Having settled on his plans for the future, Uzumaki Naruto finally allowed himself to sleep peacefully.
Nothing happened during the night.
In the blink of an eye, morning arrived.
Creak.
The sound of the door opening startled Naruto awake.
“Who’s there?”
His eyes flew open instinctively.
Unfortunately, what came out of his mouth was only,
“Gah?”
He still couldn’t speak.
His conversation with the Sage of Six Paths had taken place inside his spiritual world, where he’d initially appeared in the form he had before transmigrating, so speaking had posed no problem there.
Now that he had returned to reality, however, he was once again a newborn incapable of speech.
Even all of yesterday’s thoughts had existed only inside his own mind.
A nurse cautiously poked her head through the doorway.
Her body remained outside the room, as though she didn’t dare step inside.
She even looked ready to flee at any moment.
Naruto didn’t find it amusing.
Only irritating.
Why do I have to be treated like this?
Seriously this is infuriating.
Then he noticed something in the nurse’s hand.
A baby bottle.
His breakfast.
Suppressing the dissatisfaction in his heart, Naruto quietly closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
A faint sigh of relief came from the doorway.
Then he heard cautious footsteps approaching the bed.
Naruto resisted the temptation to deliberately scare her.
Keeping his eyes closed, he listened as the nurse picked up yesterday’s empty bottle, placed a fresh one nearby, then hurriedly left the room.
Only after the door closed did Naruto reopen his eyes.
He turned toward the side then his face darkened.
That damned nurse had placed the bottle on the bedside cabinet.
Damn it.
How was a baby supposed to drink from that?
The cabinet was right beside the bed.
Any ordinary person could simply reach over and grab it.
But he was only entering the second day of his life.
How was a newborn supposed to reach it?
Fortunately Naruto was no longer an ordinary baby.
After glancing toward the tightly shut door, he let out a tiny, disdainful snort through his nose.
Then he effortlessly sat upright.
After only one night such a movement had already become easy.
Naruto could clearly feel the immense power filling his tiny body.
Compared to last night he had already become even stronger.
Only a single night had passed.
As long as he continued growing Naruto firmly believed he would never again find himself so helpless.
He absolutely couldn’t act rashly now.
He only needed to grow up step by step.
Then find the right opportunity to leave this village.
In truth, he knew every village in this world had its own problems.
But he simply no longer wanted to stay in Konoha.
He already hated this place.
If he had been in another village, he could probably tolerate a few hardships.
But Konoha was different.
This village owed a debt to his parents.
Or rather it owed one to him.
Konoha should never have treated him like this.
Thinking quietly to himself while trying to calm his increasingly agitated emotions, Naruto awkwardly shuffled toward the edge of the bed and reached out for the bottle.
Just then the door suddenly swung open.
The nurse had returned.
Apparently she’d remembered that placing the bottle there made it impossible for a baby to reach.
And so she walked in just in time to witness Naruto picking up the bottle and bringing it to his mouth.
The entire room froze.
As a nurse she knew perfectly well that no newborn baby could perform such movements.
Naruto froze too.
Looking at the completely stunned nurse, he thought for a moment.
Then he waved his tiny arms around and forced a silly grin onto his face.
“Ya!”
“.Eh?”
The nurse stared at him in absolute horror.
A violent shiver ran through her body.
Her eyes rolled back.
Then she fainted on the spot.
Naruto stared at her with a face full of black lines.
Seriously?
Are you really that timid?
Then, completely unconcerned, he resumed drinking.
After quickly finishing the entire bottle of formula, he casually tossed it onto the floor and flopped back onto the bed.
Whatever happened next he only needed to keep acting like an ordinary baby.
Naruto wasn’t worried in the slightest.
Only one nurse had witnessed the impossible.
He was confident no one would believe that a newborn could deliberately pick up a bottle and feed itself.
Even if she told everyone, people would probably assume she’d gone crazy.
“Still I’d better be more careful from now on.”
“It’d be nice if I could sense people approaching in advance.”
Naruto silently made up his mind.
This kind of accident absolutely couldn’t happen a second time.
He wouldn’t get endless chances.
If even one more person noticed behavior and awareness far beyond that of a newborn.
He would inevitably attract dangerous attention.
He had no interest in becoming some so-called prodigy.
After all, Prodigies tended to die young.
Just as the thought of possessing sensory abilities crossed his mind.
A strange energy suddenly stirred within him.
Naruto was astonished.
His spiritual power seemed to spread outward like an enormous invisible net.
In an instant it enveloped the entire Konoha Hospital.
The ninja world possessed sensory abilities.
Powerful sensory ninja didn’t require dōjutsu or even direct sight.
From great distances, they could detect hidden targets with ease.
Among them, the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, stood at the very top.
Even in the original story, after being reincarnated near Konoha through the Impure World Reincarnation, he could clearly sense the distant battlefield of the Fourth Great Ninja War.
And Sage Mode further enhanced sensory perception.
Naruto’s own sensory ability was still extremely weak.
Even so, it had only awakened thanks to Ashura’s chakra being activated.
A brief explanation was necessary.
Back in the era of the Sage of Six Paths, the ancient age of the ninja world.
Neither the Ōtsutsuki Clan nor Hagoromo’s family possessed the concept of jutsu.
Ninjutsu as later generations understood it simply didn’t exist.
They wielded power in a far more primitive manner.
The abilities Naruto was currently using.
Were, in a sense, less his own than Ashura’s.
That was why he had activated this sensory perception with nothing more than a thought.
It wasn’t because he consciously performed a technique.
Rather Ashura’s awakened chakra instinctively responded to his will.
Of course, now that Ashura’s chakra had attached itself to him and had been awakened by the Sage.
It had become Naruto’s own power as well.
There was absolutely no danger of Ashura’s soul suddenly appearing to possess his body.
Having realized this Naruto felt as though he’d discovered a brand-new toy.
Excitedly, he continued experimenting with his newfound sensory ability.
He became so absorbed that he didn’t even notice when the unconscious nurse woke up and fled the room in panic.
Only when he sensed a group of ninja rapidly approaching, led by an elderly man, did he stop practicing.
With a thought, Naruto withdrew his sensory perception.
Then he couldn’t help thinking,
The old man leading them Isn’t that the Third Hokage?