The following morning, Naruto woke up with a strange feeling he couldn't explain. [He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the windowsill.] The black mark was gone. There wasn't even a trace of it. For several minutes, Naruto simply stared at the empty wood, trying to convince himself that he had imagined everything. Maybe he had been half asleep. Maybe the strange pulse he had felt was only his imagination. But deep down, he knew it hadn't been. Someone had been watching him, and something had responded when he touched that mark.
Naruto finally stood and got dressed. He decided not to tell his parents. Not yet. He wasn't sure why. Maybe because he didn't want them to worry, or maybe because he was afraid they would tell him that nothing had happened. There was also a small part of him that wanted to understand it himself.
Downstairs, Kushina was already preparing breakfast.
"You're late."
Naruto stopped at the entrance.
"I'm not late."
"You're."
"For what?"
"Breakfast."
[Naruto looked at the table, where a plate was already waiting for him.]
"Then I'm not late."
Kushina sighed.
"That's not how time works."
[Naruto sat down and immediately started eating.] He glanced toward the window, but Kushina noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You've been saying that a lot lately."
Naruto looked back at his food.
"I didn't sleep well."
"Nightmare?"
"No."
"Then what?"
Naruto hesitated.
"Just... A weird feeling."
Kushina's expression softened. [She placed a hand gently on his head.]
"If something is bothering you, you can tell me."
Naruto nodded.
"I know."
He didn't tell her.
Not yet.
At the Hokage Tower, Minato was having a much less peaceful morning. [He stood in the archive room surrounded by old documents.] The room smelled of dust and old paper, and reports from years ago were spread across several tables, many of them containing information about the Nine-Tails attack. Minato had read most of them before, but now he was looking at them differently.
He picked up one report, then another, and then a third. Each contained something unusual. A missing timestamp. A changed sentence. A chakra reading that didn't match the original record. None of it was enough to prove anything, but together, it was becoming difficult to ignore.
The door opened.
Hiruzen entered the room and looked around.
"You haven't slept."
Minato didn't look up.
"Neither have you."
"I'm older. I have an excuse."
Minato smiled faintly.
"Apparently that's what Kushina told me yesterday."
Hiruzen walked toward the table.
"What have you found?"
Minato placed several reports beside each other.
"These records were altered."
Hiruzen studied them carefully.
"By whom?"
"That's what I don't know."
"Could it have been an ordinary mistake?"
"One mistake, maybe."
[Minato pointed toward the documents.]
"Five?"
Hiruzen became silent.
Minato then pulled out an older report.
"And there's something else."
Hiruzen read the page.
His expression slowly changed.
"What is that?"
"An unfamiliar chakra signature."
"How unfamiliar?"
"Completely."
Hiruzen looked at him.
"Could it have belonged to the masked man?"
"No."
"How can you be certain?"
"Because the signature appeared in a different location."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed.
"Different location?"
Minato nodded.
"While I was fighting the masked man, something else was happening."
He looked toward the window.
"Something we never noticed."
Far beneath Konoha, however, something had already noticed them.
[The pair of eyes behind the cracked seal slowly opened again.] Dust fell from the ancient stone as a low sound echoed through the darkness.
"They're looking."
Another voice answered.
"Let them."
"They may discover the truth."
There was a long silence.
Then the first voice laughed softly.
"They've spent years searching for the Nine-Tails."
The darkness seemed to grow deeper.
"They never realized that the Nine-Tails was only the beginning."
Back at the Academy, Naruto was having a much more ordinary problem.
He had fallen asleep during class.
[Iruka stared at him from the front of the room.]
"Naruto."
No response.
"Naruto."
Still nothing.
Iruka walked toward his desk.
"Naruto!"
[Naruto suddenly jumped awake.]
"Huh?!"
The entire class laughed.
Iruka crossed his arms.
"Would you like to explain why you were sleeping?"
Naruto rubbed his eyes.
"I was thinking."
"With your eyes closed?"
"Yes."
"Interesting."
Naruto smiled awkwardly.
Iruka sighed.
"Stay awake."
"Yes, Iruka-sensei."
A few minutes later, the lesson continued, but Naruto couldn't concentrate. His mind kept returning to the black mark, the strange pulse, and the feeling that something had noticed him.
[He looked down at his hand.]
Nothing was there.
Then his fingers suddenly tingled.
Naruto frowned.
A whisper reached his ears.
"Naruto..."
He froze.
The voice was faint, almost impossible to hear.
He looked around the classroom.
Nobody reacted.
Iruka was still teaching. The other students were still writing.
Then the whisper came again.
"Naruto..."
This time, he was certain.
Someone had called his name.
[Naruto slowly turned toward the classroom window.]
There, standing on the roof of the building across from the Academy, was a familiar figure.
The same dark figure.
Watching him.
Naruto's eyes widened.
"It's him."
Iruka stopped speaking.
"Who?"
Naruto pointed toward the window.
"There!"
[He rushed toward it and pushed the window open.]
The rooftop was empty.
The figure had disappeared again.
Iruka reached him.
"Who did you see?"
Naruto stared at the empty rooftop.
"I don't know."
"What did they look like?"
"I couldn't see their face."
Iruka's expression became serious.
"Did they approach you?"
"No."
"Did they speak to you?"
Naruto hesitated.
"I heard someone call my name."
Iruka looked toward the rooftop.
"Naruto, did you tell your parents about this?"
Naruto lowered his eyes.
"...No."
"You should."
Naruto nodded.
But before either of them could say anything else, a sudden gust of wind passed through the classroom.
Naruto blinked.
For one brief second, everything seemed to slow down.
The voices disappeared.
The students stopped moving.
Even Iruka seemed frozen.
[Naruto looked toward the window.]
In the reflection of the glass, something stood behind him.
Two enormous red eyes.
Naruto turned around.
Nothing.
Everything immediately returned to normal.
The students were moving again. Iruka was speaking. Nobody seemed to have noticed anything.
[Naruto slowly turned back toward the window.]
His reflection stared at him.
But for a single second...
His reflection smiled.
Naruto didn't.
He stepped away from the window.
Far away from Konoha, the Nine-Tails suddenly raised its head.
[Its nine tails slammed against the ground.]
That presence.
The same presence it had felt on the night it disappeared.
But this time, it was different.
Closer.
Much closer.
The Nine-Tails slowly opened its eyes.
"He's awake."
The voice came from the darkness.
The beast growled.
"Who is he?"
Silence.
Then the answer came.
"The child."
The Nine-Tails stared into the darkness.
"The child who was never supposed to inherit anything."
Its pupils narrowed.
"Then why can I feel him?"
The voice whispered,
"Because something inside him has finally begun to remember."
The Nine-Tails froze.
Back in Konoha, Naruto stood alone in the Academy hallway after class. [He looked down at his hand.] The same hand that had touched the black mark the previous night.
A faint black line had appeared across his palm.
Naruto stared at it.
Then the line began to move.
It slowly formed a symbol.
His eyes widened.
He had never seen that symbol before.
And yet, somehow...
He recognized it.
A voice whispered inside his mind.
"You finally found me."
Naruto froze.
And somewhere beneath Konoha, the ancient seal cracked a little further.
End of Chapter 4