You Regret, I Shadow

Hokage Building, top floor, Hokage's office.

Naruto shut the door behind him and walked straight to the middle of the office, leaning against the cold wall.

His hands were tucked into the pockets of his black fitted outfit, his fingertips idly brushing the fabric's texture as his calm gaze swept over the old man smoking behind the desk.

There was none of his usual eagerness to please, no deliberately goofy grin. He could not even be bothered to say, "Grandpa Hokage."

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat in the Hokage's chair, the ember in his pipe flickering as smoke curled through the air. His clouded eyes remained fixed on the boy before him.

The two of them faced each other in silence.

Outside the window, the wind swept Konoha's fallen leaves past the sill. The office was so quiet that the faint crackling of burning tobacco could be heard.

After a full half-minute, Hiruzen slowly lowered his pipe and broke the silence first.

"Little Naruto, why do I feel like you've changed?"

His voice carried its usual gentleness, yet beneath it was a trace of scrutiny. "Can you tell Grandpa why you crippled the owner of the food shop at the village entrance?"

Naruto suddenly let out a quiet laugh.

There was not the slightest warmth in that laugh—only mockery.

He looked up at Hiruzen. His eyes were startlingly bright, yet piercingly cold. "Grandpa Hokage, everyone loves you, don't they? What kind of shitty place is this? Shitty place, shitty place, shitty place, shitty place! I endured for twelve years. When they spat in my face and smashed my head bloody with stones, I still had to smile and apologize. Where were you then? I've had enough!"

"What, now that I fought back, it's somehow my fault? Was I right to keep enduring?"

Hiruzen's brows immediately furrowed, and his fingers tightened slightly around the pipe. "Do you really not want the village's acknowledgment? Didn't you always say, when you were little, that you wanted to become a Hokage everyone recognized?"

"I never saw Grandpa Hokage being chased around and cursed as a Demon Fox."

Naruto's casual remark left Hiruzen utterly speechless.

Watching the old man's expression stiffen, Naruto pressed on, every word striking at the deepest wound. "You sit in the Hokage's seat, enjoying the support of the entire village, while letting a child who lost his parents suffer their bullying. And in the end, you still expect me to smile and beg the people who hate me to acknowledge me?"

"Grandpa Hokage, don't you think that's ridiculous?"

The office fell into dead silence once more.

As Hiruzen looked at the boy bristling with thorns before him, he seemed to see Minato Namikaze's shadow from years ago—just as dazzling, just as sharp, but with far more hostility and coldness than Minato had ever possessed.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, only to find countless words lodged in his throat. Not one could come out.

After a long silence, he finally let out a heavy sigh, exhaustion filling his voice. "Fine. I'll restrain the villagers and won't let them bully you so freely anymore. But I also don't want to see you casually hurting people again. After all, a ninja's duty is to protect civilians."

"You have to protect yourself first before you have the right to talk about protecting others." Naruto straightened up and patted nonexistent dust from his clothes. His tone was calm, but carried an unquestionable firmness. "If others don't offend me, I won't offend them. But if they offend me, I will definitely offend them back."

With that, he did not spare Hiruzen another glance. He turned, pulled open the door, and walked out.

The moment the door shut, Hiruzen stared at the empty doorway and heavily knocked his pipe against the edge of the desk. Burned ash scattered across the floor.

Less than half a minute after Naruto left, the office's side door was pushed open.

Danzo stood wrapped in a tightly sealed black robe, undisguised mockery filling his exposed eye.

"Hiruzen, you really have grown old."

He walked to the desk, his voice hoarse and sinister. "You can't even control a teenager. Leaving the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki in your hands is a complete waste."

Normally, Hiruzen would have done little more than frown and offer a few words of persuasion. But today, the guilt and helplessness Naruto had exposed, along with his long-suppressed dissatisfaction with Danzo's secret schemes, all erupted at once.

He suddenly raised his eyes, his gaze as sharp as a blade as he stared Danzo down. "What right do you have to say that?"

"Who was it that leaked the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki's identity to the villagers back then, forcing Naruto to live in hell from the age of four? You want the Jinchuriki only because you want to turn him into a weapon for seizing power—a weapon of your Root!"

Hiruzen's voice was not loud, but it carried an unprecedented pressure that even made Danzo freeze for a moment.

"It is not your place to tell Konoha what to do."

He heavily set his pipe on the desk with a dull thud. "Keep your Root under control. Don't let me catch evidence of you overstepping your bounds. Get out."

Danzo's face instantly turned livid, fury blazing in his single eye.

He glared at Hiruzen for several seconds. In the end, he snorted coldly, flung his sleeve, turned around, and slammed the door as he stormed out.

Elsewhere, Naruto had just exited the Hokage Building when the wind carried sunlight across his face. A knowing smile curled at his lips.

Just as expected.

The Third Hokage did not dare touch him at all.

At the end of the day, he, Naruto Uzumaki, was Konoha's only Nine-Tails Jinchuriki—the nuclear weapon Konoha held to intimidate the surrounding ninja villages.

Kill him? Imprison him? Unless Hiruzen Sarutobi had gone mad and wanted to place Konoha in a desperate position surrounded by enemies on all sides.

[Congratulations, Host. Your words and actions were highly darkened. You have gained 300 Darkness Value! Current Darkness Value: 350!]

The system prompt rang out in his mind. Naruto raised an eyebrow and thought, Neji Hyuga, that inexplicable jealousy of yours really helped me out.

It seemed he had no choice but to continue down this path of darkness.

"Display every item I can exchange for."

Naruto silently gave the command, and the next second, a system panel glowing with a cold light unfolded directly across his retina.

A dense list of options instantly appeared before him, ranging from the basic Three-Basic Techniques to S-rank forbidden technique secrets, then the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan, the Otsutsuki's Tenseigan, Six Paths Level Rinnegan, and even the God Tree Fruit. It was dazzling to behold.

Naruto glanced at the prices, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

A C-rank ninjutsu cost 350 points, a B-rank ninjutsu cost 750 points, and an A-rank ninjutsu cost 1,200 points. Even awakening the most basic one-tomoe Sharingan required 600 Darkness Value.

"This damn system is fucking ruthless. These prices are like money from my past life—gone before you know it."

Naruto cursed wildly in his heart, but he also knew that anything produced by the system had to be top-tier.

Once exchanged, its proficiency would instantly be maxed out, saving years or even decades of hard training. It was expensive for a reason.

After all, how could ordinary step-by-step training compare to steadily putting points in through the system? That was far more solid!

The pace of this Naruto world was terrifyingly fast.

He had to face not only the calculating Third Hokage and Danzo, who lurked in the shadows like an unshakable ghost, but also a Ninja World war that could erupt at any moment, as well as Akatsuki, who would begin moving in full force in just a few years.

They wanted the Nine-Tails inside him. Without enough strength, he would only have the Tailed Beast extracted from him alive and become a cold corpse.

Shadow Clone training could cheat and speed things up, but it consumed far too much mental energy. If he made just a few extra clones, he would not recover for an entire day.

Thinking of this, Naruto no longer hesitated.

"Exchange for the C-rank ninjutsu Wind Release: Storm Technique. Use all remaining Darkness Value to exchange for Divine Sense Recovery Potions."

[Understood, Host.]

[Exchange complete! You have learned Wind Release: Storm Technique. Proficiency has automatically been maxed out!]

[Wind Release: Storm Technique cost 270 points. Four Divine Sense Recovery Potions cost 60 points, for a total of 330 points. Remaining Darkness Value: 20.]

The corner of Naruto's mouth twitched. Well, there goes the Darkness Value I just earned. It vanished even faster than running water.

But the results were immediate.

With Divine Sense Recovery Potions to back him up, Naruto completely let loose.

Every day before dawn, he ran to the forest outside the village and created dozens of Shadow Clones at once. Some practiced taijutsu, some trained in swordsmanship, some honed chakra control, and others focused solely on breaking down the training methods behind the Rasengan.

Whenever he exhausted his mental energy, he drank a Divine Sense Recovery Potion, instantly returned to full strength, and continued training.

In just over half a month, Naruto had completely grasped the principles behind the Rasengan.

One afternoon, in the dense forest outside the village.

Naruto stood before a massive tree thick enough for several people to wrap their arms around and slowly raised his right hand.

There were no unnecessary hand seals and no clone assisting him. Blue chakra instantly glowed in his palm as rapidly rotating chakra violently tore at the surrounding air, producing a piercing hum.

One-handed Rasengan—perfectly formed.

He stepped forward and pressed the Rasengan in his palm directly against the trunk.

Boom—!

With an earth-shaking explosion, the hard bark was ground into dust the instant they made contact. The wood fibers shattered beneath the violent chakra.

The entire tree began collapsing inward from its roots at a visible rate, exploding apart as its canopy, more than ten meters high, crashed down with a thunderous roar that made the ground tremble three times.

When the dust settled, the tree had been reduced to nothing but wood chips.

Naruto lowered his hand and looked at his smooth palm. There was not even a scratch on it.

An indescribable thrill surged up from within him. This was strength he had built bit by bit himself. It felt more solid and more fulfilling than anything exchanged directly from the system.

For the next half month, he did not slack off in the slightest.

Taijutsu, swordsmanship, the basic Three-Basic Techniques, chakra control—he honed every aspect to the limit.

A month passed, and Naruto had undergone a complete transformation.

Having inherited Minato Namikaze's excellent bone structure, and with the Physique Improvement Potion exchanged from the system, he had shot up in height. Among the twelve rookies, he was already one of the tallest.

His formerly messy blond hair had been trimmed neat and sharp. Coupled with his streamlined black outfit, his features were keen, his posture upright—he had both looks and strength.

Even more noticeable was the villagers' attitude toward him.

As he walked through the streets, no one dared curse him as "Demon Fox" to his face anymore, much less throw stones at him.

Those civilians who had once hurled vicious insults at him would immediately lower their heads, hunch their necks, and hurry away whenever they saw him coming, their eyes full of fear.

But Naruto heard everything clearly.

The moment he turned away, those people would gather together and whisper their cruelest curses and mockery in the lowest voices. Yet no matter how they phrased it, they always came back to the same two words—Demon Fox.

The old Naruto would only have rushed over to argue hysterically, desperately trying to prove himself.

But now, he simply kept walking without even bothering to turn his head.

Acknowledgment?

He had stopped caring about it long ago.

That evening, Naruto was walking back to his apartment after school when he had just rounded a street corner and abruptly stopped.

The setting sun dyed the sky a deep orange-red, and a single figure appeared on the long street!

Sasuke Uchiha stood in the middle of the road with his back to Naruto. The Uchiha War Fan crest on his back was especially glaring beneath the sunset.

Hearing Naruto's footsteps, Sasuke slowly turned around.

The air around them instantly became stagnant. Even the wind seemed to stop.

Sasuke stared fixedly at Naruto, the knuckles of the hand gripping his kunai turning white. His voice was as cold as ice. "Naruto, I want to fight you in a decisive battle. Will you agree?"