"Why hasn't there been a chapter update?"
⠀⠀The short answer is technical difficulties caused my PC to load up a backed-up save. The backed-up save was before I wrote chapter 15, let alone all the work I put toward the rewrite. I lost what I can only describe as my best goddamn work. Basically, instead of just telling you Hikigaeru left Tsunade, I went back and showed it. I showed how she left, why she left, and what she felt, and used both how I explained it prior as a baseline to improve upon. All gone, along with the introduction of Hikigaeru to the village. I even used the Minato manga to pull inspiration from, adding sections of that to show just what all was going on.
⠀⠀This also doesn't include all the other stuff I lost. My art for Hikigaeru? Gone, until I realized I shared it on Discord. My Elden Ring save with 1,000 hours and several characters? Gone. My Bloons TD6 save? Gone. My digital legal documents for my driver's licenses and my medical records? Okay, I have hard copies, but the digital ones are gone, and getting them scanned is expensive. It's been a stressful mess. The most I've been able to recover is some of my photos, a few PDFs, and whatever I could find on Discord.
"What caused the technical difficulties?"
⠀⠀I honestly don't know. I had to factory reset my PC, take it apart, clean it, etc, etc. I haven't had problems since, but I'm using an external hard drive to keep things together.
"Will you continue the story?"
⠀⠀I don't want to give up Hikigaeru's story. I really don't, but I can't rewrite what I wrote, and it's bumming me the hell out. I honestly thought what I had was my best work, and I was excited to share it. Now that it's gone, I just need a damned break. That's why I've been quiet for so long. I figured it's time I told y'all, given how I'm starting to turn away from writing about Naruto...
"What are you going to do if you're not going to write about Naruto?"
⠀⠀I was thinking about making a Star Wars story. Hard to say, since I haven't been able to write anything at all. But I guess, with that said, this is canceled for now. I'm sorry.