There's Another Expert

Naruto immediately grew alert, fully activating the Mind's Eye of the Kagura to sense everything around him.

"Are you a Konoha Anbu ninja? No, you aren't wearing Anbu attire. Are you just a passing ninja? I didn't expect you to take care of our village's ninjas so quickly."

A deep voice came from the shadows of the forest.

Naruto turned around and saw a masked ninja dressed in black slowly emerge.

He looked far more troublesome than the previous two ninjas. At the very least, his equipment was much more complete. Now this was the proper outfit for infiltrating a ninja village!

One look told Naruto he was a ruthless opponent. Naruto secretly observed the newly appeared ninja with the Mind's Eye of the Kagura. The Chakra in his body was somewhat stronger than that of the previous ninjas.

But it had not reached the level of a jonin. He was probably an elite chunin?

"Which ninja village are you from?" Naruto asked.

This was merely a tactic to lower his opponent's guard. After all, Naruto possessed the Heavenly Mouth, which could make others instinctively believe what he said.

At the same time, he secretly gathered Chakra, ready to deal with a possible attack at any moment.

"Which village I'm from isn't important. What matters is that I must take the intelligence in your hands. Since you ran into me, I can't let you live long enough to spread the news!"

The black-clad ninja spoke coldly.

Naruto knew that this man was stronger than the ones from before.

But Naruto was no pushover either!

He took a deep breath, and the Chakra within his body began to circulate. A faint layer of Chakra light gradually enveloped him.

"Then we'll see whether you have what it takes!" Naruto's voice was firm and powerful.

The black-clad ninja said nothing more. His body suddenly vanished from where he stood, and in the next instant, he appeared before Naruto.

He gripped a sharp kunai and thrust it straight at Naruto's heart.

Naruto reacted extremely quickly. He shifted slightly to the side, avoiding the fatal strike.

At the same time, his fist was poised to strike. He pretended to attack with his fist, but his legs had not been idle. A Konoha Gale slammed fiercely into the black-clad ninja's abdomen.

It was a feint!

The black-clad ninja had clearly not expected Naruto's reaction speed to be so fast. While dodging his attack, Naruto had even had the presence of mind to launch a feint!

His body was sent flying, and he crashed heavily to the ground. But he quickly got back up, the cold killing intent in his eyes growing even stronger.

"Your strength has indeed exceeded my expectations. You're strong. Were you specifically sent to capture us?" the black-clad ninja asked, a trace of doubt in his voice.

Naruto did not answer. He knew that villains died from talking too much. He was not some guy who answered every question!

His body erupted with astonishing speed once more as he launched a fierce attack on the black-clad ninja.

The two engaged in an intense clash within the forest.

Naruto's taijutsu was powerful, and his physical strength was immense!

Although the black-clad ninja's physical attributes were inferior to Naruto's, his skills were equally remarkable, and his combat experience was seasoned.

Every one of his attacks was filled with killing intent, and every dodge was incomparably precise.

The battle continued for a long time, and the black-clad ninja's stamina was rapidly draining away.

Naruto, on the other hand, only grew braver as he fought due to his powerful bloodline!

There was not the slightest sign of exhaustion on him.

The black-clad ninja knew that he had to end this battle as quickly as possible.

He began searching for Naruto's openings, preparing to launch a fatal strike.

Since taijutsu couldn't take you down, it was time to use ninjutsu!

At that moment, the black-clad ninja suddenly retreated and rapidly formed Hand Seals.

Naruto sensed a powerful Chakra fluctuation and immediately realized that his opponent could not match him in taijutsu, so he was preparing to launch a sneak attack with ninjutsu!

Naruto did not hesitate. His body instantly disappeared from where he stood, and in the next moment, he appeared behind the black-clad ninja.

The kunai in his hand was ready as he thrust it straight toward the opponent's vital point.

However, the black-clad ninja's Hand Seals were not slow, and he had already completed them.

"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!" he shouted softly.

A violent gale poured from his mouth, restraining Naruto.

Seeing that his opponent was only using a C-rank ninjutsu, Naruto did not take it seriously.

With his superb speed, he dodged the Wind Style attack.

By now, the commotion from their fight had created quite a bit of noise.

Within the range of Naruto's Mind's Eye of the Kagura, several ninjas were rapidly approaching!

"Looks like I need to end this quickly! Since you used ninjutsu, I won't hold back either!"

Naruto rapidly formed Hand Seals with both hands and shouted, "Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Naruto instantly created several hundred Shadow Clones!

"How is that possible? With that many Shadow Clones, how can you possibly have so much Chakra? An ordinary ninja could never do this. Could it be that you're Konoha's Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?!"

Faced with such an enormous amount of Chakra, the black-clad ninja could not think of anyone capable of it aside from a Tailed Beast Jinchuriki renowned for possessing immense Chakra reserves.

"You guessed right, but I won't give you a reward. Take this, Konoha Hundred Punch Barrage!"

Naruto had originally wanted to call it Uzumaki Naruto Hundred Barrage, but he felt the name was a little stupid, so he came up with one on the spot. In any case, it was just a group beatdown using overwhelming numbers!

The black-clad ninja sensed an intense crisis as he looked at the several hundred Naruto Shadow Clones. His body reacted instinctively.

To hell with the mission! Under these circumstances, he could not see any hope of victory at all. Trying to force it when he knew it was impossible would be truly foolish!

I'm outta here! The black-clad ninja instantly widened the distance, preparing to make his escape!

Naruto saw through the black-clad ninja's intentions as well. "Heh heh, do you think you can still run?"

Naruto's Shadow Clones did not hesitate. Their bodies instantly burst forth with astonishing speed as they chased after the black-clad ninja. They were incredibly fast, catching up to him almost immediately.

The black-clad ninja clearly had not expected Naruto's Shadow Clones to be so fast, capable of catching him so quickly.

In an instant, his body was struck by the Shadow Clones' Konoha Rising Wind, kicking him into the air.

Naruto's original body did not miss the opportunity. He rapidly spun through the air, and a Naruto Barrage slammed fiercely into the black-clad ninja's body.

The black-clad ninja's body was battered all over the air before ultimately crashing heavily to the ground, unable to move again.

Sensing that ninjas would arrive at any moment, Naruto searched the black-clad ninja and found several ninja scrolls, placing them into the system.

Remembering that Konoha had specialized interrogation ninjas, he knew his identity absolutely could not be exposed.

Naruto picked up the kunai belonging to the three men and, with swift movements, drove them into their heads, violently stirring their brains.

"I refuse to believe you can still torture information out of the corpses like this!"

Naruto quickly used the Transformation Jutsu once, changing into a different appearance.

Although his body was somewhat tired, his spirit was incredibly exhilarated.

He knew that although this battle had been somewhat difficult, he had ultimately won.

As his first real battle since coming to the world of Naruto, he had performed fairly well.

Taking advantage of the Anbu ninjas around him not noticing, Naruto returned to his residence.

Through this battle, he also came to understand many of his shortcomings.

First, his talent was strong. His physical talent was excellent, and he had plenty of strength, but his technique was lacking.

If he improved his combat techniques further, he could easily deal considerable damage.

Although Konoha's basic taijutsu was fairly powerful, it could not kill with a single blow.

It was easy for a battle to turn into a prolonged fight.

Moreover, he had still been too nervous during the battle, and his lack of combat experience was obvious.

He had even forgotten that he possessed the Sharingan. If he had activated the Sharingan earlier, even just a single tomoe, it would have greatly improved his fighting ability.

"Let's see what intelligence is in this scroll!" Naruto took the Intelligence Scroll out of the system.

After carefully reading its contents, he felt that the deaths of those ninjas had been somewhat wasteful.

This intelligence was completely insignificant to Konoha, merely trivial matters. However, some of it was indeed information that other ninja villages found difficult to learn.

He had also obtained several ninja scrolls from the ninjas.

After opening them, he discovered that they contained money. There was quite a lot of it—several tens of thousands!

It was already comparable to several months of Naruto's current relief payments.

From some of the documents, it appeared that they were ninjas from Sunagakure.

There were also two ninjutsu, and he happened to be lacking ninjutsu at the moment.

One was the C-rank ninjutsu, Wind Style: Great Breakthrough.

The other was the C-rank ninjutsu, Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique.

Though they were only two C-rank ninjutsu, having them was better than having nothing.

Late at night, Naruto lay on his bed, his thoughts drifting far away.

He thought of Rock Lee, of their battle, and of Rock Lee's dream.

He knew that both he and Rock Lee were people pursuing their dreams. Though their paths were different, their goals were the same.

That was to become outstanding ninjas. Compared to Rock Lee, Naruto was fortunate. He had a bloodline and a system.

Come to think of it, Rock Lee was rather close to that Small Forest.

But given how Konoha ninjas usually handled things, Rock Lee probably had nothing to do with this matter. After a little questioning, they would let him go.

After all, he was already Might Guy's student, so he had some connections in Konoha.

Thinking back on today's battle, Naruto felt that he should have been able to easily defeat that opponent.

But practical combat experience could only be honed through more real battles.

There was still a long road ahead!

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