Flower

Whether you wanted it or not, whether you were happy or sad, none of it could affect the passage of time. The sun would rise as usual the next day.

At five in the morning, Naruto opened his eyes just as the alarm went off.

Training began.

Wash up, do morning exercises, eat lunch, review the morning's progress, take a nap, train, eat dinner, sum up the day's progress, plan for the next day, pass out in bed...

The days passed in this way, repeating themselves, quiet and uneventful.

It was as if the world had forgotten Naruto. During this period of single-minded training, he seemed to have truly shut himself away from the world. Nothing came to disturb him, as though the fuss over beating up the shop clerk had never happened. Unless he had to, Naruto rarely interacted with anyone else. He was completely immersed in his own world. His eyes saw only training, and all he wanted was to get stronger, stronger, stronger.

Only occasionally, during his morning runs, would Naruto pass two bowl-cut boys dressed in green.

He naturally knew who they were, but Naruto didn't strike up a conversation as if they were old friends. After running into each other often enough, they started nodding in greeting, sharing a silent understanding. Sometimes he even got a thumbs-up from them, before they each ran off in their own direction.

There was no doubt that this kind of life was dull, even painful. Naruto packed his schedule so full every day that he didn't leave himself even a moment to catch his breath.

But Naruto never wavered.

Like a precisely programmed robot, he banished every lazy thought and distraction from his mind. His only instruction was to carry out the tasks he had set himself each day. Even when his body was on the verge of collapse, and instinct made him want to beg for mercy and give in to exhaustion, he only gritted his teeth, let out a low growl, and forced himself through it.

Of course, there were times when he couldn't push through. But so what? He could just get back up and start over. He would always manage to overcome it.

Naruto hadn't forgotten why he had wanted to get out of that movie theater.

He was also fortunate to have a special constitution. No matter how intense the previous day's training had been, a night's sleep was always enough to restore him. Otherwise, he would have trained himself to death with the plan he'd made.

With such crazy, almost self-destructive training, accelerated by the Multi Shadow Clone, Naruto's strength improved at a terrifying rate. It was almost as if he changed by the day... no, by the half-day.

Here are some excerpts from Naruto's training log:

First morning: Tree-climbing practice, completed.

First afternoon: Water Walking practice, completed; first stage of Rasengan practice completed, successfully bursting the water balloon (one hand).

Third afternoon: Rasengan practice, completed; scored over ninety percent on Ninja Academy exams.

Fifth morning: Finished reading the books borrowed from Iruka-sensei and Grandpa Hokage; gained a deeper understanding of Sealing Jutsu.

Seventh afternoon: Borrowed a Wind Release: Vacuum Wave scroll from Grandpa Hokage, but training was slower than expected.

Summary: The foundation for training in nature transformation wasn't solid enough. The plan needs to be adjusted.

Fifteen days later.

"Ha! Ha!"

Having struggled through another day of training, Naruto lay sprawled across the cracked earth like a puddle of mud. His lungs heaved like bellows, every breath bringing a tearing pain. A faint metallic taste rose in his throat, and the earth beneath him was soaked with sweat, spreading into a large, dark stain.

"I almost died."

Naruto's eyes were unfocused, and he couldn't help feeling a little relieved.

That was because he'd used ninety Shadow Clones for training today, a dangerous number that pushed him to the very edge of his physical limits. The instant he released the jutsu, the splitting pain in his head had almost convinced him he was really going to die.

"But as long as I'm not dead, it's fine."

Naruto struggled to get up. Sweat and dust clung to his skin, and all he wanted was to rush home, take a hot shower, and collapse into his soft bedding.

But he truly didn't have a shred of strength left. It felt as if his body had been drained of bones, and every muscle was howling.

After making a few futile efforts to move, Naruto remained motionless. He could only give up for now and lie there, watching the clouds drift across the sky in the wind.

"Come to think of it, was there really this much time between me stealing the Scroll of Seals and the class assignment meeting in the original story? It's been almost half a month, and there hasn't been a single notice. I haven't even had my ninja photo taken."

"I'm so hungry, so tired, so sleepy... but I still have to cook, shower, and do laundry when I get home... Ah, I want to die."

"I've managed to cut the Rasengan's lead-in time down to 0.3 seconds... but I still haven't solved the problem of it growing so large that it's hard to maintain its shape when I try adding more chakra.

"So what exactly is different about the principle behind the Pervy Sage's Big Ball Rasengan and an ordinary Rasengan?

"...Sometimes, studying alone hits a wall. If only I had a teacher. Maybe I could find an excuse to ask the Third Hokage? Say I want to make the Rasengan bigger?"

"I still can't make sense of the hand signs for Flying Thunder God. Mainly because the village forbids the spread of the knowledge involved. I don't even know the basic principles. It's like trying to study advanced math without knowing one plus one—I'd obviously be completely lost... But I can't come up with an excuse to go mooch off the Third Hokage this time."

Exhausted, Naruto let his mind drift, thoughts scattering in every direction.

Just then,

A shadow suddenly fell over his field of vision, followed by a voice tinged with puzzlement.

"Nar... Naruto?"

"Ah..." Naruto's unfocused eyes slowly came into focus. "Ino?"

The first thing he saw was a brilliant mass of blond hair. It didn't hang loose and smooth; instead, it had been carefully tied into a high, fluffy ponytail, like a beam of sunlight dancing behind her head.

The girl wore a sleeveless purple top. She had pretty features, and though her face still had the roundness of a child, her clear, pale blue eyes already held the captivating charm she would have when she grew up.

Naruto stared blankly at Ino, who had suddenly appeared, and rasped, "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

Ino held a large bunch of blue flowers and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"What are you doing here, Naruto? And why do you look so beat up?"

"Why else would I be at a training ground? I was training. I just finished and was lying here to rest for a bit." Naruto tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying to force a smile.

"Oh..."

Ino remembered the scene she had stumbled upon at the food shop some time ago. She paused, but didn't bring it up. Instead, she teased, "So how much longer are you going to lie there? Am I supposed to keep bending over to talk to you?"

"Sorry..." Naruto gave a wry smile. "I want to get up too, but I really can't move. I don't have any strength left."

"You trained that hard? Seriously?"

Ino was a little surprised. Then she noticed the cratered ground around them, its surface webbed with cracks. Dozens of trees as thick as bowls had been severed at the trunk, their broken ends jagged.

"Did Naruto do all this while training?"

Ino was secretly astonished. Then she took a flower from the bunch, crouched down, and prodded Naruto's neck with the tip of its thin stem.

"Poke."

?

"...Seriously, man." There were so many things he wanted to say that they clogged his throat, leaving Naruto momentarily speechless.

"Poke again."

Ino wasn't convinced. She used the stem to tickle Naruto's face a few times, as if teasing a kitten or puppy. When she saw that Naruto really couldn't even be bothered to lift an eyelid, she tilted her head and marveled, "Wow, so you really did train all by yourself until you ran out of strength. That's amazing."

"...Haha."

Naruto didn't know what to say, so he could only laugh awkwardly.

It turned out Naruto had gone far too long without having this kind of purely "everyday" conversation with another person. His stiff smile and flat replies both carried an unmistakable air of awkwardness.

The movie theater had taught him a lot, but socializing was the one lesson he couldn't learn without practice.

And looking back on Naruto's life, even if you left out the years he'd spent alone in the movie theater, he'd still been all by himself at the Ninja Academy, without a single friend.

So Naruto, who had always kept to himself, really didn't know how to get along with other people. He didn't even know how to respond to a compliment.

(Choji and Shikamaru being Naruto's companions is an anime-only detail; this story doesn't use it.)

"..."

As if she'd picked up on the awkwardness in Naruto's voice, Ino rolled her eyes. Then, as though she'd remembered something, she changed the subject.

"Ah, I forgot to answer your question. I'm here because a customer wanted to return something, so my mom sent me to their house to pick up this bunch of flowers. On my way back, I saw someone lying in the training ground. I actually wondered if it might be you, Naruto, since our hair is the same color."

"So I got curious and came over to check. And it really was you."

"So you're taking these flowers back to resell?"

"How could we?" Ino was still crouching. She gently prodded Naruto's forehead with the flower stem. "The customer suggested that, but the Yamanaka Flower Shop would never do something like that!"

"Sorry..." Naruto wanted to scratch his head, but he still had no strength, so he could only tilt it to one side.

"And besides, the customer didn't return them because there was anything wrong with the quality of our flowers. It was because her husband is an old-fashioned fossil. He got home, saw the flowers, and said something about how blue was unlucky. He insisted she return them and get her money back, so she had no choice. Ugh, it makes me so mad!"

As if the conversation had opened the floodgates, Ino angrily threw a few punches at the air, then looked down at the flowers in her hand with some sadness.

"But it's such a shame. They're all so lovely... I wonder if Mom will throw them away when I get back... Oh, right." Ino suddenly cautioned him, "I'm only telling you this. Don't tell anyone that I badmouthed the customer's husband, okay?"

"..."

Naruto quietly looked at the girl before him, who had chattered away on her own, her cheeks puffing up a little with anger. For some reason, his heart suddenly felt lighter. After so long, he finally relaxed.

He couldn't help smiling, and this time his smile was more genuine and natural than before. His voice was warm as he said, "Yeah, don't worry. I won't tell anyone." Naruto looked at the bunch of deep blue flowers, his gaze sincere with appreciation. "These nigellas are really beautiful. I think the customer's husband is the one with no taste."

"Eh?"

Now it was Ino's turn to stare. She hadn't expected Naruto to know the name of the flowers.

The golden glow of the setting sun fell gently over them, bathing the girl's delicate profile and the blue flowers in her arms in warm light. Their star-shaped blossoms, nestled among velvet-like bracts, swayed gently in the breeze as a faint, hazy floral fragrance filled the air.

As if in a trance, Ino blurted out the question. Her clear eyes held a hint of curiosity and an expectation she could hardly conceal as she gazed down at the boy:

"Then, do you know what nigella flowers symbolize?"

Beneath the setting sun, Naruto met Ino's gaze.

If these flowers hadn't been nigellas, Naruto definitely wouldn't have known the answer. But as it happened, he remembered the meaning of these flowers, whose color matched his eyes.

"Fresh love," Naruto said softly. "And endless longing."