After becoming the Seventh, Naruto came to complain to me about how exhausting the job was

I rubbed my eyes.

Harsh sunlight streamed through the gaps between the leaves onto my face.

It was a little blinding.

"Sen, how come you fell asleep out here?"

A loud, gruff voice reached my ears.

It carried the deep exhaustion of someone with serious bags under his eyes.

I bolted upright.

The blanket draped over me slid to the ground.

I looked around.

There was no Ten-Tails, no Kara.

Just the dense grove of mutated apple trees on Konoha's back mountain.

And my bamboo rocking chair, with the two hollows I'd worn into it.

Was that a dream?

I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.

That dream had been seriously bizarre. Even the villains from Boruto: Naruto Next Generations had shown up.

Kurenai and those other women had probably worn my nerves thin with all their bickering these past two days.

I let out a long breath.

Then I turned toward the man standing beside my rocking chair.

An orange Hokage Robe.

The words "Seventh" were printed across the back in large red characters.

That loudmouthed blond brat from back in the day.

Now he had a ring of dark stubble around his chin.

The bags under his eyes were worse than Shikamaru's.

He was even holding a thermos.

"What brings you out here, kid?"

Shuffling in my flip-flops, I bent down to pick up the blanket.

I brushed off the two blades of dried grass stuck to it.

"Did the Hokage Building go out of business?"

Naruto pulled a miserable face.

Like a deflated ball, he slumped onto a stump beside me.

He'd brought the stump himself.

"Don't even get me started, big bro."

He unscrewed his thermos and gulped down a mouthful of Goji Berry Tea.

"All that paperwork is driving me insane."

"From seven this