"You're Hinata from the village, right?" Naruto asked, like he was only confirming something he already knew.
The answer had been obvious from the start. Those distinctive pale eyes, and the cruel things those kids had shouted earlier, already told him everything.
Besides, Naruto already knew who she was.
Hinata gave a tiny nod. Her fingers were still twisting the hem of her coat as she answered in a voice so soft it was nearly swallowed by the falling snow. "Y-yes."
Seeing how timid she looked, something in Naruto's chest softened for no clear reason.
He planted his hands on his hips, puffed out his chest, and struck the most dependable pose he could manage.
"Listen! If anybody dares to bully you again, come find me!"
He flashed her a thumbs-up, then jabbed a finger proudly at his own chest. His grin was bright and full of confidence, the kind that made even impossible promises sound real.
"I'll get justice for you. I never go back on my word. That's my ninja way!"
That simple, burning promise was like a current of warmth cutting straight through Hinata's fear.
Instinctively, she wanted to decline out of politeness. The words "I couldn't trouble you" almost reached her lips.
But when she looked at the blond boy who had appeared like a hero and stood in front of her without hesitation, and felt the sincerity in every word he said, those polite refusals quietly dissolved before she could speak them aloud.
A faint blush crept onto her cheeks.
She lowered her head again, and when she spoke this time, her voice was still soft, but it carried a warmth gentler than before. "Th-thank you."
"No problem!"
Naruto waved a hand, his answer coming out even more clearly than before, firm and impossible to mistake.
"I'm going to become Hokage!"
He paused, like he was declaring the most natural truth in the world, then continued with the same straightforward conviction.
"I absolutely won't let anybody bully the people in the village. Protecting everyone in the village is the Hokage's duty, isn't it?"
Naruto's blue eyes shone with a stubborn, idealistic light, but beneath that boyish passion was a clarity that didn't belong to a child his age.
"And if someone bullies a villager for no reason, then even if that person is from the village too, that's still wrong. Totally wrong. In my opinion, somebody who hurts their own people isn't one of us anymore until they really repent."
He clenched a fist as though making a solemn vow to the entire world.
"So if anyone gives you trouble, make sure you tell me. I'll help you. I'll drag those idiots back onto the right path if I have to."
The reasoning was simple—direct enough that a child could understand it—but it carried a strange, earnest sense of justice that went straight to Hinata's heart.
She slowly lifted her head and looked at the boy standing there in the snow. For the first time, the distant, blurry concept of "Naruto" became something warm and real in her eyes.
Over the years, Naruto had gotten very used to acting the part of a bright, optimistic Uzumaki Naruto—loud, sunny, desperate for acknowledgment—under the constant watch of the ANBU placed around him by the Third Hokage.
At first, those fiery declarations about protecting the village and inheriting the Will of Fire had been carefully crafted performances, words spoken for the ears hidden in the dark. Survival demanded that much.
But habits were frightening things. Once you said something often enough, once you wore a mask long enough, it stopped feeling like a mask at all.
Naruto would never believe in the version of the Will of Fire that had been revised and polished after the Second Hokage's death.
Under the Third Hokage's rule, even children could be sent to the battlefield. That reality had already strayed too far from the First Hokage's original dream of building a place where the young would never again be sacrificed so easily.
And yet, standing here in front of this girl—this shy, trembling girl who had thanked him with all the sincerity in her heart—Naruto found that, at least in this moment, he wanted to believe every word he had just said.
"O-okay… okay."
Hinata's answer was barely louder than the snow falling around them.
But Naruto's declaration about becoming Hokage, about protecting people, had already settled inside her heart like a small seed of warmth buried deep in winter. Looking at him now, standing there with golden hair bright against the white world, she felt as though he truly was glowing.
"Heh-heh!"
Naruto planted his hands on his hips again, enormously pleased by her response, and broke into a broad grin that showed two neat rows of teeth.
Against the snowy backdrop, his smile looked dazzling.
Unfortunately, it only lasted a few seconds.
A loud, embarrassing gurgle suddenly rose from his stomach, so clear in the quiet alley that it seemed to echo.
Naruto's laugh stopped on the spot.
He reached up and scratched at his bright blond hair, trying and failing to look natural.
He really was hungry.
Today's training had taken a lot out of him, and by now it was already close to lunchtime. Whatever little food he had left in his stomach had long since burned away.
But in the next instant, his eyes lit up and he clapped his hands as if he had just come up with the best idea in the world.
He looked at Hinata and offered in an eager, almost glowing voice, "Haha… well, since it's almost noon, and it's still freezing out here…"
He pointed up at the gray sky, where snow still drifted down in lazy clusters, trying his best to make the invitation sound casual.
"How about we go get a bowl of hot ramen together? I know this place called Ichiraku Ramen, and it's seriously amazing!"
Before Hinata could even gather enough courage to refuse, Naruto had already reached out, caught her hand, and started pulling her along in excitement toward Ichiraku Ramen.
***
At almost the exact same moment Naruto dragged Hinata happily through the snow toward Ichiraku, several hidden figures beneath eaves and behind winter-bare shrubs exchanged silent glances from the shadows.
Without saying a word, one ANBU wearing a cat mask blurred into motion like a wisp of smoke, vaulting across the snow-covered rooftops and heading straight for the Hokage Tower at full speed.
Meanwhile, in the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi sat upright behind his desk with a pipe in one hand. Thin white smoke rose lazily from the bowl, curling through the still air.
The crystal ball in front of him reflected everything with perfect clarity through the Telescope Technique.
Naruto hurling the first snowball.
Naruto's sharp, ringing declaration.
Naruto's bright, guileless smile when he invited the Hyuga heiress out for ramen.
By the time the ANBU operative arrived, knelt on one knee, and gave a concise report, the Third Hokage had already seen it all for himself.
Hiruzen merely gave a small nod, his eyes never leaving the crystal ball. In their depths was a thread of satisfaction so faint most people would have missed it entirely.
"Very well. I understand. You may go."
The ANBU vanished as quietly as they had come, leaving the office to sink back into silence.
Hiruzen slowly exhaled another stream of smoke. It drifted upward in pale coils, then thinned into nothingness.
Today, Naruto's performance had aligned with his expectations almost perfectly.
If anything, the boy had exceeded them.
He was cheerful and bright. More importantly, he had begun to show an instinctive desire to protect those around him, along with a clear and healthy sense of duty toward the idea of "protecting the village."
Those qualities were exactly what Hiruzen had hoped to nurture.
And yet, amidst that satisfaction, another detail in the crystal ball pricked sharply at his conscience.
Naruto's winter coat was plainly too short. The cuffs no longer covered his wrists, and the hems at his ankles rode up enough to let the cold in without mercy.
When that image was paired with the ANBU's long-standing reports—that the villagers, by and large, still rejected all contact with the Nine-Tails jinchūriki—the most charitable assumption vanished at once.
This was not a child being careless. This was something colder.
"Those clothes are all too small for him, and no one's even replaced them…"
Hiruzen thought it absently at first, only for the real meaning to arrive a heartbeat later like a stone dropping into water.
No. It wasn't that the boy didn't know he should replace them.
It was that the shopkeepers simply refused to sell to him.
The realization brought on a familiar headache, threaded through with helplessness and a faint, stubborn guilt he could never quite shake off.
He lowered his pipe and tapped the bowl lightly against the hard edge of the desk, knocking loose a small fall of ash as though he could shake free the weight in his heart as easily.
In the end, he made a decision.
Then let Naruto's monthly allowance be increased.
At the very least, the child should have enough money for food, clothing, and daily necessities. He was old enough now to start making friends, too. A little extra spending money would not be inappropriate.
Hiruzen's gaze lingered on the image in the crystal ball as the thought continued to take shape.
Tonight, he would personally bring Naruto a winter coat that actually fit.
On the surface, it would simply be a matter of delivering proper clothing.
But beneath that, it would serve several purposes at once: improving the child's immediate situation, affirming what Naruto had done today by standing up for a companion, and deepening the bond between them in a way that might strengthen Naruto's sense of belonging to Konoha.
Outside the office window, the snow continued to fall over the village in silence.
And far away from the Hokage Tower, Naruto was still hurrying Hinata toward a bowl of steaming ramen, completely unaware that, in the eyes of the old man watching from above, today had become a quietly satisfying day indeed.