Togetherness sustained life, but loneliness was its underlying color.
For seven-year-old Naruto Uzumaki, that was exactly how it was.
In truth, those words would only occur to him much later, but the feeling had followed him like a shadow since long before.
As far back as his previous life.
Togetherness was a few drops of welcome rain falling now and then on parched earth, barely enough to dampen the surface. Once that brief bustle and warmth passed, the far vaster cracks of loneliness beneath stood exposed in stark relief.
That was the true underlying color enveloping his entire world.
But Naruto possessed an almost instinctive resilience. In both his previous life and this one, all he wanted was to keep living as well as he could.
Whenever the shadow of the future surged from the depths of his heart like an icy tide, threatening to swallow him, Naruto always clawed his way out.
If loneliness followed him like a shadow, he would keep busy enough to forget it.
Every day, he followed a self-imposed rhythm that bordered on ascetic discipline.
At first light, the only sound in his empty apartment was his own breathing.
He got up and cooked in the kitchen.
Because the ANBU were watching him, Naruto could not cook too well at first. Only later did he gradually reveal his true cooking skills.
Then he rushed into streets that had yet to fully awaken and began imitating the madness of that green figure in his memories.
He ran around the village, punched wooden posts, and performed seemingly excessive, exhausting physical exercises on an empty training ground.
As sweat poured off him, loneliness was driven back for a while. The aching of every muscle in his body became another, more tangible sense of being alive.
A quick shower,