In Konoha, Naruto lies down

"Temari... has been acting strange lately." Kankuro averted his gaze, "Right, Gaara."

"Yeah." Gaara responded without raising his head and continued to read the information.

In the hallway, Temari looked towards the entrance to the first floor, her mind a bit confused. She hadn't heard his words clearly that day, but she understood what he meant.

If it was all written off, then there would probably be no more interactions in the future, right? After all, they were separated by two countries. Although the Wind Nation and the Fire Nation were allies, they didn't always run into each other at events.

She went to the bathroom and washed her face with water. The Iron Country's infrastructure was excellent, with hot water constantly flowing through the pipes. The warm water splashed on her face, and the cool breeze instantly sobered her up.

The girl in the mirror had cool white skin, the typical beauty features, and a few strands of golden hair on both sides of her face, adding a touch of tenderness and abstinence.

Temari walked out of the bathroom and stood at the window at the end of the corridor for a while, staring at the white snowy scene. She was originally the princess of Sand Village, and no matter how bad her mood was, she could handle it herself.

When she was a child, she accidentally overheard her father planning to send someone to assassinate Gaara. She was only frightened for a moment, and soon she found Gaara and took him away as usual.

Her childhood was not one of chaos, but it was also full of fear. If she had not been more assertive, Gaara might not have survived until now. Now that her father is dead, Gaara has gradually become a qualified Kage.

Things were clearly getting better, but why did I still feel so empty inside? Just like the little girl who stood behind the door seven or eight years ago and heard her father trying to kill her brother.

She kept looking forward because she could never look back. That cold family and the nightmare-like years made her subconsciously avoid it.

Just as I was daydreaming, I suddenly heard footsteps downstairs, clearly walking downstairs.

"Downstairs?" Temari's heart skipped a beat. There were only two people downstairs, and the footsteps could only be...him.

So, was he just out for some fresh air? She herself didn't know why, but ever since that time, that person's figure had taken root in her heart, and she couldn't forget him.

I'd never been in a situation like that before, and even though I was already feeling much better when I left, a year later, every time I hear news about him, I still get nervous.

Just like now, even though she had been very restrained, she couldn't bear it even when she heard the footsteps. She wanted to know Naruto's past and wanted to stay by his side.

I don't know why, even though she didn't receive much love from her parents when she was a child, she is indeed very good at loving someone and knows how to soothe someone's pain.

It's like she was born with a talent, she was born to be a big sister. It's also because of this that Gaara doesn't listen to anyone, but he will listen to Temari's advice.

So when she is kind to others from the bottom of her heart, not many people can stop her.

But it had no effect on Naruto. Temari still remembered his usual hot eyes, which looked at him with a certain scrutiny, and he ignored everyone.

But Temari was very susceptible to it. If he stared at her, she would listen to whatever he said. She just couldn't help wanting to make it up to him.

Cover his pain with tenderness, embrace all the unbearable past with your moist heart, then go all the way up along the neck and eat him in one bite.

It seems to be saying, don't reject me, let me get close to you. Look, I'm very good at loving someone, be with me, I know how to love you. Tell him with the most gentle and pious words, believe me, there is light in this world.

The Iron Kingdom was covered in snow, and the outside was as abstract as a white painting. She stood in the corridor for a long time, but finally couldn't help but go downstairs.

So the scene just now happened. When Naruto turned around, he saw Temari slowly coming down the stairs. She stopped about three or four steps in front of him, her eyes misty, and she looked up at him slightly.

"Do you still want me?"

He stared at her in surprise. His impression of Temari had been completely overturned. At first, he thought she was a bit rough, but after getting to know her, he found her to be surprisingly soft.

Some unpleasant things happened in the middle, but after so much time, my mood has long changed.

"What do you want?" He frowned.

Snow rustled down, landing on the eaves and the snow. Temari looked embarrassed, but she had no way to retreat, so she simply pressed forward.

She pressed herself against Naruto, and was not pushed away as expected. Temari looked up, feeling a little excited. She looked into Naruto's eyes, and suddenly her heart tightened, feeling like she had given up everything.

"I will be obedient and give you whatever you want. Please don't abandon me."

The inn was completely silent, though the white noise of the wind and snow was loud enough to drown out Temari's voice. The wind whistled continuously, and with a creaking sound, the branches of a nearby green tree were broken by the heavy snow.

Naruto's heart was calm, his eyes always looked the same. People who knew him well knew that whether he was staring at a tree or a dog, he would look at them the same way, not paying any attention to them.

Because I often get distracted, I stared at it for a while before I exclaimed, "Oh!" It turned out to be a tree.

He pushed Temari away and asked lazily, "Do you really want to?"

"Yeah." Temari lowered her head, and her inner tension relaxed, and her face immediately turned red. Thinking back to what she had just said, she wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

"Time is running out. We'll probably have to leave here after the Five Kage Summit ends tomorrow." As he spoke, he grabbed Temari's hand and threaded it through his fingers.

Temari couldn't bear it anymore, she squinted her eyes and panted slightly.

"Then...what should we do?"

He pulled Temari to the back of the staircase corner, where it was dark and dark, the whole space was pitch black. The wind and snow could not get in, and neither could the light.

"It's so dark here, let's go out," she said.

She didn't like being controlled by others, but if it was Naruto, she didn't mind it. It was just that Temari was naturally afraid of the dark. It was okay for a while, but she would feel dizzy if she stayed there for a long time.

"Wait a minute." He leaned closer, his voice sounding extremely taboo, with a hint of teasing. "Are you afraid of the dark? How can you be a ninja?"

"I'm not afraid, I just get dizzy if I stay here for too long," Temari said softly, her face flushed.

She had never imagined such a day would come, and she wasn't really afraid. But in this dark corner, her wish came true, and her heart suddenly felt incredibly hot.

She could feel his broad chest and the masculine body that was blowing towards her. Her neck was itchy and just when she was at a loss what to do, Naruto let her go.

"Let's go. See you next time."

Temari felt her body being pulled out and back under the eaves. The man leaned against the wooden pillar, smiling, and stared at her again.

Temari knew at that moment that she was finished and would never be able to escape from that man's control in this life.

into the night.

There was a knock on Tsunade's door.

"Come in." She said in a dull voice without raising her head.

The door opened and Naruto walked in with a midnight snack, placing it gently a little way away from the documents.

"Let's take a little rest."

Hearing this, Tsunade took a deep breath and slumped back in the chair, her eyes narrowed as she stared at the light above her head, a look of fatigue on her face.

"Rest? What's the point of rest? Tomorrow is the last chance for a meeting. Kumogakure is still as unreasonable as ever, using all these scheming tricks."

She pinched her brows and said, "First, keep finding faults and waste your energy. When the discussion is finally exhausted, take the initiative to step back and send a large amount of information to me like snowflakes."

"We only have one day, and I can't blame them. After all, they were the ones who gave in and took a step back. We can't continue tomorrow's talks until we finish reading this."

"That's really mean." Naruto sat down on the sofa opposite, "Tsunade-sama, it's really a bit too much for her not to bring Shizune-sama with you."

"Shizune has to stay in Konoha. On the one hand, the medical team is really too busy and Sakura can't take charge of the situation." Tsunade reached out and fumbled on the table for a while, grabbed the wine glass and took a sip, only to find that it was empty.

"In short, Konoha has indeed been going downhill in recent years. This is an undeniable fact. It can't be said to be in a period of transition, but it's not much better than the three major ninja villages of Iwagakure, Sunagakure, and Tsuchikage."

She struggled to get up, but Naruto stood up and pushed her back down, then slowly poured her a glass of wine.

"When a ninja village becomes powerful, doesn't it always end in war?"

"That being said, we can't let Kumogakure become too powerful." Tsunade said, "If Kumogakure hadn't already shown signs of dominating Konoha, this Five Kage Summit wouldn't have been so easy to convene."

"There is no other way at the moment. Peace in the ninja world is the general trend. We cannot let Kumogakure seize upon this and start a war."

"Kumogakure has already lost the Two-Tails, so don't worry too much." Naruto comforted him, "Who knows what will happen in the future? Peace is naturally the best."

"Yeah." Tsunade took a sip of her wine, looked at Naruto and said, "Since you're not asleep, help me organize that stack of information."

"okay."

The next day.

The meeting went smoothly, but the other four Kage, excluding the Raikage, looked less than fully prepared. Perhaps due to staying up late to read documents, Ōnoki looked as if he was about to die.

.......

A month has passed since returning to Konoha.

After escaping from the winter of the Iron Kingdom and before I could experience the autumn of Konoha, winter came in the blink of an eye.

Naruto was completely depressed. He had promised to wait for Jiraiya to return to the village, but he waited all winter and still didn't see the old man come back. I don't know if he went to the Land of Rice to find the snake-skinned monster Happy and they fell in love and hate each other, and forgot about his apprentice because of his old friend.

"Ah Qiu!" He looked at the heavy snow outside the window and shivered in the quilt.

Fortunately, Hinata and Ino would come to see him occasionally, mainly because he was such a homebody that he would never go out unless it was necessary. Especially in winter, it was almost like hibernation.

It is worth mentioning that the Nine-Tailed Fox was also afraid of the cold. It stopped hanging around on the sofa and huddled in the quilt like Naruto. It was not until Naruto asked someone to replace the heating equipment that it slowly strode out of the room.

"Aren't you going to stay here anymore?" He sneered.

"I couldn't sleep, so I just came out for a walk." The Nine-Tailed Fox jumped directly into the sofa with a hurdle jump. Its movements were smooth and natural. Naruto wanted to throw it to participate in the Olympics when he saw it.

After a while, Kyuubi turned over and saw Naruto still tinkering with the new heating equipment.

"Want to eat out today?"

"Eat, eat, eat every day. What else do you know besides eating?" Naruto glanced back at the Nine-Tails. "You're as fat as a pig. Do you still remember what breed you are?"

Ninetail turned a deaf ear to it. It could lose weight anytime it wanted, it was just a ball of energy in its body. But in the middle of winter, retaining fat would keep it warm.

The new year is approaching.

Naruto, who had nothing to do all day, took part in Konoha's winter Chunin Exam. Compared with the previous joint exams between the two countries, the Chunin Exam held by Konoha alone was much simpler.

It took him half a month to finally get the title of Chunin. Taking the exam with him was Chouji, who had missed the autumn exam and had to retake it.

The two brothers were in that group, one fat and one thin, and they were particularly eye-catching in the snow.

A week before the New Year's Festival, the Chunin uniforms arrived.

Naruto and Choji had agreed to go to the Hokage Building together, but they didn't expect Ino to come along. He smiled at the two of them and said with a gloating look.

"To celebrate the two of you finally escaping your Genin status, I'll treat you to barbecue."

"The two of us?" Naruto was stunned.

Choji pointed at Naruto with a serious face, tightened his cotton coat, and pointed at himself.

"Shikamaru, Ino, Neji, Rock Lee...even that guy Kiba is already a Chunin, and we are the only two left who are still Genin."

After receiving the Chunin uniforms, they went through the paperwork in a hurry. Ino had done it once before, and she was familiar with the route, leading the two up and down the stairs. By the time they sat down at the barbecue restaurant and looked at the menu, it was already noon.

The alley was covered in winter snow, and inside the warm barbecue restaurant, Choji felt something was amiss. He glanced up at the misty glass, then turned back to examine the two people sitting together, mumbling a question.

"Should I go home now?"

Chapter 257 New Year Festival, good things will happen

"Why go home if you have nothing to do?" Naruto leaned back in the soft chair, picked up the juice and glanced at him slowly, "After today, it will be difficult for you to see me."

"There's still a mission at this time?" Shikamaru was a little surprised, his eyes narrowed until only a slit remained.

"If there's no mission, I'll just stay home." He said shamelessly, "I'll be sixteen after the New Year. I don't want to be drafted, so I might as well just stay home."

"What kind of excuse is that?" Choji was speechless. "Are you talking about Lady Tsunade?"

"Who else but her?" Naruto looked nonchalant and reached out to grab the barbecue, but was slapped on the hand by Ino.

"Not yet." She said, then turned her head and looked at him seriously with a frown, "You can't really not participate in any tasks, right?"

"If you continue like this, not only will your jonin rating be revoked, but your chunin rating will be revoked."

"No." Naruto lay back down, looking unmoved. "No one offends me at this time. Anyway, I am..."

"Ah!!! Ino, what are you doing?!"

Ino grabbed him and glared at him, "Didn't you say that no one can offend you?"

The Konoha Prince lost his power on the spot and became weak instantly.

"I'll report to the Hokage Building after the New Year's Festival. That should be fine, right?"

"Humph."

Shikamaru ate the barbecue with a sour taste in his mouth. He didn't know what was going on between the two of them, so he simply stopped thinking about it. Seeing that the barbecue on the table was already cooked, he directly used a pair of chopsticks in each hand to eat it.

Eat these two rich guys out of business!

The three wealthy men, who were not short of money, sat in the barbecue restaurant and feasted from afternoon to evening. Naruto and Ino sat together openly, the lights above their heads shining brightly.

The two of them watched in boredom as Choji performed beyond his level, devouring plate after plate of barbecue. Until the end, Choji looked at the pile of plates and rubbed his belly with satisfaction.

"Burp, I'm full." he said.

Naruto was about to get up to pay when Ino pulled him back. He turned around and saw Ino looking at him worriedly.

"I'll pay," she said.

"Okay." Naruto sat down and made way for Ino to get up and pay.