The first matter was Sasuke joining in.
He still vividly remembered Naruto's remarks from that day. After completing a few D-rank missions together, he repeatedly caught Naruto practicing Shurikenjutsu at the training ground.
What a coincidence! He was himself a Shurikenjutsu expert, heavily influenced by his older brother (at least compared to their peers).
Therefore, the next time Sasuke happened to glance at Naruto practicing, he awkwardly pointed out a flaw in Naruto's technique.
Naruto instantly perked up.
Oh? So Mr. Cool Guy is stepping in to coach now, is he?
"Why should I listen to you? Is your Shurikenjutsu supposed to be that impressive?" Naruto stuck out his tongue, questioning Sasuke's abilities.
Not far away, Haruno Sakura paused her own training with great interest and pulled up a chair to watch the drama unfold.
"Several of your movements were wrong. Throwing them like that has no killing power."
"Hard to say. If the heartthrob Mr. Sasuke threw them that way, maybe they'd have killing power after all."
"What did you say?!"
Sasuke instantly bristled.
"Unless you demonstrate it for me, I won't buy it." Naruto sat cross-legged on the ground, gesturing for Sasuke to begin his performance.
Sasuke forcefully suppressed the anger rising in his chest, pulled out a string of kunai, and hurled them all in one fierce motion, dead-center into the bullseyes of several wooden posts ahead.
"Sasuke-kun is pretty amazing, huh~" Sakura clapped, playing the supportive role.
"Hah? I couldn't even see clearly before he threw them, doesn't count, doesn't count." Naruto waved his hand.
Veins popped on the back of Sasuke's hand: "If you've got the guts, give it a try!"
"No way, no way, isn't this falling right into a self-proving trap?" Naruto leaped up and said with a grin, "How about this, let's both do it and compare our scores."
"You're on!"
A moment later.
"This doesn't count. Just now, you standing there right next to me messed up my momentum," Naruto said with a shrug.
"Hah, it's clearly your grip on the kunai that's wrong. You need to pinch the bottom, pull your arm back to build force, and your whole body has to rotate along with it."
"Blah blah blah." Naruto gave a perfunctory reply on the outside, but in his heart, he memorized every single point Sasuke mentioned.
"I'll only admit defeat if you do it again—tch, whatever, you'll probably just keep bugging me anyway, boring."
"Naruto, you...! Again!"
Sakura held back her laughter, watching the two of them continuously throw kunai while committing the key points to memory as well.
"Your force is too strong, in actual combat it'll definitely fly right past the target."
"Look at the wind direction; when it's a headwind like this, you have to increase your throwing force."
"Don't keep your waist and shoulders stiff; you need to drive your whole body to generate power."
"..."
Before they knew it, an entire afternoon had passed.
"You actually sound like you make a sliver of sense," Naruto said, pinching his right hand to indicate a tiny margin: "I've grown by maybe one ten-thousandth."
Sasuke turned his head away, looking as if he didn't want to speak to Naruto ever again.
In truth, however, this had been the most fulfilling afternoon he had experienced in a long time.
It had been ages since he had spoken this much with someone his own age.
Moreover, as he repeatedly corrected Naruto's form, Naruto's throwing accuracy gradually improved, a process that unexpectedly brought him a sense of accomplishment.
It was as if an educator's halo had been unlocked, leaving Sasuke somewhat hooked for a moment.
The second day. The third day.
Sasuke would occasionally "run into" Naruto training, and then, under the pretext that he couldn't bear to watch, start finding fault with Naruto's methods.
During this period, Sasuke and Sakura were also rapidly growing alongside him.
Sometimes, Sakura would go to the small store to buy three bottles of water, occasionally pulling double duty as the errand girl who picked up dropped kunai.
Naturally, Naruto and Sasuke still spent most of their time bickering.
The unspoken teamwork among the three of them continued to improve. According to Naruto's own estimation, the combat strength of the Team 7 trio had already far surpassed their counterparts at the same point in the original story.
As for the second matter, it was quite interesting to talk about.
Ever since Sasuke started training with Naruto and Sakura, his inherent popularity drew some of their peers to stop and watch.
Most of them were girls who had a secret crush on him.
After all, previously, Sasuke-kun would always find some deserted spot to train by himself after finishing a mission.
Nobody ever knew where he was.
Aside from the young girls secretly crushing on Sasuke, some boys passed by as well, and their attention was quickly captured by Haruno Sakura.
This Sakura, hailing from Chuanyu, had a personality completely different from the original owner. After transmigrating, she completely cut out recreational activities like reading manga and browsing flower shops, throwing herself body and soul into her training.
In her own words, this was known as a solo player farming mobs in a starter zone to grind levels; once her abilities were strong enough to run high-level dungeons, the sheer gratification would be off the charts.
Naruto remarked that this was basically a high-ranked player going into a bronze lobby just to smurf...
And immediately earned a strike to the back of the head from Sakura, leaving a bump the size of a basketball.
Yes, her brute strength was growing at a terrifying pace.
And thus...
An Uzumaki-era Sakura—one who habitually tied her hair in a high ponytail, didn't shop, didn't perm her hair, didn't talk back unnecessarily, possessed no cheat abilities, threw herself heart and soul into training, and relied purely on skill and raw strength—burst onto the scene!
Even Ino temporarily put aside her "Plot to Win Over Sasuke" agenda, starting to worry if Sakura had taken the wrong medicine lately.
Sakura's reply was extremely concise:
"Don't disturb my grinding."
This uncompromising attitude quickly captured the hearts of quite a few young boys.
Mind you, your Sister Sakura had once been the target of Lee's ardent pursuit; her looks were definitely top-tier.
It was just that the original owner's absurdly obsessive love-brain in the early stages, combined with poking fun at Naruto being an orphan only to get roasted by Sasuke, had squandered a lot of her public goodwill.
And just like that, Sakura began attracting the pursuit of some male peers.
At first, out of politeness, she politely declined all the boys' kind intentions.
Later on, stubborn guys began staking out the entrance of Sakura's house, offering her warm regards every single day.
Sakura was tormented past her limit, her patience on the verge of exploding.
Eventually, to completely put an end to this endless pursuit, she picked a bright and sunny day, casually walked up to a random boy, and asked:
"Do you have any smut?"
"Huh?"
The boy was dumbfounded. Meanwhile, Naruto, who was eating watermelon on the sidelines, was completely floored as well.
"Do you have any smut?" Sakura asked again.
"I, I do," the boy racked his brains, deciding to just play along with Sakura's prompt.
He couldn't help but mentally conjure up some R-rated scenes, the kind that would never pass review on Qidian...
"You do, right?" Sakura nodded.
"If you do, hurry up and go read it. Chatting with you is genuinely annoying."
The boy turned to stone on the spot.
Naruto thought to himself, *Holy mother of god*, then hurriedly slapped both hands over his mouth to muffle his wild, hysterical laughter.
Congratulations, this young bro is now fully qualified to transmigrate into *Lord of the Mysteries* and consume the Clown potion!
This earth-shattering remark instantly spread far and wide. Consequently, Haruno Sakura was slapped with the label of "sharp-tongued," and the boys who had originally planned to pursue her promptly shrank back and called it quits.
During this time, some scummy guys even started spreading malicious rumors about Sakura's love life. When Naruto heard about it, he thought *as expected of the Land of Japs*, then dragged Sasuke along and beat all of those guys to a pulp.
Time flew by.
Today, Team 7 accepted a mission to help a VIP catch a cat.
According to the plot, Naruto would throw a huge fuss after completing the mission, and then the Third Hokage would smoothly let them take on the escort mission to the Land of Waves.
Before setting off, Naruto greeted Sakura.
"We're about to run the Land of Waves dungeon," Naruto tidied his ninja tool pouch, then added:
"I've observed things during this period, and there hasn't been a single sign of any other transmigrators here in Konoha."
"The logical deduction is that aside from the two of us, there shouldn't be any other transmigrators. Well, honestly, I feel like there aren't any others at all."
Sakura didn't reply. She merely rubbed her eyes.
Her right eyelid had been twitching nonstop just a moment ago.