Hinata stood at the village wall, waiting for Himawari to scale down and drop to the ground. Though the girl was the spiting image of a ten-year-old Hinata, with her short blue black hair, petite build, white eyes, and soft voice, Himawari's personality and ninja skills were bigger than anything Hinata could have dreamed of at that age.

The children remained with Tsunade until about a year ago when the older kunoichi started to become restless again. Akihiro was killed around the same time. Gokurukon and his bandits pursued them for years after they broke from his gang. Despite this, Akihiro remained loyal to Hinata, following her across the lands and back again.

In an attempt to free themselves, Hinata tried to assassinate the bandit lord multiple times after the first time in his hideout, but without the ability to use her dojutsu, he seemed almost immortal… surviving beheadings, burnings, and drowning. As long as even one of his creatures existed at the time of his death, he could revive himself. And the less monsters that he was controlling, the stronger he became. Hinata and Akihiro kept themselves alive only by being a step ahead at all times. But Gokurukon eventually caught up to Akihiro while Hinata was away visiting her children. Oddly enough, after that the bandit lord disappeared for almost a year.

Since the twins were older and had already developed significant skill as shinobi, Hinata decided to take Himawari and Boruto with her on her travels after Lady Tsunade left the isolation of the mountains in the Land of Lightning. But it had not been easy.

For the most part, Himawari listened to Hinata, wanting more then anything to please her mother so she could stay with her and not go back into hiding. But Hinata was not sure how long this would last as she watched her daughter grow stronger. Naruto and Hinata's daughter was trained mainly by Lady Tsunade after leaving Metok and the iron monks, but along the way, she also learned from many other skilled shinobi under the guise of the former hokage's great niece.

At her young age, Himawari had the strength of three men as well as her adopted and biological grandmothers' tempers, and though it skipped a generation, she also inherited her paternal grandfather's speed and was already learning the body flicker technique. By age eight, she was proficient with her byakugan and the gentle fist technique. She had managed to copy Neji Hyuga's nearly 360 visual field. And due to her speed, her skills with taijutsu and weaponry had long surpassed Hinata even with her mokumokuren.

Himawari's twin, Boruto, did not have nearly as diverse a set of skills as his sister. Like Naruto he had the potential for high level ninjutsu, but also like Naruto, he struggled with it. This was not helped by the fact that he had inherited a dojutsu that at times allowed him to cheat.

Despite his ineptitude with almost everything, Boruto's dojutsu kept him at the same level as Himawari as they grew up together. As a result, Himawari found her brother incredibly frustrating, to the point where they had a relatively hostile relationship… most of the time. Hinata felt she spent more time breaking up fights over the last year then anything else.

Boruto's visual prowess gave him the ability to see seconds into the future like with the sharingan, and to manipulate time, slowing it down and speeding it up for a distance around him. This made Himawari's incredible speed useless when fighting him at close range, as he would just slow her down until she was at normal speed and depending on how much control he had that day, sometimes even slower. Since Himawari relied so heavily on her speed, this evened the fight greatly.

The second ability of Boruto's dojutsu allowed him to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of others even from great distances. And not in an illusion but the actual thoughts and feelings of his opponent. He used this to distort Himawari's byakugan and 360 degree sight, which threw her gentle fist technique off balance.

Not being able to use any of her special techniques when fighting her twin, allowed Himawari to hone her basic skills with weapons and taijutsu as well as her strength and strategy. And as she taught them, Lady Tsunade reminded Himawari of this constantly, but the girl still always hated sparring with Boruto anyway.

And Boruto, however, could care less… which pissed Himawari off even more. His only interest was mischief. And his exploits were continuing to get worse.

Once Boruto had a rough location for his victim and had laid eyes on him at least once, he was able to put a thought suggestion in a mind from miles away. This is how he led Sasuke Uchiha to them one day several months ago while they were passing through the Land of Water on the way to the Land of Forests.

Hinata distracted Sasuke by revealing herself to him as Himawari dragged Boruto away, but the call was too close. If Sasuke had seen Boruto, he would have known the truth immediately. And this had not been the first time, Boruto's mischief almost got them caught.

Himawari was content with being her mother's daughter, traveling the country side and staying nowhere too long. Boruto, however, was constantly wondering about his father. And he did everything possible to force Hinata to take him to Naruto.

Hinata tried to stifle this fire by making everything she told Boruto about Naruto as vague as possible. But Boruto eventually put two and two together and figured out that the father, who Hinata rarely spoke of, was the same man that they called the Nine tailed Fox jinchuriki. A man named Naruto Uzumaki who was the hero of the leaf village.

After that, Boruto became obsessed with Naruto. Eventually he began insisting that everyone call him Boruto Uzumaki and not Boruto Hyuga, which was the name that Hinata had given him. Hinata tried to deny that Naruto was their father in an attempt to dissuade Boruto's infatuation. But Boruto looked as much like Naruto's twin as Himawari looked like Hinata, including the whisker marks that brushed across both his cheeks. Also Boruto's visual jutsu allowed him to sense the intentions of other people –like whether they were telling him the truth or lies.

"Where is he? Has he already outed himself?" Himawari asked her mother wryly as she followed Hinata towards the Hyuga compound.

It was not as if Himawari showed no interest in her father, but her needs always seemed to be overshadowed by Boruto's antics. Hinata saw this and she also saw the growing resentment that was forming between her children. She sighed. "No. No one knows he's here yet. I haven't even found him with my byakugan yet, so at least he's keeping himself well hidden."

After Boruto heard about Sasuke, his obsession became even worse. He ran away from Hinata twice in the last four months. The first time was to see Sasuke whom he heard was in a nearby town. The second time was after Kakashi sent the message about Naruto becoming hokage.

Hinata still did not completely understand why Kakashi sent the message. She wondered how far Boruto's dojutsu actually reached. And if he unknowingly influenced the sixth hokage to send the message.

She had thought about returning with Himawari and Boruto to Konohagakure right after the Hyuga clan disbanded. But she had spent nine years away by then. She was scared, and selfishly, she realized returning could mean losing her children too. So she put it off. Still, ever since that day in Uzushiogakure, she knew returning to the village hidden in the leaves was inevitable. So a part of her was relieved when Boruto got so far on his own. Her children needed their father, and she wanted them to have their father. They were becoming very powerful, very quickly, and without anyone to help them control their power. Over the last year, she realized that no matter how she tried to advance herself, they would continue to surpass her.

But she also knew that Naruto running into Boruto on the street was not the way to make this happen. "We need to get to Hanabi's place. We can quickly regroup there and then go after Boruto."

"Ok mom." Himawari nodded.