Minato Namikaze: "!!"
Kakashi Hatake: "!!!"
Obito Uchiha: "!!"
The three of them, hidden high in the distant treetops, were shaken to the core.
A genin?! From Konoha?! A future Hokage?!
Uzumaki… Naruto…?!
Obito felt heat explode in his chest.
It was like boiling blood surged through every limb, a crashing wave of emotion he had never felt before—true, overwhelming resonance!!
"Even Sasuke-kun couldn't do it! What are you trying to prove by charging in?!"
"Remember me—the man who will one day become the Hokage of Konohagakure!"
Hokage…
That was their dream.
A dream that would never waver. A dream they believed in with everything they had.
Obito's eyes burned, practically desperate to awaken the Sharingan and tear through the thick fog to see what was happening inside!
Beside him—
Minato, who had just been preparing to intervene, slowly lowered the kunai behind him.
Uzumaki?!
He knew every Uzumaki in Konoha—intimately so.
Because at present, there was only one Uzumaki ninja in the village: his girlfriend, Kushina Uzumaki.
If there was another Uzumaki boy out there… and a genin, no less…
The Third Hokage wouldn't have kept it from him.
Unless the kid came from Danzō's assassination unit, Root.
Minato's face grew increasingly tense. They'd been here less than ten minutes and had already gathered intelligence that made his head spin.
Meanwhile, inside the thick fog—
Sakura and Sasuke were both stunned by the sheer force of Naruto's presence.
Even the client and their team leader, Jōnin Kakashi, clearly felt how much Naruto had grown.
"Sasuke, come here—I've got a strategy!"
Sasuke blinked in surprise. At a time like this, that idiot actually had a plan?!
The fog fell silent for over ten seconds.
"What do you think you're all doing?! Didn't I tell you to run?! The moment I got trapped, the outcome was already decided! And our mission is to escort the client!! Did you hear me?!"
"Run! Take Tazuna-san and get out of here!!"
The jōnin captain shouted, and Obito Uchiha clenched his teeth. What the hell was this stubborn captain thinking?!
Minato placed a hand on Obito's shoulder and gave him a look.
"That man has another meaning behind his words."
What?!
Sure enough, the client named Tazuna spoke up right after—
"What's the point? I brought this whole mess on myself. At this stage, I can't act like some pathetic coward! Forget the 'mission'—just fight with everything you've got!!"
"!!!"
According to the ninja code, during a mission they were tools meant to accomplish their task. Unless the client said otherwise, they couldn't engage in private combat and had to prioritize escorting him.
So the jōnin captain had been hinting, trying to coax the client into giving permission!
A clever move—he protected the mission while giving his students the freedom to fight. Truly an elite jōnin instructor.
Minato nodded, approving him silently.
Next—
Facing the eager tension from Naruto and Sasuke, Zabuza released a low, mocking laugh from deep in his throat.
Naruto: "What are you laughing at, bastard?!"
"Look at you Konoha brats. You're already genin, yet you're all still so clean. It's laughable."
"C-clean?" Naruto tilted his head.
Zabuza: "When I was your age, my hands were already stained with blood."
"!!" Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura all froze.
Kakashi: "Demon—Zabuza!"
"Oh? So you've heard some rumors."
From within the Water Prison, Kakashi began explaining the origin of the name "Demon Zabuza" to his students.
"The Hidden Mist of the Land of Water is also called the Village of the Bloody Mist. To become a ninja there, one must pass their greatest trial…"
Zabuza looked at Kakashi. "So you even know about that graduation exam?"
"Graduation… exam?" Naruto perked up. That sounded familiar. He'd almost failed the Clone Technique exam three times!
Yes, Konoha tested the Clone Technique—but the Hidden Mist tested—
"Making students who train side by side slaughter each other, forcing out the most savage instincts and desperate will to survive inside a ninja! Whether it's raw strength, trickery, or sheer opportunism—it doesn't matter! Only the ones who survive become true ninja!"
"!!!"
Obito and young Kakashi froze, instinctively turning to their teacher, Minato Namikaze.
"Is that true, Minato-sensei?!"
Obito whispered.
Minato nodded. The Blood Mist's infamy had spread because of this very practice.
So the enemy hidden within the fog really were from the Village of the Bloody Mist. Minato's brows tightened. Were the Mist ninja planning a surprise attack on Konoha, or… was this place not even within the Land of Grass or the Land of Fire at all?!
"But ten years ago…" the Konoha jōnin trapped in the fog spoke up. "A single boy forced the Mist Village to overhaul its rules entirely. After that day, the boy was known as the 'Demon'!"
"Demon?" Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura echoed the key word from Kakashi.
But Minato was hung up on another—change?
In his memory, the Hidden Mist had experienced no major reforms a decade ago.
Sakura: "What did that 'demon' do?!"
"That boy—like a demon—showed not a shred of doubt. He slaughtered every single examinee that year. More than a hundred of them! For a child who hadn't even become a ninja yet to commit such a massacre…it was unheard of."
"!!!"
Not only Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke were stunned.
Even Minato and the two boys beside him stared in disbelief.
What baffled Minato even more was that he had never heard of such an event in the Mist Village.
Nor had he ever heard the title "Demon Zabuza."
What exactly was happening here?!
While they were all frozen in thought, Demon Zabuza's killing intent once again suffocated Sasuke and Naruto. In an instant, he targeted Sasuke—slamming him underfoot.
"Damn it!"
Seeing Sasuke crushed beneath Zabuza's heel, Naruto couldn't bear it anymore!
"Shadow Clone Technique!!"
A rapid barrage of "Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!" echoed nonstop.
Minato's eyes widened in shock yet again.
Not only was the Shadow Clone a B-rank jutsu most genin couldn't even use—just from that endless series of pops, Minato counted at least fifty!
Fifty clones.
Even Kakashi, son of the legendary genius White Fang, who had earned the rank of jōnin at age twelve, couldn't do that.
Creating that many shadow clones wasn't about technique.
It was about chakra reserves.
That was why, when the Second Hokage expanded the technique, it became known as the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique—raised from B-rank to A-rank. It was even placed in the Scroll of Seals by the First Hokage as a forbidden jutsu because improper use could kill the user.
To have that much chakra at such a young age…
—Naruto Uzumaki.
Only the natural chakra of the Uzumaki clan could explain it.
"Alright! Let's go, everyone!"
With fifty shadow clones, if this boy grew to his full potential, he could form an army all by himself.
But right now, he was still too inexperienced.
Zabuza swung his massive sword, scattering every clone. One by one, they crashed down and burst into smoke.
But the boy's plan wasn't over!
"Sasuke! Catch!!"
Naruto hurled the Fūma Shuriken they'd obtained for this mission.
Sasuke grabbed the massive folding shuriken, his expression sharpening instantly.
"So that's it!"
Then—
"Fūma Shuriken: Shadow Windmill!!"
The folded shuriken spread open and spun like a roaring wind toward Zabuza!
No—
Not toward the Zabuza in front of them.
Toward the water clone restraining their jōnin instructor behind him!
However—
"You kids are far too naive!"
Despite maintaining the Water Prison, Zabuza calmly caught the fūma shuriken thrown by Sasuke with his free hand!
"What happened?!" Obito rubbed his eyes hard, unable to see through the dense fog.
And that motion actually let him see a faint outline—a human silhouette in the mist!
Energy that had been building within him surged through his mind, needing only a single spark. His eyes were waiting for the moment they would clear away the haze and return to their true brilliance.
But clearly, that moment had not yet arrived.
Right now, he could only make out blurry shapes moving within the fog.
Beside him, Kakashi said, "One Fūma shuriken isn't enough to make a difference."
"No! It's not just one!" Obito's Sharingan hadn't awakened yet, but his eyes still shone as he stared into the heavy fog.
"What?! You can actually see?!"
"Not clearly. The first Fūma shuriken had a second one hidden in its shadow. Tch—! And that guy dodged that one too!"
Obito could barely make out a tall, lean man. One of his hands was gripping something shaped like a sphere, while the other caught the first shuriken. The second shuriken should've struck him, but he suddenly sprang upward, pulling one leg in tight to dodge it completely!
"Damn, that was close!" Obito clicked his tongue in frustration.
But in this dense fog, his vision could only go so far.
He couldn't see the confident smirks—those "Got him!" smiles—forming on Sasuke and Naruto's faces.
Then—
Boom!
The second Fūma shuriken Zabuza dodged…
Transformed!
No—not the shuriken itself!
That Fūma shuriken was Naruto Uzumaki in disguise!!
"So that's what they were planning!"
Obito was stunned. So this was the strategy of that boy who, just like him, dreamed of becoming Hokage!
"What the hell just happened?!"
Kakashi, despite just becoming a jōnin, was still a kid a year or two younger than Obito. He whispered in frustration, demanding to know what Obito had seen.
Obito explained the vague silhouettes he'd caught, adding his own guesses and analysis to Minato-sensei and Kakashi.
Both silently praised the boy named Naruto Uzumaki.
"The Water Prison broke! Naruto attacked the enemy from behind and forced him to release the jōnin trapped inside!"
Minato asked, "Obito, can you see what that jōnin looks like?"
"Hmm… not really…"
Obito rubbed his eyes again—and for one sudden instant, his vision cleared!
But the figure he saw…left him completely speechless!!