Boruto: Naruto the Movie - Volume 1 - Chapter 2

Chapter two: Deprivation 
The door opened. 
There stepped in a man who couldn’t possibly have come here, but who couldn’t possibly have stayed absent. 
“Yo,” While looking a little embarrassed, the Seventh Hokage.... Uzumaki Naruto gave his son and daughter a clumsy smile. 
The hours felt like a dream. 
His father was here, his mother was here, and his little sister was smiling. Nobody was lonely. 
Large, piping hot chicken taken out from the oven. 
Himawari’s sparkling eyes. 
Confetti scattering everywhere from the crackers. 
His mother, looking she was having fun for the first time in so long. 
And, his father, who warmly watched over her expression. 
It would’ve been nice if this lasted forever. 
If things could just stay like this. 
Boruto thought. 
He wished. 

However. 
In the mine, and in the ninja tool development department, and in the tv station, and in the train station, and in the prison, and in the archives, and in every single place you could think of... 
For the sake of protecting the families of people he didn’t even know, for the sake of protecting the warmth of other homes... 
The same man who kept fighting and working constantly found the stream of his consciousness suddenly interrupted. 
It was like watching a firecracker’s sparks die out. 
Naruto’s glittering figure abruptly disappeared. 
In that instant, his mother’s home-made cake that had been in Naruto’s hands fell to the ground with a ‘plop’. Himawari’s smiling face turned into tears. 
Boruto didn’t really remember what happened after that. 
He could feel burning hot tears spilling out his eyes, his feet pounding against the floor. 
His whole body was wrapped in anger. 
He couldn’t forgive him. 
He couldn’t possibly forgive him. 
His father’s love towards his children had been a Kage Bunshin’s illusion. 

“Boruto!” 
His mother was half hugging him as she held him back. 
He probably had a frightening look on his face. 
“Let me go, mom!” 
“Your dad’s always doing his best for everyone in the village,” she said, “It absolutely isn’t because he means to neglect you!” 

His mother’s eyes were shaking. 
Boruto knew that his mother was enduring it too. 

But. 
But was this how things were? 
“Everyone in the village”....did that not include them? 
If they weren’t included, then what even was a Hokage? 
The Hokage’s statues, those faces carved into the mountain, were they people who just got sucked into the system? “Why?!” 
Questions he knew he shouldn’t say out loud whirled around inside Boruto, and finally burst out of him like magma from a volcano. 
“Why is my dad the Hokage?!” He yelled, “He just stands behind his desk all day looking arrogant, doesn’t he?! Shikamaru ojisan, or Sakura obasan, anyone would be fine, wouldn’t they?!!” 
“The Hokage is terribly important,” His mother looked down, “...For generations, they’ve been an incredibly precious existence for the village.” 
“Then I suppose all the children of the Hokages have been gratefully accepting this good-for-nothing situation for generations, too!” 
His words were rushing out of his mouth. 
He couldn’t stop himself any more. 
He’d known how things were. 
He’d known, but knowing didn’t make it better. 
Of course it didn’t. 
There was more. 
“Now that you mention it, Grandpa used to be a Hokage too, but dad says that when he was a kid, Grandpa Hokage wasn’t even in this world any more!” 
He was howling. 
“That means dad grew up not knowing a thing about this enjoyable father-son situation, didn’t he?! Dad’s the only one who doesn’t know what this is like!” 
Screaming. 
“If he was going to be like this-” 
Cursing. 

“Then it would’ve been better if he was never there from the beginni-” 
“I know it’s sad,” his mother said, “When your dad isn’t here on an important day, but...” 
His mother had a tear sliding down her cheek. 
Boruto knew that his mother was human too. 
He knew she was just as human as he was. 
There was a line that he shouldn’t cross. 
Today, he’d cursed his mother’s most precious person. 
Even Boruto could understand that much. 
But. 
It was because he understood that. 
Because he understood. 
Because he was a hero’s child. 
It turned out that there was a limit to what a shinobi could, endure after all. 
“Boruto, you’re different from your father’s time...” His mother said, “You have your father here.” 
He knew that his father had been an orphan. 
He knew he had lost both his parents to a calamity that struck the village, and lived alone. 
He knew that was why he was far more blessed than his father. 
However, one person’s unhappiness couldn’t heal simply by sympathising with others. 
His own sadness was still his own. 
“...I can deal with it...but Himawari...” Boruto’s shoulder’s slumped, his fists clenched and trembling. 
No, that wasn’t it. 
He couldn’t even understand what it was. 
Part of him wanted to act like an adult, and part of him wanted to act like a child. The two sides felt like they were both ripping Boruto’s heart apart. 
“Just...forget it.” He muttered, 
He let his shoulder’s fall, and turned to walk to his own room. 
Behind him, he could feel his mother tearfully hug Himawari close. 

The alignment of the memory from the moment his Kage Bunshin burst burdened Naruto’s heart. 
But he still endured it. 
He endured it because he couldn’t forget the sad looks on his children’s faces that he’d glimpsed before disappearing. 
When you deployed several Kage Bunshin to do work, it was extremely hard on the main body. It became all he could do to handle office work and hold conversations. It was because he had to use his powers of concentration and chakra to maintain the Kage Bunshin for long periods of time. 
“Are you okay?” 
The one who helped Naruto back up onto his chair was his old friend and aide, Shikamaru. 
Naruto sunk into his seat like he was folding in on himself. “I really messed up...” 
u jj 
Naruto could tell Shikamaru was looking at him with the eyes of a worried friend. 
“I’ll handle the rest.” Shikamaru said. “You should go home and rest already.” 
“Yeah...I should.” 
The next thing Boruto knew, he was in his father’s room. 
He normally couldn’t enter this place, but the slightly open door had felt like it was somehow inviting him in. 
Lots of photos with a smiling face greeted him. 
It was a face he wasn’t familiar with. 
It was his father’s face, back when he himself was a young boy, a young man. 
Amidst those photos, there were pictures of Boruto himself after he’d been born too. There were pictures showing him as he grew up, too. His father must’ve looked at those particular photos a lot, cradling them one by one. He could tell because the frames had gotten worn down from his dad holding them in his hand. 
And the more recent the photos of him got, the more worn they were. 
“So stupid...he’s worn everything out, hasn’t he.” 
Boruto saw an important looking piece of clothing hanging at the end of the line of photographs. 
It was what Naruto used to wear in the past when he was reporting as part of Team 7'. From when he’d been the same age as Boruto. 
It had obviously gotten torn, and dirty, and damp with sweat in the past, and despite how carefully it had been cleaned and mended, the clothing clearly hadn’t been able to escape the wears and tears of time. 

Why keep that kind of worn out thing? Boruto got angry. 
“Uncool!” 
He threw it away. 
He couldn’t see the clothes he threw out the window as anything more than a worn out rag. He couldn’t stand it. 
He couldn’t tolerate the way his dad had devotedly taken care of this kind of smelly old rag. 
And that was when the doorbell rang. 
The thing that changed Boruto’s destiny sounded like the chime of a bell. 
Boruto ran down the stairs because he thought his dad was at the door. 
He’d decided on hitting the jackass. 
And that was why he pulled back a fist for a knock-out blow the same instant that he opened the door. 
He wasn’t holding back at all. 
However. 
The man who stood behind the door easily stopped Boruto’s fist. 
He was a man who looked kinda like a blade had turned into a person. Something about him felt similar to a certain girl with glasses he knew. 
“M-my bad...” Boruto said, “I uh, I mistook you for my dad...” 
It wasn’t exactly a good excuse for trying to hit someone you didn’t even know, but he he didn’t have anything else to say. 
“...So you’re Naruto’s son, huh...Name?” 
The man’s gaze was sharper than a needle’s point. 
It was way more strong and intense than the gaze of any other man Boruto knew. 
They were the kind of eyes that made you ask yourself what kind of battlefields this guy had lived through. “Uzumaki...Boruto...” he answered. 
I see. 

“Could it possibly be...” His mother had finally appeared, appearing from the kitchen. “Sasuke...kun?” 
“Is Naruto here?” 
“I think he’s still at the Hokage Office...” 
“I see. Sorry for the bother.” 
Overall, there was one significant thing about their conversation to Boruto. 
This man was named Sasuke. He’d been a friend of his mother’s. He could call his dad by name without any honourifics. 
In other words, this man could be no one other than the legendary shinobi, Uchiha Sasuke. 
So cool...! 
Boruto’s hands had balled up unconsciously. 
He understood. 
This was the ‘hero’ he’d really wanted to meet. 
It had been a while since he had last returned, and Sasuke was still as sour-faced as always. Either way, the fact that Sasuke had come back to the village of Konohagakure meant that Naruto wouldn’t be able to go home soon either. 
“It’s from Kaguya’s castle.” Sasuke said. 
The scroll he was holding out to Naruto was covered in gibberish. Naruto had never been strong with class lectures to begin with, but even if he had been, it wouldn’t been just as impossible to guess what was written. 
“I don’t know what’s written there,” Naruto said, “But it gives off a bad feeling, doesn’t it?” 
“I can’t even read it with my Rinnegan.” Sasuke said. 
Sasuke’s Rinnegan had several sciences to it, and one of them was pattern recognition. It helped him analyse patterns inside codes, and by comparing them to similar patterns, decipher what was written. When put into use, one could take large amounts of information from a small amount of text. Techniques that could make use of that ability had been left to be taught within the Uchiha’s stone monument. 
But the fact that Sasuke couldn’t read it meant that the scroll didn’t have any patterns known to Sasuke. 
.. Is that so.” Naruto thought for a while, and then returned to his seat. “Going home is a no-go. Looks like the scroll needs to be deciphered instead.” 
The Department of Analytical Study was a new division Naruto had created, whose purpose was investigating ancient civilisations. They dealt mostly in ancient codes and ancient hieroglyphic characters. Even if it was something Sasuke couldn’t read, the chances that their team could make something out of it were pretty high. 

“I’ll leave it to you.” Sasuke said. The fact that he could say it was surely a sign that he held faith in the Department too. 

“By the way,” with a rustle, Sasuke put a tattered rag on the desk. It was an incredibly nostalgic jacket, flooded with mud and blood and sweat that couldn’t be erased. 
“!? Why is this with you?” 
“I picked it up on the way here.” “Oh, I see...” 
“I met your kid, too.” Sasuke’s expression became a little softer. “He’s really turned out to be just like you were...” 
“...He’s different from how I used to be...if you ask me, I think he’s more like the old you...” Naruto said, shaking his head and looking somehow a little lonely. 
He was thinking of the Uchiha Sasuke who had always been vivid, a little cold. Someone he’d aspired to be. 
“No,” Naruto shook his head at himself this time, “At the end...he’s not the same as the old you either. The clothes he wears always look like they’re brand new, yknow...” 
Naruto looked down at the jacket he held in his hands, the jacket his past self had worn. 
It was a relic from the era that Naruto had lived in. 

Living every week, every day, with your life constantly at risk. Never knowing when you could die. It was the memory of that kind of an era. 
Now, things were different. 
Naruto and Sasuke had risked their lives to try and change the era. That was why Naruto thought it couldn’t be helped that his own son couldn’t understand him. 
“We might be behind the times...” Naruto commented. 
“No...that’s definitely not the case.” Sasuke coolly shook his head, same as always, “The nature of shinobi doesn’t change. That applies even to your kid.” 
“I wonder.” Naruto mused, “I think the winner of this argument is probably me, yknow.” 
“Feh.” Sasuke snorted. 
Naruto had always chased after that smile of his. 
“You usuratonkachi.” 
Even at night, the village of Konohagakure shined. 

Sasuke reminisced that it used to be much darker when he was a child. Times were changing with every passing second. Every time he came back, the village had changed some more. Not just the village. Most likely, the people too. 

Sasuke heard the sound of air being sliced. 
The sound of a shuriken. 
It was being thrown with top-knotch skill, full of intent to be a knockout blow. 
It was aimed with perfect accuracy towards the artery at the back of Sasuke’s neck. 
However, it was regrettable to say that the experience of the thrower was lacking. They had perfectly copied a move made by watching and learning from someone else’s technique, but nothing more. It wasn’t the kind of move you should use in a real fight against an experienced opponent. 
Especially when your opponent was Uchiha Sasuke of the Mangenkyou Sharingan, no less. 
“You disappeared?!” The thrower of the shuriken let out a surprised voice. 
Sasuke didn’t raise his hand to hit them. 
He was interpreting this as a child’s prank. 
He swiftly moved to circle around to the area behind him and, keeping his hands in his pockets, swept the feet of the shuriken’s thrower from underneath them. 
It was a simple move, but the beauty of the footwork that ruined the opponent’s balance and ability to rush at you was that splendour of not permitting your opponent to react. 
“Awe- awesome....!” 
The thrower of the shuriken who’d fallen into the dirty was a young boy. 
The child he’d met at Naruto’s home. 
“You’re awesome as expected!” He exclaimed, “You used to be my dad’s rival, right? Then...” 
Blond hair. Delicate, refined facial features that looked more like Hinata than Naruto. And finally, neat clothes that didn’t have any tears or stains marking them. 
“I see what he meant...” Sasuke murmured. “Like they’re brand new, huh.” 
Even if the boy in question wasn’t aware of it, his clothes looked the way they were because he’d been brought up loved and pampered. Naruto, in his own way, had raised Boruto with overflowing love for his son. 
And that was why Sasuke was incredibly surprised when the boy straight-forwardly bowed his head. 
“Then, please, make me your disciple! There’s someone I want to beat no matter what!” 
The child had a very serious look on his face as he said that. To make a face like that, he’d probably deliberated in his own way, thought it over a lot. Sweat was running down his face. He was nervous. 
The face that of someone who wasn’t able to say anything passed across Sasuke’s mind like sand. 

“...If you can learn the Rasengan.” He replied, and turned to leave. 
He could tell that the child had tightened his fists behind him, almost choking on his own excitement. Naruto... Sasuke thought, it’s still not clear which one of us will win that debate. 
Konohamaru had finally reached his bed after finishing the remaining business he had, only to find himself awakened deep into the night. 
“What is it all of a sudden..He grumbled, “What the-” 
Boruto burst in. Konohamaru was about to ask if he was pulling some prank again, but before he could, Boruto started spilling out everything on his mind in one breath, like a puppy leaping onto their owner. 
“-so anyway, teach me your Rasengan, sensei! Right now! I’ll master that jutsu really quickly!” 
“Rasengan...?” Looking into Boruto’s fired up eyes, he immediately understood the boy’s intentions. “So you mean...you want to use the Rasengan as a card up your sleeves for the Chuunin Exams, and surprise the Seveth, right? Ahhh, you’ve finally started acting like a shinobi!” 
“It’s something...like that, I guess.” Boruto nodded. 
Seeing his pupil act like that made Konohamaru feel incredibly emotional, like an electric current was running through his whole body. You couldn’t be a ninja and not feel excited about something like this. 
Nngh.. .to think that I’d end up passing on this jutsu to him!! Oohhh, Fourth, Seventh! I’ll make sure to properly carry out this important task! 
Konohamaru’s soul was burning up with passion. 
But, when it came to passion, the truth was that humans couldn’t keep up that hot-blooded fervour for long. 
It didn’t mean the excitement felt at a certain moment was a lie, but just that feeling motivated and continuing to feel motivated were two different things. 
Boruto, who had been given a water balloon from a stand and told to make it burst with his chakra, was now experiencing that difference. 
“Gahhhh....” 
“What happened to your zeal from before?! Come on, try it one more time! Look at what I’m doing more carefully and try to imitate it one more time, this, thisW” 
Konohamaru was the only one worked up about it now. 
“I get what you’re doing!” Boruto said,” I just can’t make it work at all...this, thisWY’ 

“You don’t have to imitate the way I talk!" 
“No, I’m not saying ‘this’ because I’m coping the way you talk, I’m talking about this, this thing in my hands!” 
“You’re really annoying repeating this, thisY’ 
“Who’s the one who’s being annoying here?!!” Boruto demanded. 
Tired out by their sour argument about the difference between word spoken and subject meant in linguistics, Boruto flopped to the ground to sit in protest, and hurled away the water balloon. 
“Why do we have to start with a water balloon?!” Boruto said, “What does it have to do with the technique?! Isn’t there any more efficient way of doing this?!” 
Konohamaru let out a long sigh, and then used his Rasengan to destroy the water balloon in his own hand to show him. 
“It took the Fourth Hokage three years to develop this jutsu. It took the Seventh Hokage, your father, about half a year to master it. The degree of difficulty could be expressed as an A rank. Think about that. Properly go through the lesson steps. That’s how I mastered the jutsu too.” 
The natural talent and hard work that Konohamaru had shown in managing to master the jutsu certainly weren’t of an average level, however he wasn’t saying this to boast. He was simply trying to tell Boruto about the severity of the technique’s history. 
Boruto thought for a while. 
Then, he picked up the water balloon again. 
Konohamaru smiled. 
Sarada, who had been watching over the training from under the shade of a leafy tree, felt happy too. 
And thus. 
Many days and nights passed. 
Again and again, again and again, Boruto concentrated only on continuing his fight with the water balloon. When he burst the balloon, after that, there was the rubber ball. 
He concentrated on nothing else. 
It was very likely that Boruto had never worked so hard for so long in his life. 
And then, that period of hard work came to an end. 
“Ho-how’s this....!” Boruto said. 

The moment Boruto showed Sasuke ‘that technique’ in Konoha’s forest, the first thing Sasuke felt was surprise. 
It was small and frail, like the light of a firefly, but the thing floating above Boruto’s palm was unmistakably a Rasengan. 
He’d probably managed to arrive at this point despite not having a bijuu inside him because of Naruto’s blood and the Hyuuga blood he inherited from his mother, but, that wasn’t all it had been. 
He’d worked hard. 
The boy himself had been fired up probably more than he himself had understood, and there had been Konohamaru’s enthusiastic teaching as well. 
Those were what had resulted in the floating, firefly-like Rasengan before his eyes. 
“It’s pretty small, isn’t it.” Sasuke frankly stated his opinion. 
He wasn’t being mocking. 
Uchiha Sasuke was honest to everyone. He was always upfront when he faced people. His comment was proof he had acknowledged Boruto as a man. 
“It really can’t be called much of a Rasengan, however...” 
Rather, what Sasuke appreciated was how tattered Boruto’s clothes had become. There were no airs, no pretences. It was the clear result of controlling raging chakra. It was proof that he’d struggled to face the secret art of the Rasengan all by himself. 
However, Boruto didn’t interpret it that way. 
He interpreted Sasuke’s attitude as disappointment. 
“Shit!” Frustrated tears welled in his eyes, and he threw the Rasengan in his hand. 
The Rasengan disappeared into thin air [trans note: literally vanished], and as it did, Boruto ran off as well. 
Sasuke didn’t chase after him. He had to make sure he confirmed what he’d just witnessed. 
Sasuke’s daughter appeared then, shrugging her shoulders and coming into sigh as if she was switching turns with the disappeared Boruto. She’d likely been watching the whole time. 
“Hn...you’re as severe as ever, huh, Papa...I’m just going to say one thing because I think you don’t know this about Boruto, okay!” 
She looked like she was very concerned about Boruto. She was talking non-stop in his defence. 
Even if he didn’t know about Boruto, he could come to the same conclusion: that hard work wasn’t something he did often. 
However, before explaining that he knew, there was something Sasuke had to do first. 
“Boruto really isn’t the hard-working type! It’s a miracle he kept it up this long! You understand what I mean, right? Hey?! Listen to me a little-” 

Sasuke drew close to Sarada, and embraced her shoulders. 
“!? Papa?!” 
A sharp sound of something cutting through the air rang out. 
The tree that was in the place Sarada had been standing just a moment ago had been smashed up. 
“What- what was that just now...?!” Sarada said. 
“He really misunderstood. That usuratonkachi.” 
Like father, like son. 
Listen to what people are saying to the end. 
“Eh?” Sarada said. 
“I never said he was no good. I thought I’d take him as a disciple, and yet...” 
At her father’s words, a joyful expression flooded Sarada’s face. 
To think he hadn’t understood the significance of his Rasengan... Sasuke thought. 
That was how frighteningly genius Boruto’s talent was. 
When Sarada ran off to find Boruto, Sasuke gazed at the sight of his beloved daughter’s back for a long time. 
“...so in the end, turns out hard work is lame, and doesn’t bring results at all.” 
Boruto was cradling a mug of hot chocolate in his hands as he talked. He was in the lab of the Scientific Ninja Tools Division. 
“Ah, I see. That’s such an awful story.” 
Katasuke was comforting him. For Boruto, Katasuke was the only one who listened to what he had to say without laughing at him, a precious person. 
“I do have something like this...” Katasuke said, “Acool and sart looking thing, no hand seals needed, something that yields huge, limitless results with little effort.” 
“?!” 
Fire, lightning, and wind had appeared above Katasuke’s palm. He hadn’t made a seal, or accumulated his chakra. The “Gauntlet” was in his hand. The ninja tool that Konohamaru had used. 
“This is a ninja weapon for the new generation! Don’t you think?” 
As Katasuke pulled out several poses, several bright balls came out of the palm of his hand. 
“A-are those...?!” 

“Yes, they’re Rasengan.” Katasuke smiled widely. “If you used this, you’d be a ninja that surpasses your father.” “...I could use the Rasengan...” 
“Now then, young master,” Katasuke extended his hand. “Why don’t we choose a killing technique that’s just right for you...” 
Boruto took his hand. 
He didn’t even hesitate. 
“I wonder where Boruto went. 
Sarada, who’d looked everywhere she could think of to find Boruto and tell hi the good news, now kicked at stones with a somewhat lonely look on her face. 
She thought about how she hadn’t noticed that the boy she’d always been running after now had a daily life she didn’t know about. That he’d changed. 
Was she changing too? 
People said that in the past, her mother and father and the Seventh used to always carry out their missions together as a team. 
Things weren’t like that now. 
No, well right now her father had come home and her mother had a glossy, shining feeling around her, but that was a rare thing. 
Sarada unconsciously reached up to touch her own hair. It had gotten a little longer. 
She was growing up.