Perhaps Naruto's laughter was a bit too loud, as even Koshiro, who was teaching his disciples in the dojo, heard it.
With a sliding sound, the guest room door was pulled open.
"Naruto-san?! How did you come back again?"
When Koshiro discovered that Naruto had disappeared from the guest room on the second day, he wasn't surprised.
Because, given Naruto's status and way of doing things, his visit to Shimotsuki Village was likely just a detour.
Since he couldn't meet his father, Kozaburo, it wouldn't be strange for him to leave the next day.
What was incredible was seeing Naruto suddenly reappear in his guest room.
And also... why the guest room?
Normally, shouldn't he enter through the front door directly into the dojo?
"Yo! Koshiro, long time no see."
When good things happen, one's spirits soar. After returning to the pirate world, even though the air composition was about the same, Naruto felt that even breathing was easier here.
There were simply too many secrets and conspiracies in the ninja world, and even the hatred he carried was shadowed by many people.
Simply put, the atmosphere there was too oppressive.
The Naruto there was the Nine-Tails jinchuriki bearing blood vengeance and the responsibility to change the world.
But the Naruto here was just a wandering hero roaming the seas.
"You jest. It's only been three days. Did you leave something behind here?"
This was the only possibility Koshiro could think of.
After hearing his words, Naruto was silent for a second, then calmly raised the "Musōkō" at his waist.
"Yes, my sword still needs maintenance and polishing."
Hearing this, Koshiro was first stunned, then smiled.
"Haha, that's right. You seemed to leave in quite a hurry last time."
Koshiro nodded, then took the Musōkō from Naruto's hands.
"In that case, if you trust my craftsmanship, you can leave the maintenance to me."
"Naturally. I believe you must have learned quite a bit from old man Kozaburo."
"Haha, speaking of which, I'm ashamed. Regarding sword forging, my talent is really too poor. I can only help with peripheral tasks like polishing and grinding."
Though he said this, Koshiro's craftsmanship wasn't as poor as his modest words suggested.
After all, the Musōkō's material was special, plus that custom blade. Without special skills, it would be very difficult to polish and maintain.
Watching Koshiro head toward the sword room with the Musōkō, Naruto stood in place for a moment.
Three days...
It seemed his guess was indeed correct.
The time intervals for traveling between the two worlds were getting longer.
From the initial seamless connection to later disappearing for one day and now three days.
Naruto didn't know how long these intervals would stretch before reaching an end.
Just as he didn't know what principle governed his "time travel."
After all, every time he traveled, it was after Naruto got drunk and lost consciousness.
Wait...
"Nine-Tails? Have you seen the process of my traveling?"
Naruto suddenly closed his eyes, projecting his spiritual consciousness into the sealed space within his body.
"Who knows..."
Kurama reluctantly muttered, seeming unwilling to answer.
This wasn't really his fault either. After all, from Kurama's perspective, the "time travel" really did happen in an instant. He couldn't figure it out either.
"Is that so? I was going to say that if you were willing to cooperate, I'd let you out for some fresh air."
"Hmph. Do you think I'd believe that?"
Seeing that Nine-Tails didn't want to pay attention to him, Naruto just pursed his lips and left the sealed space.
Kurama's feelings toward Naruto couldn't be called good, but they weren't particularly bad either.
Although he had to admit this brat did possess many peculiar qualities and was different from those other ninja who viewed him as a monster.
But after learning the truth about his parents' deaths, Naruto hadn't shown Kurama any kindness either.
However, what Naruto said about letting him out for "fresh air" really wasn't teasing Nine-Tails.
During his intimate father-son conversation with Minato last time, Minato had mentioned the seal on his body.
It was a double Four Symbols Seal, namely the Eight Trigrams Seal, performed by Minato, combined with the remaining Adamantine Sealing Chains chakra from Naruto's mother Kushina to form the seal.
He knew well that forcibly suppressing Nine-Tails' rampage had limitations.
Therefore, when Minato was still Hokage, he had studied Kumogakure's methods for handling jinchuriki.
So he actually knew about the so-called "perfect jinchuriki."
However, neither the previous jinchuriki Mito-sama nor Kushina had been able to truly achieve "breaking the cycle of hatred and establishing mutual trust."
But after personally witnessing his son's fantastical experiences, Minato felt that perhaps such a miracle might be created by Naruto.
Thus, he had advised Naruto to appropriately interact more with Nine-Tails and, even under permitting conditions, to open part of the seal.
If Naruto were just a little brat who couldn't even control his own emotions, Minato wouldn't have brought this up proactively.
However, with the current Naruto, there was some hope.
Unfortunately, just as generations of jinchuriki hadn't trusted Nine-Tails, Kurama also didn't trust Naruto.
Therefore, he had missed this rare opportunity to "get some air."
Koshiro's polishing and maintenance didn't take very long.
Naruto had only traveled back in the morning, and by afternoon his sword was already finished.
Inserting the blade, now clear as water again, back into its sheath, Naruto boarded the small boat that Shimotsuki Koshiro had kindly provided.
Although Koshiro felt somewhat puzzled by this request, he still agreed to provide a small boat.
There was no choice. Sea Cow 2 wouldn't foolishly wait around Shimotsuki Village.
In fact, it had eagerly escaped after Naruto landed on the island.
At the shore, Naruto politely declined Koshiro's invitation to stay with the somewhat inexplicable words, "If I continue staying in the East Blue, who knows who might come chasing next time?"
After watching Koshiro leave until he could no longer be seen, Naruto finally sat back down at the boat's bow.
Wait, he seemed to have forgotten something.
Right!
Naruto finally remembered.
Earlier, because of successfully scheming against Orochimaru, he had forgotten he still had a test he hadn't conducted.
Looking at the small boat's slow sailing speed under the sail, Naruto felt now was a good time.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
He wanted to summon a giant toad to pull his boat like Jiraiya-sensei. Ninja World toads should be able to swim in the sea, right?
Having no concept of the average size of Mount Myōboku toads, Naruto didn't realize at all what a dangerous thing he was doing.
Biting his finger and forming hand seals, the summoning jutsu formation deployed.
Unfortunately, this attempt wasn't successful. Naruto could feel his chakra being extracted, but the summoning seemed to be obstructed by something.
Let me try this one...
He formed hand seals again, trying to summon his other summoning beast, "Fishball."
The result was the same. The summoning jutsu formation successfully deployed, and chakra was extracted, but there was still nothing in front of Naruto.
It seemed summoning jutsu couldn't be used across worlds, at least the power Naruto currently mastered wasn't sufficient.
He clenched his fist, able to sense that vague "barrier."
It wasn't impossible, just not enough yet.
Just as Naruto was thinking about ways to improve summoning jutsu, the sky suddenly darkened.
He looked up, thinking it was suddenly drifting clouds.
But what he saw was an enormous mud clump. No, it should be said, a small island!