"The village feels weird today…"
Naruto walked down the street, looking around.
The shops were open as usual. The streets were still crowded and lively, just like always.
But Naruto sohow felt that the atmosphere had changed.
After walking for a while, he suddenly saw the crowd ahead standing to both sides, leaving the entire street empty.
At the center of the road, a Konoha shinobi wearing a forehead protector was escorting a man forward under restraint. Both of them looked unusually serious.
What happened?
Naruto also stepped back into the crowd. As the man passed in front of him, Naruto instinctively looked up and noticed a sowhat familiar symbol on the back of his clothes.
A fan crest.
"Huh? I rember that's…"
Naruto stopped.
He had so impression of that symbol.
"How many Uchiha is this now?"
"They're supposed to be the police force, but they're stealing from under their own watch. Absolutely disgraceful."
"Well, it's the Uchiha clan! Aside from causing trouble for us every day, have they ever done anything good?"
"I heard several shinobi died this ti. Sigh… to think soone from the police force was working as an inside man…"
The surrounding people discussed it noisily.
From their scattered words, Naruto roughly pieced together what had happened.
In short, it sounded like there had been a traitor among the Uchiha clan, who were responsible for village security. That traitor had apparently allowed shinobi from another village to infiltrate Konoha.
Fortunately, Anbu mbers had discovered and stopped them in ti, preventing the village's secrets from being leaked.
However, many Anbu shinobi had died as a result.
The Third Hokage was furious, and now they were arresting Uchiha spies.
It was worth ntioning that Naruto was clearly only standing to the side, trying to listen to what had happened, yet people still noticed him, pointed at him, and avoided him as though he were sothing filthy.
"…Eh."
Naruto didn't really understand.
But he felt a little sad.
He was curious about what had happened to the Uchiha clan, but those cold looks from the villagers hurt more than his curiosity mattered.
Naruto had learned to avoid places where crowds gathered.
He stopped paying attention to the village's affairs and quietly headed alone toward the training ground.
However, he never noticed that whenever he went to train, a pair of snow-white eyes would always hide shyly among the crowd behind him, secretly watching him.
The unrest in the village passed quickly.
After several tense days, everything returned to calm.
Yet no one knew just how fierce the undercurrents hidden beneath that calm surface truly were.
Over the past few days, what Minato taught Naruto in his dreams had mostly been basic ninjutsu.
It was as though, after realizing Naruto had begun actively training on his own, Minato temporarily slowed down the teaching of specific techniques and instead focused on constantly filling in Naruto's foundational knowledge.
He clearly intended to strengthen Naruto's base.
However, even soone at Minato's level could do nothing about one problem.
Because Naruto's instinctive emotions were magnified inside his dreams, his resistance toward theoretical knowledge was painfully obvious.
There had even been one instance where Minato tried to explain the basics of genjutsu, only for Naruto—who was already asleep and dreaming—to nearly fall asleep again within his own dream.
And that wasn't even the most helpless part.
What left Minato truly speechless was that Naruto wasn't the only one like this.
Another student, who never revealed his true form and hid behind the scenes to attend the lessons, also subtly hinted that the theory classes were too boring and that he was almost falling asleep too.
This made Teacher Minato's lesson planning difficulty increase sharply.
But even that couldn't defeat him.
After much effort and determination, Minato successfully mastered a special skill—
how to teach through cody routines.
When Naruto woke up, he felt refreshed and full of energy.
His mind was packed with countless pieces of knowledge and ideas he wanted to try out.
Filled with motivation, he quickly washed up, grabbed a bottle of milk and so bread he had bought a few days ago, and hurried toward the training ground.
Along the way, Naruto looked excited.
While stuffing breakfast into his mouth, both hands kept moving as he practiced forming hand seals.
Over the past year, he had grown used to waking up with knowledge and muscle mory he had never learned before.
The mont he got out of bed, he would imdiately review and practice them.
That was the best way to rember these techniques.
Behind him, a small, mushroom-like head peeked out from behind a utility pole.
Hinata followed him secretly with a flushed face.
In her heart, she couldn't help thinking:
Naruto-kun wakes up so early to train every day. He's so hardworking.
She completely failed to realize that sneaking out of her own ho early every morning to follow him was, in a certain sense, also quite hardworking.
But just as Naruto arrived at the training ground he had beco familiar with over the past few days, he suddenly heard a strange shout from inside.
"Oraaa!"
Along with that cry ca a thunderous boom.
Even the ground trembled faintly.
"Wh-What's going on?"
Naruto had discovered this training ground a few days ago and had been practicing here ever since.
He had never seen anyone else use this run-down place.
The first ti he saw the old, battered wooden posts scattered around the field, he had assud the training ground had been abandoned.
So why was soone suddenly here today?
Naruto quickly ran over to check.
Inside the training ground, he saw a man with a bowl-cut hairstyle wearing a bright green training suit, leaping and dashing around like a whirlwind.
While constantly letting out strange cries, his fists and feet struck the wooden posts with perfect accuracy, producing explosive booms.
The sounds Naruto had heard earlier had co from this.
"Konoha Great Whirlwind!"
As though getting more and more excited, the bowl-cut man shouted loudly before unleashing a spinning kick.
It truly whipped up a fierce gust like a tornado rising from the ground, snapping several wooden posts as thick as elephant legs in half and sending them scattering everywhere.
"Fuha! Returning to the village after completing a mission and training like this after so long—now this is satisfying!"
The man spun through the air before landing smoothly.
Wiping sweat from his forehead, he revealed two rows of sparkling white teeth and gave a refreshing smile.
"This is youth!"
"Good! Next, I'll warm up by running one hundred laps around the village upside down—hm?"
Only then did the man notice Naruto standing not far away, completely stunned.
He raised a hand in greeting.
"Yo, young man! What a beautiful morning this is, isn't it? Youth can only be felt burning at a ti like this!"
"Ah…"
Naruto froze.
He had never seen this person in the village before.
But the Konoha forehead protector hanging at the man's waist ant he should be a shinobi from the village.
Still, that wasn't the important part.
In Naruto's mory, very few people ever greeted him so openly.
For a mont, he instinctively didn't know how to respond.
"Mm! The plan for the day begins in the morning! Since you appeared here so early, that ans you must also be a passionate young man…"
"Oh, and a young lady too!"
The man seed completely used to receiving no imdiate response to his greetings.
Without caring at all, he waved enthusiastically at Naruto and toward the area behind him before raising a thumbs-up.
"How about it? Join for a warm-up—one hundred laps around the village while running upside down!"
As he spoke, the green figure appeared in front of Naruto.
Without any explanation, he grabbed Naruto's hand, then also pulled Hinata out from where she was hiding in the nearby trees.
Laughing loudly, he prepared to start running—
only to suddenly freeze.
As though realizing sothing belatedly, he turned his head to look at the two children he was holding.
The corner of his eye twitched.
His smile stiffened awkwardly on his face.
Huh?
Looking closer…
Wasn't this the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki whom Jōnin were strictly forbidden from contacting?
And the eldest daughter of the Hyūga clan?
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