Time always passed quickly.
In the blink of an eye, another winter had arrived.
Clumps and flurries of snow drifted down, like countless torn scraps of cotton floating from the sky. The ground had long been blanketed in silver, hazy as smoke yet not smoke, misty as fog yet not fog, as though the entire world had been shrouded in white.
Night had fallen.
A small figure darted through Konoha's streets. The white lights on either side shone upon the snow-covered road, making the entire street difficult to traverse. An anxious look had appeared on the owner's face, and he kept muttering under his breath:
"Oh no, oh no! I'm gonna get beaten when I get home, dattebayo!"
"This road is way too hard to walk on! If I'd known, I wouldn't have taken a shortcut—I'd have taken the main road!"
"It's all Shikamaru's fault! If he hadn't dragged me into playing that shogi stuff I don't even understand, I would've been home ages ago!"
"I hope Mom doesn't get too mad..."
That small figure was none other than the son of Minato Namikaze and Uzumaki Kushina—the current Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails in Konoha, and the protagonist of the original story—Uzumaki Naruto.
Perhaps it was the convergence of the worldline, or perhaps Uzumaki Kushina could not bear to see the Uzumaki Clan, once one of the Shinobi World's great clans, left without descendants. In the end, Naruto still took the Uzumaki surname.
Having grown up under his parents' loving care, Naruto had enjoyed a very happy childhood. No one hated him anymore, no one rejected him, and no one refused to sell him food, forcing him to steal from stores and leave money behind. Nor did he need to pull those absurd pranks just to draw people's attention.
Before even