Three months.
He had disappeared for a full three months.
Grandpa Hokage must have sent people to search the entire Village, and maybe even mobilized all the Ninja and villagers in the Village.
Teacher Iruka must have been worried sick, perhaps even thinking he had encountered some danger in the wild.
Thinking of this, Naruto ran even faster.
The houses, shops, and signs along the way flew past on both sides, and pedestrians on the roadside cast sidelong glances.
As he ran past a vegetable stand, his peripheral vision caught sight of a woman holding a child nearby.
As soon as the woman saw him, her expression immediately sank.
She abruptly pulled the child tightly into her arms, turned her entire body around, stood with her back to Naruto, spat softly, and muttered some words.
Naruto didn’t hear it clearly, but he was all too familiar with that tone.
But he had no time to care and chose to keep running forward.
When passing two middle-aged men chatting at a store entrance.
One of them looked up and saw Naruto, immediately withdrew his smile, frowned and moved a couple of steps to the side, as if afraid that getting too close would contaminate him with some filth.
The other man simply spat directly on the ground, then turned his face away, continuing to chat and laugh with his companion, deliberately raising his voice a bit.
Experiencing these things, Naruto’s pace gradually slowed down.
He stood in the middle of the bustling street, slowly turning his head to look around.
The mask seller on the left sensed Naruto’s gaze and immediately lowered his head even further, as if taking one more glance would bring bad luck.
The two aunties on the right were originally chatting, but seeing him standing there, they simultaneously stopped talking, exchanged a glance, and then one dragged the other’s arm and walked away quickly, only speaking again after walking far away, their voices carrying undisguised disgust.
Naruto stood in the middle of the road with his hands hanging by his sides, the afterglow of the setting sun hitting his face, feeling warm, but his heart suddenly felt a bit chilled.
Exactly the same as before.
He hadn’t been in this Village for a full three months.
Yet the way these people looked at him was exactly the same as before.
“Hey, brat.” The deep voice of Nine-Tailed suddenly resounded in his mind, “Why are you running so fast?”
Naruto was stunned for a moment, only then realizing that he had been a bit impulsive just now, so he replied inwardly:
“I’ve disappeared for so long, I definitely need to tell Grandpa Hokage and the others, otherwise they’ll worry.”
Nine-Tailed let out a low sneer: “Worry?
Look at those people, is anyone acting like they’re worried?”
Naruto fell silent.
“If a person you utterly loathe disappeared for three months and suddenly reappeared.” Nine-Tailed’s voice was slow and leisurely, “What expression would those people have?”
Naruto opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but knew what to say.
“Surprise, curiosity, confusion—there should be something.” Nine-Tailed continued, “Yet look at them, is there any difference from their attitude toward you before?”
Naruto pursed his lips and didn’t speak.
In his heart, he actually already understood what Nine-Tailed was talking about.
These people didn’t feel like he had disappeared at all.
Or rather, in their view, he hadn’t disappeared for three months at all.
The Village was still that Village, Uzumaki Naruto was still that Uzumaki Naruto, that ‘monster’ they wished would vanish forever.
“Do you know what day it was when you left?” Nine-Tailed asked again.
Naruto thought for a moment, then shook his head: “I don’t know, I never looked at dates before.”
Nine-Tailed fell silent for another moment, then let out an ambiguous hum: “Then you’d better go home and stay there first.”
“Go home?” Naruto was stunned for a moment, “I haven’t gone to find Grandpa Hokage yet…”
“It’s useless to go now.” Nine-Tailed’s tone was bland, “If you go find that old man, and he’s the same as these people, what do you plan to do?”
Naruto was left speechless.
Nine-Tailed sighed lightly: “Anyway, go back and rest first.”
“Tomorrow you go to school and see how the other brats react, won’t everything be clear?”
Naruto thought about it, felt that what the other party said made sense, and turned to walk in the direction of his home. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
On the way back, Nine-Tailed continued: “Instead of letting your imagination run wild, we might as well analyze the current situation first.”
“That master of yours didn’t find a way to travel across, and you don’t know how you got back either; there might be some kind of unstable passage.”
“Mn…”
“Since you’re back, figure out the situation here first.” Nine-Tailed said, “If your classmates tomorrow react the same as the villagers, it means that when you left, time here might have been frozen.”
Naruto nodded, and by this time had returned home.
Lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling, he let out a long breath and whispered softly: “Staying in the Magic World for three months feels just like a dream.”
“Before, every day I thought about how to return to Konoha, but now that I’m back, I have to think about how to go back.”
“Take it one step at a time.” Nine-Tailed hummed, changing the subject, “Since you’re back, remember to teach me magic; my power can be of great use in this world.”
“I know even without you telling me.” Naruto replied calmly.
Then he closed his eyes, and the image of the Magic Association flashed through his mind.
Then he thought of the gazes of those villagers on the street just now…
disgust, avoidance, disdain.
Two worlds.
In one place, someone told him, ‘The Magic Association is also your home.’
People in the other place wished he would never appear.
…
Early the next morning.
Naruto woke up early out of habit, sat at the table and took out an empty bowl.
Using food magic, he conjured a bowl of Ichiraku ramen and slurped down the noodles.
Finally, he used cleaning magic to wash the bowl clean and wiped his mouth.
“I’m heading out.”
Ten minutes later.
When Naruto pushed open the classroom door, quite a few people were already seated inside.
Several boys gathered by the window discussing interesting events that happened yesterday.
Two girls sat in the front row chatting about something, and someone in the corner was flipping through a textbook.
Naruto walked in from the doorway, someone looked up for a glance, and then went back to whatever they were doing.
Not a single person showed an expression of surprise.
Nor did a single person ask, ‘Where did you go these past few months?’
Nine-Tailed let out an “Mn”, its tone carrying a hint of “just as expected”.
Naruto didn’t stand long at the doorway, walking straight toward his seat, his peripheral vision catching a familiar figure.
It was none other than Sakura, whom he had longed for day and night in the Magic World.
Now that they truly met, she didn’t seem quite as missed anymore.
At this moment, Sakura was propping her face up and looking toward the window, turning her head when she heard footsteps.
Seeing that it was Naruto, her eyebrows twitched subconsciously, the corners of her mouth turned down slightly, and then she averted her gaze again, as if finding him an eye-sore.
Naruto was all too familiar with that expression.
In the past, every time he saw Sakura make this expression, he would grinningly cozy up to her, only to get beaten up by her.
But today Naruto didn’t stop.
He merely glanced at Sakura, then withdrew his gaze and continued walking toward his seat.
The action of sitting down was also very natural: pulling out the chair, sitting down, resting his hands on the desktop, and looking up at today’s schedule on the blackboard.
He didn’t even say a single extra word.
Ino, who was next to Sakura, had originally been flipping through her textbook, but she saw everything that happened in those past few seconds.
Ino put down her textbook, reached out to touch Sakura’s arm, and lowered her voice: “Hey, haven’t you noticed anything different about him today?”
Sakura had been staring blankly out the window, but being touched by Ino, she turned her head: “Who? New chapters come out on g.com first.
What’s different?”
“That Naruto.” Ino puckered her mouth toward Naruto’s direction, “He didn’t even look at you once when he came in just now.”
Sakura was stunned for a moment, then turned her head sideways to look at Naruto.
Naruto was quietly sitting in his own seat, with his hands crossed on the desktop, his back sitting straighter than usual.
“It seems…
he’s become more fond of cleanliness?” Sakura frowned, “And his personality has also become a lot steadier.”
“Right!” Ino patted the desk, “I told you!
He used to be all dirty, but today he looks like a completely different person.”
Naruto didn’t hear what they were saying.
He was immersed in his own thoughts, wondering if he tried to listen attentively later, whether he could understand the lessons of the Ninja World.
At this moment, the classroom door was pushed open again, and a short-haired girl walked in.
Hinata kept her head down, taking small steps, hugging her textbooks and walking inward close to the base of the wall.
She was always like this, coming quietly and leaving quietly, hardly speaking to anyone.
Naruto raised his head and happened to see her.
He suddenly remembered his master once mentioning, ‘That girl who is always secretly looking at you, her name is Hinata, right?’
“Good morning, Hinata.”
Naruto hadn’t even realized he had already said those words out loud.
Hearing this, Hinata’s body stiffened abruptly, and she stood frozen in place.
Finally turning around slowly, her entire face turned red from the tips of her ears all the way to the root of her neck, her eyes not knowing where to look.
After a long while, she nodded vigorously, her voice as thin as a mosquito: “Na…
Naruto-kun, good morning.”
After saying this, she walked away quickly, practically rushing to sit down in her seat, and burying her face into her textbook right after sitting down.
Naruto stared blankly at her retreating figure.
Didn’t he just say good morning?
Why did her face turn that red?
Could what his master said be true?
“Tsk tsk tsk.” Ino leaned into Sakura’s ear, smiling teasingly, “Did you see that?
Naruto’s affections have wandered; he’s not looking for you anymore, he switched to Hinata instead.”
Sakura ignored her, resting her chin on both hands, her gaze falling on Sasuke’s empty seat ahead.
“That’s for the best,” Sakura said in a flat tone.
“He was annoying to begin with, so this way he won’t come bother me and Sasuke.”
She said it very casually, as if she truly didn’t care at all.
Yet her brows remained knitted together, never relaxing.
There was also an inexplicable feeling of hollowness in her heart.
Just like a sound that rang every day suddenly vanished on a certain day.
She thought she would find it peaceful, but when things truly quieted down all around, she realized she was somewhat unaccustomed to it.
Forget it, I won’t think about it.
Anyway, she found him annoying in the first place.
After a while, Sakura couldn’t help but turn her head to glance at Naruto again.
That blonde-haired boy was turning his head to look at the trees outside the window, his expression calm.
Unlike the Naruto of before.