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It was late at night when Naruto returned home.
He still felt he owed Teuchi and Ayame an apology, as his presence at Ichiraku Ramen had kept the ramen shop empty of customers all evening.
He had originally planned to leave after finishing his ramen, but Ayame kept him chatting, asking about various things. Since it was a rare chance for a normal conversation, Naruto simply sat there, chatting and trying every type of ramen Ichiraku had to offer.
He hadn't spent any money in over a year, so his wallet was naturally bulging.
They were a truly simple father and daughter.
Naruto sighed with emotion, and as he opened his door, his expression quickly turned strange.
The house wasn't very clean; after all, he hadn't been back in over a year, and many places were covered in dust.
He didn't turn on the lights, just opened the refrigerator to look. It was filled with milk and instant noodles, but they were all expired. These items had been close to expiring before he left, but he was too lazy to clean them out.
Naruto took out two cups of instant noodles from inside, then heated up the tap water that had been left in the kettle a year and a half ago. After preparing both cups of noodles, he placed them on the tatami mat in the living room and lay back in the shadows of the sofa. The moonlight illuminated his lower body, but his upper body remained obscured.
He had been surviving in the wilderness for over a year, so a little dust didn't bother him.
"This is truly awful," Naruto suddenly complained with a hint of distress, but in the dim light, within the eyes hidden in the darkness, a Three-Tomoe quietly spun.
"I had already ignored you, but why did you have to be so ignorant as to come right in front of me?"
"Hmph—"
In a daze, a sound of rapid breathing seemed to echo in the room, but it vanished in an instant.
Naruto stopped speaking, his expression gradually turning cold as he silently waited for the instant noodles in the bowl to soften and get mushy.
"Do you like mushy ramen? It doesn't taste good if it's too mushy."
Naruto suddenly spoke, as if talking to himself, or perhaps asking someone, but there was no response in the room.
"If you don't speak up soon, you might end up as a hungry ghost."
Naruto suddenly turned his head, his vertical pupils fixed intently on a corner of the room.
The ANBU Ninja, who was currently using Stealth Release, was startled. Although he had suspected he was exposed, he never expected it to be true. The opponent was just a child less than six years old.
A Ninja wearing a cat-faced mask suddenly appeared before him and asked in a surprised tone, "Do you use sensory Ninjutsu?"
"Is that what they call Stealth Release?" Naruto didn't answer, curiously observing the ANBU Ninja who had suddenly emerged from invisibility.
In fact, Naruto didn't know any sensory Ninjutsu at all. It seemed he didn't have the talent to awaken the Vortex Clan's Kagura Mind's Eye either.
It was just that as soon as he opened the door, the malice and killing intent in the room became difficult to suppress. He felt various kinds of malice every day; even when training in the wilderness, he could feel the malice from Anbu. But he had truly never encountered anyone who displayed such strong killing intent right from the start.
Naruto opened the lid of his instant noodles and found that the ramen was indeed mushy. He gave a gentle smile and said to the ANBU Ninja, "Want some? I prepared it especially for you."
The ANBU Ninja's face beneath his mask instantly turned ugly, his eyes filled with disgust, and he said mockingly, "Only a beast like you would eat such trash."
"That's truly a shame," Naruto said with a look of regret, stirring the instant noodles in the paper bowl.
"Speaking of which, you haven't answered my question yet."
"What question?"
The ANBU Ninja was already preparing to leave. Since he was exposed, there was no need to stay.
He knew that although Uzumaki Naruto was a child less than six years old, his strength was already at the Chunin level. This talent was as astonishing as Kakashi's back then.
However, he was a Special Jonin after all, and he had some confidence. If he stayed a bit longer, he also wanted to teach this arrogant and disgusting sinner a lesson.
"Was your invisibility ability just now Stealth Release?" Naruto asked like a curious little boy, inquiring about something that interested him.
"..."
"What do you want to do?" The ANBU Ninja didn't answer but implicitly confirmed it, then asked Naruto a question in return.
In the darkness, only a little moonlight entered the room through the window, making it hard to discern the room's appearance. Shadows fell on Naruto's body. He suddenly grinned, the corners of his mouth turning up to reveal a row of pearly white teeth.
"Nothing much, I just think it's quite fun. Can I borrow it to play with?"
Looking at Naruto's chillingly white teeth, the ANBU Ninja suddenly felt a surge of dread. In an instant, his hands and feet turned icy cold, as if he had been locked onto by something.
As an experienced ANBU Ninja, he knew exactly what this premonition meant. He had felt this same sensation when he secretly investigated Orochimaru, one of the Three Sannin, and was noticed by him.
This monster actually wanted his Bloodline Limit!
Without any hesitation, he immediately threw two Kunai, aiming them at Naruto's forehead and heart respectively.
He himself rushed directly towards the door, reaching it almost instantly, bursting out through it, and tumbling several times on the ground due to the immense impact.
"Hmph— Hmph— Hmph—"
"It seems the Jinchuriki is nothing more than..."
The ANBU Ninja hadn't even sighed in relief when his mocking words got stuck in his throat. He suddenly saw the Jinchuriki sitting on the sofa with his back to the moonlight, Kunai stuck in his forehead and heart, grinning at him.
It was a bit strange; that spot had just been in shadow. How could it suddenly be against the light?
"This is a Genjutsu!" The ANBU Ninja immediately understood what had happened and quickly made a hand sign to release the Genjutsu, but he only felt his Chakra become momentarily chaotic, and then nothing happened.
"How disappointing. I thought I could play a bit longer."
The ANBU Ninja couldn't see Naruto's expression, only discerning from his voice that he was very disappointed.
"Uzumaki Naruto! Are you trying to betray the Village?"
"Don't forget, the Village raised you, an orphan. Are you going to be ungrateful?"
The ANBU Ninja suddenly said, his voice outwardly fierce but inwardly weak, as he drew the short sword from his back, maintaining a state of full alertness.
Why was the Jinchuriki's Genjutsu skill so strong?
Looking at the tense ANBU Ninja, Naruto suddenly wanted to ask a question.
"Before today, I shouldn't have done anything to betray the Village, right?"
"What?"
"As an ANBU Ninja, you should know that I am a Jinchuriki, and even the Fourth Hokage's child. Why is your resentment towards me so strong?" Naruto was a bit puzzled. If the other party hadn't come directly with killing intent and squatted in the corner of the room, he really wouldn't have bothered with him.
The ANBU Ninja pursed his lips, his right hand gripping the short sword tightly, and said in a hoarse voice, "My parents died on the night of the Nine-Tailed Fox!"
Naruto frowned and said, puzzled, "So what does that have to do with me? I'm just a Jinchuriki."
The ANBU Ninja's voice turned venomous. "If you hadn't been born, the Nine-Tailed Fox's rampage wouldn't have happened at all. Your parents aren't Konoha's heroes; they are Konoha's true sinners!"
The ANBU Ninja's expression became incredibly distorted.
"People like you shouldn't have been born into this world!"
"?"
"How arrogant, when you're so weak."
Naruto was stunned, his expression even turning to one of bewilderment. He had never thought of it from that angle. If Uzumaki Kushina hadn't gotten pregnant, this whole situation wouldn't have happened. But such a thought was truly quite self-centered.
"Die!"
Naruto was still pondering the logic when a short sword, glinting coldly in the moonlight, pierced directly towards his heart. The ANBU Ninja had seized this opportunity.
Every day he wanted to kill the enemy who had caused him to lose his parents, but because of his identity as a Konoha Ninja, he could only suppress his hatred. Now, he could finally avenge his parents.
Even if he was punished by the Third Hokage, he would have no regrets. He just hoped Hayate wouldn't be implicated by him.
"Splurt—"
The sound of the short sword piercing flesh echoed, and the ANBU Ninja's mouth beneath his mask directly curved into a triumphant, conniving smile. He couldn't help but sneer inwardly.
Hmph, no matter how high the Nine-Tailed Jinchuriki's talent, what good is it? True Ninja grow through countless battles. A genius who hasn't experienced war easily loses his life.
"You, glug..."
The ANBU Ninja wanted to mock him, but a thick liquid continuously gushed from his mouth, preventing him from speaking. The immense pain in his chest turned the contempt beneath his mask into pure terror.
He suddenly found Naruto's face, with the Kunai stuck in it, terrifying, like a demon.
"Glug..."
The ANBU Ninja let out a painful roar, and his vision suddenly blurred. When his vision cleared again, he was sitting on the sofa, a short sword piercing through his chest.
He struggled to look at the owner of the short sword. It was an animal mask, and the ANBU Ninja felt as if he could still see the contempt beneath the other's mask. Only then did he realize.
It was me? I killed myself?
Naruto sat quietly on the opposite sofa. After returning, he had been sitting there, calmly and pleasantly watching the ANBU Ninja's show of stabbing himself in the heart with the short sword.
Looking at the slightly twitching corpse on the sofa, perhaps from dealing with wild animals for so long, he felt no discomfort. After all, it's hard for people to feel sympathy for food.
Naruto went over and removed the other's mask, discovering it was a young, resolute face, probably in his twenties, and not Gekkō Hayate.
"How ugly."
He looked at the mask in his hand, hesitated, then put it into his pocket. The vertical pupil in his right eye trembled slightly, and a vortex appeared in Naruto's hand. The ANBU Ninja and the specks of blood splattered on the sofa were all absorbed by the vortex.
Naruto felt his Chakra seemed to increase slightly, and a strange energy suddenly appeared in his body. Following the natural guidance of his body, he formed a hand sign.
His body also gradually disappeared from where he stood.