Sakura suddenly remembered how those odd eyes looked at her when he was fighting Zabuza. At that moment, Naruto looked completely different.
"Are you feeling alright?" Looking at Sakura walking in with normal tone and asking him nicely about his health, Naruto had urge to smirk like before and reply in his manner, until he saw the shadow man glare from his back and swallow those words in.
[Were you going to reply to her again with those stupid reply of yours.]
The man spoke, seemingly reading all of Naruto's thoughts, but Sakura did not appear to notice him at all, as he had previously informed him.
"Yeah, thanks; I am alright, but still feeling a little tired after that blackout." Hearing the words of Naruto, Sakura felt that there was a little change in his tone, but there were no major changes within him, so after giving him the herbal tonic, she walked out of the room to call Kakashi.
'Ahh! I find this very strange; please do not take control of my body in that way.' Naruto asked the shadow guy with a glare.
[Then make sure that you won't blurt about me to others; not to say, at the current state of mine, I am only able to stop you from speaking like that.]
'Plus, what is wrong with you, I can't see why you can't even see that your actions are only bothering that girl with your feelings.' This time, the guy did not speak directly within his mind but directly spoke out to him.
"Huh! What are you talking about, Dattebayo?" Naruto looked confused as he looked at the shadow and asked.
'Seriously, I mean about Sakura idiot, not to say, let me ask you this: what have you done to bring about changes in you to impress her, or do you think she will like you because of your desperate attempt.' The shadow words seemed to be harsh, targeting Naruto's negative points one after another.
'You are disliked by whole village and you are just a prankster with dirty clothing and loud mouth who always said that he will become hokage, with no intention of looking at your weakness or working on it.'
'You have good hidden qualities, which might have attracted a girl or two, but they are just 'hidden' that is why they are called hidden qualities, but your clothing sense, no intention on working on your weakness, left you today alone.'
"Hey, that is enough; I am going to be hokage, you like it or not." Naruto was incensed at that guy's remarks because they specifically pointed out his latent injuries and other things that he might have overlooked all these years.
'Ohh! Tell me, please, one thing you have tried to do to improve your reputation or if you have ever considered how to look well in public, even in front of a girl you like.'
'So tell me what you did to try to have a balanced diet, to get stronger—even though Sasuke is far stronger than you—and for creating such a small, meticulous plan and sticking to it every day—just to get even with his brother.'
'Did you try to visit the library to pick up some new martial arts skills? You just continued to waste your effort by doing self-training for all this time, but without proper martial art and force exertion method, all of your practice was close to zero.'
'Naruto, I assure you that in order to become stronger, you must first become methodical. If not, it will take you many years to become stronger, and in the interim, you may lose a lot of things in the process.'
'It is up to you now; keep acting foolishly, and everything you desire will eventually be taken away one by one. However, if you pay attention to what I say and obey me, I will make you the final prince of the Uzumaki clan, one of the strongest clans in the world.'
'At that point, any girl will not turn away from you and will undoubtedly love to be your partner. After all, just as boys need girls to be beautiful, girls also need strong, self-supporting and caring boyfriend too.'
'Recall how Sakura, who had just entered, had looked at you differently after seeing my show where I took care of that guy, but as soon as you opened your mouth, she looked at your foolish old self again.'
As he silently listened and perceived the harshness of the shadow words—despite their seeming sincerity—Naruto was nearly taken aback by all of the complaints.
Naruto was not a fool, after all; it was just that the young child lacked a guardian to teach him these lessons and that his desire to be accepted by the villagers shaped his personality in the end.
Otherwise, why would an uzumaki prince and the son of the fourth hokage—respected as one of the strongest hokage—end up this way?
"Naruto!" Upon entering the room, Kakashi noticed that Naruto was quiet. This made him feel a little strange because, if this had been normal Naruto, he would have immediately asked about the others.
However, this version of Naruto appeared to be calmer than the others.
"This is really strange; did I have to think about all of this for this long?" Because he was feeling so overwhelmed by the things he needed to change, Naruto even ignored Kakashi's presence and kept thinking in great detail.
[Your sensei is here, idiot!]
"Eh, uhh... Sorry, Kakashi sensei."
"It is alright, but that was a rare sight to see—that you were thinking about something."
After hearing Kakashi speak, Naruto began to feel even more strange as the shadow's words began to make more sense, and he began to wonder if his lack of thought was actually something that he lacks.
Taking into account that girls often retreat when they see a sasuke giving intense glances or when they are deeply engaged in deep thought during class,.