If his neck could move, he would have turned his head immediately to look at Naruto Uzumaki beside him.
Looking at Naruto on the swing, he felt an eerie sense of resemblance to his past self, as though the emptiness inside them was exactly the same.
Someone else felt the same way as well. Kawaki, who had inexplicably been drawn into this world, had learned from the Nine-Tails that the life of the Seventh Hokage-sama had never been smooth. Like him, Naruto had once been isolated by the entire world.
["Did you hear? That guy is going to start attending the Ninja Academy too!"]
["I really don't know what the Third Hokage-sama was thinking. If someone like that becomes a ninja, what are we supposed to do?"]
Sakura, Sasuke, Gaara, Shikamaru, Hinata, Kiba, Chōji, Shino, and the others all realized this was Naruto Uzumaki's memory.
They watched as the young Naruto sitting on the swing pulled his goggles down over his eyes, covering half his face.
They couldn't see him crying.
And yet, somehow…
It made him look unbearably pitiful.
Obito, who shared the same habit, knew it all too well. Little Naruto was crying. Even if there were no tears on his face, his heart was crying all the same. Rin Nohara looked so distressed she could barely stand it, while young Kakashi's sharp tongue was already rattling nonstop.
The Sunagakure and Konoha ninja felt as though they were standing on a stage, watching some kind of performance. A harsh spotlight shone on the blond boy, as well as on those who despised him.
["Even the Fourth Hokage—why let that monster keep living?!"]
["Shh—don't repeat what you said earlier!"]
Rasa noticed that although the face beside him was different, Minato Namikaze still seemed to be clenching his teeth, silently enduring the grief and fury in his heart.
Placed farther away, Rin, Obito, and young Kakashi were practically furious.
Obito couldn't help but curse them out loud, saying those people knew nothing and had no right to mention Minato-sensei at all.
But no matter how angry they were, they couldn't affect anything in this parallel world.
The blond boy, openly gossiped about behind his back, shoved past the people whispering about him and ran off. The faces around him twisted into grotesque, terrifying expressions.
[Monster… Monster… Monster…]
"..."
The Sunagakure ninja were completely stunned.
Then it hit them. This was finally their chance to fire back at Konoha.
"Hey, Konoha! What did that kid do this time?"
"Yeah, how funny. You actually have the nerve to criticize us?"
"At least Gaara from our village really did hurt people. What has your kid ever done?"
"That double standard is seriously over the line!"
If they could move, the Sunagakure ninja would have definitely made a rude gesture.
"Idiot!"
"Who are you calling an idiot?!"
"You, obviously! Got the guts to come over and fight us?"
For now, they could only vent verbally. Neither side could move, and neither side could use chakra.
"Tch."
The Konoha ninja desperately wanted to shout, "He's the demon fox who killed countless villagers!" But because of that S-rank ban, they couldn't say a word in response.
Having something they wanted to say but being unable to say it, forced to endure the Sunagakure ninja slapping them in the face and grinding them down with words, left the Konoha ninja suffocating with frustration.
Because this was the memory of a certain blond boy, the surrounding environment shifted along with his movements.
All it took was a single sentence from a fellow Academy student:
"If you go retrieve the spoils from that battlefield, we'll agree to let you join us."
The young Naruto Uzumaki, overwhelmed with excitement, charged straight into a forbidden area and nearly lost his life to enemy ninja.
"Are you Konoha people out of your minds?!"
"Is bullying a little kid like this actually fun?!"
"He almost got killed by enemy ninja! This is way past a joke, isn't it?!"
"Seriously… are you even human, Konoha?!"
"Exactly!!"
This time, it was the Sunagakure ninja taking sweet revenge.
Having reclaimed the moral high ground, even though they still couldn't move, they made up for it by completely dominating Konoha verbally, trampling them flat with curses and insults.
Seeing the Konoha ninja's faces turn green with rage, the Sunagakure ninja thought only one thing.
Don't ask. We're not done yet.
Just like Gaara, everyone in Konohagakure avoided this blond boy, treating him like the village's plague.
A pest.
A disease.
Even when he went to the commercial district, all it took was one extra glance at the masks hanging in the shop display for the owner to shove him hard onto the street and smash the mask against him.
["Take it and get lost! Bad luck!!"]
["We're closing for today! Get the salt, sprinkle it, sprinkle it! Get rid of the bad luck!"]
Watching this, Rin's eyes nearly filled with tears. Not long ago, she had seen Kushina clutching Naruto and crying desperately at the moment of her death. And yet, in the future, the people of the village avoided that child like a plague, like something venomous.
Young Kakashi thought of his own childhood, of being pointed at and cursed as "the son of a ninja who broke the rules."
He lowered his gaze, hiding the anger burning inside him, anger with nowhere to go and no one to blame.
Obito didn't say a word. He was busy trying to figure out how to break free from these restraints so he could beat the hell out of that bastard shop owner who dared to hit Minato-sensei's child and abuse Naruto.
Kawaki felt his chest ache. His Seventh Hokage, a man admired by countless people, whose reputation spanned all the great ninja nations, had truly once been despised like a cockroach in the streets, just like him.
Gaara watched quietly. They were so alike. The emptiness inside them was the same as the hollow in his own heart.
Abandoned by the entire world, they walked alone through dark alleys, silently licking wounds no one else knew existed.
...
This still wasn't the time for the mission reward to be handed out.
The blond boy, shoved to the ground by the shop owner, looked at the cold stares around him. He grabbed the mask and ran with all his strength.
He didn't see the black, hole-like surface in front of him. With his eyes shut tight, he charged straight into it.
"Yomotsu Hirasaka?!!"
The Fifth Kazekage had heard the Sixth Hokage, Kakashi Hatake, mention this ability of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki during the post-war review of the Fourth Shinobi World War.
"Yomotsu Hirasaka? What is that?" Minato sensed immediately that this was no ordinary phenomenon. It clearly didn't belong to the original world at all. Seeing his son from this parallel world dive straight into it, he urgently asked Gaara.
Kazekage Gaara said, "It's one of the techniques used by the enemy we faced at the very end of the Fourth Shinobi World War—"
"The Fourth Shinobi World War?!"
Adult Kakashi, Rasa, and Minato stared at Kazekage Gaara in shock.
"Now isn't the time for explanations. I'll explain everything later," Kazekage Gaara said, focusing on how rapidly the surroundings were changing.
There weren't only people from Konoha here. There were also civilians from the Land of Wind.
As the future Kazekage, he had both the responsibility and the duty to protect their safety.
Sensing his future self's thoughts, Rasa felt a complicated mix of emotions. There was relief at realizing that the son he had least believed in would grow into someone so outstanding, and at the same time, the bitter awareness that he truly was a terrible father.
The surroundings locked once more onto Sunagakure in the Land of Wind.
Everyone saw it.
That red-haired child, staying up alone in a desolate place late into the night, struggling not to have his will devoured by Shukaku. After being rejected while delivering medicine and cursed as a monster, he hid beneath the moonlight, crying in agony.
["Why... why does everyone hate me?"]
At that moment—
Something appeared behind him.
Kazekage Gaara's expression darkened. He remembered this clearly. This was the moment when Yashamaru had been ordered by his father to test the stability of the jinchūriki, using his own life and their mother's love.
Yashamaru!!!
"....."
But his prediction was wrong.
What appeared behind that Gaara was not Yashamaru's attack.
It was—
"Yomotsu Hirasaka?!!"
Immediately after, a golden figure burst out from the black cross-section.
Without noticing the change in his surroundings, he plunged straight into—
Young Gaara's Absolute Defence?!!
Knocked flat by the sand, Naruto hurriedly spat out a mouthful of grit.
["Pfft! Why is there sand here, dattebayo?!"]
Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Gaara, Kazekage Gaara… everyone could only stand there and watch, completely stunned.
Wait—
Two children treated as monsters by their villages—
They met?!!