Two years had passed, and many things had changed.

  Naruto was six years old now. He had grown to 127 centimeters in height, and even without anyone around willing to admit it out loud, it was impossible to deny that he stood out.

  His physique was slim, but lightly defined for his age, as if his body had been shaped by repetition and discipline. His hair had grown a little; it was still blond, but the reddish tips—once looser and more chaotic—now seemed more controlled, more symmetrical, as if he had learned to organize even the things the world insisted should be “messy.”

  The thin marks on his cheeks—lines many people habitually called “whiskers,” which he had already understood carried a strange weight in the vilge’s collective imagination—only served to highlight his childish beauty. It wasn’t the beauty of a perfect, artificial face; it was the kind that came from contrast: eyes too blue, hair too light, an expression far too serious for a child. And precisely because of that, unsettling to look at.

  Naruto walked to the window of his house and looked out at the vilge.

  The view was different from two years ago. Not because Konoha itself had changed much—vilges rarely change quickly when routine is sustained by work and silence—but because *he* had changed the point from which he saw it. A year ago, he had decided to move. He bought a plot of nd and built a new house.

  It wasn’t big. He hadn’t built a mansion, nor anything fshy enough to become street-corner legend. In practice, it was a functional house: enough space to train without knocking over the table, a pce where everything had its pce, and where the silence didn’t feel as suffocating as before. Better than the old house. Better than anything Konoha would have “remembered” to give him on its own initiative.

  And yet, comfort wasn’t what he was seeking.

  It was control.

  He stepped away from the window and went to the bed. He picked up his backpack, checked that everything was in order, and headed toward the door.

  Today was the first day of school.

  If someone asked, the “correct” answer would be simple: a child should be excited. But Naruto wasn’t just a child. His body was small. His mind was not.

  Because of that, he could say that, as someone with an older mind, he wasn’t excited at all.

  But that would be a lie.

  There *was* a small sense of excitement.

  Not from na?ve hope. Not from a desire to be accepted. He hadn’t built his discipline on dreams that depended on other people’s moods. The excitement came from something else: after so many days of the same training routine, he would finally experience something new. A new environment meant new variables—and new variables meant opportunity.

  His strength had also improved over the past few years. He could already perform the three basic techniques with ease, in addition to Kawarimi no Jutsu, Shunshin no Jutsu, Kage Bunshin, Suiton: Mizurappa, Fuuton: Reppushou, Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu, and the Rasengan.

  The list alone seemed absurd for a six-year-old boy.

  And he knew it.

  He knew exactly what that list would mean if someone stopped to look at it without prejudice or ziness. It wasn’t “talent.” It wasn’t “genius” in the cute, childish sense. It was method. Repetition. A kind of cruel patience he applied to himself because, in that world, patience was a privilege—and he didn’t have the luxury of wasting time.

  He could have learned more, but he had always preferred to build a solid foundation first.

  And that foundation wasn’t just technical. It was mental.

  Because a jutsu wasn’t just about “knowing how to do it.” It was about doing it under interference. Under exhaustion. Under anger.

  Naruto slung the backpack over his shoulders, adjusted the strap with an automatic gesture, and opened the door.

  As he stepped outside, the morning sunlight hit his face. He turned his gaze aside and began walking toward the academy.

  The air was clean, carrying that scent of wood and leaves that Konoha seemed to have even when it shouldn’t. A few birds sang on the rooftops. The distant sound of people starting their day came as a constant backdrop—doors opening, someone dragging a bucket, hurried footsteps from those in a rush.

  Naruto walked at a calm pace, without running, without looking anxious. Not because he didn’t care, but because running drew attention. And he had learned early that attention, in Konoha, didn’t always come from the right pce.

  As he walked, he issued a mental command.

  ‘System, show the loading percentage for the next world.’

  [Understood]

  [Rate for next travel: 47.2%]

  Naruto let out a sigh.

  He had already grown accustomed to the existence of that interface as part of life, like an extra muscle—something that only hurt when he remembered he still couldn’t use it the way he wanted to.

  ‘This will take about seven more years.’

  The calcution wasn’t exact, but it was close enough to hurt. Seven years was a long time when you knew what was coming. Seven years was an eternity when you carried a monster inside your body and an entire vilge on your shoulders, even if no one ever said it out loud.

  He felt frustration, but all he could do was use that waiting time to his advantage.

  ‘I can’t speed up the loading… so I speed up everything else.’

  It was that simple. If the system demanded time, then he would fill that time with preparation.

  Training. Fundamentals. Fine adjustments. Endurance. Chakra control. Body control. Expression control.

  Because, in the end, the world didn’t hit you when you were ready. The world hit you when it was convenient for *it*.

  Naruto passed through a busier street and noticed, without looking directly, the way some people reacted when they saw a child walking alone. Some looked away. Others pretended not to see. Others gnced too quickly and then lowered their eyes, as if guilt were contagious.

  It didn’t shake him.

  Not anymore.

  ‘If they hate me, let them hate me from a distance.’

  The academy was already close. The building appeared between trees and rooftops, rge enough to seem like the center of the world to children—and small enough to be just another tool to adults.

  When he reached the entrance, he saw a few children with their parents.

  The image left a strange taste.

  Mothers adjusting their children’s clothes, fathers patting small heads, nervous smiles, exaggerated goodbyes… the kind of thing that was supposed to be normal. The kind of thing that *was* normal for almost everyone, except him.

  Naruto looked for another moment, then shrugged and headed into the cssroom.

  The shrug wasn’t true indifference. It was a trained gesture, a way of telling his own body not to react. He didn’t need that. He couldn’t afford to need it.

  ‘I’ve been through worse than not having someone walk me to the door.’

  And it was true.

  Inside the building, the sounds changed. Less wind. More echo. The smell of wood and old paint, footsteps mixing together, the voices of children trying to fake bravery.

  Naruto walked with the same calm, found the right room, and entered.

  There were already some students inside.

  He analyzed quickly: unfamiliar faces, varied expressions, poorly hidden anxiety. Some spoke loudly, trying to dominate the environment. Others curled into their chairs as if they wanted to disappear. Some looked around searching for someone familiar, and others pretended they already had a guaranteed pce in the world.

  Naruto didn’t recognize anyone at first.

  Until he saw a figure seated at the end of one of the middle rows.

  She was far too quiet. Far too tense. Far too small, even among children.

  Dark, short hair with a simple cut. Rigid posture, as if her body had been pced on that chair and forgotten how to rex. And her eyes… pale eyes, almost white, that didn’t look directly at anyone. She seemed to be looking inward, trapped in some thought that wasn’t appropriate for the first morning of school.

  Hinata Hyūga.

  Naruto recognized her immediately.

  He didn’t hesitate and walked toward her.

  It wasn’t a pn. It wasn’t a cold decision. It was a simple, strange sensation—almost automatic: there was someone who didn’t seem dangerous. Someone who didn’t shout, didn’t show off, wouldn’t step on him just to feel bigger. And Naruto, even without admitting it, knew how to recognize that far too quickly.

  Maybe because he also knew what it was like to want to disappear into a chair.

  Hinata didn’t notice his approach. She seemed lost in thought until Naruto’s voice pulled her back.

  “Good morning, Hinata. May I sit here?”

  The question was casual, like one friend asking another something simple.

  He kept his tone light, his expression neutral, his posture rexed. Nothing aggressive. Nothing intimidating. Nothing that felt like pressure.

  Hinata’s body stiffened, and she turned her head mechanically.

  The movement was so rigid it almost seemed trained—as if she had a mental checklist of “what to do when someone talks to me” and was following it step by step.

  When she realized it was Naruto, her head and neck turned red, steam practically rose from her head, and her eyes began to spin.

  Naruto blinked once, slowly, as if he needed to confirm whether that was real.

  For a moment, he was torn between the urge to worry—‘Is she going to faint?’—and the urge to understand—‘Why was that reaction so strong?’

  It wasn’t normal.

  But it was… strangely faithful to the kind of exaggeration he remembered from other media. Except seeing it live was different. Less funny. More… unexpectedly cute, in a way that made him attentive—not out of suspicion, but out of fear of doing something wrong without meaning to.

  He held his own face to keep from showing a bigger smile than he should. Not because smiling would be wrong, but because it could be interpreted as mockery—and he didn’t want that. Not today. Not with her.

  Naruto tilted his head slightly, keeping his voice gentle and clear, as if speaking to a skittish animal that couldn’t be startled.

  “I’m just going to sit here, okay? If you don’t want me to, I can go somewhere else.”

  He didn’t touch her. He didn’t get too close. He didn’t invade her space. He simply stayed there, waiting, the way he knew how to wait—calm on the outside, alert on the inside.

  Because regardless of what happened next, one thing was certain:

  He would have to learn how to live with people without losing himself in them—and, for the first time that day, that didn’t feel like just a burden.

  (Early access chapters: see the bio.)