Chapter 32: God Is a Pervert (Skip If You Don't Like It)
"Naruto!"
Just as he was about to enter the Hokage Building, Naruto suddenly heard someone call out to him. He turned around to see the new generation's Ino–Shika–Chō trio.
The three of them were standing outside the Hokage Building, seemingly waiting for someone.
Shikamaru leaned lazily against the wall, waving to him without much energy. He was wearing that flashy mesh undershirt as always, his face adorned with the same dead-fish eyes.
Ino stood off to the side, looking somewhat uneasy and absent-minded, while Chōji was, as usual, holding a bag of chips, crunching away.
"What are you guys doing here?" Naruto, being close with them, didn't bother with pleasantries and reached straight for Chōji's bag of chips.
*Crunch.* Naruto took a bite. Shikamaru didn't even look at him, simply tilted his head back toward the sky with a sigh.
"Asuma had something come up last minute. We have to wait for him here."
After saying that, Shikamaru glanced at Naruto and asked,
"You've heard about *that* thing too, right, Naruto?"
"What thing?"
"That so-called Ninja God. Said a couple of things and the whole village went into chaos."
"Oh, that." Naruto scratched his head and grinned brightly. "I thought it was just some prank!"
"A prank that lets the whole village hear it? Yeah right." Shikamaru rubbed his head in frustration.
"Naruto, you're just too slow on the uptake."
"But that so-called Ninja God's gotta be a total pervert. Talking about long legs and friends' little sisters and stuff."
"Nobody's gonna believe that nonsense, though. It's obviously just gibberish," Naruto said casually, waving his hand, then glanced at Chōji.
Chōji raised his brows, chomped down on another chip, and mumbled,
"The ninja way of the last chip."
"Only someone as clueless as you wouldn't believe it, Naruto," Shikamaru replied. "The Hyūga stuff? That's real."
"What stuff?" Naruto feigned ignorance.
"It's—"
"Shikamaru, Asuma-sensei's here!" Chōji suddenly shouted.
"Naruto, we'll talk next time. We gotta go!" Shikamaru glanced toward the Hokage Building's entrance, where Asuma had indeed appeared.
He gave Naruto a wave and followed after Chōji and Ino as they walked off.
Ino hadn't said a word to Naruto the entire time—not even looked at him. Naruto didn't mind. After the trio left, he turned and entered the Hokage Building himself.
Inside was chaotic. Anbu and ordinary chūnin were bustling about with stacks of documents. Every now and then, snippets of conversation about the Ninja God could be heard, sometimes even the word "Hyūga" mixed in.
Tilting his head, Naruto made his way upstairs, familiar with the path, planning to take on a D-rank mission. Kakashi had punished him with twenty D-rank missions, and he couldn't return to Team 7 until he completed them.
D-rank missions weren't hard. As he climbed the stairs, pondering what today's mission might be, loud cursing from someone coming down caught his ear.
"They want me to find out in one day? Where the hell am I supposed to look?! That damn Ninja God—if I ever catch him, I'll torture him to death!"
The scar-faced hulk of a man, Morino Ibiki, descended with members of the Torture and Interrogation Force, brushing right past Naruto.
"Yikes," Naruto shivered. His resolve to stay hidden as the Ninja God only grew stronger.
He held a deep fear of Morino Ibiki—not because Ibiki was particularly strong, but because the man was a *real* freak.
A six-foot-tall, dark-skinned, musclebound guy—he'd be cast as the burly neighbor in those… *certain* island films—yet privately, he was a hardcore masochist.
His mastery of torture techniques wasn't just for enemies; he even used them on himself.
*Good grief.* Just picturing that smug-yet-pained expression on such a man's face made Naruto want to puke. Better to just kill him outright.
"Here's your mission scroll. Please take care," the mission desk clerk said politely as she handed Naruto the scroll.
"Mm."
Exiting the Hokage Building, Naruto opened the scroll. The mission was… garbage collection.
*Since when does Konoha have this much garbage?!*
After some internal struggle, he begrudgingly began his trash-collecting journey.
It was the height of August, the sun blazing mercilessly. Before long, Naruto was done for.
Hiding in the shade of a tree, he stared blankly up at the blue sky. After a while, he tossed aside the trash bag and walked off alone.
"Ahhh, that's better!" Naruto exclaimed as he strutted out of a convenience store, having just bought two ice pops. The shopkeeper watched him leave with a bewildered expression.
Stepping back into the sweltering heat, Naruto squatted at the store entrance to finish both pops, making a nearby brat cry with envy.
He turned to look at four kids standing dazed in the sun, their skin tanned dark like melon rinds. He scanned their dirty clothes, eyes narrowing slightly.
"Come here."
Seeing the blond kid who'd just devoured two expensive ice pops beckoning them, the four exchanged glances, uncertain.
In the end, Naruto's image—licking two pops at once—proved too enticing. They approached.
"Want some?" Naruto dangled the ice pop in his hand.
The four weren't much younger than him—three boys and a girl, looking about eight or nine years old, hair and clothes disheveled.
It didn't take a genius to guess who they were—Konoha orphans.
"Yeah," said the boy in the lead.
"I can treat each of you to an ice pop, but you've gotta answer one question for me," Naruto said.
The kids hesitated briefly, then nodded.
Naruto's eyes narrowed as he studied them. *Wonder if one of these kids will grow up to be some protagonist from an orphanage in a certain story…*
"What comes after 'odd changes, even stays the same'?"
——
The four kids stared at each other, clueless.
Seeing no one answer, Naruto looked disappointed but still went back inside and bought five pops, handing one to each of them, including himself.
Soon, the five of them were squatting at the store entrance, unceremoniously licking ice pops.
"Want to eat these every day?"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah."
Four pairs of bright eyes fixed on Naruto. He smiled at them and said,
"Then you'll have to do me a favor."
The orange evening sun slanted across the sky. Naruto lay in a hammock, an eight-year-old girl at his side lazily fanning him.
The three boys came running toward him, sweating profusely, trash bags in hand, shouting with excitement,
"Boss, we're done collecting!"
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