I get half of both Naruto and Marvel Chapter 4 4: 4

Naah.. Still failed.

"That's it. You will get out of the house now, Rei." Hana had seen enough.

"Naah.." Rei just flat out said no.

"Don't Naah ..." Hana was ready to fight it out with her son. Her son had been holed up either inside his room or on the backyard, trying to hit the bullseye on the tree with kunai. Since, Rei was failing miserably with chakra manipulation, he decided to try throwing kunai.

And there too he didn't make much progress. But at least there was power in his strike, thanks to enhanced strength. And witnessing all this firsthand, made Hana get scared. She thought her son after failing so many tis, he would give up and rest.

But no, even after three days her son carried on. Relentlessly. She couldn't understand how a 5 year old kid even had the motivation and the drive to leave having fun and just train. This was absurd. No, this couldn't go on. I need to get him out of ho. That's what Hana thought.

anwhile Rei, who had just thrown another kunai that completely missed the tree and sohow landed inside a bucket nearby, looked genuinely offended by physics itself.

"…This is rigged."

Hana's eye twitched.

"The tree is not rigged, Rei."

"You don't know that." Rei narrowed his eyes at the tree like it had personally insulted his ancestors.

Hana walked forward and without much ceremony snatched the remaining kunai pouch from his hand.

"…Hey."

"Nope. Enough training. You are going outside."

"I am outside." Rei pointed out while standing in the backyard.

"You know exactly what I an."

Rei sighed like a middle-aged office worker who had just been denied overti pay. "…Mother, with all due respect, I don't see the productivity in playground activities."

That sentence alone almost made Hana sit down from sheer exhaustion.

"You're five."

"And?"

"And five-year-olds play."

"…Five-year-olds also eat mud. That doesn't make it a wise life decision."

Hana stared at him for a long mont.

"…Sotis I wonder if I actually gave birth to you."

Rei wisely chose not to answer that.

A few minutes later, despite his protests, Hana had sohow managed to drag him out of the house while he looked like a tiny political prisoner being escorted to execution. Honestly, Rei wanted to resist more. But after thinking about it carefully… he realized his mother wasn't entirely wrong.

He did need to do kid stuff.

Because the alternative was being noticed. And being noticed in Konoha, especially after suddenly awakening a bizarre kekkei genkai-like ability, sounded like an absolutely terrible idea.

Maybe nobody would care. Maybe he was overthinking. Maybe the higher-ups had far more important things to worry about than one weird child. But then again… this was still a shinobi village. Children were literally military assets here. The idea that nobody monitored exceptionally abnormal behavior felt… optimistic.

And Rei was many things. Optimistic was not one of them. So yes, perhaps occasionally touching grass and pretending to behave like a normal child was strategically important for his continued survival.

"…I can't believe I'm doing undercover social integration at five years old," Rei muttered to himself while walking beside Hana.

"What was that?"

"…Nothing."

The nearby playground slowly ca into view, filled with children running around, screaming, laughing, throwing sand at each other for reasons Rei could not begin to comprehend.

The nearby playground slowly ca into view, filled with children running around, screaming, laughing, throwing sand at each other for reasons Rei could not begin to comprehend.

Honestly, it looked less like a playground and more like a miniature battlefield without supervision.

"…I see," Rei muttered under his breath while observing one kid trying to eat dirt in the corner. "…Mother might actually have a point about the mud thing."

"What was that?" Hana asked.

"…Nothing."

Hana gave him one final push toward the playground like a mother bird aggressively forcing her chick out of the nest. "Go. Interact. Be a child."

"…You say that like it's easy."

"It is easy. You're five."

Rei wanted to argue that ntally he was closer to twenty-five, but that sounded like an excellent way to get thrown into a hospital for psychological evaluation. So instead he just sighed dramatically and walked toward the crowd of children with all the enthusiasm of a shinobi entering enemy territory.

At first he simply stood there awkwardly, watching the children run around in absolute chaos. One group was playing tag, another was arguing loudly over whose stick was cooler, while one particularly determined child was attempting to climb a tree upside down and failing so spectacularly that Rei briefly considered applauding the effort.

"…Alright," he muttered internally, "ti to blend in."

The words alone made him feel embarrassed.

Still, he forced himself forward. He joined a group chasing each other around and intentionally acted a little more childish than usual. He even let out a fake laugh at one point which sounded so unnatural that one of the nearby kids gave him a concerned look before continuing to run.

This was exhausting. How did children maintain this level of energy while operating at such low intellectual capacity?

At one point a ball flew directly toward his face and, out of pure instinct, Rei almost sidestepped with far more precision than a normal child should possess. Thankfully he caught himself midway and instead took the ball directly to the forehead.

Smack.

"…Ow."

"Sorry!" another kid shouted.

Rei resisted the urge to explain proper projectile trajectory to a five-year-old and instead rubbed his forehead dramatically while Hana watched from the distance with narrowed eyes.

The mont she saw him actually participating, however, her expression softened noticeably. And honestly… that alone made the embarrassnt slightly worth it.

Slightly. Still, while pretending to chase another child around the swings, Rei's attention slowly drifted elsewhere. Toward the far side of the playground.

There, separated from the rest of the children almost naturally, sat a young boy around his age with bright yellow hair and three distinct whisker-like marks on each cheek.

The boy was playing by himself. Not quietly. Not sadly either. He was laughing loudly, throwing a small ball upward repeatedly and trying to entertain himself the best he could.

But what stood out wasn't the boy himself. It was everyone else around him. The other children avoided him instinctively, almost unconsciously. Whenever he got a little closer, they moved away. Parents subtly pulled their kids aside. A few adults sitting nearby looked at him with poorly hidden discomfort.

Like he was so kind of plague.

Rei slowed down slightly, watching the scene carefully. And then it clicked almost imdiately.

"…Naruto."

Of course it was him.

Rei had expected to eventually et Naruto Uzumaki at so point considering they were the sa age, but actually seeing him like this in person felt… different. Because ani and reality were two entirely separate things. Being in this world for quite so ti made him break the boundaries of 2D animation and 3D.

In the ani it was easy to feel sad for Naruto. Here… it was uncomfortable. Especially seeing a child trying so hard to act cheerful while everyone around him quietly isolated him without even realizing they were doing it.

Rei noticed sothing else too. Naruto kept glancing toward the other kids every few seconds. Small looks. Brief looks. Hopeful looks. Like he was waiting for soone to invite him over.

And every single ti nobody did.

"…That's rough," Rei thought quietly.

For a brief mont he considered ignoring it completely. Honestly, that would probably be the smartest decision. Naruto wasn't just so random lonely child. He was the jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails. A walking political disaster wrapped inside orange clothing and childhood trauma.

Getting close to him could absolutely attract attention later. And Rei liked attention about as much as he liked eating dirt. But then again…

He glanced at Naruto once more, watching the blond kid laugh loudly by himself while everyone pretended not to notice him.

"…Ah hell."

Rei could already feel future problems forming. But then again. Naruto was one of his primary contract targets, and if he could make him sign his paper much earlier after gaining so trust, his future would be smooth sailing. His powers would grow as Naruto's power and chakra grew.

But that could wait. For now he needed to interact with Naruto. Rei looked around for a mont before noticing a small rubber ball lying abandoned near the swings. One of the kids had probably forgotten about it in the middle of whatever miniature war they were conducting earlier.

Without thinking much about it, Rei picked it up, weighed it lightly in his hand and then glanced once more toward Naruto Uzumaki who was still throwing his own ball upward while pretending not to care about the rest of the playground.

"…Well," Rei muttered internally, "might as well start sowhere."