After giving a few brief instructions, the Third Hokage left behind this month's living expenses and departed.
Naruto instinctively touched his stomach.
The pain was gone.
In its place lingered a strange, gentle warmth.
"Dad?" he whispered.
A moment later, an impatient snort echoed in his mind.
"Don't make noise this early in the morning."
Naruto broke into a wide grin, revealing a front tooth missing from his smile.
He scrambled off the bed and dragged out a rusty tin can from beneath it.
Carefully, he placed most of the money the Third had left inside, keeping only a few bills in his hand.
"I'm buying milk today!"
Naruto announced happily.
"Big Brother Iruka said drinking lots of milk helps you grow taller!"
Through Naruto's eyes, Madara surveyed the shabby room—peeling walls, moldy tatami mats, a dead potted plant on the windowsill.
Even the most destitute Uchiha during the Warring States period wouldn't have lived in a place like this.
"Hmph. Has Konoha fallen this far into poverty?"
As Naruto pulled on his last orange jacket, he tilted his head.
"Because I'm a monster. That's what everyone says."
There was no malice in his tone.
Yet for some reason, a fire flared inside Madara's chest.
The moment the grocery store owner spotted Naruto, she grabbed a broom.
"Get out!"
She swung it hard against his back.
"I haven't even settled accounts with you for stealing soy sauce last time!"
Naruto covered his head as coins clattered from between his fingers onto the ground.
"I didn't steal it! That was Grandpa Third—"
"Liar!"
The broom slammed into his knee.
Naruto staggered and fell out of the shop.
Nearby villagers sneered. Someone deliberately spat near his feet.
Watching through Naruto's eyes, Madara's expression remained cold—but his hands clenched unconsciously.
He had seen his clansmen die beneath Senju blades.
He had seen children torn apart by enemy shinobi.
But never this.
This dull, grinding malice—
like cutting flesh with a blunt knife.
Especially when directed at a defenseless child.
"Kill them," Madara said icily.
"One Fire Release would—"
"It's okay!"
Naruto suddenly shouted.
Whether he was comforting Madara or himself, even he didn't know.
He climbed to his feet, brushed off his pants, and bowed to the shopkeeper.
"Sorry for bothering you!"
Madara stared as the blond child crouched down to gather the scattered coins—
even fishing one out from the gutter.
What shocked him even more—
Naruto was smiling when he turned around.
"The grandpa in the next block will sell me milk," Naruto explained quietly.
"It's just… a little more expensive."
Madara found himself recalling why he and Hashirama had founded Konoha in the first place.
Wasn't it so children wouldn't suffer?
So they could grow up laughing beneath the sun?
Yet this child—living in a so-called peaceful era—
was enduring no less pain than children of the Warring States.
At dusk, Naruto sat on a swing, sipping the hard-earned milk in small gulps.
A large bruise darkened his knee.
He'd been shoved down a staircase by a few older kids earlier that afternoon.
"They didn't mean to," Naruto said, swinging his legs.
"I just lost my balance…"
"Stupid," Madara cut in.
"That was obviously intentional. In the Warring States era, you'd have fought back."
Naruto blinked.
There wasn't the slightest trace of resentment in his clear blue eyes.
"Why?" he asked.
"Wouldn't it be better if everyone was happy?"
Madara didn't answer.
He was reassessing this vessel—
no, this child.
Everything he'd witnessed today made one thing clear:
Being the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki brought Naruto more than loneliness.
It was a slow, grinding death.
And yet—this idiot child could still grin at the setting sun.
"Listen, kid," Madara said suddenly.
"Starting tonight, I'm going to teach you some things."
Naruto's eyes lit up.
"Really? Dad's going to teach me ninjutsu? Like the ones on the Hokage Rock—"
"Shut up and listen."
Madara's voice carried unquestionable authority.
"What I'll teach you isn't children's play ninjutsu."
"It's how to survive malice—
the way a true Warring States shinobi survives."
Under the moonlight at an abandoned training ground, Madara appeared as a phantom visible only to Naruto.
His body glowed faintly blue and translucent, long hair stirring in the night breeze.
"First, remember three iron rules."
Madara raised three fingers.
"First—always assume everyone is an enemy.
Second—all food must be checked for poison.
Third—when you sleep, keep one-third of your awareness awake."
Naruto nodded, half-understanding, then sneezed.
Night dew soaked his tattered jacket, but his eyes shone brilliantly.
Madara frowned at the child's frail frame and suddenly changed his mind.
"Tonight, we start with the basics."
"How to fall."
"Huh?" Naruto looked confused.
"I already know that! Today I even—"
"What you do is falling, not a tactical ground entry."
Madara sneered.
"Watch carefully."
The next second, Naruto felt his body taken over by an unfamiliar chakra.
His right hand shielded the back of his neck automatically.
His left leg bent to absorb impact.
He fell backward in a strangely fluid motion, rolled twice across the ground, and instantly rose into a crouch.
"W-What was that?!" Naruto stared at his hands.
"Uchiha-style Ukemi," Madara said with faint pride.
"You can fall from a ten-meter tree and walk away uninjured."
For the next two hours, Naruto repeatedly fell, rolled, and stood up.
His clothes were caked in dirt.
New scrapes joined the old ones on his knees.
Yet his smile only grew brighter.
"Dad, you're amazing!"
Naruto cheered as he climbed to his feet yet again.
"Now it won't hurt even if I get pushed down!"
Madara froze.
He had intended to teach damage mitigation against enemy shinobi—
But what this child thought of was that.
"…Tomorrow, I'll teach you how to identify poison," Madara said abruptly.
"For now, go back and sleep."
On the way back to the orphanage, Naruto limped—but walked with excitement.
Passing a brightly lit shop, he suddenly stopped.
Reflected in the window were two figures—
A small blond boy, and a faint blue phantom floating behind him.
Naruto secretly reached out to grab Madara's sleeve—
His hand passed straight through the translucent chakra.
"Dad… do you get cold too?" he asked suddenly.
Madara looked at the bruised, battered child who still worried about others—
and at last understood Hashirama's way of thinking.
Perhaps that naïve idealist had grasped one truth long ago:
In endless war, the first thing lost is always a child's smile.
"Idiot," Madara murmured.
Yet he pressed a hand of chakra gently against Naruto's shoulder.
"Walk faster. It's going to rain."
Indeed, a fine drizzle began to fall from the night sky.
Watching Naruto's hopping silhouette, Madara felt—for the first time—
something strange stir within this absurd "father-and-son" relationship.
Deep within the seal, the Nine-Tails watched with one eye open, silently contemplative.