“Iruka-sensei, what exactly is going on? Why are there rumors everywhere saying the Uchiha Clan is gone? I-Is Sasuke-kun really all right?”
During class, Sakura asked with deep concern.
“Recently, we’ve been studying the Shinobi Rules. Since all of you aspire to become ninja, you should understand that there are certain matters you are not supposed to discuss. The affairs of the Uchiha Clan are one such matter.”
Iruka sighed inwardly.
“Of course, Sasuke is your classmate. I know you’re worried about him, and I’m worried about him too. But as I already told you, Sasuke is fine. He’ll be back soon.”
“Iruka-sensei, you’re not lying to us, are you?” Sakura still asked uncertainly.
“Have I ever lied to you before?” Iruka asked.
Sakura shook her head.
“Then I’m not lying to you now either. Sasuke really is fine. Don’t worry.”
Iruka gave her a reassuring smile.
Although Sakura still could not completely put her worries aside, his words did comfort her somewhat.
She slowly calmed down and sat back in her seat.
Naruto continued sleeping with his head on his desk.
Since there was nothing he could do about it, why waste energy worrying?
He might as well rest properly during the day and continue grinding away at the Wind Style: Rasenshuriken tonight.
Increasing his own strength was what truly mattered.
Time flowed quietly like running water.
In the blink of an eye, more than a month passed.
On this day, Naruto finally completed his training of the Wind Style: Rasenshuriken.
Meanwhile, after enduring two months filled with helplessness, rage, confusion, grief, pain, loneliness, and every other form of suffering imaginable…
Sasuke finally pulled himself together and returned to school.
“Sasuke-kun!”
The moment Sakura, Ino, and the other girls who had been worried about him saw him return, they cried out in delight.
“Sasuke-kun, are you all right?”
Sakura in particular immediately seized the opportunity and hurried over to express her concern.
However, after experiencing the greatest pain imaginable and resolving to become an avenger, Sasuke responded with an utterly icy gaze.
The cold and aloof Sasuke had officially arrived.
The moment Sasuke’s frigid gaze swept over her, Sakura’s smiling expression froze solid.
Ino and the other girls, who had originally been ready to compete with Sakura, were likewise stunned into silence by Sasuke’s cold eyes.
Sasuke said nothing.
He merely withdrew his gaze and silently took his seat.
Cold and solitary, as though completely isolated from the world around him.
Naruto lay across his desk and watched Sasuke’s icy expression with complete understanding.
If something like that happened to Naruto, he would only become even colder.
“All right, let’s begin class. And one more thing—Sasuke, welcome back.”
After the bell rang, Iruka entered the classroom and saw Sasuke.
He greeted him with a gentle smile.
Then he simply continued teaching, deliberately avoiding excessive concern that might reopen Sasuke’s wounds.
By this point, only one week remained before the final examinations of their second academic year.
“Sasuke-kun, these are the notes from the past two months. H-Here.”
Sakura eventually gathered her courage and offered Sasuke her notes.
“I don’t need them.”
One week passed in the blink of an eye.
The final examinations began.
Although Sasuke had missed two months of classes, his grades had not declined.
Sakura’s grades, however, had improved rapidly.
In the written examinations, she finally surpassed Sasuke and officially began her path as the class’s academic prodigy.
But in overall results, Sasuke still ranked first.
Naruto, who continued keeping a low profile, unsurprisingly remained at the bottom.
Another winter break arrived.
A cold wind blew past.
A fallen leaf drifted through the air and landed in Naruto’s hand as he stood beside his window.
Having already completed his Wind Style: Rasenshuriken training and currently unsure what he should practice next, Naruto suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
He remembered the supreme martial-arts realm described in wuxia novels—
A realm where flying flowers and falling leaves could both become deadly weapons.
That effortlessly elegant image had always filled Naruto, once an avid wuxia fan, with envy.
After thinking about it for a while, Naruto immediately decided to train in that direction.
This was the shinobi world rather than a wuxia world, so perhaps he could not reproduce the legendary ability to injure enemies with nothing more than flowers and leaves.
But Naruto had already mastered Wind Release chakra nature transformation.
He could simply coat leaves with Wind Release chakra nature transformation and achieve the same result.
Once the idea occurred to him, Naruto immediately acted.
He glanced toward the locations where the ANBU monitoring him were stationed.
Then, from within their blind spots, he began experimenting.
Riiip!
Riiip!
In an instant, the leaf was sliced into several pieces.
“So I have to keep the leaf from being cut apart while still making it sharp enough to injure someone. As expected, it isn’t that simple.”
Naruto sighed.
“But that’s exactly what makes it challenging, isn’t it?”
Thinking about his seemingly inexhaustible chakra reserves, Naruto felt completely confident.
“Still, there’s another problem.”
Naruto frowned deeply.
“How do I bring leaves into the sealed space?”
“Or should I directly manifest them using mental energy?”
Aside from meditation and meditative absorption, Naruto had never stopped practicing visualization.
And his visualization target—the grass carp—had recently given him a pleasant surprise.
As he continued visualizing grass carp, Naruto discovered that he had genuinely become increasingly free and agile in the water.
His swimming speed had grown faster and faster, almost as though he were a real fish.
He could directly part the water and shoot forward like an arrow.
“So if visualization can do that, I should also be able to manifest a leaf inside the sealed space through visualization, right?”
With that thought, Naruto began carefully studying the leaf in his hand.
He even memorized every single vein running across its surface.
Afterward, he followed the familiar path and once again entered the sealed space.
“Brat, what are you doing here again?”
“Kurama, what else would I come here for? Obviously, I’m here to train,” Naruto replied with a faint smile.
“Hmph. Instead of practicing those useless ninjutsu, you’d be better off thinking of ways to please me.”
The Nine-Tails spoke with extreme arrogance.
“If I gave you even a little of my power, it would surpass all those ninjutsu you’re wasting your time training.”
“Kurama, don’t make empty boasts.”
Naruto refused to indulge it.
“We both know exactly what you’re capable of.”
“If you were really that powerful, you wouldn’t be sealed inside my body right now.”
“Damn brat! Damn Fourth Hokage! Damn Hashirama Senju!”
Hearing Naruto’s mockery and remembering its unpleasant past, the Nine-Tails immediately began cursing.
Of course, cursing was one thing.
The Nine-Tails was still extremely curious about Naruto’s training.
The Rasengan was nothing particularly surprising.
After all, the Fourth Hokage had developed it by taking inspiration from the Tailed Beast Ball.
But the Wind Style: Rasenshuriken had genuinely frightened the Nine-Tails.
Yes.
Frightened it.
The power of that technique gave the Nine-Tails the same sort of feeling it remembered from being pressed down by True Several Thousand Hands.
It absolutely did not want to be hit by one.
And the fact that Naruto had managed to develop such a technique at such a young age naturally astonished it.
At the same time, the Nine-Tails had gradually begun believing the things Naruto had previously told it.
After all, Naruto was only eight years old, yet he already possessed such tremendous strength.
If a genius like him was still so wary of the future that he believed he needed the Nine-Tails’ power to fight what was coming, then the threats ahead could only involve power surpassing the ordinary shinobi world.
And there were very few powers capable of transcending the shinobi world.
The most likely possibilities were those originating from the bloodline of the old man of the Six Paths.
In truth, the Nine-Tails had already accepted the idea of forming an alliance and cooperating with Naruto.
But the Nine-Tails was a tsundere.
Obviously, Naruto had to ask it again first.
How could it possibly be the one to bring it up?
Naruto, however, was not the Naruto from the original story.
His mind was nowhere near that sensitive.
Although he knew Kurama was a tsundere, how could he possibly have imagined that the fox was this tsundere?
Combined with Naruto’s single-minded focus on training, he never noticed the signs.
He even still believed that the Nine-Tails did not trust him.
He had no idea that he had practically already won the fox over and that it was now waiting for this clueless bastard to propose.
For that very reason, the Nine-Tails had even secretly restored Naruto’s ability to sense malice.
Unfortunately, Naruto had remained single through sheer talent in his previous life.
And apparently, nothing had changed in this one.
He completely failed to notice the Nine-Tails’ hint.
The tsundere Nine-Tails believed it had already made its intentions obvious enough.
Since Naruto gave no response, naturally it refused to take another step forward.
And so, through an inexplicable misunderstanding neither of them realized…
What should have been two sides moving toward one another somehow turned into each of them quietly enjoying their own peaceful little world.