Naruto: Freeloading is Great! [26]

Winter—
The useless bum who spent the whole season shouting “I’m hibernating” and curling in his blanket actually managed to get through it.

...

Spring—
No matter what excuses that bum shouted, Sasuke and Naruto teamed up to drag him to the training ground for their daily workouts.

Seriously, what was this guy even thinking? Who the hell dreams of enrolling in the ninja academy just to graduate and become a firefighter or a mailman? Truly disgraceful.

...

A month into spring.

“Walking Wallet, brat. Our values don’t align. To avoid damaging our relationship, let’s cut ties starting today. Goodbye~”

“Stop right there!” ×2

Sasuke and Naruto, long used to this parasite doing anything to slack off, each grabbed one of Hoshino’s arms.

“You’re not leaving until you’ve trained enough to soak your clothes.”

“Hoshino, can’t you have some ambition? If you can’t think of a dream, just copy me—set your sights on becoming the Hokage!”

“You two are annoying as hell. Why must I train? Sweat day after day in the name of youth—that’s completely against my life philosophy! If crossing into another world just means living harder than I did before, then why the hell transmigrate at all? To suffer? No—I came to enjoy the lazy life!”

All day whining, ‘I want to go back to Earth, I don’t want to stay in this crappy world,’—Sasuke didn’t understand a word of it. But she knew: the lazy bastard was throwing another fit. So, practiced, she pulled shuriken from her pouch.

“If you don’t finish the reps I set today, I’ll use you as a target.”

Hoshino thought he could bully Naruto easy enough—trash against trash. But against Sasuke, who had gotten scary good at throwing weapons, he really didn’t want to see her pissed.

At some point, the damn Walking Wallet had honed deadly accuracy with shuriken. With family of elites teaching her and genius talent backing her up, of course she got that good.

Meanwhile, the other “Child of Prophecy,” Naruto—

“Don’t look at me like that! I’ll surpass you soon and catch up to Sasuke. I’m not trash!”

Hoshino ignored her. This idiot worked out daily but improved slower than his own three-days-fishing, two-days-drying routine. Instead, he brainstormed today’s excuse—fake sickness, or maybe visiting a “dying relative.”

But before he could decide, a pink-haired brat came running and yelling.

“You two against one—how shameless! Do you even have a man’s integrity!?”

The brat dashed to Hoshino’s side, standing shoulder-to-shoulder against Sasuke and Naruto.

“…Who are you? Why butt into our business?”

“Who I am isn’t important. What matters is, real men don’t gang up! If you’ve got a problem, settle it with fists in a one-on-one. That’s integrity!”

Sasuke nearly choked. Integrity? What mental hospital did this lunatic escape from? Neither she nor Naruto were even men—why act like this was some honorable duel of manhood?

“Silver-haired friend, are you okay?”

While Sasuke and Naruto gaped, the pink-haired brat flashed Hoshino a hero’s grin.

“Uh… I guess? But seriously, who the hell are you?”

“Don’t sweat the details. Our priority is to unite against those two male scumbags. If you really want my name, just call me by my nickname—Sakura-bro.”

“…Sakura-bro!?”

The name made Hoshino think of the world’s third “Chosen One.” Please, don’t tell me it’s true…

“Pink-hair, move aside. This is between us and Hoshino. Not your concern.”

“Yeah, yeah, this is between Sasuke and Hoshino. Not your concern!”

“Oi—!”

Maybe she’d spent too much time around Hoshino, but Naruto immediately sold Sasuke out, dodging all responsibility for bullying Hoshino into training. She didn’t care about Sasuke’s glare—let the capable one do more.

Watching Naruto’s shameless betrayal, Hoshino felt oddly proud. She was growing. And so—

“Sakura-bro! You’d better leave. That black-haired bastard Sasuke is not only cruel, he’s shameless. All day she bullies pitiful honest folks like me with dangerous weapons. Don’t let your hot-blood drag you into this mess.”

If it got him home faster, he’d gladly sell Sasuke out.

“Who’s always waving dangerous kunai around!? Don’t pin your crimes on me, Hoshino!”

On one side, pitiful honest Hoshino. On the other, Sasuke scowling with shuriken in hand. The “truth” was obvious.

“Don’t worry, silver-haired friend. As long as Sakura-bro still breathes, I won’t let this vicious black-haired devil run wild.”

Without giving Sasuke a chance to protest, the pink-haired brat charged and launched a fist-to-fist duel.

His fighting style was straightforward—pure taijutsu. And Sasuke, lately obsessed with only throwing weapons, immediately fell behind at close range.

Seeing Sasuke losing, her “support team” of Hoshino and Naruto…

“Hoshino, it’s noon. Time for lunch, I’m starving~”

“Me too. Let’s go eat.”

“Yay! Food~!”

With shared goals aligned, Hoshino and Naruto ignored Sasuke’s furious roars, shoulder-to-shoulder as they walked off the training ground.

Naruto wasn’t as lazy as Hoshino, but today she didn’t really want to train either.

Tomorrow was the start of ninja school. Why spend her last free day dragging a lazy bum to work out? Skipping once wouldn’t kill anyone. Plus, unlike her, Sasuke and Hoshino had families to prep supplies—she was busy enough.

“They… they’re actually leaving…!? You two bastards, stop!! You hear me!!”

“Coward who only throws weapons from afar—don’t you dare look away! If you’re a man, fight me properly to the end!”

“Who the hell wants to be a man!? Pink-haired psycho, get out of my way! I need to kill those two traitors who abandoned me!!”

“Murder? You’re threatening two lives? Then even more reason I can’t step aside. Come! If you want to continue your crimes, step over my corpse!!”

---

T/N: ...sakuro bro... also i'm getting dizzy from changing the pronouns i p[rob messed up the alst few chapters but whatevsss, HOSHINO FIGURE OUT THAT THEYRE ACTUALLY GIRLS SO I DONT HAVE TO KEEP SWITCHING PRONOUNSSSSSSSSSSSS

also childhood arc end

This is a fan translation of 火影之软饭真好吃 by 肾亏能力者 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!