Naruto was the first to act. He pulled chakra and formed the hand seals in one swift motion.

  “Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu.”

  Fire erupted from his throat in a dense, living sphere, and the heat sliced through the air with a short, thunderous roar. The fireball surged forward, swallowing the ground ahead and painting the shadows of the trees in violent orange. The three ninjas in front of him scattered at just the right moment—not in panic, but with discipline. They had been expecting that attack.

  Naruto caught the movement from the corner of his eye and, for a brief second, felt that cold irritation that surfaced whenever someone tried to dictate the rhythm of a fight to him.

  They didn’t retreat to gain distance. They retreated to create angles.

  The fire smmed into the ground and burst into fmes that licked dirt and dry leaves. The impact kicked up dust and sparks but didn’t hit anyone directly. Even so, Naruto didn’t consider it wasted— that jutsu wasn’t just about damage.

  It was pressure. It was forcing a reaction.

  And the reaction came.

  The three began forming seals almost simultaneously, as if they had rehearsed it. Naruto didn’t need to see their faces to understand: that trio functioned as a single unit.

  “Doton: Arijigoku.”

  The ground beneath Naruto trembled. The sensation was immediate— as if the earth had lost its solidity and turned into heavy liquid. A wide pit opened, and with it came an aggressive suction, pulling in air, dust, leaves… and Naruto’s body.

  It wasn’t simple gravity. It was a persistent drag, like invisible fingers gripping his sandals and trying to pull him down.

  Naruto instinctively bent his legs, trying to jump out of range, but the terrain gave way faster than expected. The edge of the “funnel” slid inward, stealing his footing.

  And before he could make a more brutal decision, he heard two synchronized voices from the fnks.

  “Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu.” “Fuuton: Shinkuuha.”

  Naruto didn’t need to think to understand what was coming.

  The fire was born… and the wind pushed it.

  The fireball was driven forward by a bde of compressed air, invisible but deadly, and that changed everything: it didn’t just grow rger, it became faster— turning into a projectile that left no “time” for the body to react.

  Naruto narrowed his eyes, his mind calcuting in a fraction of a second.

  Block with his hands? No. He’d be burned alive. Dodge by running? The ground was swallowing his legs.

  ‘It would be impossible to counter or evade this with normal methods.’

  So he did what he always did when the world tried to force him into a simple script— he shattered “normality” with improvisation.

  He jumped— not to escape the pit, but to steal an instant in the air. And mid-jump, he formed a single seal.

  “Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.”

  A clone appeared beside him, identical, forming in midair as if reality itself had been cut and pasted. The clone didn’t hesitate— it braced its body, solid, and Naruto stepped on it as if it were a stair.

  The movement was fast enough to look absurd, yet efficient enough to be beautiful.

  With the boost, Naruto was unched upward— high, clean, out of the main axis of the attack.

  The explosion came immediately below. The sound hit like thunder, and the heat rose like a tidal wave. The clone was destroyed instantly, turning into smoke and pain— that sharp stab in the brain that always came when a bunshin died. Naruto felt it, clenched his teeth for a second, and ignored it.

  He nded on a tree branch with precision, the soles of his sandals settling before the trunk even had time to sway.

  And he didn’t pause.

  The moment he nded, Naruto unleashed dozens of shuriken in rapid succession— a metallic rain slicing through the air, each bde seeking an opening, each angle forcing the three to move.

  But he wasn’t finished. Naruto brought his palms together.

  “Fuuton: Reppushou.”

  A powerful gust burst forward, violently pushing the air and accelerating the shuriken still in flight— as if the bdes had gained a second engine. The sound shifted, becoming sharper, more dangerous.

  The ninjas reacted like veterans: they didn’t try to block everything— that would be slow and risky. They vanished in shunshin, reappearing at short distances, breaking the attack’s trajectory.

  Even so, Naruto saw the shallow cuts. Thin red lines across their skin. Nothing fatal.

  But enough to prove the attack wasn’t useless.

  Naruto kept his gaze sharp, breathing through his nose, his mind already assembling the pieces.

  ‘Now I’m sure—they were sent just to test me.’

  ‘If Danzo really wanted me dealt with, he’d have sent at least three jounin… but these three are only elite-chunin level.’

  The taste of that realization was irritating.

  A test. A “let’s see how far he goes.”

  As if he were a new weapon being evaluated by people who never asked whether he wanted to be a weapon.

  Naruto let out a short breath— more like a cut through the air than fatigue.

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have asked the old man to reduce the ANBU surveilnce on me.’

  He had asked because he wanted space. He wanted to breathe without a shadow on the rooftops, without eyes following him. He wanted a bit of freedom.

  And, as always, freedom came with a price.

  While he thought, the three began to move— trying to close the distance, trying to deny any escape route. They wanted him grounded. Cornered. With nowhere to run.

  That was when the voice appeared inside him, dry and irritated, like a bde slicing through thought.

  ‘Done with your monologue? They’re moving.’

  Naruto almost smiled at the irony. Kurama always knew when he was thinking too much— and always chose the most unpleasant way possible to interrupt.

  ‘Well, I’m going to need your help, Kurama.’

  There was a snort, heavy with mockery.

  ‘Of course. Be my guest… just be careful not to get corrupted.’

  Naruto replied in the same mental tone, without losing focus on the real world.

  ‘Tsundere fox.’

  Then he concentrated.

  This wasn’t “grabbing chakra” like scooping water from a bucket. It was diving deep— breaking through yers, touching that ancient, malevolent, absurdly powerful presence that lived behind invisible bars.

  The chakra answered.

  A red yer began to coat his body, like a living cloak— not fabric, but will. The air around him warped slightly, as if the atmosphere itself had grown denser. Two protrusions resembling ears formed atop his head, and a chakra tail drew itself behind him, shing the space with impatience.

  Naruto felt his nails lengthen, their tips sharpening, and faint fangs emerged when he clenched his jaw. His eyes turned red, the pupils narrowing into vertical slits— not human, not childish.

  The three ninjas froze for an instant.

  And in that brief silence, Naruto realized the simplest truth in the world: they had come to test him… but they weren’t prepared for what he truly was when he decided to go all out.

  When Naruto met their eyes, a chill ran down all three of their spines. It wasn’t just fear of death. It was fear of something inevitable. An ancient warning etched into instinct:

  The predator has arrived.

  And Naruto moved.

  He vanished.

  It wasn’t a normal shunshin, nor just fast footwork. It was that blend of speed, momentum, and intent that made it seem like he had cut a piece out of the path itself. He appeared in front of one of them, so close the man barely had time to raise his guard.

  Naruto lifted his hand and sshed with his cws.

  Four deep lines tore across the ninja’s chest, ripping through fabric and flesh in a single motion. Blood burst forth— hot and immediate. The man colpsed screaming, writhing, cwing for air as if his body had forgotten how to breathe.

  The second tried to attack— a reflex of survival, perhaps trained courage, perhaps desperation.

  It didn’t matter.

  Naruto’s tail shot forward like a serpent, wrapping around the man’s neck and tightening. It wasn’t a slow strangution.

  It was an execution.

  The chakra crushed like steel, and the sound of bones snapping echoed sharply through the air. The man’s head went limp. Naruto released him, and the body hit the ground lifeless, heavy like a sack of meat.

  The third froze.

  Naruto saw it and, for a moment, felt a cold crity: fear made people freeze— and freezing in front of a predator was the worst possible choice.

  He walked slowly, almost casually, as if he weren’t in the middle of an ambush, as if this were just a conversation that would end the same way regardless.

  “Rex. No need to tense up… in a few seconds, you won’t feel anything anymore.”

  As he spoke, he raised his right hand.

  Chakra spun, compressed, rotating in on itself like a trapped storm. The Rasengan took shape— but it wasn’t the usual blue.

  It was purple. A wrong color. Dense. As if the energy was mixed with something older, more aggressive.

  The man tried to run.

  Naruto was faster.

  He drove the Rasengan into the ninja’s back in a direct motion, without flourish. The technique tore and ground through flesh and bone, bsting a hole straight through from back to chest. The force made the body shudder once before it colpsed, silent— as if even the voice had been ripped away.

  Naruto stood still for a moment, watching.

  The cloak around him began to recede, dissolving like smoke in the wind. The tail vanished, the “ears” faded, and the brutal weight of the chakra diminished, leaving behind a dangerous silence.

  He breathed slowly.

  The smell of blood became more apparent as the adrenaline dropped enough for the world to return.

  For a moment, Naruto could feel the vilge far away, the wind in the leaves, the sound of birds… as if nothing had happened.

  But it had.

  Three bodies on the ground.

  And with them, a clear message.

  Naruto lifted his gaze— not toward the dead, but toward the empty space between the trees, as if staring directly at whoever had sent those men.

  “Looks like the game has begun.”

  A smile formed on his face.

  And it wasn’t a childish smile. Not simple victory.

  It was something deeper— something that mixed understanding and anticipation. Because he knew what it meant: if this was a “test,” then there were eyes watching.

  And if there were eyes… There was a bigger board.

  And why did that smile appear?

  Well… only he knew.

  (Early access chapters: see the bio.)