He stares at his father's luminous form, covered in chakra he never knew he possessed. Everything he sees is yellow - bright, bright yellow. He feels the warmth of his father's chakra invading his senses, like it's trying to show him something. Suddenly, the images start flooding his mind. He saw smiles, and happiness, and a father he didn't hate.
After waiting for hours for him to show up, he finally had enough and ran inside the house to the living room, where his mother eventually finds him crouched on the sofa. He had his hands covering his face in an effort to block his sadness from his mother's eyes, but she is his mother, and she always knows."When you were a baby, your father never let you out of his sight and rarely ever let you out of his arms." His says, while trying to pacify him after his dad missed their Sunday picnic for the third time this month. He thinks she is lying, that she's using his emotions to forgive his dad again, she always did.She used this technique on him so many times that he wonders why he still falls for it. But not today. Not anymore.He looks away and pouts with defiance."If he really did, then why doesn't he ever miss me – or us?" He doesn't bother to hide the disdain in his voice, but his disappointment, he successfully conceals.He slams his bedroom door hard enough to drown his mother's answers.A week later, his dad misses the picnic again.
In a matter of seconds, the bright glow of the fox's head started growing into the gigantic nine-tailed fox he has only heard in war stories, and hushed whispers of his father's prowess and Boruto could not help but gape at the sheer amount of power the Kyuubi exuded. Is this really coming from the man who read him bedtime stories with exaggerated hand flailing and funny faces? Is this really the same man who let Himawari put ribbons on his hair and unicorn stickers on his nails? The same husband who, even after more than ten years of marriage, still shamelessly flirts with his wife in front of his children?
Because right now, Uzumaki Naruto is not Uzumaki Boruto's father. He is the Seventh Fire Shadow of Konohagakure and Boruto can't do anything but look at him as he burns.
"Onii-saaaaan!" A little purple-haired girl runs after him, arms wide open with the intent of hugging him at the moment of impact. He laughs and runs faster, however, he does not notice the flash of the camera as his dad captures the moment he desperately wished he experienced as a child.
The photographer has been trying to get the whole family to stay put for fifteen minutes already but the two blond males never made it easy for him, while a pair of purple haired girls giggled at the side, too entertained by the father and son's bickering to stop them. A vein has threatened to make itself permanent on the photographer's head. It took a dozen threats of him taking the ugliest picture of them and spreading them in every house in Konoha before the matriarch finally decided to step in.
He swears his eyes are twinkling at this very moment. His dad has finally decided to teach him his signature jutsu after a month of endless pranks and banters. The Hokage-to-be continuously refused his son's demand, reasoning that teaching a mere five year old a jutsu isn't really what a normal parent would do."But tou-chan! We're not normal, we're ninja!"
His father smiles that smile Boruto hates so much because it always seems to tell him that he doesn't know any better. He has always despised not knowing anything because he was not the fourth hokage's grandson for nothing. He was supposed to know.It is years after this when he finds out just why he refused to teach him that day.
"You were right. We are ninja. However, I did not bleed myself dry and lose almost everyone I loved only to wish upon my son the exact same fate. I fought so the future generations won't have to."
That was one of the rare moments where he wished to grow up to be just like his father.
He listens to his father's roar as he willed more chakra to envelop the beast bomb that threatened to eliminate everyone in the vicinity. Looking around at the rubble of what was once an arena, he sees people laid in the safety of his father's chakra and he wonders "what did they ever do to deserve my dad's dedication?"
The Hokage's brat. That was all they have ever seen him as. That boy who was too desperate to get his father's attention, who was foolish enough to think that trouble was the only way to do this. That boy who was clearly his father's son. As he listens to their complains and rude remarks about him being an attention-seeking spoiled brat, he thinks "Why do I have to beg for his time in the first place?"No one understood that his privilege was not his father's title or his ancestry. His privilege was his father's love – a love stolen by the very thing that made so many people jealous of him.The next day, he grins in satisfaction as he hears his father scream his name in frustration. The villagers didn't need to ask why the Hokage's stark white cloak suddenly turned neon pink.That day, he realized that he never really hated his dad – he hated what took him away from them.
He catches his sensei's eyes as he explains why his dad withdrew his attack at the last second.
A second passes before he understands. In order to protect everyone...
The small crack of light from the door widens as his mother slowly enters his room. He knows but he doesn't move, an arm still rests on top of his eyes. He feels the edge of bed sink from his mother's weight. Silence. He was about to turn on his side when he hears her voice.
"When you were a baby, your father never let you out of his sight and rarely let you out of his arms." He wants to tell her thathe already heard that too many times. That it won't work this time, but before he had the chance to open his mouth, his mother has already started speaking again.
"You were one year and three months old when it happened. I was on a mission and your father was away at Suna as a diplomat, so we left you in the care of the Hyuugas. We didn't worry much because the world was at peace and your father's enemies were too intimidated to attack Konoha. We were wrong."
He feels his heart beat quicken as his mother collects herself before continuing her story. He wasn't stupid enough to not know how this story will go, but he still wonders why anyone never told me about him this. How dangerous was this that it remained a secret for over ten years?
"They came at night. The attackers knew the blind spot of the byakugan and managed to get you from the compound undetected. A total of forty-eight guards were silently killed that night. No one found out about it until your Aunt Hanabi woke up to find you missing from your crib. After an hour of looking everywhere in the village, they finally concluded that you were kidnapped. No traces were left, they were that good, we later found out that they were a large group of the best S-ranked criminals who wanted the potential your eyes held and revenge to Naruto. Your father was livid. According to Gaara, the moment he read the message, everyone in the room swore they saw your father's eyes turn red, however, before they noticed anything else, he already released Kurama in a fit of rage and flew straight to your captor's hideout. We underestimated our enemies' hate, but they also underestimated your father's."
"He saved you, of course, and you were brought back without a single scratch. You see, Boruto, that incident was covered up not because of its significance or danger – it was because of what your father did to them."
"What?" He doesn't know what to think of the last sentence his mother said and he has no idea just what she's referring to. His dad was one of the kindest people he knew, exactly what did he do that prompted everyone who knew about the incident to impose a gag rule?
"Naruto-kun has endured too many deaths but he will never get used to the grief and he doesn't ever want to. That's why he vowed to protect us with everything he had – and again, he failed. That time, he really thought they already did something to you – or worse, they already killed you. He couldn't, wouldn't ever forgive himself if someone dies because of him again – not you, especially not you. You were your father's world and if he lost you…he would have become the monster everyone thought he was."
He still couldn't understand what happened. Her words were too twisted, like she was delaying the inevitable, like she was trying to make the story end with this, like she regretted telling him this in the first place.
"okaa-san, please stop beating around the bush. "What did otou-san do?" He watched her close her eyes, take a deep breath and open them again with a steel of resolve.
"Your father burned them alive."
" He earned his title as the strongest shinobi in the world, but so did he as a demon. He unleashed Kurama in his darkest form and wiped out all the remaining ninjas with his entire jutsu arsenal. It took me, Captain Yamato, Kakashi-Sensei and your Aunt Sakura to stop him. The scent of burning flesh and dripping blood filled the air, barely recognizable body parts littered the ground, and not one soul was left alive. He murdered an entire battalion of S-ranked missing nins in seconds for touching you."
This time, he knows she is not lying so he forgives him.
His father is many things to him. Jerk. Loving husband. Stupid old man. Beloved Hokage. What many people failed to understand was that all he wanted was for him to be his father.
But right now, he regrets forgetting that his father loved him too, and that Boruto wasn't the only one who lost the person closest to him. Boruto was Naruto's world and he…all he ever did was ruin himself in front of him. This time, he wonders how many times his father broke for him.
Everything he sees is yellow, bright, bright yellow. And a smile, and blue eyes, and a father he is about to lose.
When his dad tilts his head slightly towards his direction - and smiles. He realizes that this smile is the one he hates the most, because it tells him how much his dad loves him. It makes him think that this smile of his father is the last that he will see.
Uzumaki Naruto is the Seventh Fire Shadow of Konohagakure and Boruto finally knows just how haunting and painful a sacrifice can be to those who are left behind.
He screams.