Then Was Then, Now Is Now

"I'm saying, you caused such a huge commotion just to get yourself hospitalized?"

The Nine-Tails lay on the ground with its head resting on its two paws, its face full of confusion.

"What do you know? Don't meddle in the affairs of a cheat bro." Naruto lay on the ground with his eyes closed and gave a disdainful snort.

"Cheat bro? Come to think of it, you're always saying things like 'without cheats, there's only death' and 'a little cheat doesn't count as cheating.' So what exactly is a cheat?"

Hearing another new term, the Nine-Tails felt somewhat puzzled. Thinking of all the strange things Naruto had complained about in the Sealing Space before, it could not help voicing its question.

Naruto suddenly sat up. His eyes remained shut, but a sly curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"You really want to know?"

This brat!

Looking at the punchable expression on the little blondie's face, the Nine-Tails had no idea what bad scheme he was plotting again.

"Say it or don't." The Nine-Tails haughtily turned its head away.

"In that case, I'll let you see it."

"Watch carefully."

As he spoke, Naruto slowly opened his eyes.

Though the proud fox had turned away, it kept a close watch on Uzumaki Naruto from the corner of its eye. Then, every hair on its body suddenly stood on end. Its body shot up from the ground, and the entire fox bristled on the spot.

"Genjutsu? When did it happen?"

The Nine-Tails instinctively assumed it had fallen under a genjutsu and immediately adopted a guarded stance, its two eyes fixed on Naruto's.

When Naruto opened his eyes, the azure-blue eyes that had once resembled the sky had turned blood-red. Within those crimson pupils, three tomoe spun continuously before linking together into a single line, forming the shape of a fox's vertical pupil.

This development greatly exceeded Naruto's expectations. The system had originally given him only a pair of one-tomoe Sharingan, which he was supposed to upgrade himself.

Yet what he had not expected was that the moment he obtained those Sharingan, his experiences over the past five years began replaying in his mind.

The almost tangible malice, the pain of falling into an abyss, combined with the physical strength he had built through long-term training and the spiritual power of living two lives, directly allowed him to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan.

He had not expected that after more than a year of transmigrating, he had finally shouldered the backpack.

Then was then, now was now.

Previously, no matter what, he still had to cultivate his own strength. Although he had borrowed a little of the Nine-Tails' power, overall, it had all been the result of his own efforts.

Moreover, aside from the rapid initial growth, that kind of training would eventually slow down. His current strength had actually already reached something of a bottleneck.

After all, in the original story, Naruto's strength had several major breakthroughs because of Nine-Tails Chakra and Sage Mode. Now, he could not casually use Nine-Tails Chakra, and he had nowhere to train in Sage Mode.

So, it had become difficult for his strength to improve much further.

But now, things were different. He had directly shouldered the backpack. With these eyes, even if he did not use them, the feedback his body and Chakra received merely from awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan already far surpassed his year and a half of grueling training.

Combined with the two ocular techniques within these eyes, he now possessed a few traces of Beyond Kage strength. If those idiots still failed to recognize their place, he could directly take them all with him to ascension. Even Sarutobi Hiruzen would not be able to stop him.

Sure enough, no matter how hard one worked, it could not compare to having cheats. Hard work lost to bloodlines, and bloodlines lost to cheats.

With hard work, bloodlines, and cheats all combined, if he, Uzumaki Naruto, did not succeed, who would?

Everything Uzumaki Naruto had achieved today was the result of his own hard work.

"Hehehehe... Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha—"

In the deathly silence, a low, hoarse laugh suddenly shattered the stillness. It seemed to rise from an endless abyss, echoing through the surroundings as it gradually rose into wild, unrestrained laughter.

That laughter contained endless madness, liberation, mockery, and ecstatic delight. Now, the offense and defense had switched places.

"This brat."

The Nine-Tails already knew it was not genjutsu. This brat had truly awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan. But as it watched him laugh so maniacally—

"Why does he look a little like that bastard Madara Uchiha?"

The Nine-Tails muttered to itself. The longer it looked, the more something felt wrong. Suddenly, its eyes widened. It stared fixedly at Uzumaki Naruto and began pondering certain things from the past.

It remembered that neither Minato Namikaze nor Kushina Uzumaki should have possessed Uchiha Clan blood. So why had Uzumaki Naruto suddenly awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan? It felt as though it had suddenly spotted a blind spot in the matter, and the more it thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

Hiss, my head is so itchy. Feels like I'm about to grow a brain.

But his hair looked exactly like Minato Namikaze's.

Yet he really had been born from Kushina Uzumaki.

And the Uzumaki Clan bloodline in Naruto was unquestionably genuine. Then it suddenly remembered that Kushina Uzumaki seemed to have had a good friend in the Uchiha Clan and often went there to play. Could it have been some blond Uchiha?

Kurama felt like his CPU was about to overload. Smoke was practically about to rise from his fox head. Human relationships were simply too complicated; as expected, Tailed Beasts had much simpler minds.

"I'm saying, you seem to be thinking some very rude thoughts, Kurama."

The Nine-Tails was still lost in its mental storm, the expression on its fox face changing unpredictably. Naruto swore that he had never seen a fox capable of making so many human-like expressions.

"Cough, cough, cough." The Nine-Tails immediately coughed awkwardly and scratched its head with a paw. Even if it was a fox, it still felt rather embarrassed to speculate, right in front of someone, which of that person's parents had cheated.

"By the way, what's going on with your Mangekyō Sharingan, brat? I've never seen you with Sharingan before."

Naruto smiled and said with complete conviction, "Then was then, now is now. This is what cheating is."

Awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan = cheating?

The Nine-Tails was somewhat bewildered.

But Naruto's equation was rather accurate. Wasn't the Sharingan basically a cheat? After all, awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan probably gave a greater boost than what ordinary shinobi could achieve through an entire lifetime of training.

"Enough of that." Naruto suddenly sprang up from the ground and stood straight, looking at the Nine-Tails with a provocative expression.

"Kurama, spar with me."