Naruto, at five years old, had grown quite a bit taller.
Thanks to a regular sleep schedule, a well-balanced diet, and a full year of unrelenting training, he was now bigger and sturdier than most kids his age.
The constant studying had also sharpened his mind considerably—he didn't act like your average little kid anymore.
He had already mastered the Three Basic Techniques, ninja tool throwing, and taijutsu—all the foundational ninja skills—and was totally capable of using them in real combat.
Now, the once-envied wall-running stunts? Naruto could pull them off with ease.
By the standards of the Ninja Academy, he already had the strength of a Genin.
Granted, his theoretical knowledge still needed a ton of work.
But the biggest achievement in Naruto's year-long grind was the massive boost in chakra. Within just two weeks of first learning to refine chakra, he already had more than a typical Jonin.
And now? Naruto couldn't even estimate how much chakra he had anymore.
He just knew—there was a lot.
So much that he had no idea what running out of chakra even felt like.
For a five-year-old, that kind of progress in just a year was absolutely insane.
Even the Third Hokage, Grandpa Hiruzen, had praised Naruto as a genius after checking on his training progress, saying he'd definitely become an outstanding ninja in the future.
That praise made Naruto super happy.
But he didn't let it go to his head or start slacking off.
He knew he was still far from reaching his goal—becoming a ninja so strong that no one would dare underestimate him.
That's why, even now, deep into winter—
Even with snow still falling from the sky, blanketing the world in white, the freezing air biting at his skin—Naruto kept on training like usual.
He'd just finished a round of physical endurance training, and while he was resting to recover his strength, he didn't go read in the study space like he normally would.
Instead, he sat under a tree, let out a long sigh, and looked kind of troubled.
It had been a full year since he started trying to "get through" to the Nine-Tails, to stop it from messing with his chakra control—but there hadn't been much progress at all.
Since day one, Naruto had been showing the Nine-Tails a different TV drama every day. Sometimes, worried that the fox might forget the best parts, he'd even re-air old episodes just to drill it in.
Every now and then, he'd take a break from broadcasting—citing how staring at the screen too much would ruin the fox's eyesight.
And even though the Nine-Tails got annoyed every time, it never once gave in to Naruto.
TV shows were fine, but giving up on sabotaging Naruto's chakra control? No way.
That's how they ended up in a total standoff.
Naruto found this state of half-baked progress super frustrating, and the Nine-Tails wasn't exactly enjoying TV either. It was always watching in a weird, love-hate kind of agony.
"Should I just blast basketball clips at it 24/7? Set up some massive cinema-sized screen, crank the volume to the max, and make it so it can't turn it off—go full brainwash mode. If we're gonna go down, let's both go down in flames!"
Naruto suddenly remembered a hilarious video he'd watched the other day.
In that video, the creator had looped a basketball game for hours on end, watching the whole thing and filming the whole breakdown process. By the end, they were barely hanging on to their sanity.
All they could see was balls.
At first, Naruto didn't get how someone could lose their mind just watching basketball.
Then he watched the original clip out of curiosity—his eyes almost got burned out.
And that was just from one viewing.
He couldn't even imagine how that legend survived watching it for ten-plus hours. That was psychological warfare on a whole different level.
He couldn't help but feel serious respect for the guy. He really powered through all of it!
"...Forget it. That's way too cruel. I'll think of something else later."
Naruto instantly shut down the thought.
Over the past year, even though the big fox still refused to cooperate and kept letting its chakra leak all over the place...
The two of them had watched TV together nearly every day. Sometimes they even talked about the shows—sometimes agreeing, sometimes arguing.
They might not be "friends" exactly, but they were definitely familiar with each other by now.
Besides the Third Hokage, this fox was the only one Naruto saw regularly.
So really, he didn't need to go that hard on it.
After resting for a bit longer and getting his energy back, Naruto stood up and started tree climbing.
He channeled chakra into his feet and ran straight up the tree trunk from the ground.
This was a new chakra control exercise that the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, had taught him after reviewing his progress in jutsu and chakra.
Once he mastered climbing trees, the next step would be walking on water.
He'd been practicing the tree-climbing technique for three days now and could already reach the top of a tree over twenty meters tall.
With every attempt, he kept tweaking what worked and what didn't, and he was getting more and more consistent. He was nearly there.
If all went well, he'd probably complete this part of his training by tonight.
The Third Hokage had promised him that once he mastered tree climbing and water walking, he'd teach him a few powerful jutsu.
So Naruto was even more fired up than usual.
He moved smoothly up the trunk, reaching fifteen meters when his nerves kicked in.
He was almost at the top, but this was the edge of his chakra control limits.
From here on out, any slip-up could send him crashing down, so he had to stay ready to catch himself just in case.
But then—unexpectedly—he made it all the way to the top without a hitch.
"Huh? That big fox... didn't mess with me at all???" Naruto blurted out in surprise.
For Naruto, the hardest part of practicing ninjutsu and taijutsu wasn't whether he could learn it or not—it was constantly fighting off the interference from the Nine-Tails' chakra.
Only when he could successfully perform the move while resisting the fox's chakra disruptions would he count it as a win.
So after so much back-and-forth, Naruto had gotten very sensitive to the Nine-Tails' chakra.
But this time, while climbing the tree, he hadn't felt a single disturbance from the fox.
He tried again—still nothing.
Naruto's eyes lit up. Without wasting a second, he ran straight into the sealed space.