Konoha was a village held in the suffocating grip of winter. The sky, a leaden grey, unleashed a relentless assault of goose-feather flakes that wove a dense white curtain, shrouding the Great Nations' premier shinobi village in an eerie, muffled silence.
Uzumaki Naruto navigated the drifts with a practiced, rhythmic gait. He had just finished twenty grueling laps around the perimeter of the village—an afternoon ritual designed to refine his physical stamina and steady his breath. Eschewing the main thoroughfares, he opted for the remote paths downstream of the Naka River. Here, the snow lay undisturbed, deeper and more unforgiving than the salted streets of the merchant district.
His winter clothes were a patchwork of necessity; the fabric at his elbows and knees was worn white, and the hems were darkened by the creeping moisture of melted slush. The wind, sharp as a whetted kunai, sought out every gap in his sleeves, raising goosebumps across his skin. Naruto tucked his chin deeper into a threadbare knitted scarf. His cerulean eyes—flickering through the gaps in the wool—remained sharp and analytical, scanning the horizon with the vigilance of a predator rather than a child.
In the distance, a group of villagers huddled under a shop's eaves, exhaling plumes of white mist. Naruto didn't wait for their gaze to linger. He pivoted into a side alley with clinical efficiency. The memory of three months ago remained vivid: the freezing splash of fish-washing water, the stench of offal, and the twisted, vitriolic face of the shopkeeper who had cursed him as "bad luck."
He tightened his grip on his scarf, his knuckles reddened by the frost. In this village, he was a pariah—a walking omen. If the world chose to look away, Naruto would simply ensure he was never where they were looking. He had long since adapted to this isolation. Since his soul had merged with this reality, he had treated his solitude not as a burden, but as a tactical advantage.
The silence of the river path was suddenly punctured by the discordant notes of a confrontation.
At a nearby alley entrance, three boys in heavy cotton coats had formed a predatory semicircle. They had cornered a small figure whose beige scarf and pale complexion made her look painfully fragile against the grey stone walls.
The ringleader, a tall boy with a sneer that didn't quite reach his nervous eyes, jabbed a finger inches from the girl's forehead. "You're a daughter of the Hyuga Clan, aren't you? So show us! Show us those Byakugan eyes!"
Hyuga Hinata stood paralyzed. Her shoulders trembled, and her lips were pressed into a thin, white line. She was a fawn caught in the sights of clumsy hunters.
"If you won't show us, then don't look at us!" a chubby boy jeered, crossing his arms. "Those eyes are creepy. They look sinister."
"Sinister?" the leader mocked, his voice rising in a crescendo of false bravado. "They aren't sinister. They're monster eyes! You're just a Byakugan Monster!"
The epithet hit with the force of a physical blow. Hinata's resolve shattered. Tears, heavy and hot, spilled over her lashes and traced crystalline tracks down her cheeks, freezing almost instantly in the frigid air. She bit her lip, struggling to suppress a sob, her silence more haunting than any scream.
Before the bullies could relish their victory, a projectile—packed hard and traveling with the velocity of a low-rank Ninjutsu—blasted into the leader's face.
Smack.
The snowball detonated on the bridge of the boy's nose, sending a spray of ice shards into his eyes. He let out a strangled yelp, his heels catching on the slick ground as he collapsed into a heap.
Naruto stood ten paces away, his silhouette sharp against the white backdrop. His right hand was still dusted with frost, his posture coiled and ready. Unlike the "Little Sun" persona he often wore to navigate the village's bureaucracy, his eyes now held the cold, biting edge of a winter gale.
"I'm talking to you," Naruto said, his voice level but carrying an undercurrent of lethal authority. "You're nothing but a pack of stray mutts barking at a shadow."
He didn't wait for a rebuttal. Stooping low, he scooped another handful of snow, his hands working with the precision of a craftsman to compress the powder into a dense, aerodynamic sphere.
The bullies scrambled to regain their footing. The leader, wiping slush from his red-raw face, locked eyes with Naruto. The recognition was instantaneous, and the boy's face drained of what little color it had left.
"It's... it's the Demon Fox!" he stammered.
Naruto's gaze didn't waver. Typical, he thought. The weak always project their terror onto things they cannot comprehend. Since his transmigration, Naruto had not been the loud, orange-clad nuisance of the original records. He was a scholar of the shinobi arts. While others played, he calculated. While others slept, he refined his chakra control. He had no "System" to grant him power, but he had a blueprint of the future and a mind sharpened by a previous life's logic. He knew that in this world, mercy was a luxury afforded only to the absolute strongest.
"Number two," Naruto muttered.
He launched the second snowball. It traced a clinical, linear trajectory, catching the chubby boy square in the jaw. As the boy staggered, Naruto's hands blurred into a sequence of seals.
Ram — Snake — Tiger.
Poof!
Two plumes of white smoke erupted. Identical versions of Naruto stepped through the haze, their eyes locked on the targets with predatory focus. This wasn't the flimsy, translucent Bunshin taught in the Academy; these were solid, high-level Kage Bunshin—a technique he'd "acquired" through a calculated wager with Inuzuka Kiba weeks prior.
"Run," Naruto commanded.
The sight of the "Demon" tripling his presence was the final blow to their courage. Their "spirits scattered," as the old scrolls would say. The three bullies bolted, abandoning their hats and their pride, disappearing around the corner in a frantic blur of flailing limbs.
Naruto didn't give chase. Chasing them would be an emotional indulgence he couldn't afford. If he caused permanent damage, the Third Hokage would be at his door by dawn, and his "Little Sun" mask would need to be donned prematurely.
With a sharp release of breath, he dispelled the clones. The smoke drifted away, leaving him alone with the heiress of the Hyuga.
Naruto clapped the frost from his palms and turned toward Hinata. He deliberately softened his features, allowing the coldness to recede into a warm, approachable calm.
"Hey," he said, keeping his voice gentle. "Are you alright? Did they hurt you?"
Hinata's shoulders gave a small start. She hurriedly wiped her eyes with her sleeve, her gaze fixed firmly on her boots. "N-no..." she whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind.
She seemed to struggle with herself for a moment before taking a tentative step forward. She bowed deeply, her movements stiff with nerves. "Th-thank you! Thank you so much!"
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," he replied, offering a small, reassuring smile—the kind that suggested he was just a helpful classmate and not a boy who spent his nights calculating the trajectories of an Otsutsuki invasion. "You're Hinata, right? From my class?"
"Yes," she managed, her face flushing a soft pink. "I am Hyuga Hinata."
Naruto looked at her—really looked at her—and saw more than a shy girl. He saw a potential pillar for the future he intended to build. He reached out, and in a gesture of effortless dominance masked as comfort, he let his hand rest briefly on the top of her head. It was a firm, grounding contact.
"Don't let them define you, Hinata," he said, his voice carrying the weight of a promise. "The Byakugan isn't a curse. It's a gift. And one day, they'll be too afraid to even look at you, let alone call you a monster."