A Boruto Mini-Fic to Hurt Your Heart...

They left the crowded city street of Konoha behind, the bustle and chaos of a village being rebuilt once again. Same as it’d been rebuilt a half-dozen times before.

What they had to do was a private matter--A family matter.

Hima walks between her brothers, arms wrapped around her middle as though she’s hugging an invisible stuffed bear. The truce between the young men was not without tension, an uneasy peace still waiting resolution.

Boruto catches his sister’s eye, giving her an encouraging smile as they head up the hill into an ocean of blooming yellow flowers, the yellow light of late afternoon turning the world gold.

Of all the people in Konoha, she was the one who believed in both of them. Even now when she knows the truth, that Boruto is Kawaki and Kawaki is Boruto, her memories remain unchanged, the power of Omnipotence forever resetting perceptions of reality.

But unlike Sarada and Sumire, she didn’t need to know what came before to love Boruto. To trust him. To save him. To be the glue that held Kawaki and him together, no matter how shattered everything had been. They were family, the three of them. But they’d never be whole until the two missing pieces of their whole were returned, even though none of them could predict how they’d fit back together.

Kawaki stops first, pollen from the field of flowers clinging to his black pants, the wind catching loose petals and swirling them around the siblings.

Three years ago, he’d been ready to die for his convictions, but he hadn’t considered what it meant to face the consequences of his actions. To have to once again stare into the faces of those he sealed away and ask not for death, but for forgiveness.

“We can do it here,” he says, apathetic tone at odds with the tension in his body. His muscles taut. His jaw tight.

Boruto asked for death and died--and he'd been scared as hell when he did it. But he wasn’t half as scared then as he was now, watching Kawaki hold out his hand, black squares like two dimensional pixels swallowing up the view of the sunset.

He doesn’t realize he’s trembling until Hima lays a steadying hand on his arm, giving back the smile he gave her. A smile that looks so much like his own. Like their father’s. A smile that says everything would be okay. A smile full of false hope.

He swallows down the lump on his throat, focusing on the portal in front of them, watching as his parents glide out of the blackness, their eyes still closed.

It’s as though not a moment has passed since he walked out of his childhome the last time. His mother’s hair the same length, his father’s clothing unchanged. Unlike the three mostly-grown children standing in front of them.

Kawaki uses his hand to guide their limp bodies to the ground, the black portal flickering, fading, then disappearing completely. Boruto takes a step forward, trying to get a better look at his sleeping, unmoving parents. He feels a kind of terror that comes out as an accusation. “You said they were okay.”

Kawaki glares at him. “Can you just be patient?”

“But they’re not moving. Kawaki, they’re not—”

His father’s eyes shoot open, gasping as he takes in a deep breath of air.

“Papa!” Hima sprints away from Boruto, jumping onto her father before he can even sit up.

“Hima? Hima!” His broad arms wrap her in an immediate hug before he pushes her back, really looking at her face. Her long hair. Her gangly teenage limbs. One hand on either cheek, he guides her back to get distance, staring in wonder.

“Hima, what happened?” Tears catch in her eyelashes as she opens her mouth to explain, then turns around to look at Kawaki.

“Kawaki.” Keeping one hand on his daughter, Naruto stands as his wife begins stirring by his side. Beside one another, the young man is at least two inches taller than Lord Seventh.

“I—” He opens his mouth, intent on explaining the unexplainable. But Naruto opens his arms, pulling him into a hug enveloping both him and Hima.

Kawaki’s body stiffens at the unexpected contact, but Naruto just hugs him harder, pressing his face in the space right between Hima and Kawaki’s shoulders, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

Boruto finds he can’t breathe as he waits for his father to notice him. Time lags as he watches Kawaki’s posture shift, leaning into the embrace, his eyes closed.

It’s then that Boruto notices his mother shakily sitting up, her opal eyes still dazed.

She blinks, staring at Naruto’s back, then slowly looks around. At the yellow flowers. At the golden sunset. Then, finally, at Boruto, standing off to the side.

All it takes is one look for him to know she doesn’t remember him as the son she’s borne, the babe she’d nursed, the toddler she’d chased, the child she’d raised. Her eyes are stricken, halfway between grief and madness. If he didn’t know any better, Boruto would think his own mother wanted nothing more than to slap him across his face.