Chapter 53
A rare weekend.
Today Hinata was kept at home by Hiashi for regular training and cultivation, so she couldn't go out.
Naruto didn't want to spend the whole day holed up in the library either, and Sasuke was somehow unavailable.
So he simply went alone to the forest in the back mountains of Konoha, to his usual training spot.
Besides the occasional passing small animals, hardly anyone disturbed this place.
The back mountain forest was vast. This spot was closer to the village than the area where Iruka had been injured before.
"Sink the qi into the dantian… let the mind become still water… forget the self…"
"Feel the wind… feel the trees…"
Naruto sat cross-legged on a large rock, hands naturally resting on his knees, eyes closed.
He tried to enter the state of "harmony between heaven and man" that Xuanming had described.
Hoping to sense the natural energy in the forest this way.
He was already very familiar with this set of "entering stillness" techniques.
His breathing quickly became long and even; his mind calmed like a mirror.
However… that was all.
No matter how hard he tried to "see," what he sensed around him was just normal surroundings.
He couldn't capture at all the "flow of qi wandering between heaven and earth" that Xuanming described.
It felt exactly like trying to grab a phantom that didn't exist in the air—completely clueless.
"Ahhh—I can't do it!"
After persisting for half an hour, Naruto finally broke his focus.
Irritated, he ruffled his blond hair and opened his eyes, about to change posture and try again.
Suddenly, a slightly cool sensation touched the tip of his nose.
Drip.
Then a second drop landed on his cheek.
Carrying a trace of refreshing chill.
"It's raining?"
Naruto looked up in confusion, peering through the gaps in the canopy.
The sky above was clearly bright and sunny, sunlight piercing through the leaves in beams.
Yet right in the middle of this clear weather, crystalline raindrops were falling in this area.
Not only that, mixed in with the sound of rain came a faint, heart-rending "waa waa" crying.
"This rain is wrong."
Xuanming, who was beside him, began pondering as well: "This isn't water release ninjutsu—the rain contains no chakra fluctuations."
"It's… the surrounding natural energy being forcibly mobilized along with some kind of change."
"Someone is manipulating natural energy?"
Naruto's curiosity flared—this was exactly the thing he wanted to learn!
He immediately jumped off the rock, pushed through the dense bushes, and headed toward the crying.
Past the bushes was an open clearing beneath a thick tree.
There stood the three little ones: Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chōji, and Yamanaka Ino.
They were frantically circling the tree, faces full of panic.
Several meters up the trunk, a child who looked only a few years old—with a pair of green eyes—
was hanging upside down, clothes nailed to the tree by several kunai, body caught in the fabric.
The child had his mouth wide open, crying hysterically with tears and snot streaming down his face.
Strangely, the heavier the crying became, the stronger the rain grew overhead.
"Waaah—!!"
Ino raised her hand to shield herself from the rain and screamed under the tree: "My hair is completely soaked!"
"Forget the hair! Help first!"
Shikamaru and Chōji kept trying to climb the tree to rescue the child.
They slid down again and again. Chōji gritted his teeth: "Shikamaru, think of something quick!"
Those were the precious kunai set Chōji's mom gave him to celebrate entering the academy—his entrance gift.
During shuriken practice earlier, he had thrown one off-target and nearly hit another child.
The rain seemed to have a will of its own, smashing down on them relentlessly, making it impossible to get a grip.
They couldn't see where to climb and gradually lost strength, sliding back down.
"Hey! What's going on here?" Naruto rushed over through the heavy rain.
"Naruto?"
Shikamaru wiped the rainwater from his face and shouted as though seeing a savior: "Perfect timing! The rain is too heavy—we can't get up at all."
"You're better at physical skills—can you help get that kid down first?"
In the class, Naruto's taijutsu was always top-tier.
He had even saved Iruka-sensei from enemies before—his strength was reliable.
Shikamaru believed Naruto could definitely save the child.
"Get that crybaby down? Leave it to me!"
Naruto confidently patted his chest.
He crouched and sprang upward, intending to jump straight up and pull out the kunai.
However, his sudden leap startled the upside-down child.
"WAAAAHHH—!!"
The crying instantly grew louder.
BOOM!
What had been heavy rain now turned into a targeted water pillar aimed solely at Naruto.
A visible torrent crashed down from the sky, smashing Naruto mid-air and pinning him to the ground.
"Cough cough… what kind of freak rain is this!"
Naruto spat out rainwater that had gotten into his mouth, looking completely bewildered: "This really isn't water release? The rain is way too intense!"
"Idiot, I already told you it's related to natural energy."
Xuanming sighed helplessly.
As the Nine-Tails, Xuanming's mind could stably sense natural energy.
The moment Naruto approached earlier,
Xuanming clearly felt the surrounding natural energy gathering and producing the rain effect.
Moreover, Xuanming could sense the child's emotions growing even more suppressed.
If he continued to be stimulated, the gathering of natural energy would soon undergo a qualitative change.
In a vision invisible to the other children, Xuanming's body floated slightly upward.
Ding.
He flicked his hand and knocked down all the kunai nailed into the tree.
Xuanming steadily caught the child by the collar of his clothes—like picking up a kitten—
and gently floated back to the ground with him.
"Eh?"
The moment Chōji noticed the kunai fall, he didn't immediately worry about his precious kunai.
Instead he realized the child was about to fall too.
He was just about to act as a human cushion when the child landed lightly like a feather.
The child also noticed the abnormality—he hadn't fallen straight down.
"Hehe."
The moment he touched the ground, he stopped crying.
Looking at the circle of people gathering around, he suddenly revealed a cute little tiger tooth and broke into a brilliant smile.
As his smile bloomed, the strange heavy rain vanished completely without a trace.
"This… it just stopped?" Ino's mouth fell open.
The children felt as though they had just been caught in some kind of genjutsu.
But the puddles still remaining on the ground told them everything had been real.
Shikamaru looked at the puddles on the ground and fell into thought.
A tattered strip of cloth also fluttered down from the branch.
Naruto picked it up and looked. On it, crookedly written in large characters:
— Weather for Sale
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