At the same time he looked over, Furina also "coincidentally" turned her head again. Meeting his gaze, she didn't give him any more time to think about how to speak and took the initiative to say,
"Hey hey hey, Naruto, why are you and Teacher Kakashi falling behind together? You two aren't trying to isolate the only beautiful girl in Team 7, are you? If that's really the case, I'd be really sad."
"How could that possibly happen? You, me, and that guy Sasuke—we've always been the best companions!"
Unlike Kakashi who could tell Furina was provoking them, Naruto had a similar feeling, but under the current huge emotional fluctuation, he didn't think too much about it at all.
The thoughts in his heart came out of his mouth immediately.
"I'm really happy to hear you still think that way. So, Teacher Kakashi, why do you still look so embarrassed? Don't tell me you're the one who wants to isolate all of us? Tsk, that's pretty scary."
After resolving Naruto's shyness, Furina immediately turned her firepower to Kakashi beside her, who was looking around trying to lower his presence.
Hearing his name come from Furina's mouth again, Kakashi finally gave up and died inside.
"Ahem." This hat came so suddenly that Kakashi hadn't expected to be dragged into it himself. He had only seen Naruto in a bad state and wanted to encourage him a little.
"No way, Furina. Teacher Kakashi has always been one of our best companions too. It's just that he's too shy to express it. Just now he was encouraging me, right, Teacher Kakashi?"
"The one who's worst at expressing himself is you."
Looking at Naruto's confident expression, Kakashi felt a mix of emotions in his heart—both gratified by Naruto's view of him and helpless that the other was so easily manipulated by Furina.
This was clearly teasing him—couldn't he see it? Yet he still went along with the coaxing. What was he supposed to do in a situation like this?
"Uh, what Naruto said is right. That's exactly it. It really is because I'm not very good at expressing myself, which caused this groundless misunderstanding. I'll pay more attention in the future."
In the end, to quickly gloss over the topic, Kakashi chose to go along with Naruto's words, thereby blocking Furina from extending it further.
"See, Furina? I told you Teacher Kakashi was just like that because he's shy. As long as we talk it out clearly, there won't be any problem."
"The one least qualified to say that is you."
Watching Naruto excitedly run to Furina's side and make a fuss, even Kakashi—who had already endured multiple rounds of Furina's influence—couldn't help feeling a bit awkward.
As expected, there really are naturally gifted players in this area. Even if Furina racked her brains, she couldn't match your quick thinking. What a drag.
"Naruto originally thought they would be best companions for life, only to come back and see Furina surrounded by a group of people—his sky collapsed."
"False protagonist: Went out for intense training with a perverted old man, and really only trained.
True protagonist: Trained alone, resolved various world crises during training, and encountered all kinds of beautiful women in the process."
"If you ask me, Naruto should really thank Tsunade. It's only been a short time since she left, and Fufu already has three more people around her.
If Tsunade hadn't called her back, by the time they met again her surroundings would probably be full of people, and her wings would be getting all tangled up."
"Kakashi never expected the heaviest blow to come from the Naruto he had just comforted. The enemy is within."
"Furina: Encountered a naturally gifted player in Konoha—exhausted all efforts but unable to win."
"Kakashi's pained-yet-unable-to-say-anything expression really cracked me up. If it were Furina, he'd know it was on purpose and could throw some sarcasm back, but facing Naruto's sincerity, Kakashi has nothing to say."
[Affection Value +1 +1 +1 +1..... +1 +1 +1]
[Affection Value: 742304]
With the start of Shippuden's broadcast, Furina's Affection Value—which had been growing slowly for a long time—finally began to rise rapidly again, and with it came her confidence.
Because the plot had been somewhat disrupted, the current Shippuden had little to do with the Shippuden in Furina's memory. This meant that from now on, all kinds of unexpected situations would have to be handled by herself.
In such circumstances, having a cheat really was reassuring. It was just that, aside from her, no one else had such a thing.
"Alright, enough joking around. I talked with the teacher earlier too. Because of the Akatsuki issue, for the foreseeable future Naruto, you'll have to stay in the village and can't go out.
You should already know this, and this period can't be wasted either. No one can guarantee there won't be any accidents in the future, so Naruto, you need to train extra hard and get stronger as quickly as possible."
"Of course! After not seeing each other for so long, I've become a lot stronger than before. When the time comes, I'll definitely surprise you."
When it came to getting stronger, the smile on Naruto's face visibly grew bigger. It seemed that the time spent with Jiraiya hadn't been wasted, which allowed him to speak with such confidence.
Hearing this, a meaningful smile appeared on Furina's face. The expressions of Hikari and Shion beside her also changed slightly, as if they had thought of something amusing.
"I was originally planning to ask Lord Jiraiya for some guidance first, but since Naruto you're so confident, let me see how much you've improved during this time first."
"Hehe..." Looking at Furina's smile and the unusual looks from Hikari and the others, combined with his past understanding of Furina, Kakashi seemed to have some guess as well. The visible part of his eye curved slightly.
"Oh right, and you too, Teacher Kakashi. Tsunade-sensei said that to better cope with the future situation, Teacher Kakashi you need to work hard as well. So when Naruto trains, Teacher Kakashi you can't be absent either."
"Huh?" Hearing that there was something for him too, the slight smile that had just appeared on Kakashi's face vanished instantly. Instead, his eyes involuntarily widened. Training together with his own student—really?
"Wouldn't that be a bit inappropriate? For a ninja my age, the meaning of training isn't really that great anymore. And I do my own daily exercises, so it's not necessary, right?"
"No no no, Teacher Kakashi, that's exactly why you need to train with Naruto even more. You know, back then you were promoted to jōnin at just 12 years old—the fastest record for jōnin promotion to date.
The problem lies right here: you were already a jōnin at 12, but up to now you're only a bit stronger than other jōnin. If you don't use that special ability of yours,
you're almost completely no match for Tsunade-sensei or Lord Jiraiya. Isn't that very strange for a genius who became a jōnin at 12?
So Teacher Kakashi must have slacked off for a very long time, which is why you're like this now. We're just asking you to make up for the effort you didn't put in back then."