Chapter 2

It had been seventeen long years since Naruto left the Hidden Leaf Village. To say anyone took immediate notice of his absence would be a lie, the truth was far more bitter.

In a bustling household filled with the laughter and chaotic energy of four prodigy children, Naruto's quiet departure went entirely unnoticed for a full week.

It started at the dinner table. Kushina would occasionally look at the empty chair, noting that her eldest son hadn't shown up for dinner again. But she and Minato simply brushed it off. They assumed he was throwing a silent tantrum or perhaps eating out late, too consumed by their other children's vibrant stories about their elite training, newly mastered jutsu, and exciting missions to truly investigate.

One week soon went into two. On the kitchen counter, the weekly ten-dollar allowance left out for Naruto began to pile up. Minato finally took notice when he saw twenty dollars sitting entirely untouched.

"Did he seriously forget his allowance?" Minato muttered to himself, a hint of annoyance in his voice. He picked up the cash and walked up the stairs to his son's bedroom. He knocked on the door.

There was no answer. Minato rolled his eyes, assuming Naruto was either sleeping in or deliberately ignoring him to hang out with whatever friends he had. Without another thought, he slid the two ten-dollar bills underneath the door and walked away.

By the time the third week arrived, the silence in the house grew too heavy to ignore. A pattern was beginning to take notice by minato and kushina.

For twenty-one straight days, Naruto had not sat down for a single family meal.

As Minato and Kushina sat together one evening, the realization began to sink into them.

They hadn't just missed him at dinner, they hadn't seen Naruto's face at all for three weeks. No breakfast, no lunch, no passing glances in the hallway. To make matters worse, another fresh ten-dollar bill sat on the table, completely abandoned.

Minato abruptly stood up from his chair, his brow furrowed. "Okay, that's it. What is going on?"

With Kushina trailing anxiously behind him, Minato marched up to Naruto's bedroom door. He knocked on the door hard. "Naruto? Are you in there? Open the door."

Silence is all that greeted them. Losing his patience, Minato twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. The room was stark and empty. Aside from the heavy furniture the bed, the dresser, and the desk, the space felt completely abandoned. A few old, generic clothes were left behind in the drawers, but what instantly caught their attention was a lone piece of paper resting dead center on the mattress.

Minato stepped forward and picked up the paper, reading the words aloud.

"To my family, I don't feel like I belong here, nor do I have a reason to stay. I need to get out into the world and find my own path."

"Oh my goodness... He left!" Kushina gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth as tears immediately welled in her eyes.

Minato stared at the note, his mind racing through a maze of panic. How long had Naruto truly been gone? If the money was any indication, he had a three-week head start at the very least. More importantly, where could he with no tracking signature and no apparent ninja skills have gone?

The response from the Hokage was swift. A massive search party of elite Anbu trackers was deployed, and missing person posters were hastily plastered across the Fire Country. But the village faced an embarrassing hurdle.

the photo on the poster was three years out of date. Naruto had been excluded from every single family portrait and official gathering for years, meaning the authorities were looking for a child who no longer existed.

A grueling month passed, yielding nothing but dead ends. No one in the immediate territories could find a trace of him. Occasionally, traveling merchants from distant lands claimed to have seen a boy fitting his description, but he never stayed in one place long enough to be caught.

The final, solid piece of evidence came from the Land of Waves. According to local reports, a mysterious rogue teenager had single-handedly helped the impoverished nation, standing against a tyrant and saving their people. In his honor, they had named their new build bridge after him, the Naruto Great Bridge. As a reward for his heroism, the grateful citizens had gifted him a sturdy sea vessel to sail across the vast, uncharted ocean.

And that was where the trail ended.

He had sailed directly into the open sea, leaving no tracks and no destination behind. For seventeen years, the horrifying thought that Naruto might have drowned alone at sea became a recurring nightmare that haunted both Kushina and Minato.

Standing by his office window and looking out over the village, Minato clenched his fists. 'Where could you have gone, Naruto?' he thought desperately. Even after nearly two decades of silence, he refused to accept the fact that his eldest son had died beneath the waves. He was out there somewhere.

To be continued...