his trail in no time. So, at least to Naruto, leaving the village made the most sense.

The problem came after that. Konoha itself was a fixed point. Walls marked its edges, separating it from the rest of the forest, and searching through such a contained area would have been so much easier. Unfortunately for Naruto, the understanding that his friend would have left just made everything three times tougher. Now, instead of the small space of the village, he was tasked with searching a whole damn forest and then some with no real tracking skills or hints as to which direction Boruto took off in.

Point-blank, it was hopeless.

Naruto's blind trek through the trees slowed to a halt and he groaned, hanging his head low. "Damn it! Why couldn't Kakashi-sensei take me with him? This would be so much easier!" He pulled at his hair in visible frustration, just to let something out before he started his journey up again.

All hope was not lost, though, because Naruto had something powerful on his side, something that had never failed him before, not even once.

Dumb luck.

It was maybe an hour or so into his search that, through the overgrowth at his feet, Naruto made out the prone body of a uniformed Konoha nin. Kakashi was lying motionless in the brush, his body still and limp, and Naruto weaved his way through the trees to get to his instructor with a pit of dread settling uncomfortably in his stomach.

"Kakashi-sen—"

He stopped when he saw movement, the slightest twitch, and hurriedly ducked behind a tree even though he knew there was no way the jōnin wouldn't sense him. Kakashi groaned, sounding tired and worn in a way that he never had before. The lazy, dismissive tone was gone from his voice, replaced by something closely resembling remorse as he picked himself up off the ground and ran a hand over his masked face and through his hair. His movements were jerky, his body stiff and sore, and he was slouching a lot more than usual.

Then, with all the resignation of an underappreciated teacher, Kakashi sighed.

"It's hard to believe," he breathed, "that after all these years, I can still be so careless."

Kakashi swayed slightly on his feet but pressed on anyway. Instead of jumping into the trees with a blink of an eye, he pressed on by food, on the ground, at a dragging pace.

Naruto watched from his hiding spot, blinking confusedly when he wasn't immediately found out by his teacher. His brows scrunched together and for a while he just observed. Kakashi was not only unaware of his presence but also didn't seem to be holding up all that well for a guy who, an hour before, was perfectly fine. He wasn't hurt anywhere; there was no blood and no visible signs of injury. He was tired, though. Naruto thought he understood that particular brand of tired.

He grabbed at the front of his shirt, where he could still feel the fantom hand sucking away his chakra.

Shaking the thought away, Naruto followed as carefully and cautiously as he could. Kakashi, even in his weakened stated, would definitely have a lot better luck locating Boruto than he would. This was just the stroke of luck he needed to get to where he needed to be, and when he got there, er, well… Well, he'd just have to figure that out when he got there, wouldn't he?

This wasn't so hard, after all.

Adieu~