"The sky?"
The moment their teacher revealed himself, that was the first thing he said. Uzumaki Naruto, having no time to inspect the stone that had suddenly crumbled to dust, hurriedly raised his head and looked toward the sky.
Or rather, the sky inside the Barrier.
"Hm?"
At that moment, Haruno Sakura also looked up, unconsciously voicing her confusion.
"When did that happen?"
Then, almost in unison, Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura cried out.
At the same time, the remaining three stones around the other teams also turned to dust, revealing the unharmed teachers they had protected within. Almost the instant the teachers appeared, they all looked up at the sky and said words similar to Kakashi's.
The other rookie Genin also instinctively looked skyward.
"Rumble..."
Just then, as everyone's eyes remained fixed on the sky, a clap of thunder streaked through their vision in blue-white brilliance.
At that moment, directly above their heads, a cloud neither particularly large nor small swirled in a shape that was round above and square below.
Faint arcs of lightning occasionally flashed between the clouds, illuminating that small yet dense mass of layered dark clouds.
When did that get there...
At the sight of those layered storm clouds, nearly everyone had the same startled thought.
When the pillar of lightning had descended earlier, all their attention had been focused on it. None of them had noticed that directly above it was a cloud that, if called obvious, had been rather inconspicuous beneath the lightning pillar, but if called inconspicuous, was still large enough to spot with a careful look.
At the same time, after noticing the cloud, the rookie Genin felt not only surprise, but confusion.
The weather both inside and outside the Barrier was bright and sunny, with blue skies, white clouds, and