Chapter Text
Naruto doesn’t remember what it was, but he woke up with the residue of a good dream in his mind. He burrows further into the blankets, not yet opening his eyes. Nothing can compare to sleeping in after straight weeks of early morning meetings and briefings and paperwork. Shikamaru is the only one who doesn’t roll his eyes when he says being Hokage was a lot of work with an inflection like it had caught him off guard after four years. Even though his job rarely gave him occasion to do much as pick up a kunai, the tiredness still sank bone deep. So his first act of his first day off in who-even-knows how long was to stay in his cocoon of warm, fluffy bedding.
He could tell from the lack of sink in the bed that Hinata was already gone, had probably taken Himawari to the academy and stopped for errands while she was out. He unrepentantly twisted her neatly made side of the comforter into his blanket burrito. Days off were the best.
When he does deign to get up, Naruto rummages through the kitchen for something at least breakfast-adjacent, though it was getting closer to lunch. He settles for instant-miso and leftover rice. He can and has done worse on the cooking front, but it’s a hollow victory when he knows it’s only because Hinata doesn’t buy instant ramen, preferring to make it from scratch. Some habits never die, though, and there’s a cupboard in his office marked ‘financial records’ that’s chock full of the stuff. But here, in his home, he can (must) have a respectable breakfast. His body is a temple.
After breakfast he follows the flood of sunshine out into the yard. It’s typical Fire Country weather, beautiful and sunny and only humid to those who don’t live in it. He can see through a section of the back fence that’s scored through with Boruto’s early attempts at a katon jutsu. The neighborhood are children playing ninja, too young for the academy but already full of energy and ambition. One of their paper shuriken flits through the hole in the fence and with the barest touch of chakra he returns it with triple speed, bopping the oldest of the three, Kenshi, square on the nose.
“H-Hokage-sama!” The youngest, tsuya stammers while the oldest rubs his nose. Their friend, Komori, stands ramrod-straight.
“Mornin’. Who’s winning?” He stoops to meet their gaze through the fence. Tsuya practically levitates.
“Komori, but not for long!” at the same time that she says it, Komori shoves her arm and and Kenshi scrambles over them both.
“Hokage-sama! Show us your ninjutsu!” he demands, and Naruto frowns theatrically.
“ShowusyourninjutsuPLEASE.” Tsuya quickly amends. He smiles, scratching the back of his head. What can it hurt. He straightens and vaults over the fence into the alley, mentally marking an old stump for a target.
“Okay, but I’m only gonna do this once, so watch close!” Giddy, he summons the chakra into the palm of his hand and takes a running start. It feels good to have his chakra flowing after so long stagnating in his body. Somewhere, Kurama’s ear is twitching in his sleep and Naruto is smiling, biting out “rasen-“ before a root catches his foot and he falls flat on his face, half formed rasengan detonating in the dirt. There’s a moment of dead silence, but only for a second before the children weigh the consequences and bust out laughing anyways. He scrambles to his feet, shouting “what’s funny, you brats?!” and they scatter, still giggling. Yes, he is the great and powerful nanadaime hokage.
After a lifetime of trying to get Konoha to acknowledge him, of smiling even when words cut close to the bone, of pouring everything into protecting the leaf village, these days respect isn’t hard to find. The Fourth Shinobi World War showed just about everyone what was in his heart, and they have faith in him because of it. More uncommonly available are the lines of connection between people. Aside from his precious people and close comrades, no one teases him or jokes with him. The clan heads bow to him when they pass, and he finds himself thinking about how this is exactly what he wanted as a kid, and he kind of wishes they wouldn’t. But he’s working on it. Kids are the easiest to convince that he’s human.
The sun is directly overhead, and he wonders for half a second what else he should do today before he realizes he’s going to Ichiraku no matter what. Leaves rustle as the wind shifts from the southeast, and—
Chakra.
Like ice water was dumped down his back. He’s no sensor-nin, but suddenly all the warmth is leeching out of the air, and whatever it is must be powerful to register like this. He turns on his heel, sliding his other sandal outwards to lower his center of gravity and squaring his shoulders. What he sees is a masked figure. It stands just over five foot, but he’s known destructive forces to come in smaller packages, he’s no hypocrite. It’s not so much that cold is oozing from it as much as the heat is been stolen right out of the air, but it doesn’t appear to be lifting a finger. It makes no move at all.
The mask is unconventional, an oblong shape clearly taller than the wearer’s head. It’s plain wood, with red details painted on so as to crudely make out what could be a grinning face. The figure has paired it with a tan cloak that hides any other information he could have gleaned.
Naruto’s eyes narrow. “Who are you?”
No response. The only movement it exhibits is the waver of its cloak in the wind.
“Whoever you are, this place is under my protection. I won’t let anyone harm it!” Blood rushes in his ears, and his fists clench at his sides. He shouldn’t be escalating the situation but this is easy, this is right. This actually touches the static at the back of his brain. Besides, every adversary he meets seems to need to get hit a good few times before they listen.
But the figure doesn’t make any move on him. Its shoulders shake with inaudible laughter, causing the mask to rattle in a hollow sound that raises the hair on the back of his neck. And then it’s gone, so fast that for a second he doesn’t even realize he blinked. No gust of leaves, no spiral portal, just gone. Without thinking he runs down the street to the Uchiha house and pounds on the door.
Sakura rips open the door with her hands already glowing green with chakra, and distantly Naruto wonders how often people come to her house instead of the hospital. When she sees him her expression relaxes and then screws up again, and he lifts a hand to his face, wondering what he looks like.
“I know I call you a loudmouth a lot but it’s even worse when you’re quiet.” She says.
“Sorry, Sakura. Just thinkin’”
She purses her lips and practically drags him inside. As she makes tea for them he recounts what he saw; her eyes flicker when he mentions a mask but seem to settle when he describes it.
“It sounds to me like one of your neighborhood kids wanted to see if they could prank the Hokage and then body-flickered away while you got all wound up.”
“Sakura!” She serenely blows on her tea. Now that she’s said it, he knows exactly why he came here and not to the office or the police. Because that’s exactly what it sounds like. Just a kid’s joke at the Hokage’s expense; he should be happy they’re comfortable enough to do it. But he can’t shake the feeling of that cold.
His nose scrunches up. “Something was strange. It’s chakra was like, buruburu and jiwajiwa and then PA! it was gone.” Sakura shakes her head at his shoddy description, but there’s a furrow in her brow just under the strength of a hundred seal, and he remembers again why she’s one of his most important people. Still, after a moment’s consideration she slugs him in the shoulder and tells him to get over it. Dejected and bruised, he sips at his tea.
She’s probably right. He’s just chasing shadows because he’s so wound up from being kept indoors for so long. He can convince himself she’s right because Sakura is always right, even if his mind is less wandering and more sprinting in other directions. It’s nothing in the end. Focus on what’s in front of you.
“Have you heard from Sasuke?” he asks. She smiles tightly.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Naruto sulks. Next time he was really going to thrash that idiot. He says as much. “Man, I’m going to beat the hell out of that idiot for not being here to take care of Sarada.”
Sakura smiles but that crease is back, threatening to jab the strength of a hundred. “He’s doing a lot of good work. And he always did have a one track mind, you know.”
“That’s for sure!” Sasuke, who devoted a good decade of his life to one revenge quest. Sasuke, who had to fight Naruto one last time before he would dispel the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Sasuke, who can’t chew and write at the same time.
It’s the last one he tells Sakura, and she laughs away the crease and answers him with one about sending him shopping for mission supplies, only for him to return hours later with just seal tags, because he was so focused on getting the best. And once they’re talking about Sasuke they could go on forever, and before he knows it Sakura is breaking out the sake and things get fuzzy for a while. He loves Sakura for a lot of reasons, but one of them is definitely their status as fellow Sasuke enthusiasts.
Conversation drifts briefly through work, Sakura tells him about the ongoing studies of nightmares and flashbacks in Shinobi that fought in the fourth world war. Shinobi have never been the most mentally stable, and it’s been kind of taken for granted that this sort of thing was the status quo, but Sakura’s firm on drilling further into it. It’s not like anyone can stop her once she’s made up her mind. Naruto talks in incoherent circles about international relations and then brings the conversation back to ranking Sasuke’s bangs.
The sun has gone down by the time she sends him home with a bag of manjuu and a slap on the back that loosens his ribs. He walks homewards alone, passing in and out of the shadows, feeling warm and content.
Down the street from his home, he spots Hinata. Moonlight crests equally off the top of her head and the white plastic shopping bags she carries in each hand. Naruto grimaces, realizing he must have almost missed dinner; regular for any other day, but not his day off. He rushes to her side and sweeps the bags out of her hands before she can so much as squeak. Grinning wide, he falls into step beside her. Her eyes are downcast and he can’t tell if she’s blushing or pouting.
At home, Boruto is ignoring him again, he’s not sure what for this time around, but Himawari gives him a flying hug that nearly knocks him over. He knows that if she decided to get serious, his sunflower could surpass her brother sooner rather than later. She’s already fairly proficient with her byakugan and makes shadow clones like it’s a game, and that came before any academy training. But mostly she seems content drawing with thick crayons on seal paper, and using her clones to hold tea parties. As quickly as she’d ambushed him she darts off to the living room where her plushies are lined up. Boruto makes a great show of generously agreeing to play with her.
Hinata stands behind the kitchen counter, pulling down an apron from a hook on the wall. Naruto ambles to the kitchen and chats idly at her as she fetches a knife and cutting board, and starts chopping the vegetables she picked up from the market. “I talked to Sakura today. I think I’m going to be getting a request for more research funding soon… She hasn’t heard from Sasuke though.”
He can hear the disappointment tingeing his own voice. Hinata smiles in that gentle way of hers, warm like soft sunlight, true to her name. “I’m sure he’ll be coming home soon.”
She changes the subject to Himawari’s marks, which are good but not perfect, which he’s honestly glad to hear. If she had perfect marks he might have to worry about what kind of pressure she was putting on herself. Boruto is excelling in his training, of course. He’s grateful that everything has more or less worked out for his kids.
When dinner is ready they all sit down together, and both his kids are practically bouncing out of their seats at the chance to actually eat a meal with their dad, even if Boruto is mad at him. Naruto lets him steal some of his chicken and calls it even. Hinata made oyakodon, a surprisingly hearty-bordering-on-unhealthy choice coming from her, but he’ll never turn down good comfort food. He devours it and listens to Boruto complain about his katon jutsu, which he’s determined to learn whether or not he has any affinity for it. Himawari assures him that her big brother can do anything, but somehow it devolves into sibling bickering and before they can make peace Naruto swipes their empty bowls and retreats to the kitchen to do dishes. He can hear Hinata trying to placate them through the wall as he scrubs egg remnants out of a pan.
After dinner he sits on the back porch, reveling in the warm breeze. The air whispers to him of comfort and ease and calls up the faint fuzziness in his skull into an encompassing cloak. As he’s zoning out two small feet swing over the porch beside him, and Boruto’s there, announcing that he’s going to show Naruto his new jutsu.
The familiar hand signs yank his attention to the surface. Snake, ram, monkey, boar, horse, tiger. Boruto’s fireball jutsu doesn’t produce a fireball as much as a flashbang directly in his face. Naruto hopes he wasn’t too attached to his eyebrows, because when the smoke clears they’re long gone, replaced by an impromptu charcoal face-mask. Naruto laughs uproariously, which was apparently the wrong thing to do, because he gets slugged in the shoulder before Boruto vanishes again.
Hinata appears in the door, removing her house slippers and sitting where Boruto had. If she minds the new char in the grass, she doesn’t say. Naruto can’t think of anything in particular to say, so they sit in silence for a while.
Eventually Hinata asks, “how was your day?”
He could mention the masked stranger. But he won’t. Instead he thinks of sleeping in, the neighbor kids, shooting the breeze with Sakura. “Peaceful.” He says.
Which is hard to get used to, he doesn’t say. But he’s so so lucky to have a family and best friends and to live in a time of peace. He knows he is. Someday, the reflexive voice at the back of his head that’s been pushing to fight ever since the war will learn that too, and he’ll be left alone in this life that’s rich and warm like oyakodon.
In the house, the phone rings. Hinata stands and slips on her house slippers again—even that move has demure grace to it, somehow— and moves inside to take the call. The night sucks his focus away again, and he finds himself swaying back and forth slightly with the breeze, watching the stars until it makes him dizzy. Somewhere out there Sasuke is under the same stars, he thinks. Not even unreachable, just away. He wonder whether Sasuke is thinking about him at all.
His reverie is shattered by a muffled cry from the kitchen, and instantly he body flickers to Hinata’s side. But unlike his instincts demand there’s no enemy, just Hinata holding her mouth, already porcelain skin even paler than usual and tears welling in her pale eyes, rolling over her knuckles.
Naruto tries his best to catch the conversation, but it’s just fragments. She says “Sakura, I-” and instantly that voice in the back of his head burns through the warm blurriness of the evening like paper, telling him to run, telling him to fight and tear and slash. Hinata hangs up and her arms fall limp as she looks at him.
“There was an accident.” He voice cracks, and she grips the counter hard enough to dent it, taking stuttering long breaths in and out. He wants to shake her, ‘cause he needs to know now, right now, but he waits as she looks into his eyes with a gravity he hasn’t seen… for a long time. And she says to him, “Sarada is dead.”