~ Authors Note ~

Chapter One: A Secret of the Hyūga Clan

This is another story I've been thinking about writing, it's an AU (alternate universe) because it derives from cannon by a big margin with Boruto taking up the roll of the narrator because I love him so much and think he's got great potential as a character. Also because I couldn't get this idea out of my head. Now to put everything in perspective, in regards to the timeline, the Fourth Shinobi War did happen and everything before it happened, but what happens after the war ended is what's been changed to certain degrees. Anyways, be sure to comment and favorite this story if you like it down below.

Oh and if you read my other Naruto fanfiction "When Everything Crumbles" this is why I haven't got the sixth chapter finished yet, I was pre-writing this one so it's almost finished. I am going to write the sixth chapter for that one soon! Promise :D

When I was younger, I use to watch the other kids of the Hidden Leaf Village playing games of hide and seek through my bedroom window. There were days when I just longed to join them, the feeling running deep enough to make me beg my mother if I could. To be on the other side of the Hyūga Compound's gated fence for once. Whenever I asked she would look at me with a sadness in her lavender eyes and told me I couldn't.

Immediately I would deflate like a popped balloon and trudge my way back up the stairs in the Compound, my shoulders hunched in defeat. The next few hours were spent with me wallowing around my room and staring out the window at the children below, thinking. Why was it that they got to go outside and have fun when I've never been allowed outside the Compound? Is there something wrong with me?

Now, at almost twelve years of age, I've stopped asking and after all my many escape attempts, Mom decided to do something to occupy my time. Since the age of four Grandfather has been training me in the art of Gentle Fist. The Hyūga Clan's signature fighting style and one of the strongest fighting forms there are and I've got to admit that I enjoy the time I spend doing it. It gives me something to focus on and keeps my thoughts away from what lingers on the other side of the walls of the Compound.

It seems that no matter who I ask, no one wants to tell me why only I'm forbidden from leaving the grounds. Usually when I can't get anyone to answer my questions, I go to Aunt Hanabi who gives it to me straight. Even she keeps her silence when I ask. The last time I asked her was a few years back, on my ninth birthday, that's when she finally gave me a vague reason.

After rolling around my bed for close to an hour, I'd slipped silently through the halls, one benefit that came from years of training in the art of stealth, and found my way to her corridor. She was the only one whose room was in that section of the mansion as Mom's was by mine and Grandfathers was in the center of the building where his staff of guards surrounding it.

Leaning my weight on the door, I remember watching the crack between the door widen and then the sound of Aunt Hanabi's voice when she yanked it open and I came tumbling it. My face making a nice crater in the sleek wooden floors in her bedroom.

"What's up Squirt?" Aunt Hanabi said, smirking at the glare I'd shot her way as I slowly rose to my feet.

Biting the inside of my lip, I move further into the room. Aunt Hanabi shuts the door behind me before taking a seat on her woolly creme colored rug. Her brown hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, her lavender eyes danced with mischief and childlike innocence unlike the calming serenity and suppressed sorrow that's in my mothers.

"Aunt 'Nabi... Please for once j-just tell me," my voice is nothing more than a broken whisper. So low that I wasn't even sure she could hear it, hell, I could barely hear my own voice. As soon as I looked up at her eyes, I knew that she understood.

"Boruto," she murmurs. Her eyes seemed to loose their light, like a gust of wind lick out the flame of a candle. She dropped her head forward and her brown hair fell around her face, hiding it from view. A shuddering breath is the only response for nearly two minutes before she sits back up. "You need to understand and I know that you do, but it's not my place to tell you. It's... it's a family matter."

She'd shuffled me out of her room after that and escorted me back to my own. Ignoring my confused questions. I didn't understand what she'd meant about a family matter, she was a part of the family and so was Grandfather. Why couldn't she tell me.

I understand now though that she meant it was my family matter. My mother, me, and whoever the hell my father is. Our family matters. I guess it's pointless knowledge now though, not something to be concerned with. For all my (almost-twelve) years, I haven't seen my father once. A bitter laugh bubbles up because I don't even know the bastards name.

Mom never talks about my father and it makes me wonder about the circumstances regarding my conception. I use to ask questions about him all the time, I was naturally curious. This mystery man makes up half of who I am, it feels like there something missing a deep confusion about who he is, who i am, and why he hasn't been around my whole life. Doesn't he care, even a little?

Gritting my teeth, I curse myself internally as tears well up in my eyes. I close them to keep the tears at bay while still shouting obscenities in my head. Damn it! Getting all emotional like this, crying like a loser. Pathetic, if my father doesn't love me then fine. Whatever! No reason to get so poignant over the reality, besides my mother absolutely does love me.

She says it every day.

There's just time when I wonder about him, who he is or was. He might be dead for all I know and that's why Mom doesn't want to talk about it because she's still grieving. As much sense as it makes, that still doesn't feel right and doesn't explain why I can go to the Academy like the other kids to become a ninja of the village. Granted their headbands to show their status and loyalty to their home.

Currently the students about to graduate next year, when I would have if I'd been allowed to attend when I was young like the rest of the kids, are the same ones I'd watched outside my window on the long summer nights into the cooler seasons. Deep in the winter month there's always a snowman built in the snow by a couple of girls. I don't know their names, but I recognize the symbol on the back of the raven haired girls coat.

The mark of the Uchiha Clan.

Usually at her side is another girl with orange hair, darker skin, and a bit more rotund than the Uchiha. They seemed to be really close friends, I've always wondered what it'd be like to have friends. Someone to talk to that isn't related by blood alone. Even the one who are blood related aren't in a great supply, there's only two children in the Hyūga House and some teenagers.

Most consist of the adults like Mom and Aunt Hanabi and especially the Grand Elders of the clan. As most would guess, they're not exactly jumping to spend time with an eleven year old kid who won't even be a ninja. That's why training in the art of Gentle Fist never made sense to me, I'm learning something I'll never use. Mom says it for self-defense in case something happens.

I think the real question is what would happen? The Rokudaime Hokage Kakashi has been around for as long as I've been alive and longer, but nothing's really happened yet. Yeah there was that thing with Toneri Ōtsutsuki and the moon almost crashing into the planet when Mom was eighteen, but everything worked out and since then the village has been peaceful.

At the sound of my bedroom door creaking open, I turn away from the window to face my mother just as she's stepping inside. She has her long indigo hair pulled back in a low ponytail, dressed in a lavender tank top and a bisque colored skirt that hangs at her knees. Her eyes flicker from me to the window and back again, giving a somber smile.

"Hey Mom, what's up?" I ask, flashing the biggest smile I can.

I don't fail to notice the way her face lights up when I do, the way she smiles more genuine than before. A sense of familiarity and recognition that she must see in my face when I do. Thinking about him more than likely, my father...

Edging further in, she takes a seat on my bed as she watches me from my position by the window. "Your grandfather asked me to retrieve you. Something about..." she pauses, tapping a delicate finger against her chin and looking up at the ceiling in thought. "Learning the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven."

Three seconds pass before my ears finally register what she just said, then a smile overtakes my face as I jump up from my rolling chair like it was on fire. Mom watches as I throw open the door to my closet, digging around for my training gear. I'm talking a mile a minute, excitement flashing in every movement I make. I've been trying to get Grandfather to teach me for three months now and it's finally here.

Looks like all those late night training sessions in the dark were worth it after all. I hear shuffling as Mom moves to where the door is, glancing at me as she opens the door. "Oh, he also told me to tell you not to take too long. You know how your grandfather hates waiting. And remember, have fun." She grins as the door shuts behind her.

As quickly as I can, I pull on my black pants and a white T-shirt and turn just in time to get a view of myself in the mirror mounted on top of my dresser. I sober up at the sight, my enthusiasm dying like a wounded animal. I've always stood out among the rest of the Hyūga Clan and whenever I look in the mirror, I'm reminded of why that is.

I mean hell, I don't look anything like the other clan members with their long dark hair and lavender eyes that show the tell-tale sign of their signature kekkei genkai the Byakugan. As for me though, I got my mother's face shape. Everything else has to be from my father: cerulean blue eyes, four whisker on my cheeks (two on each side)—and I have no idea what the hell is wrong with my father for me to inherit whiskers like a fox—, and bright blond hair that's seemingly a reincarnation of the suns rays coming out of my head.

The most pathetic thing of all is that even though I know he must look like me and no matter how many features I change in the mirror to try to find the right face of the man to match my own, and all I can see is myself and the missing pieces.