The world shrank to work and widened to include all the ways you could learn at once.
Shadow clones fanned across the training ground until there were five Narutos arguing with each other about angles and one Naruto squinting at the lineup with his arms crossed like a notoriously hard-to-please foreman. Two ran tree circuits until their calves burned and then didn't, calibrating footfalls until bark didn't shred under the nails. One sat cross-legged on the log and tried to breathe into stillness—not with the dull weight of sleep but with attention so careful it barely counted as movement, listening for the skin-prickle that meant the world wanted to move through him too.
Another played at the flit of body flicker—Shunshin—until his edges blurred just enough to be useful. He measured the cost in chakra and counted the distance not in meters but in the shape it made in his lungs.
A clone unrolled a scroll and reread seal matrices until the ink crawled off the page and into his habits. He sketched a tight storage seal on a tag, then another, then another, until the curves came easy and the chakra threads that powered them didn't snag. He labeled one of the tags "Bandages—do not eat," because the part of him that was still a kid would absolutely treat a paper tag like a snack if you gave him ten seconds and a dare.
Three clones took turns with the Rasengan. Only one played with the ring again, cautiously, turning the skin on and off in pulses until the click of rightness became something you could reproduce. He nicked himself twice and learned the exact throat-tight feel of losing that thin outer counterrotation so he could grab it faster next time.
He didn't push power. He trimmed it. He learned where less was sharpest.
He failed cleanly. He succeeded like falling into something he'd been trying to climb for years.
On the far side of the clearing, a frog watched with the serious attention of a tiny god. Naruto offered it a nod on his way back from testing a throw that turned one kunai into four with a whisper of chakra at the moment their shadows crossed. The frog blinked slowly, apparently satisfied with the progress.
By the time the stars bullied the sky into true night and the frogs around the pond began to hold court, Naruto's shirt stuck to his back in constellations of sweat and his grin had the exhausted tilt of a kid who'd found out work could be a form of joy when all the tools finally fit your hands.
He dispelled the last clone and let a choir of small corrections braid back into his head.
"Tomorrow," he said, talking to the clearing because it had been a good teacher.Then he went home.
He didn't remember falling onto the futon so much as discovering sleep from the inside and deciding not to leave.
Konoha hummed outside. Somewhere, a vendor was still packing crates. Somewhere, a dog decided it was his turn to guard the city's dreams and took his job too seriously for three straight minutes.
Naruto floated between breaths and the seal-gate place tugged at him again—not to pull him in, just to remind him that the cage was there and the fox was silhouetted against it like a mountain that had chosen a shape.
Kurama didn't speak first. Naruto didn't either.
Finally, because quiet wasn't the same as distance anymore, Naruto said, "Tomorrow I tell him we're partners." He felt the wince in his own tone and smoothed it. "Or… that we will be."
Strong words for a child who names tricks after pastries, Kurama said, and Naruto had to bite his tongue to keep the laugh quiet enough not to wake the neighbors.
"You liked it." He let the teasing come gentle. "Or at least you liked that it didn't blow my hand off."
A dissatisfied growl that wasn't actually a denial. Rings are efficient shapes. You stumbled into competence.
"…Thanks, Kurama."
Silence again. But the old weight behind it—the lonely, make-you-small kind—had been scooped out a little and something warmer poured in.
Naruto rolled onto his side until the pillow found the right angle for a neck that had carried more than it looked. "We leave in a day. I'm going to learn to be still."
The fox's only reply was a snort.I will believe it when it does not require watching you sleep to count as stillness.
"Harsh."But accurate.
Naruto smiled into the dark and let the smile be the last thing he did before the dream that wasn't a dream took him and the night did its job.
Morning peeled itself over the rooftops, peeled his eyelids up right after it, and dumped light across his small kitchen table like it had something to prove. Naruto ate two onigiri, stared down a third until it surrendered, then tied his forehead protector like a promise he didn't need words for.
Outside, Konoha had that early hum he loved—shopkeepers cracking doors, ANBU shadows changing shifts, kids dragging their feet toward the Academy with the practiced despair of the young. He slipped into the current with an ease that was almost guilt; he'd be leaving this soon, and he hated and loved that at once.
He didn't head straight for villages gates. He took the long way through a quieter stand of trees that let the sun stutter through the leaves. When he finally reach the southern gate, it waited like an old friend, its broad timbers scarred by weather and history. Beyond it stretched the open road.
Naruto adjusted the straps of his pack. Just the bare minimum, the way Jiraiya had told him—nothing he couldn't carry while running for his life. His forehead protector pressed firm against his brow, tight enough that it felt like a vow.
He thought he'd leave alone. Maybe that would've been easier. But when he rounded the last corner of the wall, there she was.
Hinata.
She stood a few paces from the gate, hands clasped in front of her, thumb tracing the seam of her sleeve. Her hair caught the morning light like ink pulled thin across water. For a second Naruto thought she might bolt when he spotted her, but instead she held her ground.
"…Naruto-kun."
He scratched the back of his head, smiling crooked. "…Hinata? You didn't have to—"
"I did." Her voice wavered but didn't break. She took one step closer, then another, until she was within arm's reach. "You're leaving with Jiraiya-sama. For a long time."
"Yeah." He tried to sound light. "Training. Who knows how long. Guess you'll just have to keep the village safe for me while I'm gone."
Her eyes flickered, soft and unguarded. She swallowed once, then reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in violet cloth. When she unwrapped it, a charm lay in her palm: a simple silver disk etched with a spiral, the lines fine but certain.
"I… I made this," she said. "It's not much. But—" She hesitated, then lifted her gaze to his, steady now. "You wear the First Hokage's necklace. I thought maybe… you could tie this to it. So… so you carry something of me, too."
Naruto blinked, throat working. For a moment words just wouldn't line up right. Finally he said, "Hinata… this is—" He stopped, shook his head, and grinned softer than he meant to. "…It's perfect."
She held it out, and when he bent forward she didn't just press the charm into his hand. She rose on her toes, cheeks pink but determined, and kissed him—quick, light, just a brush of warmth on his lips.
It stole his breath more completely than any sparring blow.
When she drew back, her face was flushed, but she didn't look away. Her hand lingered against his chest where the necklace lay beneath the fabric.
"Please… come back safe," she whispered. "So I can give you more than just one charm."
For once, Naruto didn't laugh off the weight of someone else's feelings. He set the charm carefully against the green crystal of the First Hokage's necklace and tied the cord tight. It sat there like it had always belonged.
He met her eyes, blue to lavender, and said with no grin to hide behind: "…I will."
The silence between them was gentle, almost sacred, until the clatter of sandals broke it.
"Oi, Naruto!" Kiba's voice carried, Akamaru barking beside him. Shino followed in measured silence, and Ino jogged up waving one hand.
Hinata stepped back, not out of shyness this time, but to stand beside him rather than in front of him. Her face was still warm, but she didn't hide it.
The rest of the send-off unfolded: Choji munching chips as he muttered a half-goodbye, Shikamaru grumbling "troublesome" like it was his version of care, Tenten lugging a scroll she claimed was "just in case," and finally Sakura striding forward to smack Naruto's forehead protector and mutter, "Don't make us regret letting you go."
Naruto grinned at all of them, pride loud in his chest. But his fingers brushed once against the charm now tied to his necklace, and the weight of it—small, silver, warm from her hand—anchored him more firmly than anything else.
Jiraiya's voice carried from the road ahead. "Brat. Time to move."
Naruto lifted a hand, gave a lopsided wave to the group, then to Hinata last of all. Her lips moved—not loud, not meant for anyone else—just a whisper he caught anyway:
"I'll wait."
He didn't answer with words. He just gave her that smile—the one that tried to be bigger than fear, bigger than goodbyes—and turned to follow Jiraiya.