This was it.
Finally, all those hours of training, going on missions, and fighting off a giant sand tanuki, a psychotic preschool teacher, an overly-pessimistic ninja with x-ray vision, a boney ballet dancer dude, and various other health hazards... It was all finally going to pay off. In just a few minutes, his Anger level would be high enough to take down Sasuke in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, all he had to do was let his duck-butt-haired friend-enemy talk his time away, keeping him distracted from actually attacking. Just a few minutes more before he'd go into Fox Mode, pull out the fully-upgraded Ultimate One-Handed Kyūbi Rasengan and–
"NAMIKAZE-UZUMAKI NARUTO, I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO TELL YOU AGAIN! GET YOUR SCRAWNY RUMP TO THE DINNER TABLE THIS INSTANT!"
Naruto jerked back from the computer screen, his intense focus broken.
Crap! The last save point was back before Sasuke had even been kidnapped! There was no way he was going to redo all that over again now that he was in the Final Battle! It just wouldn't be the same! No, he couldn't quit now. He would have to stall for time...
"Mooooooooooommm! Just five more minutes, pleeeeease?"
He just needed to put his nemesis below 10% health without killing him in order to successfully complete his mission to rescue Sasuke and earn the achievement "Friendshippu no Jutsu," the most difficult-to-obtain accolade in the game, at which point he could brag to all his online buddies about how awesome and–
"It's always 'just five more minutes' with you! Minato, get off the couch and tell your son to get in here!"
"MINATO!"
"Eh! Uh, Naruto... Listen to your mother..."
The boy could practically feel the temparature in the house rising – probably a direct effect of the vast quantities of steam which were no doubt shooting out of his energetic mother's ears.
"Naruto... I am going to close my eyes and count down from ten. If you are not at the table when I open my eyes after 'zero'... Well, I'll just let you find out."
Her voice was low and calm now, which was far, far scarier than when she was screaming her lungs out. The people around town didn't call her The Red Menace for her high volume threshold alone, after all.
"Ten."
Naruto grimaced. It wasn't enough time. His Anger bar was only three-quarters full, meaning his planned attack would not do enough damage to incapacitate Sasuke and complete the mission. He needed full power.
"Nine."
There was one possible way... He pressed SHIFT Q, activating the secret technique Flashbacku no Jutsu, which gave an Anger boost in return for a decrease in HP.
"Eight."
There was a short cutscene, zipping through some images of lonely children, sitting on swings or dangling their feet off of docks, living their miserable lives without any adult supervision, despite the fact that they are both only around six years old and happen to be two of the most important humans in the entire village.
"Seven."
More flashbacks. Little boys crying alone in cold, dark rooms.
"Six."
Tiny, vulnerable kids suffering through unequaled pain and hatred.
"Five."
Ninja midgets throwing kunai with terrible accuracy and punching logs with a ferocity only attainable by those less than four feet tall.
"Four."
The good times: Saving a small, poor nation from the grasp of a lunatic midget with a cash-superiority complex; defeating a fate-flaunting preteen with x-ray vision; unlocking new powers, like time-warping eyeballs, über-power-enhancing fox-shaped chakra cloaks, and... climbing trees.
"Three."
The bad times: Getting utterly destroyed by an overpowered snake-necromancer-stalker guy; getting totally duped by an icicle-shooting girly-dude; going through weeks of training sessions without learning anything even remotely useful except... climbing trees.
"Two."
After what seemed to be an absurdly disproportionate amount of time, the flashbacks finally ended, and the Anger meter rose, but not enough. The bar read, "98%."
"One."
Time had run out. He would have to just go for it, and hope against hope that it would work. It was just a game after all, and probably wasn't worth whatever ungodly punishment his mother was going to dish out if he didn't make it to the table in time. With a few quick keystrokes, he activated the final attack sequence, and, not even waiting to see the result, shot out of his comfy, wheely desk chair and into the dining room, faster than you could say–
"Zero."
When Kushina opened her eyes, Naruto was sitting quietly, hands folded in his lap, studying the walls with scholarly interest. She shot him a glare before sitting down herself.
– – – –
Dinner was a quick affair. Naruto shoveled his ramen down his throat even faster than usual – at least until his mother threatened a year-long household-wide noodle ban, at which point he slowed down to his normal guzzling rate of two bowls per minute.
After everyone had had their fill – and Naruto had had everyone else's fill on top of that – the dishes were cleared and washed, and the Namikaze-Uzumaki family members each went about their own business.
Naruto sat down in front of the now-asleep computer monitor, and got himself comfortable. This was an important moment in ninja videogame history, and he needed to be ready. He scooted his chair forward a bit, cracked his knuckles, took a deep breath...
...and tapped the spacebar.
The monitor lit the darkened room with a pale glow. It showed a first-person view of a white-tiled ceiling with fluorescent lights, a stern-looking doctor looking down at the player from the left side of the screen. A dialogue box, situated along the bottom of the screen, read:
Sasuke defeated you, and has escaped to Orochimaru. Mission status: FAILED.
For several moments, Naruto just sat there, staring at the irreverent summary of his virtual avatar's demise. He leaned back in his chair and let out an irritated groan. After a moment of contemplation, he sighed wistfully and pressed the spacebar again to see what else the doctor had to say.
It turns out, there wasn't anything else. Just one short line:
CONTINUE?
For Naruto, of course, that was a rhetorical question.
YES