Blonding - A Time Travel Fic
Chapter 11
When Minato returned home that evening, there was no fanfare.
No lights, no sounds or smells of Kushina cooking something up for dinner, no warm embrace.
The place felt… eerie.
The door clicked shut behind him, and Minato had to blink once or twice to adjust to the darkness. 'This is odd,' Minato thought to himself with a small frown, instantly on his guard. 'Kushina always leaves this place brighter than the Sun.'
He silently eased himself out of his sandals, piling them neatly in the corner, next to his wife's, which made him smile brilliantly.
'So she is home.'
He walked down the hallway, his dull footsteps reverberating off the walls. Shadows danced through the windows, the outlines of trees waving in the wind painting splotches of black on a canvas of moonlight.
It had been a long day.
It was like a perfect storm of events. First he learned of the Mizukage's incapacitation, while waiting in Kushina's hospital room for some sort of sign from Jiraiya. Then came the run-in with the now-infamous Naruto and his son, whose escape still baffled him to the point where his head hurt if he thought about it too much.
Then came the biggest news of the day.
"Kushina?" he called out into the darkness, listening intently as the floorboards creaked and moaned under his footsteps.
No response – although he did hear a small cough coming from the kitchen.
When he rounded the corner, he found her – sitting alone, in the dark, a mug of cold tea cupped between her hands.
"Kushina?" he asked again, a seed of worry suddenly taking root inside of his chest, all of his excitement and happiness extinguished in an instant. "Are you okay?" He flipped the lightswitch, and the florescent lighting in their kitchen clicked and hummed to life. "Have you been sitting in the dark this whole time?"
Silence. Minato took a moment to just look at her, his eyebrows furrowed across his forehead in confusion. Her own face was as blank as stone, her unfocused eyes burrowing an unseen hole in the table before her.
"No."
He cracked a small smile. "Then why are you?"
Kushina blinked, her eyes moving up to look out the window above their sink, an almost bored frown on her face. "Oh. It wasn't dark when I sat down."
Minato frowned, making his way towards the chair next to his wife. The sound of the wooden legs grinding on the tile floor made him wince slightly, but he ignored it and settled down in it, steepling his hands together across the tabletop before him.
"Okay. What's wrong?"
Up close, he could see just how fatigued Kushina looked. Massive bags sat under her eyes, hung across her cheeks from one side of her face to the other. Her normally fiery violet eyes were now a dull grey, still unmoved from the kitchen table. Minato couldn't tell if it was because of the artificial light in the room, or if it was because of something… else.
When she didn't answer in her usual upbeat, fiery spirit – either in excitement or in rage – Minato began to grow more and more nervous.
So he coped with it how he normally did – by changing the subject.
"That missing-nin Naruto and his son ended up escaping earlier today," he noted absently, his hands now cupping one another, elbows perched upon the edges of the table. "I decided to let them go. Regardless of who they actually hail to, we are both on the same side right now. And there's a chance that the events in the Mist, if true, can lead to a strengthening between our two nations."
When she didn't respond, he continued. "I don't really know what it is they're up to, exactly, but part of me thinks that they're on our side. I don't know why, I just do."
When she still didn't respond, he fought hard to resist dropping to his knees and begging her to explain what was going on. Instead, he began to ramble about nothing in particular, his mind frantically trying to fill the gaps in between his thoughts, lest his anxiety take root there instead.
"You know, I think Jiraiya is about to start work on his next novel! I keep trying to get him to write something similar to "Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi", but he's not having any of it. In fact, he seems pretty adamant about the fact that his… ehm… adult literature sells more. I'm not so sure, though."
He trailed off, not exactly sure where it was he was going in the first place. Instead of more words, a small sigh slipped past his lips, and he moved a hand through his hair, feeling the oily texture between his fingertips that signified a long, tiresome workday.
His eyes closed for a moment as he tried to compose himself; when they opened, he turned to watch Kushina again.
To his surprise, she was shaking.
It was barely noticeable. But Minato could tell, simply by the way the liquid in her cup rippled ever so slightly between her hands.
He froze, watching her face contorted into some sort of strange amalgamation of all sorts of different expressions, combined into one. It was almost as if she was trying to switch between faces too quickly, to the point where it was impossible to go from one to the other fast enough.
Finally, he had enough. If she was this upset, this angry, it was only making things worse for her to try diversionary tactics.
He opened his mouth, and blurted the first thing that came to mind.
"I'm sorry!"
"Minato, I'm sorry!"
They both froze.
Kushina's face was now level with his, tear-brimmed eyes staring into his face with a look of guilt and shame and some other unexplainable expression that shook Minato to the bone with guilt of his own.
"You? You're sorry?" Minato said, mouth agast.
"I've… I've been selfish," she began, talking quickly, as if she was afraid her throat would close up before she had the chance to say what she wanted to say. "You have this new job, and so much more responsibility now than you ever did before, and I'm being selfish. You can't… you can't just put me on a pedestal above everyone else!" She reached up and wiped her eyes, sniffling. "I was upset at you first, but now I'm just upset at myself, y'know."
Minato blinked. "What? No! If anything, it's me who should be sorry! I… I blew you off earlier… and that was a mistake. A big mistake."
He winced as the memory flashed through his mind.
"Minato, I'm pregnant."
Minato froze, all of his thoughts of Naruto and Boruto evaporating from his mind in an instant. With just three words, she had managed to steal his complete attention – and for a Kage, very little had the power over him to do that.
"I… I…"
Kushina just smiled, brushing the hospital gown over her stomach flat. "The doctors say it's too early to tell, but… I think it's a boy."
"You mean…"
"Yes. You're going to be a father, Minato."
"I'm… I'm going to be a father?"
Kushina just smiled.
A huge smile burst across Minato's face, and he let out a sharp laugh. "I'm going to be a father!"
He swept her up in a massive hug, repeating the same thing over and over again as he twirled her around the room.
"I'm gonna be a dad, I'm gonna be a dad, I'm gonna be a dad-"
"Minato, put me down or I'm gonna end up going through the wall!"
The Fourth froze, then grinned sheepishly. When Kushina returned to her feet, she put her hands on her hips to chastise him, but in the end just shook her head and sighed, looking down at her as-yet-distended belly.
"This… this is great," Minato said, smile still on his face, as he paced across the room. "We've gotta go get baby stuff, and pick out a room in the house… and figure out what color to paint it! And…"
He froze, his grin faltering. "And… and we've got to keep him safe."
"Minato?" Kushina asked, eyebrows raised at the sudden change of thought.
"I've… I've got to go take care of this," Minato said carefully, the smile returning – although slightly more strained now than before. "I promise we will talk about this when I get home tonight. But… but if I don't figure out what's going on, and fast… people might be seriously hurt."
Kushina blinked, and opened her mouth to say something, before letting a strained sigh escape her lips. "Okay. Go be the Hokage," she said quietly, nodding towards the door.
Minato hesitated for a moment after seeing the look in his wife's eyes. He nodded once, disappearing in a flicker of yellow.
"You can't just blow off the village, though, Minato!" Kushina said suddenly, eyes wild and full of worry. "They picked you for a reason! Don't try and prioritize me over the rest of the Leaf!"
"But Kushina-"
"There will come a point," Kushina began, suddenly very serious, her eyes sharp and commanding, "Where you have to decide what's more important – us," she rubbed her stomach gingerly, "Or the Hidden Leaf. Something will happen, I know it will – and I know you know as well. Something will happen, and you'll have to make a decision." She reached across the table, and took his hand in his, squeezing tightly. "I'm here to tell you that you don't have to make it alone."
Minato blinked, a frown on his face. "What? Kushina, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you should never have to worry about whose side I'm on, Minato," she said with finality. "I was stubborn and selfish today, but that won't happen again. I promise. There are more important things."
"Than what? You? The baby?" Minato asked. "No. I won't have it. If it comes down to it… I'm not going to make the decision. I'm going to find a way to save both you and the village."
"Minato-"
"There's always a way!" he said, squeezing her hand back. "There's always a way. Never give up hope. That's what Jiraiya-sensei always says, at least." He smiled at her, eyes twinkling with adoration. "I honestly can't believe you're already thinking about that sort of thing."
"What else can I do, y'know?" Kushina said, quieter this time, her eyes tracing the stains of tea ringing the interior of her mug. "I'm gonna be a mom. It's kind of my job to worry."
Minato didn't have to say anything. Nor did Kushina have to respond. They just sat there, holding hands, the low hum of the kitchen light above them competing with the wind outside for auditory superiority.
"When's your due date?" Minato quietly asked, as he rubbed circles on her hand with his thumb.
Kushina smiled, leaning forward a bit in her chair. "October tenth."
Minato sighed, the bags under his eyes deepening every moment. "That's… not very far away," he admitted with a small chuckle. "It'll be here before we know it."
"A little less than eight months, yeah," Kushina said, her voice giving the impression that she wasn't believing what she was hearing. "It's going to be crazy."
"And exciting," Minato added.
"And amazing," Kushina sighed.
Another moment of silence. Then, Minato had a thought – something he hadn't really thought of until just then. "Hey… Kushina?"
"Yeah?"
"I think we should pick a different name."
The redhead blinked. "Huh? Why?"
Minato sighed, running his free hand across his face and through his hair. "Because… because I get a bad vibe from the other Naruto. The one that showed up yesterday. I don't usually buy into these sorts of things, but…" he frowned. "I get a bad feeling from all of this. They showed up the same day we decide on a name, and one of them has the same one as the one we picked?"
Kushina laughed, the sound of her voice echoing off the walls and through the house, and Minato decompressed as it rattled around his ribcage, poking and prodding at his troubled heart, little by little, before it finally sighed and gave in to peace.
"Okay, fine. Let's change it, then. What do you want to change it to? I think Menma still works, if you're game."
Minato raised an eyebrow. "Since when are you so saged about all of this? Weren't you really worried about what our baby would be named yesterday?"
Kushina shrugged. "Nah, not really. Not anymore, at least. I've had one hell of a week. I don't think much more could surprise me."
If she had been in her mindscape at that moment, she would've seen the Nine-Tails smirk as he slept, curled in a ball around the shackle bounded to his leg.
"How long is this supposed to take? It's been hours!"
Boruto dragged out the last syllable with every last fiber of strength his waning self control could wrestle together, flopping onto his back with a very petulant huff.
Naruto sighed with a smile, cracking open an eye to watch his son writhe around in the boat.
It was true; they had sailed all through the night and into the morning. Naruto didn't need a watch that it was now mid-afternoon, the day after they had… picked up Hiashi and Hoheto.
"What are you sighing about?!" Boruto lurched to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at his father. "You knew this would happen, didn't you!"
Naruto just raised an eyebrow. "I never said that the journey to Mist would be a fast one." With another sigh – once again loud enough to the point where he was absolutely sure that Boruto could hear – he hoisted himself up from the floor of their small hired boat to look out over the edge and towards the blue-rimmed horizon.
"We aren't going very fast because we're using an ocean current to move," Naruto explained evenly. "Unless you'd like to grab an oar and start paddling, we're stuck at this pace. So calm down."
Boruto blanched at the idea of having to row. Their boat wasn't all that impressive in size – it was probably no more than twenty feet long and eight feet wide, with a sailless mast that jutted from the craft's center column. Still, having to push not only the boat but its four passengers, even with the assistance of chakra, would be mind-numbingly terrible.
"Well what are we supposed to do now, then? We've already been on this thing for hours," Boruto grumbled, before tossing himself down onto one of the wooden benches that lined the outer wall of the boat, watching as the water lapped up against the outer hull. "We've got all this time to kill…"
Naruto could tell what the boy was thinking just by looking at the way his eyebrows would alternate between attacking one another across his forehead, and retreating up and into his hairline. As such, he understood the tumultuous battle of wills going on within Boruto's mind… purely because the same thoughts were running through his.
This was the first chance they'd had since arriving in the past to actually sit and think. Every other event that had transpired, for better or for worse, had led immediately to the next, and the next, and so on – leaving very little room for debilitation.
Naruto knew all too well the feeling of investing all of one's mental energy for one task and one task only, and the fallout that occurred once the rest of his mind would catch up to him once he completed it. It was almost like an instinctual, animalistic trait – being able to completely disregard the emotional, questioning side of the mind when it really mattered.
But now… now, they had all the time in the world.
And the events of the last few days had begun to bombard Boruto with wave after wave of "what if"s and "could have been"s.
Then, the implications of their disappearance tiptoed into Naruto's mind with all the subtlety of a drunken elephant. If they were here, what was going on in their timeline? What would happen when the world found out that they were missing… if they were missing at all?
An unsettling thought surfaced.
What if there was no coming back? What if Naruto and his son were essentially just clones – no longer tied to the original?
Naruto knew all too well how clones worked, and the thought that he might no longer be the him he expected himself to be…
What if they had no home to return to? Or, more accurately… what if another version of them already occupied that space?
What of his wife? What of Himawari? What of his job, the village, the shinobi world as a whole?
Of Gaara, of Killer B, of Kakashi, of Tsunade, of Sakura and of Sasuke… of his entire life?
As quickly as before, another wave of nauseous panic washed over Naruto, as he debilitated just what it was they were planning… how they were expecting to get home.
What they had discussed in his seal room… their grand plan, so to speak – was only as solid as the events of the next two days. One deviance and it would all fall to pieces. And Naruto didn't have to have an IQ similar to Shikamaru's to understand just how risky such a plan could be.
Still. The Seventh Hokage didn't get to be the Seventh Hokage for nothing – a certain degree of luck was almost required for the job.
And there it was – the blossoming flower of hope that Naruto clung to time and time again, without fail. Even now, the bud bloomed, warming his heart and calming his aching, encumbered mind.
All that was left now was his luck. And he desperately hoped it had yet to run dry.
Naruto sighed as he ran his hand through his hair, his outward appearance unchanged after years of village leadership and the necessity of calmness under pressure. "Hey. Boruto."
The boy's electric blue eyes shot up immediately, probing him like a searchlight the moment he heard his name called. "Yeah?"
Naruto smiled faintly. "Want to train a bit? Since we've got nothing better to do, y'know…"
Boruto ignited like a miniature sun. "Finally! It's about time!"
But Naruto could easily see past the indignance to the pure relief that ran through his veins, now that he was occupied again.
Like father, like son.
"Alright then, come here," Naruto gestured to the seat next to him, subtly casting a glance to where Hiashi and Hoheto slept on the other side of the boat. "And be quiet. We don't want to wake them up."
He knew they weren't sleeping. In fact, he was pretty certain that Hiashi was watching them, Byakugan active, even though they were turned the other way.
Boruto opened his mouth to reply in the affirmative, then remembered what his father had just told him and snapped it shut with an audible click. Instead, he just nodded his head violently, a bright smile burgeoning across his face.
"What do you wanna do?" he whispered. "We can practice shuriken, or kunai… or shadow clones! I can still only make four, y'know, but I think if I just tried a little bit harder-"
"No," Naruto stated plainly, looking down at his son with a small frown. "I want you to show me your Rasengan."
The smile on Boruto's face evaporated like a water droplet on a hotplate. "M-my what?"
"Don't think I haven't forgotten about what happened in your fight during the Exams," Naruto said evenly. "You disobeyed one of my direct instructions, and for that you were disqualified from the event. That hasn't changed. All of… this…" He gesticulated to the water all around them as it slowly meandered past, "…aside, you are still in trouble." He sighed, thinking for a moment, before nodding his head in self-agreeance and continued. "Still, despite that… you might need to use it sooner rather than later. And I want to make sure you're prepared. So show me your Rasengan."
With a gulp, Boruto nodded, sticking out his hand. His face morphed from one of anxiety to one of intense concentration, his eyebrows colliding across his forehead. Finally, after a moment of tense silence, the telltale whistle of a birthed Rasengan whirling to life in the palm of his hand echoed off the surface of the water, the front end of the boat radiating a faint blue glow.
He held it up in front of him as it swirled madly, and Naruto leaned in to get a closer look, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized it for error.
Then, he simply nodded. "Alright. That's enough, then."
Boruto let the jutsu fizzle out, blinking in surprise. "That's it?"
"Yeah," Naruto shrugged with a small smile. "I just needed to see how far you got without my help."
"You're… you're not mad at me?"
"Of course I'm angry with you, Boruto," Naruto said, one eyebrow raised. "You did something incredibly dangerous, trying to use the Rasengan before you've properly mastered it. And you could have been hurt. Badly."
"But I was just-"
"No buts," Naruto said with a stern look. When it became obvious that Boruto was still not getting it, he raised his own hand and began to channel chakra through it, in a way that he had done countless times before.
"Watch," he instructed, before proceeding through the steps as slowly as he could. The air above his hand began to ripple from the overabundance of energy, glowing a bright blue glow. Then, the currents of chakra started to swirl and rotate, taking a rough spherical shape that spat and flashed blue from all sides.
With another burst of chakra, the sphere became denser and denser, before it was a purely spherical ball, humming with power. The whole thing spun wildly in one direction, rotating like a planet between a pair of blond suns.
Bright, blue, brilliant.
Incomplete.
"This is where you're at right now," Naruto stated. "When I learned this jutsu, it was taught to me in three steps. The first was generating enough chakra to actually form the thing. The next was to swirl it into a sphere, like this." He nodded down at his outstretched hand. "At first, I had the same thought you did. It's a sphere like it's supposed to be, and it can do a lot of damage, so why bother learning the rest, right?"
As if to prove his point, the Rasengan began to fluctuate wildly, becoming oblong along its equator, the quiet hum replaced with a worrisome hiss.
"You see? This form of Rasengan is incredibly unstable. A proper Rasengan is supposed to be self-sustaining, to the point where you don't have to do anything other than hold and guide it wherever you want it to go."
Boruto nodded. "Yeah…?"
"But this Rasengan…" Naruto looked down at his palm again, as the chakra began to violently spit out in different directions. "This Rasengan cannot do that. It's deceptive, because it can sustain itself for a few minutes, but there's also the chance that it will destabilize before then-"
Right on cue, the Rasengan shattered into a bright ball of light. The explosion rocked the boat sideways, spewing water across the bow and into the boat, misting the passengers with a spray of salty seawater. Naruto just barely was able to divert it away from them as the ricochet of energy reverberated through his arm, bouncing between the two Uzumaki like a tuning fork.
"You see?" Naruto said, wincing when he realized that the explosion may have been more… explosive than intended. "And that was only at tenth of the normal size I make them."
Boruto blinked. "A t-tenth?"
"Yeah," Naruto said knowingly. "And you've been trying to do it at full power."
Eyes wide as saucers, Boruto sat down beside his father, looking down at the wooden floor of the boat as trapped water sloshed back and forth from the sea's movements.
"Learn the third step," Naruto said pointedly, grasping his son's shoulder with his hand. "Compression and counterflow. Get that down, and the Rasengan will never-"
Naruto stumbled. A wheezing breath squeaked from his mouth instead of the rest of his sentence, his eyes wide in surprise.
Boruto turned in shock, watching as his father sank to his knees before him. "Dad?"
"That's Two and Five," Naruto coughed, grabbing at the skin under his shirt. "Damn, I really wish they would time things out better…"
"What's wrong?" a voice suddenly called from beside them. "Naruto?"
The one-armed man simply sighed, more from exhaustion than from agitation. He looked up to where Hiashi stood, arms crossed and eyes both concerned and highly skeptical, and began to work his way through the motions of standing upright once again.
"Just a hiccup in my plans," Naruto said carefully, his breath still ragged. "It shouldn't happen again – at least, not for a while."
Hiashi narrowed his eyes, but otherwise said nothing.
"What were you guys doing?" came a small voice from beside Hiashi, and Boruto turned to meet the eyes of the boy he had held at knifepoint the previous day.
"Uhh, well…" Boruto began, obviously not sure whether or not it was okay to explain what it was they had been doing.
"We were gonna train a bit," Naruto smiled down at the boy, and he sweeped his arm forward in a welcoming gesture. "You should join us. It helps keep your mind occupied, trust me."
Hoheto just blinked, before looking up at Hiashi as if for permission, before slowly making his way over to where Boruto was sitting.
Boruto and Hoheto just stared at each other for a moment, the Hyuuga boy beginning to show signs of apprehension.
Then, in trademark Uzumaki fashion, Boruto blurted out a question without any consideration one way or the other.
"What's your name again?"
Hoheto jumped at the sound, before blinking a few times and smiling sheepishly. "Umm… my name is Hoheto Hyuuga. I am a genin from the Hidden Leaf Village, currently under the tutelage of jounin and clan leader Hiashi Hyuuga." His eyes glanced over towards Hiashi for a split second, before returning to Boruto. "I'm… this is my first mission outside of the village."
Much to Hoheto's evident surprise, Boruto smiled. "Oh, cool! Yeah, this is my first mission outside of the village, too. My dad's too much of a hardass to ever let me out."
"I'm right here, you know," Naruto deadpanned, leaning back as he watched the boys interact – Boruto giving him a dirty look before he dragged Hoheto off to the other side of the boat, as far from the two adults as the confined space allowed. Even better for the mind in tumultuous situations was friendship, and Naruto didn't realize it at first, but Hoheto may have been a blessing in disguise. Hiashi was necessary for the plan, but Hoheto was an outlier – an unexpected addition.
Naruto remembered little of the man from their time – he was one of the many Hyuuga the Leaf sent to the front lines during the Fourth Shinobi War, and Naruto hadn't stayed in one place for much longer than five minutes throughout the entire two-day affair. But when he did the math, it made sense – Hoheto was around 27 at the time of the war, and therefore must have been around Boruto's age at his birth.
In their time, Hoheto had retired from military service shortly after the war in order to open a tea shop on the far west corner of the village – one that did reasonably well, if memory served. He had a family with a nondescript civilian woman a few years his junior, and the man was exceptionally happy, if Naruto's occasional business was anything to go off of.
Still, he wasn't even sure if he was thinking of Hoheto, or someone else. It had been a long time since the last time he had seen the Hyuuga jounin.
'When I get back, I need to make an effort to get to know him better,' Naruto thought to himself bemusedly.
Yet another reason to keep moving forward. If they didn't return to the future sooner rather than later, then there was no telling what kind of repercussions could spiral out of control.
Then again, there was no telling what had already spiraled out of control.
Hoheto and Boruto continued chatting, Hoheto warming up to the boy as their conversation unfolded into discussions of 'cool jutsu' and whatever hobbies they both fancied. It was a heartwarming sight – even though they were both, intrinsically, from entirely different eras of the Leaf, common ground could always be found between future friends. It's what Naruto cherished the most about his home – and why he was so proud that his son was able to bridge the gap… perhaps not over distance in this case, but over time.
Not even Naruto could lay claim to that feat.
"Amusing, aren't they?"
Naruto was brought back out of his reverie by Hiashi's quiet question, as the man took the seat next to him - respectably far away, of course. Naruto just smiled and turned to look back at his son and Hoheto as they chatted. "Yeah."
Hiashi gave a very smile smile in response, before they settled into a comfortable silence.
"He looks up to you tremendously, you know."
Naruto blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"Even I can see it." Hiashi turned his silverescent eyes back to Naruto's. "Even though I cannot say I am the most… receptive to emotion. That is more of my brother's strong suit."
Naruto gave a single, short chuckle in response.
"Still," Hiashi continued, eyes returning to the two boys as they scrutinized Hoheto's kunai pouch, "He holds quite a bit of self-doubt within himself. Most likely due to the fact that you are his father, and others look up to you as well – not just Boruto."
Naruto blinked once. "I'm sorry?"
"I suspect the reason he acts the way he does is because he wants your attention. I take it you are a busy man?"
"I… I'm… yeah, I suppose you could say that." Naruto frowned, raising an eyebrow. "But how did you know? Is it really that painfully obvious?"
"Because I did the same thing to my father when I was his age… although, perhaps not as flagrantly," Hiashi replied smoothly, still staring forward. "I could tell the moment his eyes lit up when you offered to train him. He treasures your company – tremendously so."
The Hyuuga sighed, running his hands across his clothes to smooth them out. "Now, I cannot say I am an expert in parenting in the slightest. My betrothed and I certainly plan on having children… but not until after I am married."
He turned to look at Naruto again. "But I can tell you as a son, firsthand, that he loves you. And you love him. But please, spend some time with him – outside of missions, or ninja work. I know not where you came from, or where your allegiances really lie, but I trust in the fact that you are intelligent and thoughtful and can make an informed decision. Your son will be all the better for it, I can assure you of that."
Naruto was silent for a moment – mostly in shock. This Hiashi was much more forthcoming with his advice, and was simply more interactive in general. The man had become jaded and reclusive after the death of his wife, and only after decades of Hinata's constant nurturing was he able to climb back up the wall of his depressive slump and return to a state somewhat similar to how he was before everything began. At least, that was what Hinata had said.
And after the birth of his grandchildren, he opened up even more; even Naruto, with his limited exposure to his father-in-law before marrying the man's daughter, could see the change.
But he'd never seen Hiashi at his most pure.
Naruto cleared his throat, still surprised at how forward the Hyuuga was. "I… Uhh… Thanks."
Hiashi just nodded once, still staring across the boat. "What are you training him?"
The sudden shift of topics, however, Naruto was all too familiar with. The Hyuuga, even his own wife up to a certain extent, preferred to get right to the middle of things as soon as possible.
'And yet they're fantastic politicians,' Naruto mused to himself with a mental shake of his head.
"Well… I guess you could call it a chakra control exercise," Naruto said carefully. Although he trusted Hiashi more than almost anyone else in this timeline, he was still hesitant to reveal too much about himself; trust was, after all, a two-way street.
"A chakra control exercise that happens to look strikingly… familiar?" Hiashi asked, more of a statement than a question… but judging from the way he left it hanging in the air between them, Naruto was able to ascertain the man was subtly probing him.
'Ahh. So Hiashi knew about the Rasengan, then.'
"Who are you?" Hiashi suddenly asked, turning and narrowing his eyes at Naruto. "And I mean who you really are. I know your first name, and that you are unsettlingly… kind, considering the amount of stress Lord Fourth put into stating you are not to be trusted. You knew my name, considering I have never seen you before, nor you me." He looked away for a second. "You know of the weakness present within the Byakugan, as well as much, much more than someone like you should. Something does not add up here… and I intend to get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later."
Naruto blinked once, then twice.
Then, he smiled, letting out a sharp chuckle. "Well alright then, have at it. I'm interested to see what you find."
Hiashi frowned, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.
But, to Naruto's surprise, he didn't anger. He just sighed.
"As am I."
A blanket of somewhat tense silence settled over the two for what seemed like hours, but in all actuality was most likely no more than a few seconds. Still, to Naruto, it was an eternity – just what was the man on about?
He decided that the best course of action would be to keep him talking… at least, until Naruto and Hoheto stopped chatting amongst themselves.
"Is that your son?" Naruto asked, knowing full well he wasn't.
Hiashi blinked, then shook his head slowly and methodically. "No, he is not. I am simply giving him some supplemental training before he goes off and partakes in official missions with his genin team."
"Ahh, clan affairs, then."
"I beg your pardon?" Hiashi turned to look at Naruto, his face a sheet of stone.
"You're training him to be a better part of your clan," Naruto clarified. "You must think highly of him."
"He is a Hyuuga," Hiashi said simply. "He is family."
Naruto just nodded. "I understand." He scratched his neck nonchalantly, hoping to ease the small bit of tension that had descended upon them since they had begun talking. "Still, you could've fooled me." When he saw Hiashi's confusion, he smiled, and continued. "About Hoheto being your son, I mean. The way you coddle him… and with all that advice you were just dishing out… I'd've thought you were some sort of saged old grandfather."
Once again, Hiashi was full of surprises. The man smiled and gave a quiet chuckle. "I suppose. But those days are far, far ahead of me."
Mentally, Naruto smiled a knowing smile. "It'll be sooner than you think, y'know."
Hiashi's froze for a split second, but the moment passed as soon as it had come. "Oh, I'm well aware of that. My wife-to-be and I are quite excited to start trying for a proper family soon."
"Oh, that's good to hear!" Naruto said with a grin. "Trust me, they're not all as good-natured as Hoheto over there. From what I've seen of the boy, he's a fantastic kid." He nodded towards where Boruto was now standing, working through a set of sloppy kata that the boat seemed hell-bent on preventing with all of its jostling. "That one… he's got a heart of fire, I can tell you that much." He smiled. "Reminds me of me when I was his age, actually. His mother always says so."
Hiashi smiled and nodded. "Indeed. Even without the physical similarities, he is your spitting image."
Naruto scoffed. "Believe it or not, I see a lot more of his mother in him than me. His will, his heart, his kindness… that kind of thing. That was all her."
Hiashi nodded absentmindedly. "I'm sure she is a magnificent kunoichi."
Naruto raised a knowing eyebrow. "And how are you so sure she is a ninja?"
"I didn't," Hiashi chuckled. "That one was an educated guess."
"Hey! Dad!" Boruto suddenly shouted, trying to run to the other side of the boat to his father against the rocking of the boat beneath him. "Guess what!"
"What's that?"
"Hoheto's really good at the Gentle Fist!" he said excitedly, eyes ablaze with enthusiasm. "And he can already see almost fifty yards with the Byakugan!" He frowned then, puffing out his chest. "But I still bet that Himawari can see farther."
As soon as he had said it, Boruto and Naruto both cringed.
That was a slipup that was sure to come back and bite them in their asses.
"Himawari?"
And it would seem that it would happen sooner rather than later.
Boruto smiled a nervous smile. "Oh… eh, well, she's my sister, see… and she can see really well… but I bet it's nothing like the Byakugan, y'know! Super different stuff-"
"She's got good eyesight," Naruto interjected. "That's all."
Hiashi narrowed his eyes. "I just asked who she was."
Naruto paled. "Oh. Well, it's true. She's got good eyesight."
Silence overtook the four shinobi, and they simply stood in a circle in the middle of the boat in an awkward haze.
Then, suddenly, the air began to grow hazy, the horizon disappearing behind a layer of thick fog. Several more moments passed, and their ship began to appear as if it was plunging headfirst into a beached cloud.
"Whoa…" Hoheto whispered. "That mist…"
"It came out of nowhere," Boruto completed.
"That's because it's manmade," Naruto said, looking up at the foggy sky. "At least, I think it is."
"It is," Hiashi confirmed, his Byakugan blaring across his face. "I can see the subtle traces of chakra in the mist."
"Interesting," Naruto muttered to himself. "I don't remember this from the first time I was here."
The boat lurched beneath them, the current harshly changing directions underneath the water. The waves began to pull the boat more to the right, and the mist kept getting thicker…
"I believe it is a seal that we triggered," Hiashi said calmly, looking around. "Regardless, it is incredibly disorienting. I cannot see very far ahead."
The sound of croaking frogs and waves lapping against shorelines whispered through the air before them, the sea otherwise completely silent. It was incredibly foreboding… even Naruto could sense Kurama stirring inside of his gut.
Something was wrong here.
The mist began to thicken further, and tall, looming spires of black silhouetted against the backdrop like smudges in a painting.
The Hidden Mist Village.
They had arrived.
The place was as deserted as it sounded.
Not a soul moved through the streets, no children playing with one another between the buildings as shopkeepers and civilians made their way across the village. No stalls were set up, or vendors to tend them, and the windows and shutters were all drawn in and secured firmly to the buildings that lined the road leading from the docks to the village proper.
It looked like a complete ghost town, and it unnerved Boruto to no end.
"Isn't this place supposed to be huge?" he asked quietly, as he walked between his father and his grandfather – well, the man that would become his grandfather.
It was strange, seeing his mother's father younger than she was in his own time. Boruto was used to the man being some sort of ever-present figure of class and dignity, considering the man was nothing short of royalty. Being the father-in-law of a Kage, let alone a retired clan leader, was certain to turn heads. But now, as a young jounin, Boruto's image of the man as some kind of omnipotent sage had shattered like a sheet of glass.
"It is," Naruto said. "But it's mostly hidden behind the fog right now."
"Something seems amiss here," Hiashi said with a frown, turning from building to building to check for chakra signatures. "I can see people inside the houses, but they aren't moving."
Naruto froze midstep, the blood draining from his face. "Are you saying they're dead?"
"No," Hiashi replied smoothly. "They look as if they are hiding from something. As to what that 'something' is, I have no idea."
Naruto took a deep breath and nodded, turning back to the long, flowing streets with narrowed eyes. That meant that the villagers were still all here… they were just locked up in their homes.
"Wait," Hiashi murmured, pointing towards a side street that went down a small hill. "There is a building down there that is still open. Whoever is inside is moving around quite a bit."
"Let's check it out," Naruto decided, steering the group down the alleyway.
When they arrived at the place that Hiashi had pointed out, Naruto breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Good. Maybe she'll know what's going on."
The small corner market had all but one of its shutters closed and latched tight, but the door was open, and Naruto could see the figure of a short and stout old woman moving around behind the counter, storing things away in preparation to close down like everyone else, it seemed.
They made their way through the door, which opened easily. A bell chimed as they crossed the threshold, and the woman froze, her wrinkled eyes darting up from the rows of cans she was placing behind the counter.
"Who are you?" she stated quickly, moving her hands under the counter as if she was looking for something.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Hiashi warned, and the woman froze, turning to glare in the impassive Hyuuga's direction. From the looks of it, the woman had been searching for a weapon, then.
"We don't mean you any harm," Naruto said gently, as he held his hand out as a peace offering. "We're just travelers making our way through the village, and we noticed everyone was gone. Do you know what's going on?"
The woman's eyes snapped to him, and she glared holes in his face for several long minutes… before she sighed and dropped forward, her face sinking as she did so. "Always running behind. Always. It never fails to get me into trouble, too."
"I… I'm sorry?"
"You shouldn't be here," she stated simply, eyes narrowed. "The village is under lockdown. The Mizukage himself made the decree just a few short hours ago."
Naruto blinked in surprise. "Umm… the Mizukage?"
He knew that the man should have been unconscious, if his previous encounters with the jinchuuriki of this world were anything to go by. It was why they were here, after all. So he couldn't possibly have made the law.
The woman frowned at him, as if she was agitated by the simple fact he didn't know what was going on. "Yes. You know, our village leader? Lord Fifth proclaimed that a mandatory curfew is to be enforced for the next three days. Some say it's to prevent looting and rioting, but I say it's all just a show. A power play, if you know what I mean. Everyone knows the looting happens anyway."
"Umm… I'm afraid I don't," Naruto said with a small smile. "Looting? Rioting? I must have misheard you."
"Oh, no, it happens every time there's a change in leadership here. I should know, I've lived through almost all of them." The woman sighed, her eyes shifting down to the floorboards in thought. "It happened from the First and Second, then the Second and Third, and especially from the Third to the Fourth. Three council members were hanged that weekend." She frowned, looking back up into Naruto's eyes. "And it'll happen again now that the Fifth's in charge. All this curfew nonsense will serve to do is give the robbers a chance to organize themselves." She gestured to the piles of food and clothing that were still sticking out of boxes, stacked along the walls, ready to be moved somewhere safer. "If all of this isn't stored away by that point, I'm through."
"I'm sorry," Naruto blurted, "Did you just say the Fifth? Isn't the Mist currently under the reign of the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura?"
The woman froze, giving Naruto a strange look. Then, she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "That's old hat, boy. Yagura has been gone for days now. The Fifth took control yesterday evening." She moved towards the boxes again, several cans of tomatoes in her hands. "Hence why I suggest you and your…" she eyed the group of Leaf shinobi warily, "…strange family ought to leave. Immediately. Things are about to get really nasty."
Naruto mentally noted that the lady was correct - technically, they were all family. Some by quite the extension, others by marriages that had yet to exist, but family nonetheless.
"Where is the Mizukage at now?" Naruto said carefully, watching as the woman picked a box up and hoisted it along towards the back room.
She froze at the question, narrowing her eyes again. "What business does a group of travelers have with the Mizukage? And why do you refuse to listen to me and leave, now that you still have the chance?"
"Ma'am," Hiashi said, bowing slightly in respect for joining the conversation. "If it isn't the same to you, we simply would like to know where not to be. In the event of an… incident¸ of course."
The woman paused, thinking to herself carefully, before she sighed in acceptance. "Alright. I suppose that's understandable. The Mizukage's Tower is the large, flat building in the center of the valley. It's the one built on top of the aqueducts. Hard to miss." She disappeared behind the back door for a moment, then returned empty-handed.
"The best place to go in order to leave is the southern shipping route," the woman said. "Hardly anyone uses it this time of year. The odds of pirates or bandits isn't quite as high that way." She began to herd them towards the door, pausing the draw in the last remaining shutter, before lowering a thick slab of wood behind it to keep it from moving. "Now go. Tell no one you spoke to me."
She ushered them all out the door, leaning over and plucking the sign that said "Baba's General Goods" from the frame beside it, making her way back in.
Naruto turned around as she began to close the door behind them. "Thank you," he said simply with a nod of his head, and she simply grunted in response and clicked the door shut.
They stood outside of the building for a few moments, listening as they heard the sound of hammering echo from within the store. Finally, Naruto began to move, his eyes tracing the horizon until they fell upon the large building in the center of the village.
"We're… we're not leaving, right, dad?" Boruto asked, taking a look around himself. "That old lady thought we were gonna leave."
"No," Naruto confirmed, narrowing his eyes at the Mizukage Tower. "No. Something is definitely wrong here. It seems like there was some sort of coup while Yagura was unconscious." He started walking again, slowly but confidently.
Boruto just nodded absentmindedly, his attention elsewhere at the moment. The village was simply too amazing – a completely different change of pace from the everyday monotony of the Leaf village.
Well, his Leaf village, at least.
He let his eyes wander across the facades of the buildings, up the strange slanted, round rooftops, across the asymmetric gutters that ran down towards the ground, rust blossoming at the joints where the frame met the building's outer wall.
They passed a few more streets, which ducked off behind the strange buildings off to some unseen final destination. The dark alleyways wound their way through the village, running parallel to the main road they were currently walking down, occasionally opening back out into the street every few blocks.
Boruto watched them pass him by absentmindedly, his mind drifting to thoughts of how anyone could walk down such a small path. Just as he was about to turn back ahead again to reassure himself that they were going the right direction, he saw it.
He froze, eyes wide as he did a double-take.
Just as soon as he had seen the row of sharp, pearl-white teeth in the shadows of one of the alleyways, they were gone again.
Boruto stopped walking, his eyes narrowing at the slit between the buildings.
He had seen something. He was sure of it. The image was simply too sharp in his mind to ignore.
With one hand, he reached down into his kunai pouch, but frowned when he felt none left. 'They must've fallen out when we were running everywhere,' Boruto groaned mentally. 'Aww, man, Mom's gonna kill me.'
He dipped his hand further down into the holster, grabbing the next best thing – a pair of shuriken. Brandishing them between his knuckles, he began to creep forward, the darkness of the alley seemingly growing colder… more menacing with every step…
"Boruto?"
It took everything the boy had not to yelp when he felt a hand on his shoulder, before he swiveled around to look up at his father, heart thundering in his chest. "Jeez… you scared the crap out of me…"
"Yeah, and you scared me too," Naruto said with a frown. "We were already three streets over when I realized you weren't with us anymore."
Seeing the way his son gave the alleyway sidelong glances every moment or so, Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Boruto? What's wrong?"
"I saw something," Boruto muttered, turning to look back again. "Down there."
"What was it?"
"A row of teeth. Like… like a shark's."
When his father didn't respond immediately, he turned around again, ready to make a retort about how he knew he had seen what he had seen, and that Naruto should believe him.
When he saw how wide Naruto's eyes had gotten, his blood ran cold.
"Dad?" he asked in a small voice.
The blond man blinked, looking down at Boruto with an air of seriousness that scared him a little, if he was honest.
Then, Naruto dipped past his cloak, looking for something in the folds of his clothing.
"Boruto," he said evenly. "You cannot leave my sight. You understand me? If you so much as wander around the corner and I'm not there, you'll die."
The genin's heart stopped for a moment. "W-what? Wait, seriously?"
"Here. Take this." Naruto pulled his hand out of the cloak, holding the object out for his son to take.
Boruto froze. "Dad? Are you sure?"
"He gave it to us for a reason," Naruto said seriously, as Boruto reached up with trembling hands to grab the three-pronged kunai from his father's grasp. "If you're in trouble – at all – throw it on the ground. Do you understand me?"
Boruto's mouth flapped open and closed repeatedly, obviously at a loss for words.
"Do you understand me?" Naruto repeated, clasping his son's shoulder for emphasis. "This isn't a joke anymore, Boruto. Things might get ugly. I need to make sure you'll listen to me."
"Y-yeah. Yeah, dad, I understand," Boruto said quietly, eyes still staring down at the kunai in his hands.
The Fourth Hokage. The most feared S-Ranked ninja of the post-Third-War era.
If his father found it necessary to call him for help…
Boruto gulped.
Things were about to get ugly, indeed.
The front doors of the Kage's Tower creaked open with a sense of finality, the rusty hinges moaning under the motion.
The interior of the building was completely devoid of people – the only things occupying the entry room were ceremonial paintings and other strange art sculptures that sat on pedestals lining the walls. Several long, winding vines grew in the corners, the plants stretching out across the walls and along the baseboards. A front desk, dusty from apparent lack of use sat in the corner, a stack of browning papers held in place by an old, rusty kunai on its surface. A certain musty smell wafted through the air, and from where Boruto could see light peeking in past drawn shutters down the halls that stretched out from the room they were currently standing in, dust particles drifted through the air like clouds.
"This place is creepy," he said as the door hissed shut behind them, the feeling of dread that reverberated through the air when the latch caught sending chills down his spine.
"It does not look like anyone has been here for a long time," Hiashi agreed, activating his Byakugan and looking up, obviously scanning the upper floors of the facility.
Boruto heard Hoheto gulp beside him. The boy was barely the same age as he was, and it was quite apparent that he was scared out of his mind. To his surprise, Boruto wasn't feeling much, other than mild anxiety in regards to what was bound to happen next. But he knew his didn't have much to worry about. His father was a decent diplomat, considering he had been brokering treaties and battling his way through politics for the past five years. On top of that, he could fight – Boruto knew that for certain now. He'd seen it himself. He even had his grandfather – the Fourth – at his beck and call, should he need him.
Boruto paused, shaking his head with a frown. No. It was unwise to treat a trump card such as the Fourth's sudden appearance in battle as anything more than a gift. Hell, he might not come at all.
Still, he felt safe… secure.
Nothing bad could happen when his dad was around… right?
Hoheto, on the other hand, was not quite in the same boat as he was. Although the boy was extraordinarily talented, he was among a group of people that he wasn't certain he could trust completely – not to the same degree as father and son, at least. Hell, Boruto had held him at knifepoint. That had to be at least somewhat unnerving - even now, the next day.
He took a step to his right and leaned his shoulder into the other boy's, as if to say, 'I've got your back.' When Hoheto jumped and turned to look at him, Boruto said nothing – opting to instead follow his father as he made his way down the hallways towards a set of long, spiraling stairs that ran along the far wall.
Naruto began to take the stairs one by one, each creaking in protest as he moved. The other three shinobi followed close behind, as the tower eased by them, the cobwebbed chandelier above them waving in the dark – almost like it was inviting them forward.
Finally, the stairs gave way to a doorway. Instead of taking precautions to determine the other side of the door was uninhabited like the rest of the Tower, Naruto simply just walked forward and swung the door open, stepping through immediately afterward as if he had places to be. Hesitantly, the others followed behind him in a line, taking a look at their surroundings as they walked.
The room was long and wide, with doors scattered down both sides. The wallpaper was coming undone near the baseboards, the paint faded and chipped. The doors themselves were all shut tightly, the knobs all rusty and decrepit. The wooden flooring underneath them reeked like mildew, and as they walked across the surface, it felt like it would give way at any moment and send them tumbling back down to the bottom floor.
"This place is awful," Boruto mumbled to himself, as they continued down the hall.
Naruto just grunted in agreement from the front of the pack, as they made it to the end of the hall.
One lone door stood before them, just as faded as the others.
Naruto sighed, and grasped the handle, twisting it and walking forward.
The first thing Boruto noticed was the bright light drifting through the row of bay windows that lined the entire room, circling a large, ornate desk and a pair of simple wooden chairs. The room seemed much less musty than the rest of the building, and the lack of dust particles lingering in the beams of light appeared to prove him right.
That's when he realized they were no longer alone.
The chair was swiveled around behind the desk, as if the occupant was looking off into the distance out the rear window. It was like every cheesy bad guy movie Boruto had ever seen – the man sitting in the chair would swivel it around, most likely petting a fluffy white cat, before chaining them all up and maniacally explaining his master plan just before getting beaten by the good guys.
Instead, a man walked out of the shadow of a curtain in the corner, his arms crossed across his chest.
He had an orange mask on his face. One beady red eye shone through the lone hole in the front, girdled by a ring of strange black flames that wrapped up and around the mask's surface, dipping past where the man's long and unkempt jet black hair obscured it from view.
Naruto tensed.
The door slammed shut behind them.
"Well then, this is an interesting surprise," a deep, baritone voice cooed, as he walked across the room. Boruto couldn't see in order to know for sure, but judging by the strange tingling sensation along the back of his neck, the man was scrutinizing them very closely. "I haven't even had the time to change the drapes. Shame to have company when the Tower is in a state like this."
Out of the corner of his eye, Boruto watched as his wide-eyed father stared at the other man. It was obvious that they had met before – perhaps in their time and not this one, but had met nonetheless.
"Where is Yagura?" he asked simply, eyes narrowing. "What did you do to him?"
"Ahh," the masked man sighed, as if something that had been troubling his mind suddenly became clear. "I had expected that the Fourth Mizukage's… assailants would come sooner or later to claim their prize, but not quite so soon." He walked back towards the desk, pulling the chair forward and easing himself down into it respectfully. "Nor did I expect you to bring children. How interesting."
He gestured to the chairs positioned in front of the desk. "Please. Sit."
Naruto didn't move.
The rest of the group, following Naruto's lead, didn't either.
Several moments of silence passed, before the man sighed and lowered his hand. "Yagura was weak. Unexperienced. Easily influenced. It was only natural, then, that the village rose up and rebelled during his moment of weakness."
Naruto narrowed his eyes, and Boruto could tell by the way the man's jaw flexed that he was incredibly frustrated.
"You did this, didn't you."
It wasn't a question.
The masked man simply paused, before he let out a quiet chuckle. "I suppose it was of no use trying to hide that bit of information."
"Where is he, then?"
The man turned his head to look back up at Naruto again, and Boruto could see the way the red eye – wait, was that the Sharingan? – narrowed beyond the mask's socket.
"You know, I don't believe we've met," the man said suddenly, eye still steeled on Naruto.
"Where is he, Tobi?"
Boruto jolted, his eyes flickering to the masked man to his father, then back again. This was Tobi? The one… the one their plans hinged on? The one that had single-handedly almost ended the world? The fallen Uchiha – the Fourth's first lost student?
"Tobi?" the man chuckled. "I don't believe I've ever been called by that name before. Perhaps you are mistaking me for someone else." The mask turned to look out the window, down into the deserted village below. "Regardless, names are of little consequence to me. Titles mean everything in this world."
Silence. Then, he spoke again. "You know, you asked me a question regarding Yagura… I feel it is only fair that I do the same… don't you agree?" He swiveled around again, rising to his feet.
"Where is it? Where is the Three-Tails?"
Boruto watched as his father smirked, a fire in his eyes. "If you want him, you're going to have to go through me." Naruto clenched his hand into a ball. "Now. Tell me."
He took a step forward, and slammed the fist down on the desk. "Where. Is. Yagura."
Tobi just smirked. At least, Boruto assumed he had smirked. He couldn't tell with the mask.
"Aah, and if you want him, you're going to have to go through us."
The door opened behind them.