I never expected that Kakashi would be the one watching me.
Naruto Uzumaki frowned slightly. At this point in time, Kakashi should have already left the Anbu, so why was he still the one keeping an eye on him? More importantly, Kakashi was strong and had the Sharingan. Naruto was genuinely worried he might notice something.
Of course, Naruto didn't know that Kakashi had left the Anbu and only came by to watch him occasionally. After all, Naruto was his teacher's child. No matter how little he cared, he still had to check on how his teacher's child was doing.
As for Naruto's living conditions, Kakashi had grown up the same way. Though such a life might have been hard for a child, everyone had gone through it, hadn't they? So Kakashi didn't care in the slightest about Naruto's hardships. And though no one else knew, Kakashi did: the Third Hokage had arranged things this way on purpose. Why? Undoubtedly, he wanted to win Naruto's loyalty.
It was probably still the middle of the night. The excitement of arriving in this world had passed, and drowsiness was setting in. Besides, he had school tomorrow. Having inherited all of Naruto's memories, he knew he had only a year left before graduating.
It might not be enough, but it was still a good start. With the Six Thief Immortals to help him, he could make progress over the next year without anyone noticing.
In the morning, even though he knew he had school, he'd been up in the middle of the night training. And since he'd always been a dead-last student, he wasn't in the habit of getting up early anyway. So he went back to sleep.
He had no idea how long he slept. When he got up to make something to eat and opened the fridge, Naruto was speechless.
"Ugh... I was mentally prepared, but how am I supposed to live like this? I don't need to eat anymore, but not needing to eat and not wanting to eat are two different things! What am I supposed to do from now on?"
Staring at the empty fridge, Naruto felt a headache coming on. And if anyone found out he didn't need to eat, the consequences were easy to imagine. Konoha might have gotten rid of Orochimaru and Tsunade, but that old schemer Danzo was still around. He was a madman too. When Naruto had sensed his surroundings yesterday, he'd known that Root operatives were watching him from outside. That dark, lifeless chakra could only belong to Root.
Outside, Kakashi was reading a dirty book as he prepared to finish his shift and leave. He instinctively glanced at Naruto, then turned to go—but immediately sensed something was wrong.
Chakra. Ninjas had no way to conceal their chakra unless they used Sealing Jutsu. You could tell whether someone was a ninja with a single glance. Even people who couldn't use sensory techniques could feel chakra flowing.
But Naruto felt like an ordinary person to Kakashi. His expression changed in an instant.
Naruto was from the Uzumaki Clan, with an enormous amount of chakra that was difficult to hide. Yet now Kakashi couldn't sense any at all.
Something had happened to Naruto. Almost instinctively, Kakashi lifted his forehead protector, revealing his Three-Tomoe Sharingan.
Naruto was just about to head to school when a chill ran through him. With his back to Kakashi, he couldn't see what was happening, but instinctively activated the Mind's Eye of the Kagura and sensed Kakashi's movements outside.
"What's going on? What's Kakashi freaking out about?"
Seeing Kakashi's movements, Naruto shivered. Other people might not know, but Naruto did: Kakashi had a Mangekyo-level Sharingan.
The first thing that came to mind was that Kakashi had noticed something was off about him.
Impossible. He'd only just arrived in this world. How could he have?
Kakashi used his Sharingan to observe Naruto and immediately spotted the enormous amount of chakra inside him. He'd already known that Naruto had a lot of chakra, but what he saw this time still startled him. Didn't Naruto have more chakra than most Jonin?
With the Nine-Tails Chakra no longer being suppressed, Naruto's chakra had been freed. And since he was still absorbing the Nine-Tails' chakra and Natural Energy from the outside world, the amount of chakra he had would only keep growing.
"Looks like he's fine. His chakra has even increased by this much."
Kakashi assumed Naruto had absorbed some of the Nine-Tails' chakra, or that something else had happened that he didn't know about. As long as Naruto himself was all right, that was what mattered.
The real reason was the Six Thief Immortals. It absorbed chakra from the outside world without releasing any aura or chakra of its own. Even sensory ninjas couldn't detect Naruto's chakra unless they had something like the Byakugan, which could directly observe the Kekkei Genkai inside his body.
Once he'd calmed down, Kakashi left without lingering.
Feeling Kakashi go, Naruto couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. The pressure of the Sharingan was no joke, especially now that his senses had grown much sharper.
He stopped worrying about Kakashi. What troubled him now was how to deal with his living conditions.
He wanted to solve the problem, but for now he had no idea how. First, he'd go to school.
As soon as he stepped onto the street, the hateful looks from the people around him made him deeply uncomfortable. His senses were much sharper now, and even without activating the Mind's Eye of the Kagura, those murderous glares made him feel as if he were standing naked in the middle of the street.
"Heh. I saw it in the memories, but experiencing it firsthand really does feel awful." Back in his previous life, rumors and malicious comments on the internet could kill people. That was nothing compared to a whole world looking at you as if they wished you were dead.
Those looks were undeniably unpleasant. Even with his mature outlook, they still affected his mood.
Ignoring them, Naruto broke into a run.
His physical abilities had improved, and he was in good shape in every way. He soon reached the school gates. Experiencing superhuman abilities for the first time was fascinating, and it made him even more interested in getting stronger.
Early that morning, at the entrance to the Konoha Ninja Academy, Naruto greeted his friends, Shikamaru and the others, as if the hateful and fearful looks around him meant nothing. As a child, Naruto had few friends, but he still had two or three. Shikamaru and Choji, who were also considered dead last, were his best friends. Of course, Naruto was genuinely a dead last, while Shikamaru only acted that way because he couldn't be bothered.
As children of the Konoha High Command, their parents knew Naruto's identity, so they never went out of their way to tell their children to stay away from him. Though many commoners at school hated Naruto, the children of the higher-ups didn't look at him with the same disgust, even if they didn't hang out with him. Unlike the others, Shikamaru and the rest, who were aligned with the Hokage, could become Naruto's friends.
Though Naruto was widely hated, he was someone the Hokage kept an eye on. Not just anyone could be friends with him. Ordinary people didn't know who Naruto was, so their parents specifically warned them not to associate with him. The children of the higher-ups weren't told to stay away, but they all knew the Third Hokage's attitude toward Naruto, so none of them would go out of their way to let their children get close to him. But the Ino-Shika-Cho Clans were different. The Third Hokage didn't suspect them, and they had ties to the Fourth Hokage as well.