Hi folks! I’m back with the translation of the prologue to Naruto Shinden: Parent and Child Day. Here we fill in some background between chapters 699 and 700.
As always, thank you to my Patreon patrons for supporting this effort, and special thanks to Witchtimez for sending me this copy in the first place!
“Parent and Child Day?” echoed the voice of Uzumaki Naruto, the Seventh Hokage, through the cluttered Hokage’s office as he was halfway through tearing open a cardboard box and scroll. He placed the document he’d read aloud on the desk with a thud and raised his face.
He turned his eyes toward the form of the man serving as the Hokage’s advisor, Nara Shikamaru. “Yeah. It’s what we named the new holiday. It was a request from those in the new urban area.”
Doubtful despite hearing Shikamaru’s explanation, Naruto had questions. “The holiday’s name… what does it mean?”
“Who knows? I think it’s supposed to sound like a festival. The nuances of the holiday are different between us and the people to begin with.”
“Hmph…” With that halfhearted reply, Naruto looked out of the doors of the Hokage’s office. He gazed before them at the towering Hokage monument and further above it at the broad new urban area.
Over 10 years ago, before the Fourth Great Shinobi World War, the Village Hidden in the Leaves had been transformed into a literal wasteland by Pain’s assault. The buildings had been crushed, the ground carved out. The foundation of the village had been uprooted. However, something had remained standing: the Hokage monument. So long as the Hokage monument stood, so too would the Leaf. To the villagers, turning their backs on the generations of Hokage who had watched over them and revive the Leaf in a new land was unthinkable. They decided would revive the village on this land no matter the cost!
Upon those feelings they rebuilt the village and thereafter connected them to wondrous new developments. Stores that had been operating since the founding of the village changed to 24 hour everything stores and altered their appearances. Shop signs no longer came down at sunset. Steel rails spread outside the village and a long, thin steel box called the Lightning Train began to run on top them. Exchanges between other villages, which had taken days on the road, became even easier. Tall buildings were erected and now news about not just the Land of Fire, but of all countries, would stream from the tremendous monitors on their walls.
The elderly advisers had disagreed, saying, “The buildings overlooking the Hokage monument are outrageous!” but while they wanted to disregard convenience, their voices gradually fell quiet as well. The large apartments, which could hold hundreds of people, drew immigrants to the village, and the talk of the town was that non-shinobi now outnumbered shinobi. At the academy from which Naruto had graduated, the era necessitated the establishment of a general curriculum to overcome the shortage of the shinobi curriculum. It was proof peace had arrived, however, and that was that. The Village Hidden in the Leaves quit hiding and became a metropolis of the Land of Fire.
Naruto and the others had come to call the land with high rise buildings stretched across it the new urban area. This was just a matter of convenience, of course. To the Leaf, there was no difference between the new and the old. For example, though the citizens in the new urban area outnumbered the shinobi, all villagers were equally family to Naruto.
For whatever reason, many differences emerged between the life cycle of shinobi and non-shinobi villagers. One difference was holidays. The shinobi world was unstable and inconsistent. It had nothing like regular work hours, so taking specific days off was difficult. Thus, a holiday to shinobi was “A day where you don’t happen to have a mission.” There weren’t many shinobi who could consider special holidays without knowing when they were coming.
However, to non-shinobi, a holiday was “A day when you rest your bones that comes periodically.” They had asked for a holiday for one week where they could rest and have some sort of commemoration. This was the matter of the current situation.
“Well, having the day on the calendar just be red is kinda lonely.” Naruto grabbed the Hokage’s seal. “It’s okay for it to have a name, right? There’s no reason to dispute it.” He stamped the documents in his hand with a thud.
“It’s settled.” Shikamaru immediately took the documents in hand and tossed them into the “Approved” box. With that, the Village Hidden in the Leaves had established Parent and Child Day.
“... But what kind of day... is Parent and Child Day, specifically?”
“According to the application, it seems to be a day for deepening the bonds between parents and their children. It’s a broad definition, but I think the bones of it are parents and children enjoying themselves while going shopping and taking trips together and such.”
“The bonds between parents and their children… huh?”
A shadow fell over Naruto’s expression. His two children were on his mind. Boruto and Himawari. When the hell was the last time he had spent parent-child time with them?
“Well, let’s do some family service too.” Sympathizing with that, Shikamaru’s voice had intentionally become bright. “Take it easy at home for a change. Even when you do manage to get home you do nothing but sleep and you want to be able to talk well with your kids, right? Let’s make the schedule convenient; I’ll help you out.”
“Shikamaru… Heheh, thank you.” Though Naruto and Shikamaru were smiling brightly, their gazes gradually lowered to the floor. There lay a mountain of documents fallen from the desk, scattered enough to obscure the floor design.
“... We’ll make it convenient, right?” Emptiness blended into Shikamaru’s voice.
“Yeah.” Naruto’s response was encouraging. “Parent and Child Day… I think it’ll be good. I’ll go home and show them no matter what!”
Finally some time off for our hero.
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