"Would you cut it out!" Sarada complained, watching as her teammate went through his kunai pouch for the seemingly hundredth time that afternoon.

"What?! I have to be prepared, y'know! Who the hell knows what we're gonna have to do when we walk in there!" Boruto shot back.

Sarada just rolled her eyes. "You're an idiot sometimes, you know? You probably would have only needed to check your stuff, oh, I don't know, twice, not every twenty seconds for the last two hours!"

"Well it's not my fault that Konohamaru-sensei is late!" the blondie whined, pouting while he crammed his kunai and various other accoutrements back into their respective places on his person. "Why the hell are you so cranky anyways? I was barely making any noise."

"Maybe not," the Uchiha admitted with a frown. "But after two hours," she hissed that last part in emphasis, "it was starting to whittle away at my sanity! Do you have-"

"Please stop bickering," came the exasperated groan of their third teammate from underneath a nearby tree.

The three of them were standing around the infamous Training Ground 3. Three stumps stood closest to the large expanse of river that split the grounds into two sizeable portions, girdled on all sides by massive walls of foliage. Underneath one of these trees sat Mitsuki - the strange, pale-faced, heritage-less ninja that had weaseled his way onto Boruto and Sarada's team.

He may have been a strange individual on a personal level, but even Boruto had to admit that he was an exceptional ninja.

Underneath a similar tree, not too far away, sat the two genin lauded for being the most brilliant minds of their generation.

Sarada Uchiha was leaning against the trunk of the tree with her sleeved arms crossed in disgruntlement, bright red sleeveless blouse bunching up underneath her hands as she did so.

She was about to launch another verbal attack on her moderately flustered teammate when the sound of shinobi sandals running into the clearing caused them to jump up in anticipation.

The flustered, heavily panting figure of their sensei bolted into view, and they all turned and growled at him.

Well, Boruto and Sarada did, at least.

Mitsuki just kind of sat there nonchalantly.

"You're late!" Boruto shouted, pointing an angry finger at Konohamaru.

The Sarutobi jounin just gave an uneasy chuckle and shrugged, as he caught his breath, arms on his knees as he keeled over a bit.

"Ugh... uh... yeah... sorry... 'bout that..."

"Come on! We're not gonna be let into the first exam if you keep delaying us like this!" Boruto roared, jetting off out of the clearing. Sarada, while more reserved and understanding, also took her leave in a huff.

Konohamaru just shrugged as Mitsuki gave him an impassive look as he strolled by, before he turned around and began to follow his team back into town.

"Wait up, you guys! I'm sorry I'm late, okay?! Just hang on a second, would you!"

That slowed Boruto down, at least.

"WHAT?!" He shouted back behind him in exasperation, as he rounded the corner and walked back into the training ground impatiently. Sarada turned on her heels as well and shot a glare at her sensei, although she, at least, didn't say anything.

Mitsuki had barely moved from his place under the tree.

"If you guys leave now, I won't be able to give you your entrance paperwork, and you'll just fail right off the bat anyways!" Konohamaru said with cheeky grin, eyes shifting from student to student as he made his way over.

"Well why didn't you say so!" Boruto said, rolling his eyes, and jogging back to his sensei in a huff.

"Because I just got here," he deadpanned.

"Yeah, why were you two hours late, sensei?" Sarada said with a raised eyebrow, as she walked up and stood next to Boruto, who now had his arms crossed and a frown on his face.

"Oh! Uh... I was talking to..." he rubbed his hand through his hair apprehensively. "...someone about something important. You'll see soon." He reached into his jounin jacket and procured three sets of papers, one of which was quickly snatched from his hands by a rather vivacious blondie.

The other two were handed out as Boruto poured over the paperwork, making sure that everything was right, that he was really going to be entering the exams, and that his dad wasn't going to pull some sort of omnipotent overprotective crap like he was afraid of.

As the three genin read their papers curiously, Konohamaru simply leaned back on the tree that his students had been occupying until just recently, finally getting a break for the first time that day. With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes and grumbled something incoherent. To Boruto's untrained ear, it sounded like a string of expletives with the word "Naruto" thrown in a few times.

The Uzumaki slammed his stapled stack of paper back into place, and raised a fist in the air. "Alright! Let's do this!" he called enthusiastically, before rolling his eyes again and turning to look at Konohamaru. "Unless there's something else you have to give us first," he said indignantly.

"Actually, yes; there is something else I have to give you," Konohamaru said with a small smile, before he simply closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto the tree trunk, hands now in pockets. "Good luck out there. I have the utmost faith in all three of you."

Boruto just blinked, before he smirked confidently. "C'mon, sensei, we would expect nothing less!" He crammed the wad of paper into the side of his shinobi boot, grabbed his two teammates' hands, and bolted off towards the Academy to begin the first test.

Konohamaru shook his head with a smirk, eyes still closed. "Those kids..." he said to himself, as their silhouettes disappeared behind a line of trees.

"How was I supposed to know that was a genjutsu?!"

"Because, you imbecile, it was a test. You weren't supposed to be able to tell it was a genjutsu without a second glance!"

"Then how did you figure it out so fast, huh?!"

"Because I did give it a second glance!"

Boruto rolled his eyes, but gave a small smile. Thank Kami he had Sarada on his team. Otherwise, they'd still be down there rabbling about with a bunch of subpar genin.

"Well, hey, thanks for giving it a second glance, then," he said quietly, so that only she could hear.

Sarada just kept walking beside her teammates as they made their way down the long, winding wooden hallways of their old stomping grounds - the Shinobi Academy. Still, she rolled her eyes with a smile, shaking her head, as she heard her teammate thank her.

"Pshht. Whatever," she said humbly, blowing off the compliment. "Just promise to make up for it in the second test."

"What about the first test?" Boruto mumbled with a pout. "I can read a book too, y'know. It'll be easy."

"You realize that it-"

Sarada's lecturing was cut short by their arrival at their destination - the large lecture hall at the back of the building. Normally, she would have continued verbally berating him long after entering wherever it was they were going, much to Boruto's chagrin, but they were startled when a blast of chakra and a bright yellow-orange light flashed in front of them the moment they got within ten feet of the door.

The three genin blinked at first, trying to figure out what just happened, when they realized that the Seventh Hokage himself was now standing there, a huge grin on his face, arms on his sides, his ever-present white cape billowing behind him in some unseen wind.

Then, Boruto scowled, and made to keep walking through the door anyways.

"Whoa! Easy there, big guy!" Naruto joked, placing a hand on his son's shoulder, holding him in place. He looked down at the boy confusedly, before his grin flattened a bit at the expression Boruto had on his face.

Boruto just growled slightly to himself, refusing to make eye contact with his dad. "Go the hell away. Unless you intend to actually show up for real, don't bother talking to me."

"Boruto!" Sarada chided from behind him, obviously out of her trance from the Hokage appearing so suddenly like that. "Don't talk to the Seventh like that!"

"He's not just the Seventh!" Boruto spat with much more venom in his voice than normal. This shocked Sarada; normally, her bombastic blond teammate was loud and prideful, but he did it because he wanted to. He wasn't actually mean, or annoying, or any of that.

Boruto just acted like that around the ones he felt the most comfortable with.

But this...

Sarada raised an eyebrow. At first, she had been incredibly jealous of her teammate for being the son of the most popular - and, according to rumor, the most powerful - ninja alive, all other nations withstanding. But every time she brought it up, her teammate would immediately skulk and brood about something that obviously was going on between the two blondes.

Now, seeing them interact this way in the flesh, it was painfully apparent.

"What do you mean?" she tested gently, her gaze not wavering. If he was having family problems, she'd get the bottom of things, damn it!

There was an awkward silence in the quiet hallway, where the four shinobi looked at one another tensely. Then...

"He's my dad too, y'know..." he mumbled quietly to himself, voice cracking in emotion towards the end.

A pained look of understanding flashed across the Hokage's face, but was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Instead, he leaned down and gave Boruto a small, genuinely warm smile. "Yes, I am your dad. And you're my son. My only son." He gently squeezed his son's shoulder, as if to confirm what he was saying as truth and not just simple conjecture.

After seeing Boruto turn away slightly, as if to try and escape his presence, Naruto sighed. "Hey. I just wanted to come by and wish you luck on your exams today, and over the rest of the month. You have no idea how proud I am of you, or just how much you mean to me. It's kind of crazy, actually." He let out a small laugh, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand in nervousness. He was never the best at the whole 'dad' thing. Especially now that he was the father of a rather boisterous teenager.

Then again, was anyone particularly 'good' at it?

Then, his eyes flashed in acknowledgment, as he recalled what Boruto had said to him the moment he had arrived. "And if you're worried that I'm a shadow clone..."

He pulled a kunai out of Boruto's pouch and slit his palm with it without a second thought, blood dripping to the worn wooden floors of the Academy. Naruto raised an eyebrow at the gasp he heard from Sarada, and the "hmmph" he got from Boruto.

Then, he smirked. "That proof enough for you?"

Boruto seemed to soften a little at this, even stealing a glance at his father's face for a split second, as if to confirm - truly confirm - that this man was his father, tried and true. But he just as quickly turned away again, as if he was afraid to know the answer.

"Why are you here."

It wasn't phrased as a question.

"Uhh..." Naruto said dumbly, not entirely sure what his son meant. Didn't he just explain himself?

Sensing the Hokage's confusion, Boruto scoffed, and tore away from his dad's grasp, crossing his arms and taking a few steps back. "Don't you have some sort of Hokage shit to deal with?" he spat, still avoiding eye contact.

"Umm..." Naruto gaped, wide-eyed at the way his son had just addressed him. He thought that Boruto would be happy to see him properly for the first time in a few days, and for such an important event. Hell, it wasn't every day that the Hokage came to meet your genin team for nothing more than a social call.

Naruto sighed, and ran a tired hand through his blond hair. The bags under his eyes, as well as the wrinkles that had begun to frame his nose across his face, seemed to darken considerably.

It was then that Sarada realized just how much stress and trouble the Hokage went through. It wasn't just a flashy job that let one sit atop a golden throne and fling orders down to the people from the perspective of the mountain carvings.

If anything, it made her even more determined to take the job later in life. She narrowed her eyes in silent determination, a slim grin breaking out across her face as she thought of her dream.

The current Hokage, however, was too occupied with trying to think to notice. "Well..." he said dumbly, grasping at straws. "I guess I should just be honest with you, then. My jounin-sensei, the Sixth, did this for me at the beginning of my first Chuunin Exams. It really helped me come to terms with who I was, who I wanted to become, and where I wanted to be in the future. It was..." he paused briefly, leaning back against the wall next to the door that led into the lecture hall, "...eye opening, to say the least." He let a small smile grace his lips at that, as his eyes faded out of focus, as if in silence reminiscence.

Which was broken by the low, trembling voice of his son.

"You mean to say." Boruto started, his anger starting to get the best of him, "That you're only here because you want to fulfill some sort of tradition."

"No, that's not it! I wanted-"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"

Naruto and Sarada froze in surprise. Even Mitsuki raised an eyebrow at the outburst, from his position a few feet back.

The blonde boy had his hands clenched at his sides, eyes seething in rage. He was shaking uncontrollably, as if he was jumping back and forth across the line between crying and screaming in anger.

"It's bad enough that you don't give a damn about me. I can take that - hell, I can understand it. But..." Boruto's eyes began to water, as he broke eye contact with his flabbergasted father, body slumping a bit due to the rapid change in emotion, "...the fact you do it to mom and Himawari is unforgivable. They trust you, love you, defend you at every corner! But still... you just don't seem to get it."

A small tear leaked out of the corner of his eye, which he was quick to try and subtly bat away with his sleeve, sniffling slightly as he did so. Then, he turned on his heel and slammed through the door, entering the lecture hall in an explosion of wood-on-wood contact as the door bounced off the wall and closed behind him in a crash.

Sarada just stood there like a statue, gaping like a fish. 'What the hell just happened...?'

The Seventh didn't seem to be faring much better. His eyes darkened considerably, as if he was under considerable emotional pain. Sarada was beginning to think that he was.

Just what was the man sacrificing for the good of the village?

He turned to leave robotically, mouth turned down in a small, sad frown. As he began to walk away, he remembered that he wasn't alone, and turned to offer one last statement to his son's teammates.

His eyes were glistening a little in the dimly lit hallway.

"Good luck."

And with that, he left at a slow and steady pace.

The walk home was one of the longest that he had ever taken. The harsh midday sun shone down on him like some sort of sick joke as he meandered his way slowly through the paved roads of the Leaf, only giving small smiles and reciprocating bows to all the citizens that offered him greetings as he went along.

Naruto Uzumaki was having an existential crisis, and the world around him seemed to be nothing but a faded blur that he was forced to occupy, like a puppet chained to the earth by some cruel, omnipotent god.

His hands fidgeted from within his pockets, his white cloak nipping him in the heels as walked.

It was the only reminder he had that he was even moving - rather, it was the only reminder that was actually registering in his brain.

As he passed by the Hokage Tower, he subconsciously summoned a Shadow Clone behind him, who appeared in a puff of smoke. He figured that Shikamaru would have a fit if he found out that he was skipping out on his job without a reason.

So, he was taking the rest of the day off.

Luckily, the clone he had sent to meet the Hidden Sea contingent upon their arrival was created before he had spoken to his son.

At that thought, the conversation he had just had with Boruto came flooding back into his mind unwarranted.

He blinked a few times in confusion as he replayed the events of their conversation back, feet moving on autopilot as he thought.

Naruto had honestly meant everything that he said. He loved his son - and his daughter, and his wife - unconditionally. That much was very often mentioned.

But still...

Those words hurt.

Naruto couldn't tell what it was about them that was the most damaging, but he had walked out of the Academy feeling more emotionally broken than he had in a very, very long time.

Hell, this was almost Jiraiya's death bad. If only he had some sort of quantifiable scale he could set his soul upon.

His mind wandered back to the conversations he had held with Nagato, Kakashi, and even Tsunade later on down the line. The things they had told him. The messages they had given.

Still, none of it made sense - at least, not in this context.

He brought his hands up to his hair and pulled exasperatedly, letting out a grumbled sigh of annoyance as he did so. Several villages raised their eyebrows at their expressive Hokage internally berating himself as he walked past, but they didn't mention anything. If Naruto was actually there, he would have thanked them for their silence.

Instead, he was locked in a fierce internal struggle in his mind, as varying thoughts and feelings battled for supremacy within him. Yet, he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was he was fretting so much over.

Then, his eyes widened considerably, pupils shrinking to the size of dust. He slammed on the brakes midway down the alleyway, nearly colliding with a few citizens as they tried to rush behind and around him through the daily paths their lives took them down.

As if a flip was switched, it finally dawned on him. And instead of soothing his aching heart, it only tore it up more.

He was confused, he was sad, he was angry - he was effectively lost in his way at the moment.

There was only one person that he could talk to right now - one person that he needed to talk to.