bookbashuk Chapter 599 The Hokage's Daughter
Chapter 599 The Hokage's Daughter
The feeling was not much different from the last time he traveled through time. Naruto closed his eyes and then opened them again, confirming that his feet were firmly planted on the ground, and the scene before him suddenly opened up.
Just now, when they set off, the sun was still high in the sky, and the air was filled with the fresh scent of earth after the rain.
Now, the scene before us is somewhat dim; the sun has completely set, and it is nighttime in this world.
The scene before me... was a deserted street lined with low wooden buildings, warm yellow paper lanterns hanging on the doors, and the sounds of voices and footsteps coming from around the corner not far away, along with the occasional child's laughter.
"Is this Konoha? Where are we now?" Naruto's gaze swept over the buildings, trying to find some clues to confirm his location from the familiar outlines.
The Hokage Rock is not visible; from this angle and distance, the mountain wall engraved with the heads of the Hokage of each generation is probably blocked by buildings.
"Naruto, don't worry," Satsuki immediately replied. "I controlled my eye power when I used it. This is probably Konoha. I just don't know what time it is now."
She noticed a problem: time wasn't synchronized across parallel worlds. In the previous world, she and Naruto were already adults, while in that world, young Sasuke and young Naruto were still teenagers.
Even earlier, when she and Naruto were still children, Sasuke Uchiha, who had traveled from another world, was already an old man.
Time flows like a river without a uniform scale across countless parallel worlds. In some places, the current is swift, while in others it is slow. The same "now" may correspond to completely different points in time in different worlds.
Naruto also noticed this problem. He was initially a little worried—what if Sasuke went astray and set the timeline in the Warring States period, a time of war and independent ninja clans, or the Ninjutsu era, when the Sage of Six Paths was still spreading chakra throughout the world, or even worse, in an era ruled by Kaguya Otsutsuki.
Fortunately, the condition for Sasuke's positioning is that "Naruto Uzumaki is a girl". This condition itself determines that the timeline cannot be too early, and at the latest it will be after the Nine-Tails' attack.
Satsuki was looking forward to it. To be honest, she really wanted to see what Naruto looked like as a child.
In her memory, little Naruto looked very young back then, with chubby cheeks and a soft, sweet voice, yet he always seemed mature, uttering philosophical words in his childish voice.
Every time she thinks back on it, she finds him incredibly cute, so cute that she wants to pick him up and cuddle him.
While the little girl version of Naruko is nice, Satsuki would prefer to see the adult Naruko Uzumaki dating another version of herself.
With this love-struck thought in mind, Satsuki took a step forward, preparing to find someone to inquire about the situation.
Naruto followed behind, his mind preoccupied with something else: how to navigate this world without arousing suspicion. If the genders were reversed, he and Sasuke would be complete strangers in this world.
If he were noticed by patrolling ninjas, he would inevitably be invited over for a chat and asked to explain who he was, where he came from, and what he was doing there. Although he wasn't afraid of being invited over for a chat by the ANBU, it would still be quite troublesome.
Naruto found it rather strange that he would one day worry about being summoned by the Anbu.
They walked down the deserted street and arrived at a place where pedestrians were slowly starting to appear. There weren't many people, just a few here and there. Some villagers glanced at Naruto and Sasuke, not with wariness or suspicion, but with curiosity.
Finally, some familiar faces appeared before me.
Three people walked towards us from the other side of the street, chatting as they went.
Walking in the very center, the most conspicuous figure was a hooded man wearing sunglasses. Next to him was a loud, boisterous person with red face paint, and a woman with pink hair dressed in simple casual clothes. They were all so familiar to me.
The three were Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka, and Sakura Haruno.
Satsuki immediately became excited. The three people looked exactly like those in her world, so the timeline seemed to be correct. She prepared to go up and ask them immediately, because if they were these three people, they would definitely know Naruto and herself in this world.
"Hmm? You two... we've never seen each other before." Shino spoke first, noticing Naruto and Sasuke. "Are you from outside the village?"
Naruto paused for a moment, then quickly composed himself. "Well... yes, but we're not suspicious people, we're just tourists." He smiled, trying to appear natural. "Please don't worry."
"Traveling?" Kiba took two steps forward, tilting his head to examine Naruto. "You guys don't look like ordinary people. Are you ninjas?"
"I know a little bit of ninjutsu... Don't mind me, uh, isn't this sounding more and more suspicious?" He wasn't used to this feeling of having to pretend to be a stranger in front of acquaintances, and every word he said sounded like acting.
"No, no, no! You've misunderstood!" Kiba waved his hand. "How should I put it... even though it's our first time meeting, it feels so familiar..." His tone was filled with confusion. Naruto was about to say something when he heard a strange, unusually quiet, buzzing sound, like a motorcycle engine, coming from Kiba.
Suddenly, Sakura walked towards her, her face flushed. Her face turned red very quickly, spreading from the base of her neck to the tips of her ears, making her look like a flower dyed red by the sunset.
Her eyes were fixed on Naruto. "Um... what's your name?"
"Huh? This..." Naruto was startled by that strange look. In his world, Sakura had never looked at him like that. "Excuse me... is there something you need?"
"Although it's our first time meeting..." Sakura's gaze shifted from Naruto's face to Satsuki, looking at his quiet face with a polite smile, then back at him, her eyelids drooping slightly. "Um... who is this over here?" Her tone was cautiously tentative.
Satsuki's smile froze slightly. Something was off about the way she looked at Sakura. This gaze, this way of looking at Naruto, was strange. But Sakura had never looked at Naruto like that before, not even once.
"We're husband and wife." Naruto took Satsuki's hand, his fingers interlacing with hers, palm to palm, "We're already registered." He added.
The next moment, Sakura's expression froze. As if someone had pressed the pause button, the smile was still on her lips, but the light in her eyes went out.
Then disappointment seeped from every crevice of her eyes, eyebrows, and lips. "Oh... I see. Sorry, just pretend I didn't say anything."
Now everyone could see that Sakura had feelings for Naruto in that way.
Something's not right. Satsuki sensed something was amiss. She'd known Sakura for over ten years, from childhood to adulthood, but Sakura had never shown any romantic interest in Naruto.
Sakura prefers to stick close to me more than Naruto. What's going on?
"Hey, really?" Ya immediately teased, "Sakura, you actually have those kinds of feelings for someone you just met? That's truly unprecedented!"
"...So noisy." Sakura's voice was muffled, her gaze fixed on the ground without looking at anyone, too lazy to waste words with Kiba.
Naruto was also a little embarrassed. Sakura Haruno, whom he had always considered a buddy, had almost confessed her feelings to him, making him wonder if he had wandered into the wrong show.
He instinctively tightened his grip on Zuoyue's hand.
"You're really something, bro." Kiba said, hands in his pockets, leaning back slightly. "To have Sakura fall in love with her at first sight is unprecedented in Konoha. We've been speculating every day about which lucky guy Sakura will end up with in the future."
"A lucky guy?" Naruto was bewildered. Would Sakura call him that for having her eye on him? How come he didn't know that?
"Yes." Kiba's voice lowered slightly, as if he were talking about something very serious. "After all, she's the Hokage's daughter. The whole of Konoha is talking about Sakura."
Then, Naruto and Satsuki heard some absolutely unexpected news.