After several grueling weeks of trial and error, Evan finally accepted a bitter, inescapable truth.
He was, by all accounts, a disaster when it came to traditional shinobi weaponry.
No matter how many hours he spent in his courtyard until his shoulders burned and his fingers bled, the results remained the same. He would adjust his stance, refine his grip, and channel his focus into the center of the wooden training dummy, but the shuriken would inevitably wobble mid-flight, lose momentum, or clatter uselessly against the fence. Compared to the surgical precision he displayed with medical Chakra, the disparity was almost comical.
"I suppose even the System can't fix a lack of innate coordination," he muttered one evening, picking a bent shuriken out of the dirt.
So, he adapted. Evan was nothing if not practical. If he couldn't be a master of the hidden blade, he would become a master of the foundation. He restructured his life into a rhythmic, almost monastic routine.
Mornings were for the Konoha Hospital. He became a familiar, quiet fixture in the halls, a small child who carried bandages, cleaned trays, and provided the kind of low-level "Minor Restoration" that smoothed over the rough edges of a busy ward. He was the "quiet prodigy," the boy with Miko's eyes and steady hands.
Afternoons were dedicated to the "Grind." He pushed his physical conditioning to the brink, utilizing the Senju bloodline's staggering recovery rate to perform thousands of repetitions of basic movements. Push-ups, long-distance sprints around the village perimeter, and balance exercises became his new religion.
Evenings were the time for the inner world. He would sit in his darkened living room, the only light the dying embers of his charcoal heater, and refine his Chakra. It was slow, methodical work, smoothing out the flow until his energy felt less like a rushing river and more like a polished lens.
The days passed quietly—but they were far from empty.
Hinata Hyuga became a frequent, silent observer of his afternoon sessions. She would arrive shortly after her own training at the Hyuga estate, sitting a respectful distance away under the shade of a maple tree. She never interrupted his flow. She never asked for attention. She simply sat with her hands folded in her lap, her pale, lilac-tinted eyes following his every movement with a quiet, unreadable intensity.
They weren't "best friends" in the way children usually were. They didn't play games or share toys. But somewhere in the shared silence between a boy training for survival and a girl training to meet impossible expectations, a bridge was built. It was a comfortable, unspoken familiarity. Evan knew the resolve she was hiding beneath her stutter and her downcast gaze; he knew the hero she would become. But for now, he let her just be. He didn't force her out of her shell, knowing that a shell is meant to protect until the life inside is strong enough to break it.
His own progress, however, was recorded with cold, clinical accuracy on the System panel.
Most people in the ninja world gave up or plateaued because effort didn't always show immediate results. A ninja could train for a year and feel no stronger. Evan didn't have that luxury—or that curse. He could see every 0.1 increase in his constitution. He could see his Chakra reserves ticking upward like a clock. Every drop of sweat was a transaction, and the System always paid its debts.
One afternoon, while walking through the commercial district to restock his modest pantry, the peaceful hum of the village was punctured by a voice like jagged glass.
"Go away! I told you I won't sell you anything!"
The street, which had been buzzing with the mundane gossip of housewives and the haggling of merchants, fell into an artificial, suffocating silence. It was the silence of a crowd holding its breath, waiting for a tragedy to conclude.
Evan looked up.
Standing in front of a mask stall was a thin, blond boy. He couldn't have been more than four years old, yet he stood with a posture that was painfully stiff, his small hands clutching a few crumpled ryō bills. His orange-and-blue jacket was frayed at the cuffs, and his hair—a bright, defiant sun-yellow—seemed to pull the cold light of the winter afternoon.
Naruto Uzumaki.
Evan's eyes narrowed. Up close, the boy looked even more fragile than he remembered. He saw the whisker marks on the boy's cheeks, the shadows of malnutrition under his eyes, and the way he stared at the ground as the vendor's hateful words hung in the air like toxic smog.
Evan knew the history Naruto didn't. He knew about the Fourth Hokage's final wish. He knew about the beast sealed behind the boy's navel. And he knew the village's collective sin: treating a living prison like the criminal it held.
He saw the faces of the nearby civilians. Fear. Disgust. A self-righteous rejection that made his stomach turn. Some political analysts back in his old world had argued that Hiruzen Sarutobi allowed this treatment to give the village a "common enemy" to vent their grief upon. Others blamed Danzo's whispers. To Evan, standing there in the cold, those reasons were just hollow justifications for cruelty.
Hating a child didn't bring back the dead. It only ensured that the next generation would be born into a world of even deeper shadows.
Evan stopped thinking. He stopped calculating the "optimal" path or the "safest" choice.
He stepped forward, his boots crunching on the thin layer of ice covering the road.
"Hey," Evan said, his voice casual and clear, cutting through the heavy silence. "I think I forgot my wallet at the hospital today. Can you lend me some money? I'm absolutely starving."
Naruto flinched. The reaction was visceral—the flinch of a stray dog that expected a kick rather than a greeting. For a long, agonizing second, Naruto didn't look up. When he finally did, Evan saw a kaleidoscope of emotions: confusion, deep-seated suspicion, and a tiny, flickering spark of hope that was almost too painful to watch.
Naruto turned his head slowly, looking left and right as if searching for the "real" target of the question.
"Are… are you talking to me?" Naruto whispered.
"Yeah," Evan replied, walking right up to him and ignoring the glares of the surrounding adults. "Who else is standing there with money in their hand? I'm Evan. And I'm about five minutes away from eating my own sandals if I don't get some food."
Naruto hesitated, then slowly lifted his hand, revealing the crumpled bills. "I only have about four hundred ryō… the man wouldn't take it for the mask."
"Four hundred? That's plenty," Evan said, flashing a grin that didn't hold a hint of pity. "Ichiraku Ramen? I heard they just got a fresh batch of pork bone in."
Naruto blinked, his blue eyes wide. The suspicion was still there, but it was being drowned out by the sheer shock of being treated like a human being. "…You're not scared? People say… people say I'm bad luck."
Evan shrugged, turning toward the ramen shop. "I'm a medical ninja in training, Naruto. I spend all morning around blood and broken bones. If 'bad luck' was real, I'd have been hit by lightning years ago. You coming or what?"
For the first time that day, a sound escaped Naruto that wasn't a sob or a sigh. It was a laugh—short, awkward, and rusty from disuse—but it was real.
"Yeah! I'm coming! But I get the extra naruto fishcakes!"
They walked side by side toward the orange curtains of Ichiraku. Evan could feel the eyes of the village burning into his back. He could feel the whispers rippling through the crowd like a virus. He knew that by the time they finished their first bowl, a report would be on the Hokage's desk. He knew that the ANBU hidden on the rooftops and the Root operatives in the shadows were already cataloging this interaction.
But as he sat on the stool next to the blond boy and watched Naruto's face light up at the sight of a steaming bowl of miso ramen, Evan realized he didn't care about the reports.
This was the first time Naruto Uzumaki had eaten a meal with someone his own age who didn't look at him like a monster. Evan watched the way the tension left Naruto's shoulders. He watched the way the boy's steps grew lighter as they talked about nothing in particular—the weather, the taste of the broth, the annoying birds in the park.
Evan knew that this simple act of "benevolence" wouldn't show up on his System panel as a skill or an attribute point. There was no "Heal Soul" reward yet.
But as they stepped back out into the twilight, Naruto turned to him, his face glowing with a smile that could have outshone the sun.
"Hey, Evan! You're… you're actually pretty cool! We should do this again!"
Evan looked at the boy—the future savior of the world, currently just a lonely kid with a full stomach—and nodded.
"Every week, Naruto. Same time."
Evan walked away toward his quiet house, his hands in his pockets. He knew he had just stepped into the center of a geopolitical storm. He knew the "God of Shinobi" would have questions.
But he also knew that some lights were worth standing beside, even if it meant the darkness noticed you too.