After being scrubbed until he lost all will to live, little Naruto finally escaped Uncle Acorn Kappa's merciless bath-scrubbing hands.
"Big sis, waaah."
Little Naruto felt both clean and unclean all over: physically clean, spiritually polluted.
The moment he stepped out of the bathhouse, he threw himself at Uzuki Yugao.
Looking at little Naruto's flushed face and those big, watery eyes, Yugao wasn't quite sure. Had something happened between Might Guy and Naruto during that mere hour in the bath?
My god, wasn't this a betrayal of Kakashi-senpai?!
Ptooey, ptooey, no! How could he lay his hands on Naruto?
He was only three!
"Hey, Guy, what did you do to little Naruto?!"
Yugao's tone was a little odd. Some inappropriate things had just crossed her mind, but in truth, she didn't think Guy would lay his hands on Naruto.
After all, the man he called his dearest friend, the white-haired Kakashi currently in line to become Anbu Captain, certainly wouldn't let him off if he found out.
But thinking about Captain Kakashi, white hair, mismatched eyes, one red and one black, 181 centimeters tall...
Put that way, tsk, tsk, tsk.
Who knew Guy had such a good eye? He'd set his sights on Kakashi as a child.
This counted as raising your future partner too, right?
"Oh, come on, I just let little Naruto experience the feeling of youth."
Guy flashed his big front teeth.
"Hey, notify the captain. An unidentified creature here has committed an unforgivable offense against the Jinchūriki."
Yugao immediately turned and shouted to the Anbu on duty in the tree.
"Chotto Matte, I only helped scrub Naruto's back!!!"
Guy hurriedly explained. Although he didn't know what this unforgivable offense was, Yugao's tone definitely suggested she'd misunderstood something!
"Oh, that was it? Whew, you scared me."
Yugao called back the Anbu who was just about to leap away, patted her chest, which was probably a B cup, and sighed in relief.
She'd genuinely been afraid that little Naruto, who was still trembling in her arms, had been... by Guy.
"By the way, I heard little Naruto wanted to train lately. How about letting me take him to experience youth?"
The green-clad kappa sent Yugao a Pokémon trade request.
Ding, Yugao was thinking.
. (The equivalent of breaking out of a Poké Ball immediately.)
Yugao rejected the green-clad kappa.
"Sorry, that isn't my decision to make. You'll have to ask..."
Since little Naruto was still in her arms, Yugao didn't spell it out, but Guy understood what she meant.
"I see. That's a real shame."
"But it's all right. Little Naruto, you still have a long youth ahead of you. Don't be sad."
"If you ever want to set your youth ablaze, come find me."
Guy gave a thumbs-up, his white teeth gleaming in the sunlight.
Little Naruto said nothing, but Yugao felt him hug her even harder.
Hiss, that hurt a little.
"Little Naruto, let's go. I'll take you home."
Yugao could only pick Naruto up and turn away with him.
"Guy, thanks for today. I've paid already, so I'll take little Naruto home now."
With that, Yugao went home with little Naruto clinging to her like a sloth.
"Ah, such youth."
Might Guy watched little Naruto leave. With one chance meeting of their eyes, he once again felt little Naruto's vigorous youth.
Little Naruto: I only accidentally opened my eyes for a moment. I thought we'd left already, but I still saw those gleaming teeth.
Damn it. Little Naruto was starting to look at this Acorn Kappa as though he were a pervert.
"Little Naruto, don't cry. We won't ask this uncle to take you to bathe again."
Yugao gently patted little Naruto's back, comforting him.
But who should I ask next time?
After all, little Naruto was still young. It would be quite something if he accidentally drowned in the pool.
Then the other ninja villages would have news like this:
Extra, extra! The Jinchūriki of Konoha, formerly the foremost of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, drowned while bathing in a bathhouse! Then the second Nine-Tails incident brought the number-one ninja village crashing down, and thus began the Fourth Shinobi World War.
What would you call that, a shinobi world war sparked by a bathhouse?
Yugao shuddered. What an outrageous idea she'd come up with.
Stop, stop.
How about asking Captain Kakashi to take Naruto to bathe from now on?
No, that felt like a waste of his talents. How could a distinguished future Anbu Captain take a three-year-old to bathe?
How about Hayate?
But he was out on a mission lately.
After thinking it over and over, she still hadn't settled on anyone.
Then the Third Hokage-Hiruzen Sarutobi-knocked on the door of Yugao's apartment.
"Yugao, I heard little Naruto fell into the river today. What happened?"
When little Naruto fell into the river, an Anbu had gone to report it to the Third.
But after learning that Yugao had already taken little Naruto to the bathhouse to wash up, Sarutobi had decided to wait until they returned before asking what had happened.
"Yes, Lord Hokage. Here's what happened..."
Yugao repeated little Naruto's earlier explanation to Sarutobi almost word for word.
"I see. A white-haired ninja uncle was spearing fish on the water."
The corners of Sarutobi's mouth twitched. He hadn't expected that to be the reason little Naruto had fallen into the water.
I gave him plenty of money. Why was little Naruto still thinking about spearing fish?
If little Naruto went to buy fish, he could buy some under pressure from the Anbu.
But!
The way those stall owners looked at little Naruto really annoyed him!
So when making up an excuse, Hashirama and Kurama had chosen this one.
Note: little Naruto contributed 49% of this idea, Kurama contributed 50%, and Hashirama contributed 1%.
Hashirama: Why did I only get 1% when I suggested the crucial training method of standing on water?!
Kurama: Think about it. Aside from the training method at the start, what did you actually say when we were coming up with excuses afterward?
Hashirama's excuse at the time had been: I wanted to learn how stones felt when they skipped across the water and see if I could skip across.
Thinking of the river had simply let those happy memories go straight to his head.
Unfortunately, Kurama didn't know about that experience of Hashirama's, or he would definitely have mocked him.
Madara this, Madara that, every day. Why not knock you into a little stone and skip you down the River Styx for a reunion?
"Speaking of which, has little Naruto already extracted chakra?"
The Third was a little shocked that little Naruto had extracted chakra at such a young age.
The key point was that little Naruto had been teaching himself for less than two months.
"Um, Lord Hokage, the logs submitted earlier mentioned that little Naruto extracted it quite some time ago."
The Third froze, then laughed awkwardly.
"Look at this memory of mine. I really can't remember things now that I'm old."
"But back then, it only took me three days to extract chakra."
Then Hiruzen handed Yugao the book he'd brought, "On improving fine chakra control (student edition)."
"Give this to little Naruto tomorrow. Tell him to take his time and not rush."
"Also, the next time little Naruto needs a scrub, I can help."
Hiruzen said.
"After all, old people need to bond with children once in a while too."
Yugao nodded, then accepted the book.
"My teacher personally annotated this. Tell little Naruto to take it seriously."
Ah, Lord Third's teacher. Wouldn't that be the Second Hokage-Tobirama Senju?
Yugao opened the thin book to its first page.
"On improving fine chakra control (student edition)"-written/annotated by Tobirama Senju.
There was another line below, but someone seemed to have maliciously scribbled it out.
Only the first word remained visible.
Evil...
Could it be some kind of evil secret art?
Before you continue