"Before answering your question, let me ask you one," Naruto chuckled softly. "Why is it that Naruto always succeeds with talk no jutsu?"
Sakura's expression stiffened slightly. "Because... he's the protagonist?"
"Bingo," Naruto nodded. "When we first watched the original work, at first glance, Naruto's words sounded very infectious, and the anime even interspersed flashbacks with emotional BGM, but in reality, his words don't hold up to scrutiny."
"However, transmigrators like us are different. We know the personalities, weaknesses, and abilities of the main characters, and we can completely prescribe the right medicine for the illness."
"This talk no jutsu targeting Kakashi was just an attempt, and the results proved that the plot's trajectory can be changed, and the potential of talk no jutsu is infinitely huge!"
Hearing this, Sakura nodded. "This is equivalent to playing Dark Souls on a multi-playthrough speedrun, taking the unorthodox route to exploit NPC bugs, and getting quest rewards in advance."
"...Uh, pretty much. Anyway, from now on we need to use talk no jutsu more often, but at the same time ensure that the plot's trajectory doesn't undergo major changes, maintaining the transmigrators' information advantage."
"Good idea. But the main cast might change because of your talk no jutsu, and besides, you have to be careful that there might be other Earthlings who transmigrated too."
"Understood. Over the next few days, we'll just casually tag along on some D-rank missions. Once the Land of Waves arc triggers and we head out, we'll know instantly if there are any other transmigrators."
Bidding farewell to Sakura, Naruto returned home and crossed his legs to prepare to enter his Mind Space.
It was time for him to have a talk with Comrade Nine-Tails.
With his eyelids tightly closed and his consciousness sinking downward, Naruto could clearly feel a significant change in the space around him, and this time, his perception seemed to have become even sharper.
He opened his eyes.
"My control over this space seems to have grown a bit stronger," Naruto whispered softly, taking a step forward, suddenly advancing quite a few paces.
Could this be considered a cheat code for coming to this world?
Naruto walked briskly, the space on either side of him retreating at lightning speed.
He soon arrived at the massive iron gates in front of Nine-Tails.
Unlike before, a pair of crimson eyes larger than Naruto's entire body were staring straight at him, seeming to sense Naruto's arrival.
"Have you considered it?" Naruto looked calmly at Nine-Tails.
"U-zu-ma-ki Na-ru-to," Nine-Tails chewed on Naruto's name. "Few are like you, utterly weak yet utterly arrogant."
As it spoke, the human speech coming from its mouth vibrated in the air, resembling a small earthquake.
"Tsk tsk tsk," Naruto shook his head. "You really know nothing about me. To put it bluntly, just suppressing this space alone cost me half of my chakra, and even so, I can still summon thousands of Shadow Clones."
Nine-Tails sneered. "Just the innate abilities of the Uzumaki clan. Nothing special, and yet you still need to borrow my power."
"Wrong," Naruto shook his head again. "I didn't come this time to make a deal with you, but to inform you..."
Naruto paused for a moment and said, "You are temporarily of no use right now."
"You'd better just honestly stay locked up by me for a while."
Nine-Tails fell silent for a long time. The surrounding space did not become quiet as a result; instead, it began to faintly show signs of shattering!
Wisps of blood-red chakra began to slowly overflow from the doorway, flowing toward Naruto.
"Kid, you don't actually think you're invincible just because you passed one test, do you?!" Nine-Tails's mouth split open, revealing its menacing gums.
"Now I'll show you just how vast the gap between you and me really is!"
Showing no fear whatsoever, Naruto merely stretched out his right index finger, waved it left and right at Nine-Tails, and then abruptly pulled his consciousness upward.
In the blink of an eye, Naruto's consciousness leaped out of the Mind Space like a fish leaping out of a pond.
The surrounding environment transformed back into the appearance of his home.
Damp sweat soaked through Naruto's shirt. He jumped down from the bed and took several deep breaths in a row.
Lightly stroking his pounding heart, Naruto laughed heartily, "I feel like my megalophobia is about to act up."
To be honest, he was still somewhat unaccustomed to dealing with such a colossal Nine-Tails.
This could only be left to time, gradually achieving desensitization through high-frequency conversations.
On the other hand, however, Naruto was quite satisfied with his current progress.
Why not accept Nine-Tails's chakra just now? For one thing, that chakra contained too many negative emotions; for another, he needed to devalue Nine-Tails through this repeated tug-of-war.
In other words, PUA.
Naruto was an expert at this! Back in his past life grinding company dungeons, the leadership would often use reasons like "your seniority is too shallow," "insufficient innovation," and "family background not as good as your peers" to "encourage" him to make up for the gap with his colleagues through unpaid overtime.
All total bullshit!
Some 985 graduates who joined during the autumn recruitment couldn't even use Excel properly, yet he still had to hold their hands and walk them through the work to ensure tasks were finished on time.
But in the process, he grasped the true meaning of PUA.
As long as you constantly belittle others, dragging them down to a level similar to your own, then you have value.
Just like that bald leader of his.
Now, he needed to constantly downgrade Nine-Tails's value. Only by doing so could he pull Nine-Tails down to a level comparable to his own, allowing subsequent negotiations (and freebies) to proceed smoothly.
In the evening, Naruto went to Ichiraku Ramen to sort out his meal. He found that Old Man Teuchi's ramen was captivating him more and more; just thinking of the aroma of the chashu made his mouth water.
Could there be some Ootsutsuki drug hidden in the chashu?
After eating his fill, he wasted no time heading to the training ground and began practicing Shurikenjutsu.
Naruto was well aware that at the current stage, his chakra had to be used to suppress Nine-Tails, so practicing new jutsus would yield half the results with double the effort.
He would add the Rasengan to his curriculum after a while.
Interestingly, he also ran into Sakura at the training ground, who was tinkering with some new jutsu he couldn't understand.
Sakura didn't invite Naruto to train with her, instead finishing her training on her own.
"Another grindset maniac," Naruto muttered as he continued his practice.
Deep down, he grew more and more curious about the true identity inside Sakura's shell.
Well, to this day Naruto still couldn't be certain whether she was a genuine girl or a deceitful femboy.
Just like that, a period of time passed.
Naruto's life began to fall into an increasingly regular routine: completing low-rank missions, training, studying, and repeating this as a cycle.
He began making time to visit the library, relearning some theoretical knowledge of shinobi to fill the original owner's empty brain with knowledge.
And on certain late nights when Naruto couldn't sleep, he would enter the Mind Space to heart-to-heart with Nine-Tails.
It was mostly the same old PUA rhetoric, infinitely belittling Nine-Tails's abilities while refusing to borrow even a single drop of its chakra, ticking the latter off to no end.
Nine-Tails became increasingly eager to prove itself, but Naruto paid no attention to that.
Sometimes when he got annoyed with training, he would flash-dive into his mental space, lecture Nine-Tails with bureaucratic jargon, and then flash right back to reality.
Hah, refreshing!
And amidst this peaceful daily life, two unpeaceful events occurred.