Chapter Text
Taking a look at the heap of scrolls and random items, Boruto felt a large wave of boredom come over him. In theory this mission was cool. The thought of reading through all these scrolls wasn’t. He reached over and grabbed one of the scrolls opening it haphazardly.
“Hmm…” He looked it over, a small smirk forming over his lips. “Y'know…. They didn’t say anything about not trying the jutsu, right?”
“Woah, woah!” Sarada leaned back, waving her hands in front of her. “Your beloved sensei said that these scrolls are unstable.”
She grabbed another one out of the box, rolling it open. “See, this one will make you way younger again. I don’t wanna get stuck because you touched something” she warned. Frowning nervously, she tilted her head to the side. “I have to wonder why they thought this was a good idea in the first place.” She couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head.
She looked at the door the Hokage and her dad had disappeared into. Sighing, she chose to ignore the nagging feeling in her gut that something was up with them.
Double-checking the door was shut tight, she turned back to Boruto. “I’ll let you try one thing. One. Just be careful and don’t go crazy” she whispered, then slid back and continued reading the scroll. “Another good question is,what was Lord Jiraiya thinking?” She mumbled, shaking her head, but feeling mighty amused with the Sannin’s choice of ninjutsu.
“Heh, this one will be great!” Boruto went over the hand signs in his head a few times before doing them. He looked at Sarada and called it out. With a small puff of smoke, he looked over at her and covered his mouth as he snickered. “Psst, you should get mirror!”
Funny how Sasuke spent so much time in his own head he practically lived here, yet he was not prepared for his reaction to learning about Naruto and Hinata separating. Luckily, that response stayed well-hidden between a blank face and a body language so toned-down he felt practically immobile. The only thing Naruto would be able to notice (but which would be unmistakable) was the way his pupils immediately dilated into the Mangekyo.
He didn’t bother to turn it off. All his self-control went into keeping his expression as stoic and unreadable as possible. After a few moments of awkward silence, he managed to gather his thoughts and reply in a very low voice.“She is a good spouse, and you need the Hyuga clan’s support.” He felt his throat constricting on the last word and quickly turned away to grab a pile of scrolls.“Think about it while you sort out this mess. I will be with the kids.”
He was, by all means, running away. But he wasn’t used to feeling… Maybe he was delusional. Maybe he had been imagining— Narutowasprone on physical contact. But it didn’t matter, not right now. Sasuke exited the room and closed the door behind him as fast as he could without raising suspicions. On the door-step, still firmly holding the handle in case Naruto would chase after him, he let out a shaky breath.
Oh, Itachi would be so ashamed of him right now. His older brother would probably be comforting him, feeling disappointed nonetheless. But Sasuke really couldn’t keep a blank face anymore. He was used to hiding pain and self-doubt, fear and self-loathing, but this? He couldn’t remember the last time he had to fight a smile. And the smirk spread on so wide he had to bite down on his lower lip, barely holding in a relieved laughter.
So what if he wouldn’t be able to ever act on these feelings? Or if he was actually (and hopefully, for Naruto’s sake), completely delusional about the odd way his friend had been acting around him? He shook his head to get rid of the image of his father disapproving glare and walked towards the main room, so distracted he didn’t spare the children a glance when reaching for the table on the other side of the room. His ears burnt and buzzed, and even if his face hurt slightly from that unusual smile, he wouldn’t listen to the voice of reason just yet.Of course,he couldn’t act on it. But he hadn’t felt this happy in years, and he couldn’t bring himself to crush his foolish hope just yet.
He put the scrolls down, inadvertently spilling some on the floor, blinking in surprise at that mishap then at the fact he couldn’t manage to get mad at himself for it. Ah, so he was a selfish jerk, what’s news? He would have to talk sense in Naruto soon enough, hecouldindulge himself in a fews seconds of joy.
However, the kids’s giggles got his attention. He turned around, something black briefly flickering at the corner of his eye before disappearing behind him, and blinked. Then snorted. Were those?… The kids were laughing, their newly acquired ears and tails flipping in the air with amusem*nt. Maybe he should have scolded them for trying a potentially incomplete jutsu, but he felt relaxed enough to find it fun instead. This was definitely the kind of situation Naruto would have put team 7 in, back in the days.
“I hope you checked this was reversible before casting it” Sasuke admonished his pupil, though he sounded amused and had still not been able to will his smile away. As he was speaking, something light brushed his leg. He looked down and,as his eyes caught another glimpse of black, immediately positioned himself for combat. He couldn’t sense anything, so he activated his Sharingan and, when the dark flicker came about, caught it with superhuman reflexes.
It didn’t run away and kept quivering quietly in his hand, soft and warm like actual fur. He blinked in confusion.
It was a tail.
He blinked again. A cat tail.Hiscat tail.He snorted. His cat tailthat he had been about to attack in self-defense. He gritted his teeth, but laugher bubbled quietly in his chest, shaking his shoulders on its way up until it reached the jaw, unlocked it and bursted out in an open chuckle. Which soon turned into a sound Sasuke couldn’t quite remember making but which, apparently, was how he sounded like laughing. Ah, sh*t, now he would be blushing too, of course. He couldn’t have an emotion without turning pink! But the laugher was too fierce to repress, and he almost doubled over because of it, surprised to have forgotten that feeling, noticing tears were pooling at the corner of his eyes.
In the old perv’ room, Naruto froze.“What the hell?” This sounded like the voice of Sasuke, but… happy?He dropped the scrolls he was working on and turned towards his clones:“Just keep at it bo…” A moment passed. Then, at the same time, all the Naruto pointed a finger to the others’s head or butt while yelping loudly.“What’s going on? I’ve got dog ears, now?”“Who’s got dog ears, I’ve got a tail, a tail!”“Quit pulling on it, you bastard!”“Oi, that’smytail, jerk!”
The original Naruto managed to slip pass two clones that were almost tearing the offending appendices off each other and reached for the door. He really hoped the fluffy fox tail that followed him around wasn’t the result of a worse jutsu that had, apparently, backfired. He ran towards the main room and barged in shouting: “Are you alright?” Then- oh.
Everyone had ears. And a tail.Everyone. He dead-panned. Boruto and Sarada looked cute, because they were kids and kids mixed-up with kittens could only look cuter. But Sasuke was another kind of… And he was…laughing. When had Narutoeverheard him laugh? (Aside from the maniacal noise he’d once made out of complete insanity.) He swallowed thickly, unable to tear his eyes away. And he was blushing, his adorable kitty ears flattened against the back of his head while his dark tail flinched- Did that jutsu change someone’s personality? Was Sasuke okay?
“O-Oh my gods! Dad! Y-You look l-l-like a dork, ’t-ttebasaa!” Next thing Boruto knew, was on the ground; they were all giggling like crazy and tears were starting to fall from his eyes as he held onto his belly.
In-between giggles, Sarada couldn’t believe it. Her dad was laughing. Really and truly laughing. With the most genuine smile and sound she’d ever seen and heard from him. She didn’t think she had ever heard her dad laugh. She’d only seen him genuinely smile at her twice, that she could remember anyway. Not only that, but he was blushing just as hard as she was. Sarada removed her glasses and wiped the tears from her eyes, setting them on the ground beside her.
She eyed her dad with a wide smile. “Y-you alright there, p-papa ?” she stuttered, trying to catch her breath. She started howling with laughter again at noticing the Hokage stepping in, looking lost.
It took a few solid minutes for Sasuke to calm down and by then, his abs were hurting, his face was wet and Naruto looked absolutely dumbfounded. He himself felt dizzy. Now that he thought about it, he had not laughed like that since he was seven. He didn’t remember a time he’d felt so relaxed and at peace either. (His death with Naruto at The Valley Of The End aside.)
He rose a tentative hand to his hair to meet a soft pair of ears. His tail was undulating quietly by his legs, like a single black flame. That was… embarrassing, wasn’t it? he thought as his cheeks heated up. Good thing everyone was in the same situation.
He resisted the urge to walk to Naruto, a fierce and unusually playful mood commanding him to tease. But he wasn’t sure what to do next. Go back to work? Dispel the henge- which would betray his embarrassment? In his childhood years, he would have ran to Itachi or his mother to laugh it off and cuddle, which would definitely be inappropriate now.
As much as Naruto wanted to walk to Sasuke and, uh,pethim, he resisted the urge, going to his son instead.“Oi, that’s what you’re doing when I’m looking the other way?” he scolded, his arms crossed, fox tail whipping the air. Then he crouched and broke into a huge grin, ruffling the kid’s hair and blond cat ears.“You’re such a troublemaker! Let’s see what other jutsu we can have fun with!”
He looked through the scrolls, reading odd titles such as“Snowed In”,“Talk The Truth”,“Bigger Boobs” (as well as a “Bigger Junk” one he both hid from the children), “Body Exchange”,“Turning seventeen (or any other age)”, and wondered what the hell had been going through the old perv’ head at the time. Knowing him, this“research” was connected to his books, and Naruto knew some of these scrolls referred to plots devices he had used in some of his stories (volume 2 and 6, at least).
To confirm, he snuck a peak to the“Snowed In” scroll: that jutsu would make it snow enough to entrap people in a place, and would only be lifted by an act sexual in nature. Leave it for the old perv’ to implement such a complex jutsu to test before writingIcha Icha Paradisevolume 2, chapter 4.
Laughter subsided, Boruto sat upright. He had thought his dad would be mad but then there was a grin plastered on his face. He wanted to try out more?
“Ah, so what else is there?” He jumped up on his feet, cat tail moving back and forth. He slinked around his dad and took a peek at the scroll in his hand, immediately stepping back upon reading it, cheeks on fire.
“T-Thats…. That sounds like one of Gramps Kakashi’s books!”
“Spending too much time with Kakashi-sama, no doubt.” Giggling at Boruto’s reaction, Sarada stretched, cat tail flitting around and placed her glasses back on. Making her way to stand beside the Hokage, she grabbed the “Talk The Truth” scroll and peeked at it carefully.
“This looks like trouble” she said with a small smile on her face. She glanced at her dad and looked down at the scroll again.
She sat back down and rolled the scroll open, quietly reading it and gathering more information on the jutsu. She wasn’t sure it was a smart idea to cast another jutsu, but now she was thoroughly intrigued as to what else could come from casting the rest of these scrolls at least once. The result had to keep their good moods buzzing in the air. It wasn’t a smart idea, but it was a fun one.
“I call the next jutsu !” Grabbing the “Seven Again” scroll, she rolled it out and made the hand signs. She closed her eyes as she saw white puffs of smoke engulf them and when she opened her eyes again, she was much shorter.
Her glasses felt… bigger on her face, so she removed them, seeing a smaller hand gripping them. Looking down, her shirt was longer than she remembered. Like a dress. She looked up at her companions and had to slap her free hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing again.
First she spotted the two Uzumaki, sporting even bigger blue eyes and Naruto’s hair was even longer and crazier.
“You two look exactly alike!” she chuckled. Then, she spotted her dad: big black eyes, shorter hair, and all. He looked more like the picture that she and her mom kept of him at seventeen years old.
“How cute are you guys!” She exclaimed, a wide happy grin spanning her face, tears welling up in her eyes again as she tried to not start laughing again.
Sasuke wrinkled his nose, then pouted.“I’m not cute!” He looked around. “Where are we anyway?” Spotting Naruto, who looked even more of a goof now that he was floating in what appeared to be oversized clothes, he took a casual step towards him. Even if he didn’t know the boy so well, at least he looked familiar.
However, as he was trying to walk, he suddenly became very aware that his own clothes weren’t fitting at all.“What’s going on?” he muttered, flushing as he was left wearing only a tunic and vest that barely reached past his knees. He tried not to panic, trying to remember the last thing he’d done before waking up here: having breakfast with his mum and dad, then running off to school. Okay so… maybe this was a training session?
He glanced warily at the two other kids, that he had never seen in his life. One seemed obviously of Naruto’s family, and the other bore some kind of Uchiha family resemblance. The girl had called him cute, so he carefully walked away from her to casually position himself near the other boys, just a bit nearer to Naruto in case this was some sort of a mean prank. He didn’t particularly like the noisy, obnoxious blond, but he knew people weren’t very kind to him and Itachi said to always be nice.
“Yeah, you heard jerk-face! Where the hell are we anyways?” Naruto shouted, crossing his arms behind his head (the sleeves were too long. What? Nice color though). He glanced questioningly at the blond boy, who clearly hadgreattaste as he had decided to copy his own, fantastic looks (though clumsily. Two whiskers? Psch).“D’ya know anything about that, banana-bangs?”
His eyes fell on the girl, who was a totalbabe. Probably from the family of icy-stick-in-the-mud, mister-perfect-straight-A, fangirl’s-sweetheart-for-no-reason, stupid-hedgehog-haircut Sasuke. “Wow, you’re almost as pretty as Sakura! Okay,maybeeven a little more! Do ya know me? Bah, of course you know me, every one knows me, I’mNaruto U-zu-ma-ki and I’m gonna be Hokage some day!”He dazzled her with his widest, most charming grin, then caught on a flicker of the flames in the fireplace.
“This doesn’t look like Iruka-sensei’s classroom at all! Are we having a special training session?” He paused and grinned, then yelled even louder, pointing at himself with a thumb:“It’s because I’m so awesome, right?”
“I had forgotten hownoisyyou were” a low, dark voice rumbled through his skull, making him yelp in surprise.
“What the hell? Who is that? Show yourself, you— youcoward!”
The voice chuckled, shaking him as if his insides were but a huge cavern filled with a humongous monster.“Feisty, too! No wonder we didn’t get along. Now, snap out of it, brat. I won’t suffer through your insults like back then.”
“Whaaa…” Naruto looked around in confusion, his eyes narrowed into thin lines.
“I said, snap out of it! You shouldn’t even have fallen for such a clumsy genjutsu.”
Naruto blinked, then scratched his tiny head— woah, long hair.“Oh… thanks, Kurama! I totally fell for it, eh…” He looked around, his eyes caught by Sarada again.“Oi, you should have let us check that scroll before using it! The jutsu doesn’t seem very stable…”
Boruto was looking around, wondering who all these kids were. Except Sarada. He knew Sarada. He smiled at her, then at the other two. One kind of reminded him of Sarada, with his dark eyes and hair. The other reminded him of… He took in his appearance. Blonde hair, blue eyes, three marks on each cheek. He was about to say something when the blonde started talking. It was his dad? But his dad was big and cool and had short hair.
“H-Hey! Don’t yell at my friend!” He walked over and grabbed Sarada’s hand. “And no way you’re my dad, shorty! He’s tall and a lot cooler than you!”
Just to get his point across he stuck his tongue out at the other.
‘The caster retains their memory’Sarada noted, blushing as Boruto grabbed her hand.Puffing out her cheeks, she spun him around alongside herself and pointed at the back of Boruto’s now oversized jacket.
“He’s an Uzumaki.” Her now tiny voice squeaked. She found her vocabulary a bit more limited, but continued on, trying to think of the best way to explain to her companions.
“Boruto, that’s your dad when he was little like us.” She explained, patting her friend on his shoulder gently and pointing at the small Hokage. She then pointed at the other little Uchiha. “You said I looked like Sakuwa!” she giggled. “I do, because Sakuwa is my mum. And you are my papa.” She pointed out gently to her tiny father.
Straightening up, she carefully examined her dad. She had never seen pictures of him as a child and she wanted to remember this. She could see his face clearly with no bangs in the way. He still had his left arm and two big onyx eyes, like her. No Rinnegan. She looked just like him, as much as she looked like her mother.
She didn’t know the story behind him losing his arm or him acquiring the Rinnegan. She only knew it happened in the Fourth Ninja War. Seeing him in his natural state, she reminded herself to coax the story out of him later.
“Hn. So you’re my… daughter?” Sasuke frowned. That was an explanation for the overgrown clothing, lack of memory and striking resemblance to his own mother. He carefully walked closer to her and caught a glimpse of the scroll she was holding. “Seven again”. Well, okay then.
He cringed at the idea that he’d had a kid with that pink-headed fangirl, but maybe Sakura wasn’t so bad anymore? He had more important questions anyway. “Hey, do I…” He crossed his arms and looked away, blushing. “If I’m your dad, that means I’m old now, right? Am I… A-am I the head of the Uchiha police force yet? Like my dad?”
He bit his lips, thinking himself a bit ridiculous. “I… I mean, I guess Itachi is at least head of Anbu, or even Hokage but, I’m, uh… I’m not so bad in the future, right?” he mumbled, looking up hopefully.
No, this wasn’t good. Naruto was definitely not ready for a seven year-old Sasuke learning about the Uchiha massacre. “Not so bad? You’re one of the strongest ninjas alive, Sas’!” (Damn. Hewasloud in this tiny body). “Not only that, but you’re actually co-Hokage, with me! Remember how I said it was my dream?”
Sarada looked her dad up and down. “Yeah, you’re the strongest ninja in the world now.” she bragged with a smile. “Alongside the rest of Team 7, your team. With Sakura and Naruto.” She though for a moment, but carried on. “Nobody can beat you in a fight. So, you chose to help protect the village a different way than through the police force.” She explained gently to her father. “But, you’re… Very cool and mysterious.” She blushed at the attempt to compliment her father, something she had never done before.
Naruto was gathering his clothes. He wanted to turn back into his actual self, but he wasn’t sure his grown-up ass would fit his grown-up attire on the first try and didn’t feel comfortable flashing kids. “Boruto, keep an eye on Sasuke for a minute, will ya? I’m gonna change back. And you” he pointed a finger towards Sarada a tad accusingly “no more jutsu while I’m gone, okay?”
He hopped out, carrying his stupid bundle of clothes with him.
“Okay daddy. I’ll keep a real close eye on him!” Boruto beamed over at his dad. He walked over to Sasuke and grinned. “You look exactly like Sarada. But you’re her dad so I guess that makes sense…. Do you wanna play until my dad gets back? Then maybe we can have snacks, I’m kinda starving.”
He held onto his stomach, feeling so hungry suddenly he felt like he was going to cry. But he knew his dad would be back soon and he didn’t want to look like a baby anymore. He grinned and then looked over at Sarada. “Do you wanna play too?”
Grabbing Sasuke’s tiny hand, Sarada nodded. “Of course, I’ll play !” She wasn’t used to her petite child voice yet, but she had managed to start speaking properly again.
“I can try to find a snack, too” she said, patting her friend’s head for comfort. Sarada couldn’t think of anything worse than these two starting a crying fit, so she wanted to keep them both happy.
She reached into her father’s bag and found a few Onigiri.Grabbing Boruto’s hand as well, she then sat them down on either side of her.
“Can you tell me about your family, while we eat, Papa ? It’ll keep us busy until we finish” she said. She then patted Boruto’s head again. “We’ll play after you eat.”
Sasuke was frowning. Learning that he had become strong was nice, but… why did no-one say anything about Itachi? If Sasuke will (had?) become as strong as an Hokage, how strong was his older brother, now? And why would his would-be daughter ask about their family if she was part of it? Something just didn’t add up.
“I don’t want to play” he stated carefully.“I’d rather train and, uh… shouldn’t we lift the jutsu? I mean, if we were on a mission…” Were they actually enemy ninja? Sasuke had no idea why an opponent would want to turn him seven again, but that could happen. Maybe. Okay, probably not, but that would probably piss Itachi off so, who knew?
He didn’t want to annoy his older brother. His father would be disappointed, too. So he made the Release gesture and tried to summon the proper chakra to dispel a jutsu, to no avail. Ah, great. Maybe they were all lying and he was still an Uchiha failure? He pouted.
“I’m back, now, ‘ttebayo! I’m sure y’all missed me, yeah?” Naruto grinned as he came back to the main room. Boruto reminded him of his former, less confrontational self, so Naruto just picked him up for a hug.“Did ya keep an eye on Sas’ke? Uh, why am I even asking, of course you did, little bun!”
“I did!” Boruto leaned over and put his tiny arms around Naruto’s neck, then have him a kiss on the cheek. He then looked over at Sasuke and Sarada. “See? My dad is super cool, ‘ttebasa!”
He looked back at his did and grinned. “Sarada gave us some onigiri but I’m still hungry, didn’t mama make us anything? She wouldn’t let us go hungry!”
Sarada rolled her eyes in amusem*nt at Boruto’s antics, but couldn’t help but fell a bit jealous of her team mate’s relationship with his father. As much as he usually complained, she couldn’t get hers to acknowledge her on a normal day.
She attempted to charge up chakra to release the jutsu, but failed. Frowning, she sighed and sat down, rolling out the scroll in front of her and studying it carefully.
“How did you change back, Hokage-sama ?” She asked, not looking up from the scroll. “Is it easier for you because you’re a Jinchuuriki ?”
A what? Sasuke eyed Naruto warily. As an adult, he seemed much less noisy and very nice to his son. Sasuke pouted. His own father wasn’t that warm with him, maybe Naruto was too sentimental? Or perhaps Sasuke wasn’t good enough as a son, and should work harder at it.
He took a careful step towards Sarada, wondering if he was a good father to her. “So, hn…” He blushed. “How are things with our family, in the future? I… I bet Itachi is a really good uncle! Probably takes you on piggy-back rides all the time? Once, I sprained my ankle, and he did that for me…”
Naruto cringed. He had never realised how much Sasuke loved his older brother. Sure, he knew his friend both feared and revered him, but he had assumed that was mostly out of brotherly rivalry (and the fact that Itachi had singlehandedly murdered his whole clan).
“I’ll go fetch some food!” he exclaimed to divert the conversation. He smiled to his younger son and tickled him gently. “We wouldn’t want ya to die of hunger now, ‘ttebayo!”
He carried him towards the hallway, looking for the provisions Sasuke had stored somewhere. Hinata had let him prepare for the trip so he’d get used to care for his child alone, and he’d sent food ahead.
Before leaving, he turned towards Sarada. “To undo the jutsu, do the genjutsu release, not the generic one, and you’ll be back in a sec’!” Or at least he hoped so. Sasuke had done the proper signs and still looked seven…
“Hm.” Sarada adjusted her outfit a bit and held it in place. Being smaller than the adults already, she didn’t think she’d have a problem with her outfit. “Release!”
Another puff of smoke and she was back to normal. “Yes ! I’m so smart !” She shouted triumphantly, jumping a little. Her outfit was on perfectly. She grabbed her glasses out of her bag and put them back on, to adjust them smugly, as usual.
Slipping her sleeves back on, she sat next to her dad. Seeing him smaller than her now, was amusing. She still couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth, though. She figured it would be better if he just remembered himself, later. She didn’t know enough about her Uchiha family, but tried appeasing him anyway.
“Of course your brother would be a great uncle” she told Sasuke, trying to think up a reply without actually having to lie. Though it was proving to be difficult. She didn’t know anything about Itachi, either. Not personal facts that only her father would know, just things she’d overhead.
She couldn’t help but place a gentle hand on her father’s smaller head, feeling her emotions welling up. Changing her facial expression to a more stoic one, she continued.
“Y-you’re a g-good dad too, it’s just…” She looked into her dad’s big, innocent eyes and sighed. “Something I’ve learned is that being an Uchiha is a heavy burden to bear, most of the time.” She kept searching for the words she wanted to get across.
Then, she realized something.That’s right,she thought, still searching his face carefully.He lost everything at this age.She frowned.And I lost papa and the rest of my family a long time ago. The papa that I could’ve had…
She sighed aloud again.Maybe he won’t even remember what I said when he goes back to normal.
“Please don’t forget your friends and family” she said, ruffling his hair with a smile. Her mother and Uncle Naruto’s determined faces flashed in her mind. “We’ll always love you.”
She grabbed her dad’s smaller hand and make a hand seal. “Release!”
Bye, papa.
As she was casting the genjutsu release, Sasuke felt his memory rush back in a sudden flash of pain and, for a second, he was standing in front of her. The next, he was back to eye level, frowning his tiny brow in confusion.“It… didn’t work?”
