I Want to Fight All Four of You!!!

In a secret laboratory, Orochimaru held a cup of coffee as he watched an enormous crystal ball with great interest. Inside it was the scene of Dōmeki confronting the Sound Four.

When the boy's meaningful "Sure" rang out, the silver-haired young man standing respectfully beside Orochimaru, whom Orochimaru had invited to watch an interesting show, pushed up his glasses and voiced a question.

"Lord Orochimaru, has Dōmeki-kun figured it out?"

"Figured out what? That I ordered the Sound Four to provoke Shun-kun?"

"Or that this is a performance I arranged to test my disciple's tolerance?"

Orochimaru licked his lips excitedly. "Kabuto, I've never doubted Shun-kun's intelligence!"

"After all, he's currently my most satisfactory disciple and... vessel!"

"Currently?"

The silver-haired young man named Kabuto Yakushi smiled. A strange glint reflected off his glasses, hiding his eyes beneath them.

As light flickered in the crystal ball, the real scene in the training ground unfolded before the two of them.

Standing still, the red-haired boy tilted his head and smiled as though he had seen something interesting. His casual posture had the languid air peculiar to a feline, but his slightly narrowed eyes betrayed a hint of danger.

Zaku Abumi, who was darting away to the side, took a step back at the boy's smile, as if plunged into icy cold. No one understood what the boy was like when he got serious better than Zaku, who practically spent every day with him.

The Sound Four, brimming with killing intent, seemed angered by the boy's casual attitude. Sakon's black lips curled into an icy sneer.

"Let me play some beautiful music with your ribs!"

Before his voice had faded, the air whistled with wind. A dark figure flashed, and a flying kick traced half an arc through the air, appearing in front of Dōmeki's head.

The boy turned his right hand and seized Sakon's ankle as fast as lightning. With a shrill rush of air, he slammed Sakon's body toward the ground.

But two more arms suddenly shot out of Sakon's back and braced against the ground. Sakon stared coldly at Dōmeki, who was right in front of him, and coldly uttered a single note-"Do!"

Invisible sound waves seemed to burst from his mouth, striking the boy's body directly. In an instant, the hem of Dōmeki's uniform fluttered violently.

To Sakon's surprise, however, the boy stood there at ease, completely unmoving. Only a faint layer of cyan swirling air flashed into view and vanished.

"Oh? That's..." Kabuto Yakushi pushed up his glasses in surprise.

Orochimaru licked his lips and explained softly to Kabuto, "Most of the Ninjutsu I developed for the ninjas of Otogakure are sound-wave techniques that use Wind Release or devices to vibrate the air!"

"The greatest advantage is that their attacks are invisible and intangible, making them difficult for ordinary people to detect! But sound waves are still just sound waves, and sound cannot travel without a..."

"Medium!" Kabuto Yakushi finished in surprise. "Did Dōmeki-kun use Wind Release to create a vacuum around himself, cutting off the sound waves' path?"

"To use such Wind Release so easily—he truly is a ninja from the Land of Wind!"

"No!" Orochimaru could barely conceal the strange light in his eyes. "Wind Release isn't the only thing Dōmeki-kun excels at!"

On the field, however, Sakon found none of this amusing. Suddenly, his ear twitched, and the words "My foolish little brother" reached him.

Sakon pushed off the ground and lunged at Dōmeki again, his hands striking like the wind in a flurry of punches.

The red-haired boy moved as fast as a ghost. With only a slight movement of his feet, he slipped through the air to evade the attack as though there were no resistance at all. In an instant, his right hand darted past Sakon's hands like a butterfly weaving through flowers and pressed directly against his chest.

"Got you!"

Sakon's face lit up with wild delight. He seized the arm the boy had pressed against his chest with both hands and shouted, "Ukon!"

"A wise elder brother and a foolish younger brother!"

As Ukon, Sakon's brother who shared his body and had been hiding behind him, uttered his catchphrase, two fists suddenly emerged on either side of Sakon's head. The unexpected blows were about to rain down on the boy's handsome face like a storm.

"Wind Release: Ripple Overdrive!" Dōmeki said in a low voice.

In an instant, the air in the gap where the boy's palm met Sakon's chest began to vibrate at tremendous speed. Ring after ring of invisible ripples passed through the boy's palm and into the bodies of the brothers Sakon and Ukon.

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!

The two brothers, sharing one body with two minds, instantly felt everything from their bones to their blood and muscles trembling at tremendous speed. Yet their entire body stood frozen in place, as though they had lost control of it. Neither Sakon nor Ukon could move so much as an eyelid!

Dōmeki gently pulled his right arm free from Sakon and Ukon's hands. After a flicker of electricity, a layer of charred black dust emerged from his arm—the cells the brothers had sent into his body with the Parasitic Demon Demolition Technique.

"The music made by bones really is quite good!"

Dōmeki nodded and lightly waved his right hand toward Sakon and Ukon, who had been rendered unable to fight. Just then, a clump of white webbing stuck to the boy's arm, its other end held in Kidomaru's hand.

"Hey, hey, Sakon and Ukon, isn't this a little too embarrassing?"

Kidomaru pulled on Dōmeki's arm while making a face at his companions, who had charged in alone only to be utterly defeated in the blink of an eye.

"You stinking second-rate idiot!" The sharp-tongued Tayuya didn't forget to add a jab of her own.

"Sh-shut up!" Sakon, feeling control of his body gradually returning, cursed in anger. "This brat isn't that simple!"

Dōmeki lowered his left hand, and hard black rock extended from the ground in an instant.

The boy casually gripped the rock and pulled it free. A short stone blade, black from end to end, appeared in his hand.

The blade flashed! Kidomaru felt the pull in his hand suddenly weaken; the webbing, as strong as rope, had been sliced to pieces by the boy's short blade.

With a bang, the boy sent Sakon and Ukon's body flying with a kick, light as a sheet of paper.

Seeing trouble, Kidomaru cast out a web to catch Sakon and Ukon's body. A moment later, Sakon and Ukon struggled free of the web, looking thoroughly battered. They wiped the blood from their mouths, feeling that the brat had kicked several of their ribs broken.

"Everyone, attack together!"

Feeling Ukon repairing his injuries, Sakon gritted his teeth and gave the order.

Though they were always bickering, the other three still respected Sakon and Ukon, the strongest of the Sound Four. At the same moment, Chakra erupted from all four of them.

Unable to restrain his desire to fight, Jirobo used Earth Release to lift a small mountain of rock from the ground and hurled it at Dōmeki.

The pitch-black short blade spun in Dōmeki's hand. As the boulder hurtled through the air with a howl, a reckless look came into the boy's eyes, and his delighted laughter rang across the entire field.

"I've wanted to say this for a long time, seniors!" His voice gradually rose from a low murmur.

"I want to fight all four of you!!!"