Sakura Haruno felt resentful.
Naruto and Hinata were flaunting their affection right in front of her.
It made her jealous and envious, and filled her with hatred...
She nearly had a metaphysical breakdown, too!
"No way! I have to go up and see what they're doing!"
It did have the feel of catching someone cheating!
But Naruto-kun used to be hers. (That was Sakura's own delusion.)
She just wanted to reclaim what belonged to her!
She, Sakura Haruno, was definitely not the other woman~
Hinata was the homewrecker!
With all these jumbled thoughts in her head,
Sakura Haruno sneaked after them like a thief.
She thought she was hiding herself well.
But even such a tiny movement of hers
didn't escape Naruto's keen notice.
Hinata suddenly stopped, tilting her little head in confusion as she looked at Naruto, who had come to a halt.
"Huh? What's wrong, Naruto-kun?"
Naruto grinned and shook his head.
"Nothing. I just noticed you look a lot like someone."
Hinata's little face went blank. She instinctively blurted out,
"Like who?"
Naruto answered with a straight face.
"My woman!"
Wasn't that obvious?
Why did she even have to ask?
It wasn't just that she looked like her—she was her!
Their marriage was fated. There was no escaping it.
And she couldn't escape, either!
Naruto was simply stating a fact.
And he was phrasing it like one of those cheesy pickup lines from the internet in his previous life.
Lines like that had come easily to him back then.
Girls had heard them all before, and after a while, they lost their charm.
But where was he now?
He was in the simple, unsophisticated village of Konoha!
People of this era devoted themselves to studying and improving their ninja techniques,
and figuring out how to use the chakra in their bodies.
Who had time to come up with lines like these?
The speaker might be unaware, but the listener took it to heart!
In an instant!
Just like that!
Hinata's lovely face flushed red.
The blush spread at a visible speed,
quickly creeping down her fair neck!
The little princess had never been exposed to cheesy pickup lines before.
She was as pure as a white lotus, without a trace of corruption.
Unlike Naruto, who was a worldly man from modern times, full of ideals, ambition, and social responsibility.
Hinata stammered,
"Honestly, Naruto-kun, what are you saying?"
"Th-that's so... so..."
Naruto couldn't help laughing.
"So what?"
Little Hinata blushed and turned her head aside.
She didn't dare look Naruto in the eye.
She said coyly,
"It's so embarrassing..."
A gust of wind swept past...
Scattering Sakura Haruno's thoughts.
And throwing her heart into disarray.
Sakura Haruno stood frozen in place,
like a character turned to stone by some anime special effect.
Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
Questions like these, full of ninja philosophy, suddenly popped into her mind.
Just look at what she was seeing!
She had no idea what Naruto had said to Hinata.
They were too far away.
She couldn't hear them.
But seeing Hinata act so shy,
her feminine intuition told her
that Naruto must have said something sweet, the sort of thing lovers said to each other.
"Ah!!!! Naruto-kun was mine!"
"Ugh, you little fox! How dare you? How could you?! I hate this so much."
Sakura Haruno let out the bitter lament of a single woman.
She looked like a wronged wife,
her gaze filled with resentment.
She wanted nothing more than to rush up and pull them apart.
Then she'd loudly tell Hinata:
'Naruto-kun and I are the ones who belong together. He pursued me before. He liked me. We're true love, and you're just an accident.'
Would she dare?
Sakura Haruno shook her head with a bitter smile.
She didn't dare...
She used to ignore Naruto,
treating him like an insignificant little puppy who followed her around.
A little tagalong.
She'd even found that side of him annoying.
Sakura Haruno had never imagined
that one day Naruto would become someone far beyond her reach.
She used to ignore you,
and now she couldn't even hope to measure up to you.
It was as if heaven had played a cruel joke on her.
In the end,
their positions had switched.
She wanted to become Naruto's little puppy,
but Naruto wouldn't even look at her.
He wouldn't even give her the chance to follow him around.
Thinking of this,
Sakura gave another self-mocking smile.
"Ah... If only I'd accepted Naruto-kun back then and gotten together with him... faced all those hardships together..."
"Maybe I'd be the girl everyone in the class—even the whole school—envied most right now."
At the Hyuga Clan compound...
Inside a large, old-fashioned Japanese estate,
"Patriarch, it's absolutely true. Naruto is the orphan of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze."
A trusted subordinate of Hyuga Hiashi lowered his head
and reported, point by point, what they had uncovered over the past few days.
Sitting before him was a handsome, middle-aged man.
An imposing aura radiated from him, even when he wasn't angry.
He seemed sharp and stern.
He looked a little like Hinata.
That's right.
He was Hinata's father,
the current head of the Hyuga Clan,
Hyuga Hiashi!
After listening to his subordinate's report, Hyuga Hiashi seemed to mull something over.
He pondered for a moment, then asked,
"What else did you find out?"
At this, Hyuga Ichiro's expression turned awkward. He hesitated, as if unsure whether to speak.
Hyuga Hiashi frowned, displeased.
"How long have you been with me? Just say whatever you have to say!"
"Yes!"
Hyuga Ichiro bowed.
"Our people also discovered that Naruto seems to have learned and mastered the Rasengan, a ninjutsu created by the Fourth Hokage!"
"He's performed exceptionally well at the Ninja Academy."
"He's a bona fide genius ninja."
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