"Something happened."
Shikamaru slid the flare back into his pack, voice low. The sky looked ready to catch fire. He did not need to spell it out.
"Nothing serious."
Konome shook her head.
With the Byakugan, the urgent scene did not deceive her. She swept the perimeter and marked every pair of green eyes.
A pack of wild gray wolves, minds gone feral.
In this world, natural energy made wildlife bigger than in her past life. The wolves hemming them in were massive, many close to two meters from nose to tail. Their swaying tails were thicker than a grown man's thigh.
Without firearms, even Tyson might come up short.
But this was the shinobi world.
She flicked her gaze again. Not a flicker of chakra in any of the twenty-odd bodies. Without chakra, numbers did not matter. They were meat on a block.
"How can it be nothing. Look how many there are."
Ino did not buy it. Low growls rippled from the dark. Green eyes pulsed and promised danger. One or two wolves were manageable. A charging pack, when none of them had large-area jutsu, was another story. Up close, those jaws were wider than a face. One bite would not cripple. It would cut a person in half.
"If Konome says it is fine, it is fine."
Naruto took her side before she spoke. Since he had put Yuta's trio in their place, the sneers in class had faded. No one dared call him dead last or monster to his face.
Konome had not lied to him. Loathing and scorn were only the weak looking down. If he kept growing stronger, people would understand.
As his strength rose, so did Konome's weight in his mind. He trusted her judgment without conditions.
"Tch, talking to you is pointless."
Ino, for the first time, tasted the despair of someone with a crush-brain. She turned to Shikamaru.
"Listen to Konome first." Knowing what jonin-level power looked like, Shikamaru chose the smart path. "What do you want us to do."
"Nothing. Just protect yourselves."
Konome picked up the boar's severed head from the dirt. The cut at the neck had long clotted into a ragged, black crust.
The stink of old blood sent the wolves into a frenzy. Growls layered over one another. In the next instant, three wolves could not hold back. They sprang with a single howl, shadows blotting Konome's small frame.
Ino flinched and rushed with a kunai.
"Do not."
Naruto yanked her back, blocking Chōji and Shikamaru with an arm, barely hiding his excitement.
Before anyone could ask
zzzt
hum
light flickered.
Air around Konome rippled like a lake under rain, an invisible arc spreading from her skin.
The three leaping wolves froze for a blink. Then their heads, claws, and chests burst red. Like a misaligned puzzle cube, each section slid apart.
Thud.
Thud.
Meat fell like dumplings into broth. Smooth-cut chunks spattered the ground. The stink rode the air like a pink haze.
Ino clapped a hand over her mouth. The colors of torn organs turned her stomach.
"Wind Release."
Shikamaru's eyes hardened. He phrased it as a question, but he was sure. Training Yin Release had honed his mind. Even at a distance, the edge around Konome was so keen his skin prickled as if under a knife.
Naruto stared at the clean figure standing amid gore, spotless and calm. His eyes shone.
"Konome told me. It is new and hard to control. If you do not want to be minced, do not get close."
That settled it. Team Ino–Shika–Chō backed off fast and did not stop until Konome was a third her size to their eyes.
The wolves did not care.
Blood scent whipped them wild. It was impossible to tell which howl led the charge. The pack threw itself forward like a suicide squad.
What followed was a slaughterhouse.
Konome did not move. Wolves flooded in and, with each flicker of light, broke into eight pieces and toppled. It was as if an unseen wire traced a perimeter around her. Cross it and Wind Release tore everything to rags.
Thirty seconds later, the last wolf parted silently.
Under the crimson dusk, the ground around Konome was a mosaic of meat. Only the space beneath her feet stayed clean.
Their nerves still fired. On the flat-cut faces, bright red muscle fibers pulsed and twitched.
Chōji's eyelids jumped. The boar he had just eaten churned.
Ino pressed her lips tight. Roast fat, blood, and gut-stink mixed and rose. The oil that had tasted so good now made her gag.
Thump.
The tusked boar head rolled and came to rest among the wolf scraps. Because the wolf remains were so fine, the boar's head, intact and wrong, stood out.
Water hissed into being. It coiled over Konome's pale hands like a tame serpent and washed away the grease from dinner. Even the wolves' blood could not touch her. The Wind Release had sliced every spray to mist.
The water rinsed a clear path through the red.
Konome stepped along the flowing ribbon and out of the ring of gore. Her white cloak still floated pristine.
Shikamaru finally understood why his father forbade him from provoking Konome. After watching those deaths, he did not dare stand close. From now on he would keep a three-meter safety buffer. He did not want to die in pieces too small to gather.
If he felt that way, the others felt worse. Ino and Chōji, both close to vomiting, backed away fast as Konome approached, as if they could flee into a neighboring training ground.
Only Naruto swaggered up two steps.
"What now."
"I do not know."
Konome halted for Ino's sake. She pointed to the mess. "These are not Training Ground Zero stock. Their state is wrong. They were aggravated by something."
"You mean someone sicced them on us."
Shikamaru caught her meaning at once. His mind spun.
"The target is us students. Whatever the goal, we just need to deny them. I propose we abandon the exercise and exit the ground."
"Agreed." "Agreed."
Chōji and Ino spoke together. All three, and Naruto, looked to Konome. At some point she had become the de facto leader.
"Do it."
She decided. She had planned to use the chaos to kill the watcher, but with only animals on the field and no handler exposing themselves, she had no trail. For now, get Naruto and the others out.
Hoo.
Wind boomed. "Careful," Ino shouted, head tipping back.
A great bird had appeared overhead. Something dropped and fell straight toward them.
They scattered.
Boom.
A black bundle slammed into the earth and burst. A flood of powder swallowed them whole.
At the same time, on the eastern side of Training Ground Zero, storm and thunder exploded, turning the dim forest bright as noon.
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