Chapter 3: The Twin-Tailed Girl by the River in the Sunset

Hearing the system's prompt, Naruto didn't feel even the slightest bit of joy.

At this moment, despair outweighed surprise. He slowly got up from the ground, keeping his head lowered as he walked toward the end of the street.

The whispered voices from both sides behind him, completely unmasked, felt like sharp thorns constantly stabbing at his heart.

After realizing that he had crossed over into the world of Naruto, he had considered following the original storyline.

In the original plot, Naruto, even at his worst, was a useless underdog who turned things around, married a rich and beautiful girl, and reached the peak of life.

But what he never expected was…

The twelve years before Naruto graduated from the ninja school turned out to be so harsh.

So harsh that it was simply unimaginable!

He had heard about it, seen it, and even personally experienced it... but the feeling was completely different from hearing it from others, like some dark corner...

As a modern soul, he couldn't just silently endure all this, and then selflessly give all his youth to Konoha.

"This Hokage… forget it!"

With his head lowered, he walked out to the end of the street. However, the sharp gaze of two Anbu members still hadn't left him.

"Hmph, indifferent, huh?" Naruto sneered inwardly, "Is this what you call protection, Third Hokage?"

Soon, Naruto walked to the side of a small river.

Looking at the sunset in the distance, Naruto couldn't bring himself to feel happy.

But he knew that he needed to adjust this negative emotion.

Otherwise, it was likely he wouldn't even survive to graduate from the ninja school at the age of twelve, let alone live long enough to see Sasuke's defection.

Yes.

At the moment, Naruto's only idea for escaping Konoha perfectly was to use Sasuke's defection as a way out.

Thinking of Sasuke, Naruto couldn't help but recall what the villagers had said about the "Night of the Uchiha Massacre" and that Itachi and Sasuke were girls.

"Sasuke and Itachi are girls? How could that be?"

He muttered to himself, then lifted his head to gaze once again at the Hokage Rock in the distance.

When he looked more carefully, he froze, immediately understanding what the ancient saying from his past life meant.

"The face reflects the heart."

When you see a person whose appearance and style are ambiguous and you can't tell whether they're male or female, your subconscious will make a visual and initial judgment based on your inner thoughts.

When he had looked at Hokage Rock before from home, he had only thought the sculptures on it had an odd aura, but he hadn't thought of them as looking feminine.

However, when he looked again now, with a more scrutinizing gaze…

He had to admit, the sculptures were indeed becoming more feminine.

Naruto stared blankly, hastily shaking his head to clear away these chaotic thoughts.

Since he couldn't confirm this now, he decided to find someone familiar to verify it.

"Night of the Uchiha Massacre?"

Remembering what the villagers had said, it seemed like the massacre had occurred last night. And at that time, someone had mentioned that the only survivor of the disaster was—

The girl Uchiha Sasuke, who had just been discharged from Konoha Hospital.

The system was very powerful, but the prerequisites for activation required 10,000 ryo and 1,000 points of negative and shock value each.

Naruto wasn't worried about the negative and shock values, but the 10,000 ryo was extremely unfriendly to his current financial situation.

Why?

If it were the old Naruto, with funds to spare, would he have eaten instant ramen all day instead of going to his favorite Ichiraku Ramen?

Obviously not.

Konoha's subsidies for Naruto were very limited, and he couldn't even afford two bowls of ramen a day.

10,000 ryo was a astronomical sum for the current Naruto.

But fortune favored the bold.

Just when he had been worrying about how to gather 10,000 ryo, he heard heavy news about the Uchiha clan.

That was why he had been so excited earlier and rushed into the crowd to ask the old lady.

If last night indeed corresponded with the timeline of the Uchiha Massacre, then perhaps he could seize this opportunity, and 10,000 ryo wouldn't be so difficult to get.

After all, the Uchiha clan was a prestigious family in Konoha, and surely selling some of their pots and pans would bring in more than 10,000 ryo, right?

With a goal in mind, Naruto quickly adjusted his mood and strolled along the riverbank at dusk.

Then, as if an idea had struck him, he thought, "System panel."

The system panel appeared before his eyes.

[Golden Shovel System]

Host: Uzumaki Naruto

Negative Value: 239 points

Shock Value: 0 points

Silver Ryo: 90

Talent: Vision Insight LV1 (Can sense any gaze that falls on him for more than 3 seconds from any angle, can be upgraded.)

[Money Search Function] (Not activated)

System Space (0/100 slots)

*[1 Chakra Expansion Card LV1 1]

Naruto looked at the 239 points of negative emotion value on the panel, which slightly eased his mood.

"Just walked half the street, and I've already gained 239 negative emotion points?"

Just as he was about to ask why each villager could only contribute a little bit of negative emotion points, he inadvertently looked up.

The words he was about to speak got stuck in his throat.

Under the reflection of the sunset, the river below shimmered.

At the far end of the wooden fishing platform on the riverbank, a slender figure was quietly sitting with her hands supporting her cheeks, her cute twin-tails swaying slightly.

She was motionless, staring ahead, seemingly lost in thought, as if intentionally blending into the surrounding solitude.

Due to the distance and the setting sun, the blonde-haired boy walking along the riverbank could only vaguely make out the girl's silhouette.

Yet even so…

When the boy saw the girl's cute twin-tails at the end of the fishing platform, his face immediately showed shock, and he nearly tripped over himself.

Fortunately, despite his thin and weak appearance, his physical constitution was decent, and he quickly regained his balance.

After taking a few deep breaths, the boy finally took another step forward.

The quiet riverbank.

The boy's footsteps were light, but the girl with twin-tails sitting by the river still noticed him.

Yet, due to her current mood, she wasn't interested in knowing who the passerby was because it had nothing to do with her.

As the footsteps grew closer, the boy's gaze never left her, which irritated the girl. Still, in her bad mood, she had no desire to look back.

If this annoying guy was here to mock her, she would have to teach him a lesson in the name of the Uchiha family's honor.

The girl slowly turned her head, and her large eyes were filled with an icy coldness.

Immediately, a boy with yellow hair, wearing a white t-shirt—Uzumaki Naruto—came into view.

The girl frowned and snorted lightly. Not only did she recognize this boy, but she also particularly disliked him.

This guy had the lowest grades in the class, and what was worse, he had openly provoked her multiple times.

What she couldn't understand was, even after she had completely annihilated him during their combat practice yesterday, why did he still have the guts to show up after hearing about her family's destruction?

The two of them locked eyes from afar, and for a moment, the air around them seemed to freeze.

The girl remained calm, but her gaze was extremely cold, as if ready to explode at any moment.

In contrast to the girl's coldness, Naruto's eyes were filled with shock.

If it weren't for the fact that the girl was wearing the Uchiha family's iconic attire, and he had already known from the massacre night that only Sasuke had survived, he would have definitely thought this girl was a descendant of the Uchiha clan.

But then again, something unexpected was bound to happen.

Sasuke is actually a cute girl? My god, what kind of world have I crossed into?

Naruto screamed inwardly.

At the same time, he carefully observed the girl's appearance, subconsciously comparing her with the Sasuke from his previous world's anime convention.

After comparing, it was undeniable—she looked just like a "girly" version of Sasuke.

Especially those large, clear eyes, which stared at him as if saying, "Disappear now, or I'll make you disappear right now!"

---

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