Since he was back in Konoha, Ren decided to go and have lunch at the Ichiraku ramen stand. In the capital, he splurged a bit and ate at high-end restaurants as a proper tourist ninja in disguise should.

But he missed something simpler, something with a homey feeling to it.

As he walked through the village at a leisure pace, using side streets to avoid most of the traffic in the village, suddenly Ren’s instincts screamed at him as he noticed with the corner of his eyes something flying at him.

His training showed as his instincts reacted before his mind could even realize something was going on. The gravity seals on his body were instantly released as he whipped out a kunai and vanished from the spot, evading the projectile.

As he was vanishing, a shadow clone silently appeared out of nowhere behind his attacker too. Fortunately, his shadow clone had enough presence of mind to not just ram a kunai straight to the guy’s face and instead, he restrained him with a touch, applying a mean gravity seal to his clothes.

The guy abruptly experienced a change in flight direction as his jump was interrupted and he fell from mid-air to the ground like a sack of potatoes just as Ren reappeared a bit further away, his kunai in guard position. He was prepared for a fight.

But then his mind finally caught up and he just owlishly blinked at the ‘thing’ on the ground, speechlessly furrowing his eyebrows, “Are you…”

He looked back at the spot from where he had vanished and noticed wet ground with pieces of a rubber ball around the exploding seal he had applied there on the ground as he was vanishing.

He sweatdropped. “trying to prank me?” He asked in utter bafflement while gazing at Naruto who was staring incomprehensibly at the sky with an open mouth.

This was probably the first time the kid got a real taste of the difference between him and a ninja. Sure, he was evading the ANBU after his pranks. But let’s be honest. No ANBU would seriously give a chase to Naruto.

If Iruka could catch Naruto, then a large majority of chunins in the village could too. The kid wasn’t that fast. He was not even remotely close to the level necessary to outrun ANBU.

They probably enjoyed his antics and pranking was a great training method for a kid ninja-wannabe. Going by the common sense of ninjas in this world, there was no reason to stop him. Ren could see a bored ANBU giving Naruto a play-chase and subtly teaching him a few things about evading a pursuit through hands-on experience.

After all, the kid’s great stealth skills didn’t come out of nowhere.

“Did they never teach you at the academy not to jump at a ninja? Are you stupid or what?” Ren questioned in a baffled tone as his clone exasperatedly shrugged and touched the exploding seal with his foot, erasing it before dispelling itself.

Ren wasn’t angry at Naruto. But he was surprised he got this close to him without being noticed. The boy had some serious stealth potential.

It was such a pity…

Still, jumping a ninja like that was a really stupid thing to do. If Ren’s exploding seal was more sensitive and the rubber ball set it off… Ren suppressed a shiver at almost accidentally exploding the protagonist due to a prank.

“You suck, uncle!” Naruto scowled and threw a glare at Ren… but he couldn’t move his body due to the gravity seal on his clothes. At best, he could slightly wiggle on the spot. Ren burst into laughter when he heard and saw him.

It only made Naruto scowl more.

Taking a deep breath to calm his laughter after a few seconds, Ren realized what this was probably about, and his mood soured.

He crouched next to Naruto and gently tapped his chest, erasing the gravity seal while speaking, “I am really sorry about telling you to ask Hinata for help.” Fortunately, Naruto didn’t just jump to his feet and try to get even with Ren. Instead, he seemed to properly listen to what he had to say. That was a win, in Ren’s book.

“But don’t be too hard on her. Her family is really strict and they don’t like you. They forbade her to interact with you.” Ren grimaced a bit. He truly screwed the pooch by interfering there. The least he could do was to explain the situation to Naruto and hope for the best.

“But… why?” Naruto’s face fell when he heard that an entire clan disliked him. “I haven’t done anything-“

Ren couldn’t help but snort, interrupting him. The funny thing was that their dislike of Naruto had nothing to do with Kurama.

He raised his eyebrow at Naruto in a patronizing way, because the kid totally deserved it. “Really now. Remember a year ago? You broke into their compound and stole their underwear.” His look intensified and Naruto shrunk back into himself as he realized this was totally his fault.

“But that wasn’t enough, was it?” Ren hummed, “You then placed it all around Konoha in an imitation of flags, on a particularly windy day.” He finished with an amused smile but from his tone, it was obvious he wasn’t praising Naruto.

The kid gulped, his face set in a look kids usually wear when they are caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“Sure, managing to do so with the Hyuga guards patrolling their compound was amazing.” Ren admitted with a shrug. He had to give praise where it was due.

Naruto’s downward look instantly evaporated and he preened a little at the acknowledgement of his skill.

“I have no idea how you dodged their Byakugan.” Ren continued, giving the kid an expectant look.

But Naruto’s expression morphed into a perfect image of confusion, “Baku-what?” He asked as if he had heard that word for the very first time.

“Of course, it was just a dumb luck. Silly me for thinking otherwise.” Ren rolled his eyes and fondly ruffled Naruto’s hair.

“Oi!” Naruto shouted in an offended tone but he didn’t try to lean away.

Realizing that the kid was clearly touch-starved, Ren awkwardly pulled his hand back. It kinda made sense why he was so desperate for friends and attention.

Deciding to not go into that train of depressing thoughts, Ren focused on the current topic, “The important thing is that you humiliated them. If you did that to the Inuzuka clan, they would be angry enough to send their dogs after you.” Naruto winced at the image, “But a week later, they would laugh with you and congratulate you for managing to prank them.”

“So, should I target Kiba’s clan next?” A wicked smile started appearing on Naruto’s face as he focused only on the positives of that situation but Ren rained on his parade.

“Do you want to try your hand at outrunning their ninja dogs?” He asked while helping Naruto stand up.

“Fair point.” Naruto mumbled under his nose with a small wince, imagining having to run from a pack of angry dogs.

“The problem is that the Hyuga clan takes their reputation very seriously, Naruto.” Ren huffed and poked the kid’s forehead to make him focus, “And you,” He snickered, “showed everybody their dirty laundry.” Naruto grinned at the mental image despite the seriousness of the situation but Ren just continued, “They didn’t like you before. They absolutely hate you now. And that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

Yes. Kyubi was a part of it. But Hyugas were a ninja clan. They knew what jinchuuriki was and how important Naruto would be for the village when he grew up.

The whole situation with them forbidding Hinata to interact with Naruto was weird to Ren. If she managed to do it, then that would be beneficial for the clan in the future. But then Ren investigated a bit and heard about the underwear incident.

And everything made sense in the world again.

“Then why tell me to ask Hibaba for help?” Naruto asked, tilting his head.

“Admittedly,” Ren made a face, “I misjudged the situation.” His shoulders slumped. He wasn’t a person who had a hard time admitting his failures to himself. But he still didn’t like admitting them so openly. It was embarrassing.

But Ren’s complicated feelings were wasted on Naruto. “Are you using complicated words on purpose?” The kid asked with a scrunched expression, clearly not getting what Ren meant, making Ren groan.

“I screwed up. Got that?” He disgruntledly bit out a simplified form of what he tried to tell the boy.

“Oh.Okay? Why not just say that then?” Naruto asked in a ‘duh’ voice, and Ren’s right eye twitched.

“Whatever. Come on, I will buy you two bowls of ramen as an apology.” He grumpily said. He was going for ramen anyway so there was no harm in it.

“Three bowls and I will forgive you.” Naruto tried to milk it for all it was worth but Ren was more experienced in this kind of negotiation.

“One and a half.” He smirked at the kid and dared him to challenge it with his eyes. He had to show Naruto he wasn’t a pushover like Iruka. Because he knew how much ramen the kid could eat. Ren had to set proper boundaries if he didn’t want his wallet to suffer.

He was sorry for screwing up. But he wasn’t that sorry.

“T- two sounds great.” Naruto stuttered, flushing as he silently admitted his defeat. His face also became a bit unhappy about getting only two free bowls but free food was free food.

They quickly reached the ramen stand and took their seats after ordering when Ren suddenly remembered something important and facepalmed, getting Naruto’s attention.

“Here.” He unsealed a small notebook from his forearm, “I and Hina-, ahem, Hibaba,” Because of course he was going to stick with that, “made it for you.” Like… a month ago. Which was why Ren almost forgot. A lot happened during the past few weeks. “She felt really bad about rejecting your request for help. And since this is the first time I’ve seen you since it happened, I can finally give it to you.”

Ren had to admit he was a bit worried but giving Naruto some tips on the academy curriculum, tree walking, and water walking was certainly not going to make Akatsuki feel threatened enough to go at the kid in full force.

He decided that giving the blonde brat number two, because Ino was definitely the blonde brat number one in Ren’s mind, a bit of help was not going to cause many issues in the future.

It shouldn’t mess things up even more than they already were. Or so Ren hoped. He really, really hoped so.

… This was so going to screw something up, wasn’t it?

“Thank you!” Naruto exclaimed and started browsing the book with a surprisingly focused look.

Ren was a bit afraid that Naruto wouldn’t want some book. But the boy looked happy about receiving something like that. Unfortunately, Ren wasn’t going to train the boy so the rest was up to him to learn from the books.

The tips he and Hinata put together were admittedly quite good and focused on practical application more than theory. Because Ren knew Naruto was too stupid to learn in any other way than by doing.

Sadly, Ren literally couldn’t train Naruto even if he wanted to. If Hokage wanted Naruto properly trained, the boy would have the best trainers in Konoha. There was a reason why that didn’t happen.

Maybe it was a favor to Jiraiya or Kakashi who wanted to train the boy themselves or some other utter bullshit like that. Or maybe there was something more malicious afoot. Ren didn’t know. And he wasn’t particularly interested in trying to poke into that secret.

But he had a hard time believing that Naruto’s issues with the clone technique were not noticed by the Hokage. Just as he didn’t believe even for a second that Naruto managed to sneak into the Hokage tower, steal a top-secret scroll, evade all the ANBU guards, and then knock out the literal ninja ‘god’ with honey-pot tactics that were probably tried on the said man so many times it got old to him before he even passed his mid-twenties.

The kid was good. But he wasn’t that good.

The food finally arrived and Ren fondly watched as Naruto carefully put the book away before digging in. Ren was about to start with his own ramen when his eyebrows scrunched and a realization hit him.

“Wait a minute.” He looked at Naruto with a deadpan stare, “Aren’t you supposed to be in a school?”

The boy choked on his noodles.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep