One-Tail

In the Konohagakure Forest, at a training ground with three wooden posts standing upright.

Fallen leaves spiraled down with the wind, only to be shredded apart by sharp weapons in an instant.

Thud, thud, thud. Three kunai struck the bullseye with precision, drawing a cry of admiration from the girl with two buns in her hair.

"All hits. Neji, you're amazing."

"If it's only this much, it's nothing impressive," Neji Hyuga said with a cold expression.

"Three thousand one hundred and twenty-one! Three thousand one hundred and twenty-two!" Rock Lee gritted his teeth as he did one-handed handstand push-ups nearby.

"You're already very good. After all, Neji is a genius," Tenten comforted him.

"A genius?" Neji tightened his knee guards, his gaze drifting toward Rock Lee. "Sasuke Uchiha is the real genius. We'll only know the difference once we fight."

"Neji, what exactly is going on with that God of Shinobi?" Tenten suddenly seemed to remember something and spoke anxiously.

"First, it said Lord Hokage would die during the Chunin Exams, and now Teacher Guy has suddenly been called back by Lord Hokage."

"I don't know." Neji's expression remained blank. "The higher-ups will have a solution. It isn't something we should worry about."

"That may be true, but the Chunin Exams will definitely be affected, right?" Tenten said worriedly. "This concerns Lord Hokage. If things go badly, the Chunin Exams might be canceled."

"Canceled?" Rock Lee, drenched in sweat as he held his handstand, looked at the two of them. "Didn't Teacher Guy tell us there was a high chance they wouldn't be canceled and that we should train hard?"

"In the current situation, it's really hard to say. After all, what the God of Shinobi said might..." Tenten trailed off.

The God of Shinobi's previous two messages had exposed the hidden secrets of the Uchiha Clan and the Hyuga Clan, while Neji, standing beside her, was a victim of the Hyuga Clan's Caged Bird.

"It's fake," Neji said calmly. "The village has already refuted the rumors. We don't need to pay attention to the God of Shinobi's words."

"Yeah, it's an enemy after all." Tenten sighed. "I wonder who that God of Shinobi really is."

"They should be someone from the village. Didn't Teacher Guy say that people outside the village can't receive those messages that suddenly appear in our minds?" Rock Lee continued, sweat streaming down his face.

Neji said nothing and continued his training, though his gaze grew increasingly calm.

A genius of the Hyuga Clan?

Being born was Original Sin. As a bird trapped in a cage, he had never needed to be any kind of genius.

What the Hyuga Clan needed was nothing more than slaves to protect the Main Family. As long as they could survive and continue on like ugly beasts, that was enough.

"What exactly is going on with that message?" Shikamaru lay listlessly on the grassy slope, his dead-fish eyes wide open.

Asuma had something to deal with and had probably returned to the Hokage Building. As the Hokage's son, he was most likely worried about the Third Hokage's condition too.

The Ino-Shika-Cho trio was suddenly left with nothing to do. Shikamaru rested whenever he could, Ino continued training, and Choji sat to one side eating potato chips.

Hearing that, Choji stuffed chips into his mouth with a crunch, his eyes narrowing into slits.

"Didn't the village say so? It's fake news."

"Who would believe that?" Shikamaru muttered. "The Hyuga Clan incident was real. That rookie who ranked first last year was from the Branch Family, right?"

"Who told you that?" Ino stopped training when she overheard them and walked over to ask.

"I heard it from my father." Shikamaru placed a blade of grass in his mouth, his dead-fish eyes staring at the cotton-candy clouds drifting across the horizon.

"That Hyuga genius probably has the Caged Bird Cursed Seal on his forehead too."

Ino sighed at that.

"There's nothing we can do about the affairs of great clans."

"Yeah." Shikamaru echoed her, staring blankly at the blue sky for a while before suddenly asking, "Ino, do you have some kind of conflict with Naruto?"

Ino froze, then immediately answered with some panic.

"N-No. Why would you ask that?"

"You deliberately avoided Naruto last time, didn't you?" Shikamaru continued. "I was just wondering why, when we submitted the Chunin Exams registration forms today, Team Seven seemed to have only Sakura and Sasuke."

"I don't know what's going on with Naruto. He used to want recognition so badly, but now it seems like he's completely lost his fighting spirit."

"I don't know about that either." Ino smiled. "Besides, he and I have had plenty of conflicts. There's nothing strange about that."

"True. Who knows what Naruto is doing," Shikamaru complained.

"Naruto?" Choji, still eating chips, turned to look at them and suddenly spoke. "I saw him last time. He seemed to be with a little girl."

"A little girl?" Ino was slightly surprised.

"She was probably an orphan from the village." Choji crunched as he sent more chips into his mouth. "I saw them at the barbecue restaurant."

"That Naruto... I feel like he's almost stopped acting like a ninja."

"Who knows about that guy? I haven't seen him training lately either." Shikamaru sighed. "Last time, I saw him on the street without even wearing his Ninja Headband."

"How is that possible?" Ino's face filled with shock. "Naruto wanted a Ninja Headband so badly before. How could he now..."

"Hard to say." Shikamaru climbed to his feet and looked into the distance from the hilltop.

His gaze rose from the flat grasslands, passed through the whipping wind and swaying grass, swept over a flash of white birds, and finally settled on several small black dots in the distance.

"Those people are ninja from the Hidden Sand, right?"

Ino and Choji immediately looked in that direction as well, cold sweat appearing on their foreheads.

On the grassland some distance away, a ninja carrying a gourd wore a grim expression, while the other two, a man and a woman, stared back at the three of them with equally unfriendly faces.

As the two groups met each other's eyes, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio felt a chill around their necks, and the fear of being watched by a wild beast rose from the depths of their hearts.

Fortunately, the three Sand Ninja did not continue toward them. Instead, they changed direction and headed toward the Hokage Building.

"That guy carrying the gourd was terrifying." Ino patted her budding chest, still shaken.

"I hope we don't run into them during the Chunin Exams." Shikamaru swallowed, his face pale as he agreed.

"Rustle! Crunch, crunch!" Choji was terrified and tipped an entire bag of potato chips into his mouth.

"Temari, I heard this village has a Tailed Beast Jinchuriki too." Kankuro, carrying—no, carrying puppet mechanisms on his back, spoke to his sister Temari as they walked.

"Yeah. The strongest one, the Nine-Tails." Temari wore a huge folding fan on her back, an off-the-shoulder fishnet outfit, and a faintly displeased expression.