17
Boruto ducks the fist flying towards his face, and weaves under his opponent's arm with ease. At the last second, he turns his body inward and flips the other guy over his shoulder. His foe is prepared for that, however, and tucks into a roll as he hits the ground. The momentum brings him back up to his feet and lends force to the Rasengan that she shoves full-force towards Boruto's face.
He dodges it at the last second, falling flat on the ground and reaching for his kunai –
"Augh!"
An unexpected yell from behind him causes Boruto and his shadow clone to stop sparring and turn toward the noise.
Right in time to see his father take the Rasengan to the chest and go flying backward into a tree. There's a splintering crack, as the tree collapsed under him.
"Dad?" he and the clone chorus, before he waves his doppelgänger away.
"... I'm okay..." he hears his father groan. "... it'll take... more than a... really painful blow... to keep me down..."
"Says the man who missed his own inauguration ceremony," Boruto points out, heading over to help his father up.
Dad glowers at that.
"Hey-hey-hey – remember the rule! No one gets to find out about that! Or else, all your friends find out that your little sister is the one that knocked you unconscious for a week, not a whatever you've been telling them."
"Hmph," Boruto scowls, mirroring his father's unimpressed expression. A moment later, however, it becomes a wide smirk. "But then, that's kind of not as embarrassing as getting knocked out by the technique you perfected. Why do I get the feeling Sasuke-sensei is gonna love hearing about this?"
A vein throbs on Dad's temple. "Why do I get the feeling that you're going to be spending the night out in the street?"
"You wouldn't do that to me!"
"How sure are you about that?"
"It's going to rain."
"So?"
"I'm your son."
"And sleeping outside builds characters. Dads are supposed to make their kids build character, it says so in the parenting handbook."
Boruto concedes.
"I'm shutting up now."
"Heh." Dad grins down at him, rubbing his nose triumphantly. Which is about the time Boruto realises something that didn't occur to him until now.
"Wait – you're actually you. Not a clone."
"Noticed that did you? I figured the whole not-going-poof thing gave it away."
"What are you doing here? Don't you have a whole tonne of work to be doing?"
"I was extra awesome today and finished everything I needed to, so I decided to go home early for once – believe it!"
He strikes a pose, trying to look impressive. Boruto is distinctly less than impressed. "You persuaded Udon into doing all the paperwork again, didn't you?"
"Heh," Dad chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of his head. "It doesn't really count as persuading since he actually enjoys it. So..." He glances at the training ground, which shows several large gauges from Boruto's Rasengan. "You're sparring with shadow clones now?"
"It cuts in half the amount of time I need to train to improve," Boruto explains.
"And there's the added challenge that you both read exactly what the other's one's thinking. Cuts down the time you have to make your moves," his father remarks knowledgeably. "I didn't figure that one out until I was much older."
"I didn't either, really," Boruto admits, experiencing the same pride he usually does when he's told he beat his father at something. "Sasuke-sensei suggested it once I got better at sustaining my clones for longer and longer. I can't keep as many around at the same time as you can, but now I can at least keep one going long enough to spar with."
Since Sasuke-sensei's son was born the week before, Boruto's been keeping himself busy and trying to keep his skills sharp on his own. He doesn't have any idea when his teacher will be back in the right mindset to help him, but he doesn't intend to lie around doing nothing either. It would be his luck for Sasuke-sensei to come back and then accuse him of slacking off, the same way Dad used to.
Speaking of...
"You never answered. What are you doing here?"
"Does a father need an excuse to check up on his son?"
"He does when he's never done it before."
"I've checked up on you plenty. You just never noticed before."
"Shadow clones spying don't count."
"Hmph," Dad folds his arms, looking kind of put out. "Anyway... I figured I'd come by, give you a few training pointers or something."
"It's okay. I'm fine practising on my own until Sasuke-sensei gets back."
"That could be weeks from now," Dad complains. "And even then, I don't see him letting that baby out of his sight for a few years. You don't remember what he was like with Sarada, but before he left, it was like they were attached. Besides, he's organising a new project for me, so he might not have the time."
"Hey, no fair!" Boruto cries. "You can't go giving him work and stuff when he's supposed to be training me!"
"What, you don't want me teaching you?" Dad demands. "Just because you want to be exactly like that antisocial bastard doesn't mean your old man can't teach you a few tricks! I saved the world, you know, and I'm Hokage! Most kids would be begging for my help – believe it!"
"Hey, would you knock it off?" Boruto shouts back, looking around to see if anyone is around to witness his father throwing temper tantrum. "Fine, you can teach me something, just stop whining, would you?!" He crosses his arms. "Yeesh, what's with the sudden change in attitude?"
"Well, the Chūnin Exams are coming up again and I want to make sure you're prepared," Dad shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"You mean you want to make sure I won't cheat again."
"I never said that."
"You were thinking it."
"No, I wasn't," Dad looks annoyed now. "D'you think you could maybe stop jumping down my throat every few seconds and let me talk?"
Boruto exhales through nose, and nods. "Fine."
"It's just a bit traditional, is all, training one-on-one. Especially for the final round."
"You don't even know if me and my team will even make it to the final round."
His father gives him a look like he's just drooled on his shirt or done something else completely inept.
"Okay, yeah, you're right, we will definitely make the final round," Boruto sniggers.
"You helped destroy an alien menace and save the world, of course you're making it to the final round of an exam," Dad growls. "And if you don't, I'm disowning you."
"Promise?" Boruto challenges.
"No."
"Too bad."
"And here I imagined you'd be excited to step up. You know Sasuke officially passed over the leadership of the Uchiha to Sarada last month."
"Yeah. She was still freaking out about it when I saw her last week. At least now she's got something else to babble on about instead of nagging Mitsuki and me."
"Well, she'll have a lot on her plate. That's a lot of pressure to put on a kid – and she'll be the youngest clan head at any of the upcoming meetings..."
Boruto nods absently, and then notices his father's calculating look, and guesses where this might be going. "Whoa – hey, hold on! You're not gonna make me...?"
"What? No!" Dad yelps and then clears his throat. "No. That's a discussion we can have another day."
"Good. Because I've got enough to deal with being the Hokage's son," Boruto reminds him. "Sarada might have the patience for all those boring-ass meetings, but I don't."
"Yeah, well, like it or not you're going to have to one day – and if you keep mouthing off, I might just change my mind about putting it off!"
"Okay, okay..."
"The point is, Sarada's parents have both been preparing her for the future, and it's got me thinking I should do the same," Dad goes on, recovering himself. "Sakura's been teaching her to store chakra, so one day she's going to have the same scary strength."
"Probably more, because she's an Uchiha."
"Exactly... and I bet Mitsuki's got a bunch of tricks he hasn't even shown you guys yet. His snake of a father – mother –" Dad shoots Boruto a questioning glance. "Parent?"
"Parent."
"Right – parent. That parent of his has probably shown him loads of stuff already. The point is, one day you three will inherit the power of the Sannin, the same way Sasuke, Sakura and I did. So now might be a good time for me to pass on certain techniques to you."
Boruto perks up a bit. "Like using Sage Mode?"
That would definitely strengthen him, and he wouldn't have to rely on a Byakugan which might never develop.
"In time, if you can," Dad replies, caution in his voice. "But you have to start at the beginning, the same way I did. What I want to teach you, I learned to prepare for the Chūnin finals as well."
"Because you wanted to fight Sasuke-sensei, right? That's when he learned Chidori!"
Boruto desperately wants to learn that one. Sasuke-sensei hasn't seen fit to pass it on to him yet, but he can't wait to be taught. Since the encounter with the Ootsutsuki, Boruto has been dreaming up his own ultimate jutsu – a giant Chidori-Rasengan combination to totally outdo his father and sensei's signature attacks.
The only problem is actually getting the power to do it.
"Right. That's when Kakashi-sensei taught him the Chidori," Dad admits grudgingly. "But me – I trained with the legendary Toad Sage Jiraiya!"
"Stop making it sound so impressive. You always call him Pervy Sage."
"Well, he was both," Dad concedes. "But he taught me a lot of valuable lessons, and if you allow it, I want to pass them on to you."
"Will it give me more power?"
Dad appears thoughtful for a moment and shakes his head.
"Boruto, you already have a considerable chakra reserve, especially for your age. But you'll never have the same amount as me. Not unless something happened that forced you to become Kurama's jinchūriki."
Dad's jovial tone is gone now, as it usually is when they talk about the Nine-Tails demon within him.
It's an unwritten rule in the family that they don't bring it up – mostly because it upsets Mom. She's always worried that because Boruto and Himawari are Uzumaki, they or their children might one day end up with a demon sealed into them. A demon that might not be as tolerant of them as it is of its current host.
"Still," Dad quickly recovers his usual grin. "Doesn't mean you can't be get better, or be a match for your teammates. Same way Pervy Sage was!"
Which Boruto figures is true. From what everyone says, the three original Sannin didn't have the Uzumaki chakra reserves, or any demons sealed within them. And from what he's seen of Granny Tsunade and heard about Orochimaru, they're still pretty damn scary.
"I guess... okay, fine. So how do we do this?"
"We'll start by making a summoning contract. Once you're able to call upon the Chief Toad of Mount Myoboku, I'll send you to there to train. But until that time, summoning will help you in the exam to come because it'll teach you to focus your chakra – and build it up, too."
"So I can one day summon bigger creatures?"
"Exactly," Dad says approvingly. "That, and the abilities I want to teach you, will go a long way in helping you protect the future Hokage." Boruto looks at him in surprise. "What, you didn't think I guessed that's what you wanted to do? Give me some credit, kid."
"Mom told you, huh?"
"... Th-th-that's not important! Now – let me tell you the legend of the Three-Way-Deadlock..."
TSU