"Ugh... damn it..."
A sharp, throbbing pain pulsed behind his eyes as sunlight, bright and unforgiving, streamed through the window. A young boy in pajamas sat up in bed, his hand instinctively flying to his forehead as if to physically hold his skull together.
He had really overdone it this time. The celebration with Shanks's crew had been… thorough.
"Note to self," he muttered, his voice raspy. "Next time, drink a little... less."
As he forced his bleary eyes open, the words died on his lips. The room around him was both jarringly familiar and profoundly strange. Every stain on the ceiling, every crack in the wall—he knew them all. It was a place etched into his very soul, a memory he hadn't revisited in over twenty years.
I'm... back?
After a long, silent moment spent staring out the window at the familiar, bustling streets below, Naruto finally had to accept the impossible reality. All those years spent sailing the vast, unforgiving seas, searching for a path home, and all it took was one night of drunken revelry to send him back to the Hidden Leaf Village.
Even his body had regressed. He was twelve again.
He tried to stretch, a familiar motion, but the worn fabric of his pajamas protested with a loud rip.
"Huh?"
Turning to the dusty mirror on the wall, he saw a reflection that was… not quite right. The boy staring back was a little taller, a little broader in the shoulders than the twelve-year-old he remembered being. His body, hardened by two decades of life-or-death battles in the New World, hadn't completely reverted.
So, it's real.
He grabbed the orange jumpsuit lying beside his bed. A frown creased his brow. It was hopelessly small. With a sigh, he rummaged through his closet, pulling out a loose-fitting yukata. It felt comfortingly similar to the clothes he'd worn in Wano.
As he changed, a wave of unreality washed over him. He stared at the back of his hand, expecting to feel a surge of joy, of relief. Instead, there was just… a hollow emptiness. He had traded the magnificent, boundless sea for this cold, familiar cage.
For the first time in a long time, Uzumaki Naruto had no idea what to do.
GRRROWL.
A loud, insistent rumble from his stomach cut through his existential haze. He was starving.
A wry smile touched his lips. "Well, since it's come to this, let's eat first."
If his decades adrift had taught him anything, it was a simple, inviolable rule: eat your fill when you can. He vividly remembered the gnawing hunger when Captain Roger first found him on that deserted island. He had been a hair's breadth from starvation.
Though he'd learned the Multi-Shadow Clone Technique, the jutsu drained stamina and chakra at an alarming rate. The small animals he could catch were never enough. As for the colossal beasts that roamed the island, a scrawny kid who had barely mastered the three academy basics stood no chance. He couldn't exactly use the Sexy Jutsu on a wild animal.
If only I'd swiped a few more forbidden jutsu from that scroll, he thought with a rueful chuckle.
Back then, he couldn't even fathom how a person could fight those giants without ninjutsu. That perception was shattered the day he saw Scopper Gaban cleave a monster—and the mountain behind it—in two with a single swing of his axe.
"If I get that strong," he'd declared, "I can definitely become Hokage and make everyone acknowledge me!"
His naive ambition had earned him the approval of Roger and the crew. The training that followed, however, was a brutal awakening. The denizens of that world possessed monstrous physical prowess, and his initial lessons nearly killed him. It was a thousand times harder than anything the Ninja Academy had thrown at him.
Fortunately, some strange power deep inside him always came to the rescue. Whenever he dispelled his clones and collapsed under the wave of accumulated fatigue, that power would surge, knitting his torn muscles and healing his wounds at a phenomenal rate. Neither he nor Roger ever understood it; they just chalked it up to his powerful Uzumaki life force.
As for Naruto's "magical ninjutsu," Roger and his crew had been endlessly fascinated. They knew it wasn't a Devil Fruit power since they'd found him swimming. After his fumbling explanation, they all playfully tried the "Chakra Extraction Technique," but none of them could produce a single wisp. Eventually, they dropped it.
Walking the familiar streets of Konoha, Naruto tried to piece together his memories of what happened before he left, all while scanning for a place to eat. The whispers followed him, as they always had. The villagers didn't even try to hide their disdain.
"Look, it's the demon fox."
"Get away from him."
"Why does the Hokage even let that thing live in our village?"
Ah, that familiar flavor.
This petty, ambient malice was like a gentle breeze compared to the suffocating killing intent of New World pirates, but it was an essential part of his childhood. It felt… almost nostalgic.
He was no longer a child. The words didn't hurt. In fact, he found himself using his Observation Haki with a detached curiosity, picking out the faintest whispers and pinpointing the sources of the most intense glares. He could feel eyes on him from the rooftops, from the shadows between buildings—a constant, suffocating surveillance he'd never noticed as a boy.
His eyes flickered to a rooftop corner for a fraction of a second. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips as he pushed open the door to a restaurant.
Moments after he disappeared inside, a dark shape slumped forward on that same rooftop, falling unconscious with a soft thud. In the shadows of nearby alleys and rooftops, several other figures in similar attire collapsed in silent heaps.
Naruto hadn't been rough. He'd simply used a sliver of his Conqueror's Haki to "greet" them. There was no killing intent, not even real malice in the gesture. They simply felt like puppets whose strings had been cut.
Why watch a simple orphan? he mused as he walked to a table. Is it just because of the "demon fox" rumors?
The presence of these watchers put the first crack in the idealized image of Konoha he'd held onto for years. There were clearly secrets about his own life that he didn't know. And beyond them, there was another, fainter sense of being watched that still clung to him…
His brow furrowed for a moment, then relaxed. It's fine. Whoever is behind this will have to make a move soon enough.
First things first: food.
As Naruto entered the yakiniku restaurant, the receptionist greeted him with a practiced, welcoming smile. The smile froze, then curdled into disgust when she saw who it was.
"Go on, get out," he snapped, waving his hand dismissively.
Naruto didn't get angry. He just grinned and pulled out a bulging, frog-shaped wallet, dropping it onto the counter with a heavy, satisfying clink of coins.
"What, turning away paying customers?"
"Of course not! Please, right this way!"
The owner, who had been watching from the back, bustled out, his face wreathed in a greasy smile. He personally escorted Naruto to a private booth. There was a reason "Yakiniku Q" was so successful; the owner had principles. His main principle was money. Anyone with money was a good customer, "demon fox" or not.
Naruto's Haki could feel the potent, hidden malice radiating from both the owner and the clerk—the owner's was even stronger, just better concealed. The man, however, didn't let a trace of it show.
You've still got a lot to learn, kid, Naruto thought, glancing back at the fuming clerk. He gave him a wink, enjoying the way his face flushed with anger, before sauntering into the booth.
At that very moment, a storm was brewing in the Hokage's office.
"Hiruzen! The personnel monitoring the jinchuriki have all been knocked unconscious! This has to be the work of an intruder!" Danzo Shimura's voice was sharp, his words like daggers. "The Scroll of Seals was just stolen! Are you going to continue to turn a blind eye to this threat?"
He leaned forward, his one visible eye glinting. "I've told you before, Uzumaki Naruto should have been handed over to my Root for proper training and containment. Let me send my men to bring him in for strict supervision!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, calmly took a long drag from his pipe, the smoke curling around his weary face. "Danzo, things are not as dire as you make them seem," he said, his voice cutting through the tirade. "Naruto is still in the village."
On the desk beside him, a large crystal ball showed a clear, moving image of Naruto happily grilling meat. The moment the report had come in, Hiruzen had activated his Telescope Technique, a surveillance jutsu that allowed him to monitor any chakra signature in the village.
"Even so, the fact remains that our watchers were neutralized without raising an alarm!" Danzo pressed, shifting his tactics. "Your men couldn't even send a warning. The task of monitoring the jinchuriki should be transferred to my Root."
"That is enough, Danzo."
Hiruzen tapped his pipe sharply on the edge of the desk. The quiet sound silenced the room.
"I am the Hokage."
The simple statement carried an unshakeable weight, extinguishing the thousand arguments on the tip of Danzo's tongue. Even as a "temporary" leader, Hiruzen's word was law.
"You will stay out of this," Hiruzen commanded, turning his gaze away. "I will arrange for someone else to handle Naruto."
"You will regret this, Hiruzen," Danzo spat, his face a mask of fury. He turned and swept from the room, a whirlwind of dark thoughts and hidden schemes.
"Naruto..." Hiruzen sighed, reaching out to cover the crystal ball, and the image of the boy vanished. After a long pause, he spoke to the ninja who had just entered. "Go and bring Naruto here. Tell him it's for... a graduation interview."
Iruka Umino, his face still bruised from the previous night's ordeal, blinked in surprise. Then, a wide, genuine smile broke across his face. He bowed deeply and rushed off to complete his mission.
Back at Yakiniku Q, Naruto, mid-bite, felt his eyebrow twitch. The feeling of being watched was gone.
So, who's next?
Before he could ponder it, the owner slid open the door to his booth, that fake smile plastered across his face.
"Excuse me, customer," he said, his bulky frame blocking the exit. "Would it be possible for you to settle the bill now?"
He was clearly trying to prevent a dine-and-dash, but he wasn't afraid. To him, Naruto was just a brat from the Academy, no match for a grown man. Besides, Konoha had strict rules: ninja couldn't harm civilians without cause.
"Oh?" Naruto popped another piece of perfectly grilled meat into his mouth, letting out a small, satisfied burp. He looked up at the owner, a playful glint in his blue eyes. "I didn't realize any restaurant made you pay before you were finished eating."
[Chapter Complete]
***
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