Chapter Text
Kakashi had the presentiment that this was going to be a horrible day ever since he crashed on his bed exhausted, close to the exhaustion of his chakra, and the rooster had cackled its good morning at the sun.
The Sandaime had withdrawn him from ANBU active service to give him a team of unruly preteens who sucked all his energy (he didn't have patience with children when he was a child, let alone as an adult), but despite all this, this did not seem to prevent him from calling back Kakashi as ANBU captain to cover those vacant missions of grave importance. So it had happened that time: Kakashi had to pause his duties as a jonin master and run to the edge of the Land of Fire to stop the spies who had stolen vital information from the daimyo.
Kakashi with his team had managed to hunt them down before they left the country. They had engaged in a fight and Konoha's shinobi had managed to get the better of them, at the cost of two wounded comrades. Having recovered the parchments, he had turned around with the hope of getting away with it soon and arriving in Konoha before the expiry of the five-day break given to team 7. Unfortunately, during the journey the team had been followed by two foreign ANBU teams who had forced them to a longer lap, as Kakashi didn't want to start a fight when he had two such vulnerable comrades. They had succeeded in their intent to sow them and protect the scrolls, but the journey had lengthened and Kakashi had arrived at his apartment on the morning of the sixth day after his departure. In a few hours, he would have to meet up with his too noisy and hyperactive team.
Even with his classic two hours late Kakashi found himself not getting enough sleep and, above all, not having completely restored his chakra reserves. Luckily with the genin he could rest, just giving them a grade D mission that would keep them busy for hours while he recovered sitting under a tree. Sure, it wasn't going to be a real rest, but it wasn't an S-rank ninja fight either.
So despite the bad start, it didn't mean the day was going to be horrible.
Well, Kakashi should have trusted his instincts more, if he felt that this was going to be a horrible day it would be despite his plans.
He knew this when they came out of the Hokage building, their thrilling weeding mission assigned and three sulky genins, and there was an explosion.
His ANBU instincts quickly took over as he grabbed his pups and protected them with his own body from loose splinters and debris. He then looked up, realizing that it was the palace archive with the secret scrolls that was attacked. He froze at the thought of who could have managed to infiltrate in there and apply an explosive, that was one of the most guarded areas of the building, especially after Mizuki's trick. He looked worried at his genin, in addition to the obvious fright, their eyes shone with excitement and desire to intervene.
Praying that they would not do anything stupid, he ordered: "Stay here!", then he jumped towards the plane of the explosion, which had blown away a piece of the wall.
The area was smoking, some parchments were on fire, the bookcases had overturned and there was rubble everywhere. He couldn't see much in the dust, but judging by the noise, ANBUs must have already arrived to engage in a fight with the attacker.
He took a step into the destruction, but immediately froze upon seeing a little girl appearing who could not have been more than eight years old. His disbelief increased even more when he saw that that little girl had the sharingan! Her red eyes gleamed like headlights amidst clouds of ash and dust. That was impossible, all the Uchiha except his student and the brother were dead!
But that wasn't the only oddity, he realized by recording the rest of her features: she was short and soft like all children, with clothes full of frills in bright yellow and violet colors and a short bob of disheveled black hair. But that wasn't the odd thing, the oddity was that her round face was absurdly familiar to Kakashi, because he saw it almost every day: that was the same face as Naruto! She even had a pair of parallel scars on her cheeks just like his student, even though she had two on each side and not three.
To add more strangeness to the whole thing, in the second it took him to observe her, the little girl smiled with open relief and deactivated the sharingan, showing in its place two blue spheres identical to those of Naruto and shouted:
"Uncle!"
…excuseme?
Kakashi didn't even get a chance to react as another child jumped in front of him. This one was much dirtier and more disheveled, he also seemed to be the same age as his genin and ... well, he was the spitting copy of Minato-sensei and Naruto! They had the same features, the same color of eyes and hair; only the shape of his eyes was different, not to mention that his cheeks were each scarred by a pair of parallel scars as well.
Like the little girl, he too seemed very happy to see him, and his shoulders heaved with relief.
“Uncle, at least there you are! But ... weren't you going to the hot springs? "
Kakashi's first thought was that he didn't even remember the last time he had been to the hot springs. But he soon noticed - unlike the children who had all their hopeful attention on him - that an ANBU came out to hit the newcomer. Kakashi didn't know what to do, whether to defend the children or help his comrades.
However, before he made up his mind the nearest destroyed bookcase seemed to come to life and the shelves stretched out in branches that captured the ANBU before he hit the blond child - who finally saw the attack with a jolt - and imprisoned him like ropes.
Kakashi felt his jaw touch the ground: that was the mokuton, holy shit.
"Hey!" the blonde child shouted in fear, turning to the rest of the destroyed room. "Do you want to blow this place up even more?!"
Squeezing his eyes, Kakashi saw that there was a third child, this one even older (probably fifteen), crouched on the ground and intent on drawing something with a brush on the floor. His blond hair was stained with ash, as was the round face that was absurdly familiar (but no, this time it wasn't Naruto's copy), even so he could see the scars on his cheeks. Unlike the other two children, however, his eyes were coal black. That color lasted a few seconds, because they immediately turned red, testifying that he too owned the sharingan.
"Then don't get distracted!" he objected in a voice that trembled. "There is something strange here".
The blond boy puffed out his cheeks in offense. "As if I didn't notice, dattebasa!"
…Dattebasa?!
He watched in disbelief as the child put his hands in front of his face in a gesture he had seen Naruto make all too often, with a puff of smoke around him three kage bushin appeared and scattered around the room, probably to counter the other ANBUs who had come against the aggressors.
Aggressors who, by now it was obvious, were these children.
“Uncle, can you take care of Hima while… Woah! But do you still have the sharingan?!" The blonde child suddenly stopped seeing him lift the ninja sash and discover the usually hidden eye.
Kakashi recorded the relief fading from the child's face, which grew paler and openly frightened and confused.
“Hey, uncle… what do you want to do? It's me, Boruto! What the fuck, what's wrong with you all?!" he screamed almost desperately.
Kakashi shared that confusion, he was going to thoroughly investigate everything that had happened and was happening, but first he had to render harmless these children who had managed to sneak in, blow up the room and stand up to the ANBUs.
He lifted the kunai and lashed out with no intention of underestimating them. He had already seen two sharingans, a mokuton and the kage bushin: even though they were children, it was obvious that they were highly trained shinobi. The child — Boruto — managed to dodge him just in time, but to his shock his defense immediately showed openings. Kakashi intended to exploit them, but before he could actually immobilize him he found himself in front of a small fury that took him away from his target. He looked surprised at the little brunette girl just before she, the sharingan again active, forced him to retreat. She was small, but with a fluid style that he had seen being practiced by Sasuke in slack… the Uchiha taijutsu style. It was one surprise after another and it was for this (only for this!) that he was distracted for a second, the time necessary to allow the children to hit him with her fist in the exact center of the chest.
Kakashi believed that the blow had shattered his ribs and crushed his heart. Somehow he felt the little chakra left from the mission run out, as if the shock of the blow had shorted his chakra paths, and before he knew it his muscles were no longer responding to his brain. He collapsed to the ground, feeling too weak to even lift a finger.
Horrible day, in fact. Knocked out by an eight-year-old girl. Great, he could hear Obito laughing from the grave.
That little girl turned to who he now suspected to be her brother and she said with a pleased smile.
"Maybe you should be taken care of!"
Boruto's ears blushed violently as he crossed his arms over his chest. He opened his mouth to protest, but the third child left behind caught their attention.
"I've done it! Come here!"
"What do we do with uncle?" Boruto asked.
"Bring him too!"
Kakashi felt himself grabbed like a sack of potatoes, the two children dragged him, carelessly for the debris that occupied the ground and awkwardly due to his adult weight, towards the third. With his chakra short-circuited as it was Kakashi could not even make a minimum of resistance, he felt totally knocked out.
He realized he was being carried inside a circle of ink, six kanji forming a seal and, considering the ink-stained sleeves, the creator must have been the child with the black eyes. He was impressed: it was articulate, full of figures and meanings. From various nodal points of that circle rays composed of kanji departed that connected to the center of the figure, right where the child was. He hadn't seen something like this since he was a student of Minato-sensei.
"Here we are!" Boruto said just as the little girl, Hima, as her brother had called her, was going to sit on Kakashi's stomach, as if to make sure he didn't run away.
The boy then nodded and raised a hand. Kakashi felt him concentrate his chakra and shivered automatically, as if unconsciously recognizing it. And how could he not? It was so fucking similar to the Kyūbi!
"Here we go!" the boy said, squeezing his hand in the center of the circle, where all the rays converged, just as Boruto crossed his fingers and prayed: "Please don't explode!"
Nothing exploded, to Kakashi's relief, on the contrary the kanji that made up the figure lit up with red and yellow light and a barrier of chakra rose from the edges of the circle that closed like a dome over their heads. Just then an ANBU had attempted to reach the group of children, but comically slammed into the bright, transparent wall. The resistance was such that the mask cracked from the backlash.
"Dattebasa!" Boruto exulted raising his arm.
"Nana is close," the little girl said unimpressed, smiling at the brothers with relief. "He is coming here".
"Yes, I feel him too" confirmed Boruto stamping his feet on the ground. He looked at Kakashi and indicated indignantly with his index finger. “So you'll be the one to explain to him what the hell happened to you and the ANBU team! Okay, we're sorry we blew up the archive, but it's just Rin's fault! As usual dattebasa!"
Kakashi was sure he twitch at the sound of that name and winced. He blinked and looked to the third boy, who remained in a thoughtful silence, wondered if that was his name and felt a kind of nausea at the idea.
The clouds of rubble and ash had begun to descend, allowing them to see the destroyed room and the collapsed wall overlooking the village. The older kid — was he really called Rin? — was looking right into the open space. He held his breath noisily, widening his black eyes and stiffening.
"Oh no..." he murmured.
Boruto heard him and turned to face him belligerently. "What? You know it's your fault and your stupid chakra!"
But Rin, by now it was obvious that that was his name no matter how painful it was to think and to associate it with someone else, did not even notice his outburst and pointed towards the village.
"Look at the Hokage mountain".
Kakashi did it too, realizing that it was now visible from their perspective. It had nothing particular, it was the usual mountain with the usual austere faces sculpting masterfully, but it still made Boruto jump violently.
“Oh no! You also destroyed the Hokage Mountain! Now there are only four faces!”.
Kakashi's brain was working fast, judging by the words of those kids there should have been more faces. But this was impossible, there had been only four Hokage in Konoha and for this there were only four faces.Sure: for now. There would be more Hokage in the future, so he figured… more faces. In the future.
He wanted to laugh at the exact moment the thought hit him, but… maybe it wasn't that absurd considering the rest.
"It wasn't me," Rin replied faintly.
Considering how much these children resembled his student, even in unusual features, such as the scars on their cheeks... considering that they called Kakashi uncle and looked at him as they had always known him...
"Nana has arrived!" cheered the little girl, looking up the street, unlike her siblings. She frowned immediately. "But why is he so... small?"
The Team 7, ignoring his orders, had just scrambled to reach the destroyed part and now they were staring at them with wide eyes. With the same surprise that froze even the children inside the barrier.
And with this, there were no longer any doubts ...
Boruto badly grabbed Rin by the collar. "What the hell have you done?!"
These children…
"You sent us into the past!"
… came from the future.
A FEW HOURS BEFORE, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE FUTURE ...
Boruto sneezed, dropping the scrolls he held in his hands.
"Hey, be careful!" Rin scolded him from his desk.
The younger brother frowned at him. "I can't help it with all this dust!"
He picked up the parchments that had slipped to the floor, rolled it up as best as possible and rearranged it in its place on the shelf. He joined Rin at the desk, spying on what he was doing.
"You've been on that for hours now, how long does it take you?" he muttered in annoyance.
Rin, with the arrogance deriving from being the elder brother, looked at him squinting.
“How many times do I have to tell you that fuinjutsu is patience? Each seal needs its time to be drawn correctly”.
"Booooooring!" Boruto made the verse, collapsing on the free chair in front of his brother. “In a fight you don't have time to do all these scribbles, you have to be agile and quick, think fast and above all react quickly. They don't give you time to write!" he concluded, falling with his head on the desk.
Rin quickly grabbed the bottle of ink that his hustle and bustle had risked spreading over his long and tiring work.
"And this is why they are prepared before the mission... Burrito," he teased.
"But you can't know what you're up against!"
“A good shinobi knows how to use his cards well in any situation,” Rin proclaimed seriously.
Boruto, in response, made the verse imitating him with a fake sumptuous voice. Rin looked at him offended and his expression made his brother laugh out loud, making fun of him was too funny. His laughter rang throughout the archive, slipping among the tall bookcases that contained all the knowledge of Konoha's shinobi arts, from taijutsu to genjutsu, from ninjutsu to fuinjustu. This was Rin's interest, the reason that led him to spend most of his free time among those parchments full of dust. It was there that all the knowledge saved by Uzushio and the search of the Yondaime were stored. As his grandson and descendant of the Uzumaki Clan he had free access to that section whenever he wanted... But he suspected that being the son of the Nanadaime was the main reason they left him in that important and well-guarded room as often as he wanted. After all, the one with the reputation of a troublemaker was Boruto, not him. Rin was the studious one, the responsible and polite older brother, who always thought twice before doing something and didn't chase trouble as his only amusement.
Boruto was quite the opposite. Not to mention the terrible injustice...
"I'm sorry if not everyone is born with perfect chakra control and an innate understanding of jutsu," Rin muttered offended.
After all, if Rin was the nerd of the family, Boruto was the genius.
Boruto stopped laughing. "But you're not offended, are you?"
He did not answer, still a little resentful, but just at that moment the entrance door opened. They expected to see an old scholar with a white beard, or Shikamaru come to take them (having at the same time someone with such unstable chakra control and a troublemaker of Boruto's level in such a precious room put always anxious to the Hokage adviser), but instead it turned out to be their father.
"Oh, hello daddy!" Rin greeted, as Himawari also made her way into the room and walked up to him for a hug.
Their dad smiled. "I knew you were here". Then he looked at Boruto, frowning sternly. "Aren't you supposed to be sick?"
The middle son began to sweat. “But I'm sick! All I do is sneeze, tell him Rin!"
Rin didn't say anything, not after he made fun of him. May he see it alone to face the consequences of the lie he had told only to skip the Academy. Instead, he focused on his little sister, who had begun to tell him about her entire school day. All three od them attended the Shinobi Academy, although obviously they were in different years. Himawari was still in Primary, while Boruto had started Secondary the year before and Rin was in Tertiary.
"You can't continue to skip the Academy, you risk not being admitted to the exams" their dad scolded Boruto with the air of someone who was tired of facing those speeches.
The child was sulking at the reproach. “But we do things that I already know. I'm bored!" he complained.
"There is always something new to learn".
"Daddy..." he exhaled looking at him with wide eyes. “We are still doing the substitution technique. I learned how to do it when I was nine!"
Rin, on the other hand, still did not know how to do it without the help of fuinjutsu. The last time he had tried, he had blown up two trees.
"Can you teach me, nii-san?" Himawari broke in excitedly.
"No!" their worried daddy ordered. "First you study the chakra theory, then you can start using it."
Himawari had managed to unlock the sharingan at the age of six, dad didn't even dare to imagine what would have happened if she had also learned to use the chakra. With taijutsu alone she was a killing machine that made her teachers sweat.
"Studying is boring," the little girl complained.
Rin frowned. “Studying is fantastic”.
"You only say that because it's the only thing you can do, neeeerd!" Boruto snapped making an L with his fingers on his forehead.
Their dad decided to get in the way before they started bickering, it had been a long day coordinating ANBUs and he had already heard too many arguments.
"Does Naruto know you're here?"
Boruto crossed his arms. "Yes," he said only.
"Nana said he prefers to know it with me, rather than at home and free to do some trouble" explained Rin with a more accomplished smile.
"As if he was a saint at my age!" protested Boruto.
The older ignored him. "Kawaki was there too, but he was getting bored and so he went to nana's office."
The adult nodded, visibly reassured, even though he decided that he would talk to his husband about his attitude of yielding too quickly to Boruto's whims. It was important that he attended the Academy, Naruto could not allow him to skip it with the most desperate excuses. But for the moment, he wanted to enjoy a moment of peace with his children.
He walked over to the desk, glancing at the work on the counter. The scrolls were thick with symbols, only a few recognizable to his sharingan; it was arranged neatly on the sheet, clear and free of smudges. He could see with how carefully Rin was practically those years, the improvement compared to the first scribbles was impressive. Rin was probably about to reach the same level as Minato by now and he was only fourteen.
"What do we have here?" he asked softly and Rin's eyes lit up with joy, like every time someone took an interest in his work.
"I'm trying to create a teleportation seal."
"I can see this" he considered, noticing the same symbols as the hiraishin, but this was a little more complicated.
“Yes, that is, it is to teleport things. I'm basing it on a Uzushio seal. Except it's one of those lost seals, so I don't have all the information I need to use it. I'm trying to recreate it, but it's really difficult considering that in addition to being spatial it is also temporal, so I have to calculate the paradoxes... "
"Paradox?" Boruto asked with a grimace.
The father answered for Rin. “Yes, if the shift is instantaneous, the consequences it has on reality must be corrected”.
"Exact! It's just that it's quite difficult, the temporal part is the most complicated and I have to pay attention to even the smallest design variation or risk of..." he hesitated a bit in search of the correct word, but Boruto found it for him.
"To blow it up," he chuckled.
Rin blushed. “Actually worse. It's dangerous to play with time and space if you don't know what you're doing ”.
"Then why are you doing it?"
Daddy smiled tenderly. "For the trip to Kiri, right?"
Rin looked away embarrassed and nodded.
Arriving at the Tertiary it was customary for students to organize a cultural exchange, where they spent a year in another shinobi nation learning its culture. This greatly strengthened diplomatic relations between the various countries, but also allowed the new shinobi to come out of the provincialism of their own Village, to take into account the existence of other realities. It was very important, it prevented a closing in on oneself and one's beliefs, which had once caused conflicts between nations. Now there was encouragement to get to know each other, dialogue with the different and share; cultural exchange between the academy was one of the most effective means, since childhood they were educated to respect the other.
Rin had chosen Kiri as his destination, being the only other shinobi village to have any fuinjutsu tradition.
He was excited about the adventure, but also scared. He had always remained in the Land of Fire, in Konoha with his family to which he was very attached. The idea of going so far, without his fathers and brothers... Not always having one of them near, not staying in his room, not going down in the morning and finding the breakfast prepared by daddy... That thought made him suffer. He and his brothers always quarreled, teased each other mercilessly, but they adored each other and hated being divided. That's why he was working on that teleportation seal. It would allow him to instantly exchange items, letters, and even food, without the long lead times of international mail. Rin would remain in constant contact with his family even from miles away.
So Rin nodded, knowing their daddy could guess all of that. They exchanged smiles and he felt good when daddy brushed his hair with his big hand.
“But now it's getting late, let's go home. You will continue tomorrow ".
Rin didn't fight that decision, he actually felt very tired after focusing for so long.
"We have to tidy up first," he said diligently, looking at the mess caused by his work and Boruto's poking around. Boruto was mainly focused on sifting through the Uchiha bookstores, only available after the Fourth War since Sasuke-san had given permission to share the secrets of the clan.
Boruto made a verse. "And what does it take?"
He immediately brought his fingers in front of his face and a shadow clone joined him. Rin looked at him annoyed.
"Yes, I had thought of that too!" he pointed out by imitating him.
But the shadow clone he had created exploded a second after he had done it, dispersing in fire and wind of pure chakra. Daddy then jumped to push Rin away from the desk.
And that was the last thing they remembered after waking up in the burning archive, surrounded by ANBU who were attacking them.
PRESENT (OR PAST?)
The Sandaime was so upset that the pipe risked falling from his half-open mouth. Kakashi was too aware and in tune with him to giggle at that expression. Anyone who would have been shocked by such a story, even the fifthteen-year-old who told that story was aware of it and now stared at them uncertainly. His siblings were tight around him, suspicious and frightened by the whole situation.
Kakashi understood them in his heart: they had been suddenly catapulted into the past, being attacked by people they considered allies, now they were completely alone and didn't even know how to go back. The little girl, Himawari, had started crying as soon as she had understood the situation. Her reaction had created panic among the shinobi, as they were not used to dealing with crying babies. At that point Kakashi had intervened, forcing himself to use the little energy left and had tried to explain the situation. Thus the alarm ceased and they were accompanied by the Hokage, already aware of the alleged attack but unaware of the mess that had just hit them.
The SS emergency order was given. That haden’t been used since the Kyūbi attack and only a few were allowed to attend the impromptu meeting. Among the lucky few was also the Team 7, who had witnessed the whole scene and... Well, apparently those were the children of a team member. It was clear to everyone in the room that those three were related to Naruto, the similarities were too vivid, almost disturbing. It only remained to understand who the other parent was... Rin had been careful not to reveal anything about the mysterious person who was with them at the time of the disaster, it was only clear that it was another father, a man. And considering that two of them three had sharingan...
Kakashi turned to look at his more taciturn student, wondering how that was possible. Sasuke was very pale and had sweat on his temples, as if he had come to the same conclusion.
It was precisely on this that the Sandaime decided to intervene.
"So you are the sons of Uzumaki Naruto".
As soon as he said it, his blonde student gasped, as if the mere fact had stung him. Kakashi couldn't blame him, he was twelve and had found his own children in front of him without warning, one of them even older than him.
Rin nodded nervously. "Yes, sir, exactly."
He saw Shikaku massaging his forehead incredulously. When he arrived at the office Himawari had called him Uncle Shikamaru, the name of his child! It was all so absurd!
"And your mother?"
Rin confirmed what everyone had more or less guessed from his story.
“Um, there’s no mom. Besides dad — nana — we have... daddy. We have two dads and no moms” he specified as if he wasn't clear enough already.
Hiruzen looked very unnerved.
"Sure, but the woman who gave birth to you..."
Rin — hell, why did he have that name?! — blushed to the roots of his hair and muttered something that vaguely resembled "oiroke no jutsu".
Kakashi began to have a tremendous foreboding, like Hokage himself judging by how he blanched, and the boy confirmed this by clearing his throat.
“It was nana who gave us birth, thanks to a particular jutsu. I mean… Naruto gave birth to us,” Rin concluded feebly.
At his side he heard a strangled sound and fortunately Kakashi thought it best to move a chair under Naruto's ass, where the boy crashed with an upset expression. Still, he couldn't blame that reaction. Sasuke also seemed to need to sit down after all.
Meanwhile, that sentence had the power to make everyone present uncomfortable and the heavy air made Rin giggle with nervousness.
"Eheh, believe in Uzumaki Naruto to succeed in the impossible..."
The Sandaime seemed not to want to delve into this aspect. He continued:
"So who is your other father?"
"We can't tell you," Rin said promptly.
The old man raised an eyebrow at that decisive and almost abrupt answer.
"Well, judging by your sharingans, you must also have Uchiha blood. And this greatly restricts the possible candidates..."
He left the sentence hanging, watching Sasuke getting closer to fainting. Rin caught the direction of his gaze and his eyes widened, sensing what he was thinking. He parried his hands in front of him, waving them comically in a mannerism that for some reason was familiar to Kakashi.
“No, no! No!" he repeated shaking his head. “It's not Sasuke-san! Nor Itachi!" he added after a second.
It was the first time that the name had been mentioned in front of Sasuke since his betrayal, but the boy reacted by exhaling a sigh of relief and collapsing. Kakashi promptly made him find a chair to fall on too, but unlike Naruto he had a much more reassured expression.
That answer, however, gave possible space to only one conclusion, the same one that was making the Hokage widen his eyes and made Ibiki intervene in the discussion.
"Is there another survived Uchiha?!"
Rin turned pale and looked at his feet, not answering. But the silence was a clear confirmation and made the head of the Intelligence Division impatient. He took a step toward the children, who shuddered back at his imposing and menacing figure.
"You absolutely must tell us who he is!" he ordered.
"I can't!" Rin said in a voice that was trembling, still looking down and seemed on the verge of tears, probably the stress of the situation was overwhelming him. "I cannot".
"You have to! There is another Uchiha and..."
"I cannot!" Rin screamed over him, the first tear falling down his cheeks. “If I do this, I create a paradox, I risk erasing the future! It's called the butterfly effect. Nana hasn't met with daddy yet, he doesn't even know him... If we change this there is a risk that they won't fall in love and we won't even be born!" he ended with his voice dropping at the last sentence.
His outburst silenced everyone present and made Kakashi understand the gravity of the situation. Rin was right, even without being a time travel expert he knew how dangerous the consequences for the space-time continuum could be. They risked creating paradoxes that led the inhabitants of this timeline to make choices that would lead to a different future… one where they were not born. Ibiki also realized this, and his small dark eyes widened and took a step back, struck by the possibility. But then he recovered, sighing:
“We need proof of your identity. You could be spies… of Orochimaru's experiments”.
Ibiki's was a good point. But the mention of the Sannin made Boruto frown, silent and gloomy, as if wondering why he was so afraid of the possibility. Kakashi hoped this meant that Orochimaru was no longer a threat to Konoha in the future.
"We look a lot like nana," Rin murmured. "Is it not enough?"
The Sandaime spoke again, trying to look at him softly.
"Uzumaki Rin, right?" The boy nodded, sniffling at him. "I understand you, but I fear that the butterfly effect has already been activated with your presence alone... I am afraid that at this point it would not change anything to tell us something more".
"Maybe this is not enough change..." Rin murmured in distress. "Maybe it hasn't actually clicked yet."
"And why should tell us who the other father is trigger it?"
The child looked at him pleadingly, pale and with watery eyes. He looked really desperate.
"I…"
"If there is another Uchiha surviving we must know".
"No…"
The Sandaime started to reply, but he had no way. Boruto pushed his brother aside and stood in front of him, yelling:
"Stop, enough! Rin told you no, what do you still insist on, dattebasa?!" He raised his arms in exasperation. “Rin knows all about dimensional and time travel, if he says that that triggers trouble it means he's right, stop. What do you want to understand, you stupid old man?!"
… And that was the definitive proof that they were Naruto's children.
It was the first time Boruto had spoken since he had entered the room, limiting himself until then to being close to his older brother, glaring at everyone. His explosion against the Hokage had come very unexpected, it made everyone fall silent a second time. In that silence Boruto looked at them one by one with challenge, clenching his fists and standing firmly in the center of the room.
The Sandaime put his pipe on the desk and sighed.
"I am the Hokage, my job is to protect the Konoha of this present... This is vital information that I need to be made aware of."
"So what?" Boruto made the sound of a bully. “Are you going to force us? Torture us?"
Kakashi felt Naruto wince very violently at his side and before he knew it his student had gotten off his chair and stepped forward.
"No, dattebayo!" he exploded in turn. "No you don't!"
At this point the Sandaime seemed to want to put his hands in his white hair.
"Naruto..."
“They will be right, won’t them? They are the ones who come from the future and know things! And it seems to me that things are going pretty well there”.
"We are experiencing the longest period of peace in shinobi history," Rin confirmed in a faint voice.
“Here, believe it! And we did it even without this information, so what do you need it for? Konoha is still there without knowing who this other Uchiha was." He swallowed. “And then maybe they're right, what if we find out who he is and erase the future? I just find out that I will have a family… I don't want to lose it before I have it!" he concluded frightened, but determined.
His statement made Himawari burst into tears and the little girl dropped her older brother's legs to throw herself on Naruto. His student was petrified as the little girl hugged him and buried her wet face on his chest, squeezing tight and sobbing "nana".
Kakashi felt his heart tighten, realizing how much this was affecting the orphan. Naruto had always dreamed of a family, it was obvious that he fought tooth and nail to not lose the one he would earn in the future.
For this he was not surprised when, after a moment of surprise, the Jinchūriki returned the squeeze and looked at the Hokage with clear challenge.
They weren't going to rip them off.