Blonding

Chapter 27 : Reminiscing Of The Past

"Let's take a break here, Boruto."

The boy blinked in surprise. They had been running for hours straight, yet he wasn't even slightly tired! Why the hell were they stopping?

His father leapt from the tree branches and down onto the floor, a small earthen crater appearing beneath his feet in the explosive contact.

"One of the clones..." he panted, falling to one of his knees. "Looks like one of the clones made it to the Hidden Stone."

Boruto watched in confusion as his father caught his breath, trying to figure out why his father went from perfectly full of energy to exhausted in the span of seconds. "...Dad? What's wrong?" His worried eyes grew slightly exasperated. "Why... why do you keep doing this? Ever since the Chuunin Exams..."

"Relax," Naruto breathed, falling on his backside and leaning against the trunk of a tree. "This'll all be over with in a second." He winced, then grinned. "At least I won't pass out this time."

"What are you talking about?!" Boruto yelled, his hands moving up into his hair and tugging. "Why... why do you keep speaking so cryptically?!"

Then he, too, collapsed onto the ground, all of his energy faded. "I... I just want to know what's wrong. It's scaring me."

He wasn't looking up, but Boruto could just feel his father's eyes looking at him, shocked. "You're actually worried about me?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" His voice faded to just above a whisper. "You're still my dad, y'know."

Apprehensively, the boy looked up from the ground to meet his father's eyes, expecting... well, he wasn't sure what to expect. Regardless, he felt a great urge to look away - anywhere but his father's eyes.

But, as his mother had always told him when he was young and curious, the Seventh Hokage's eyes were like beacons in the night - impossible to lie to, impossible to hate, impossible to shy away from.

"Yeah..." Naruto mumbled, a small smile on his face. "I am. And I should be more honest with you. Especially when we might... we might be stuck here for a while."

Boruto blinked. "Wait, what? You're sure this is time travel, dad?"

The Seventh sighed, shaking his head slightly. "Until I have any better ideas, that's what we're going to go with. You can't help but notice that things are different." He looked back up at his son, a spark in his eyes. "But we have to do something. Sitting around waiting for something to happen will get us nowhere, regardless of whether this is time travel or not."

Boruto gulped, nodding his head. "Y-yeah, I guess. This... this is just too weird." He walked over and threw himself on the ground next to his dad, neglecting to lean against the tree and instead lying completely horizontally on the dusty forest floor.

His mind began to wander back to the enigma that was his father - all the questions that he had, all the little things that prodded away at the back of his mind, everything that made him uneasy. The feelings had only increased exponentially after he and his father ended up... wherever this was (Boruto still wasn't entirely convinced), and question after question flickered through his brain like a flash of light in the dark.