Chapter 61 – Teaching Inari
Yet what happened next caught everyone off guard.
Fierce longing, the grievance of being scolded by Grandpa, and a deep-rooted hatred of Ninja all clashed inside little Inari's tiny chest.
He jerked his head up, tears in his eyes but blazing with stubborn, indignant fire, and shrieked, "Who wants your food?!"
At the same time he swung his arm hard—crack!—and slapped the wrist of Naruto, who was holding the bowl.
The wooden bowl brimming with fish soup flew from his hand, arced through the air, and sent soup and fish scattering before clattering to the floor and rolling twice.
The sudden upheaval froze the air solid.
Naruto's Classmates set down their bowls and chopsticks in unison and rose as one.
Their eyes turned razor-sharp, an invisible pressure spreading outward.
Inari's defiant, venting look felt oddly familiar to them.
Just like the clueless loudmouths at the Ninja Academy they'd beaten into submission!
"It's because you Ninja helped that Gato ran wild here!
You're all—"
Inari seemed ready to spew more rage and prejudice.
But his words cut off abruptly!
Because Naruto moved!
He bent, scooped the bowl, and in one fluid motion flicked his arm.
Thud!
A dull impact.
The dusty wooden bowl landed upside-down on Inari's head, fitting like a ridiculous helmet and covering the boy's entire head.
"What."
Naruto narrowed his bright blue eyes, voice still calm—so calm it felt chilling—yet the authority in it pressed down on Inari like a weight.
"Think I'm easy to bully just because I'm nice?"
He looked down at the kid dazed under the bowl.
"Gato hired rotten Ninja to do evil, so you write off every Ninja alive?"
Naruto's questions rang clear and forceful, hammering at Inari's heart.
"You can't beat Gato, so you throw your tantrum here.
Our tempers are better than Gato's, so you bare your fangs at us.
Just because we're the good guys, we should take your crap?"
Inari had no answer.
He wanted to pull the bowl off, but Naruto's sharp stare pinned him in place; tears finally spilled in fat drops down his cheeks.
The dull ache in his head and the chaos in his heart left him lost.
Tazuna was terrified; he dropped to his knees and kowtowed repeatedly. "Ninja-sama, please! The child doesn't know better—he's talking nonsense! Please show mercy and forgive him..."
Naruto ignored the old man groveling on the floor; his gaze seemed to pierce straight through the bowl into Inari's panicked heart.
He leaned slightly closer so his voice rang clearly inside: "Listen, kid. If you want to change the Land of Waves and your own life, start by using your head."
He tapped the inverted bowl lightly, as though tapping the boy's skull.
"Learn to tell right from wrong—see clearly who's enemy and who's friend.
Don't act like a wild cat with its tail stepped on, spraying rage and hate at anyone kind enough to lend a hand!"
His tone stayed calm, yet everyone felt an invisible pressure.
"We help because we Konoha Ninja have higher morals than rogue Ninja."
Naruto paused, stating it as simple fact.
Then his voice turned hard as seaside rock.
"But if you insist, I can lower my standards and let you see the less 'friendly' side of a Ninja."
Inari shivered at the cold beneath those calm words, instinctively stepping back into his grandfather's arms.
The unseen pressure terrified him, yet his stubborn pride kept him biting his lip, refusing to yield.
The bowl on his head was uncomfortable.
But because of Naruto, he didn't dare take it off.
"Got it?"
Naruto reached out—not to hit, but with a warning tap on the bowl, the gesture of an elder disciplining a junior.
"A clueless little thing that hisses and bites without power.
Don't think you can throw a tantrum because you're small; I'm not much older, and I don't buy it."
Gentleness and weakness are two different things.
To comrades the Fourth Hokage was warm as spring; to enemies he was cold as an abyss.
That perfect balance of mercy and awe was his hallmark.
Kakashi nodded, a look of approval in his right eye.
Watching Naruto, he saw his teacher.
'Naruto… you're the finest Ninja I've seen, second only to Sensei.'
Kakashi mused silently.
High praise, yet deserved.
Naruto's power had soared, but rarer still, after all that suffering he kept his golden heart while rapidly gaining the bearing, judgment, and decisiveness of a true leader.
Ninja his age all respected him, and Naruto was the strongest of their year.
If a Hokage were chosen from Naruto's generation, he would be the best candidate.
'Maybe… in ten-odd years he'll surpass the Fourth Hokage and become the greatest Ninja I, Kakashi, will ever see...'
The thought startled even Kakashi, yet looking at those calm, resolute blue eyes—so like his teacher's—he felt the prediction wasn't far-fetched.
"All right."
Naruto straightened, the invisible pressure lifting like a receding tide.
His tone turned sunny and bright again, as though the earlier sternness had never happened.
"So, breakfast again?"
He lifted the bowl from Inari's head, revealing the boy's tear-streaked, dust-smudged face full of fear and bewilderment.
"Don't knock it over this time."
Inari stared up at him; defiance and anger had given way to fear and confusion.
Seeing Naruto's unclouded smile and the empty bowl in his hand, he timidly nodded.
Naruto smiled as if the clash had been nothing.
He walked back to the table, refilled the same wooden bowl with steaming—though mostly broth—fish soup, and held it out steadily to Inari.
"Take it."
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