Naruto: Choosing from Birth

"Ignorant fool!!!"

Three figures collided in an instant!*

Near Konoha's border.

"You little brat, you secretly left your hair behind as markers? Looks like we were too merciful." A Cloud Shinobi held several strands of hair Kushina had carefully shaken loose.

"Reporting to Lord Matsudaira, this little brat has been pretending to be unconscious and secretly leaving trail markers along the way. I suggest crippling her limbs before taking her away."

These ordinary shinobi had no idea why they were kidnapping such a frail little girl.

"Idiot. I think we should cripple your limbs first."

This child was meant to be captured and made into the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki. If she was crippled, they could simply take her back and heal her. But that would plant the seeds of hatred. Once she grew stronger, who knew what trouble she might cause?

"Still, the most important thing now is to get her safely beyond Konoha's sphere of control. Put her in a sack and keep moving. The border is just ahead."

"Yes!"

Kushina watched as one of the Cloud Shinobi approached her with a sack in hand, his eyes fierce.

Despair and fury filled her heart.

Again. Just as expected, being weak was the original sin. She could only let others control her fate.

Her small fists clenched tight, nails digging savagely into her flesh. Drops of bright red blood fell onto the grass and seeped into the leaves, carrying a hint of bleakness.

Whoosh!

A kunai shot out from the dense forest and embedded itself in front of Kushina, stopping the Cloud Shinobi from approaching any further.

"Enemy attack!"

The Cloud Shinobi immediately went on guard.

Along the path behind them, the figure of a child came sprinting over from afar.

"You take the target across the border at full speed. I'll deal with this brat."

Matsudaira Kazuto made a swift decision and chose to stay behind as the rear guard!

"Yes!"

They did not know why Lord Matsudaira was so wary of a mere child that he chose to remain behind alone.

But they still obeyed his command.

After all, Lord Matsudaira was a powerful man known as the Crafty Rabbit of the Clouds.

The thoughts of such an important figure were beyond their ability to fathom.

One of them stepped forward and reached for Kushina.

"You're courting death!"

The shout came from the child rushing toward them.

His figure rose again, leaping into the air. Then wave after wave of shuriken, kunai, and other hidden weapons shot toward them.

Matsudaira Kazuto turned and met them, flinging ninja tools from his hands as though they cost nothing.

Clang, clang, clang...

The hidden weapons of both sides collided fiercely in midair before raining down to the ground.

Matsudaira Kazuto landed steadily on the ground.

"Heh heh, still too young. Trying to compete with Lord Matsudaira in hidden weapons is just..."

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

Three objects hit the ground behind him.

"What's going on? Why haven't you left yet?"

Matsudaira Kazuto turned slightly and glanced behind himself from the corner of his eye, then froze in shock.

"W-what?"

The other three Cloud Shinobi were covered in hidden weapons and had already fallen dead. After all, how strong could the three men who had been instantly taken down by the young Minato Namikaze in the original story possibly be?

Kushina, meanwhile, stood unharmed where she was, her eyes brimming with excitement.

Hidden weapons surrounded her in a circle, while the empty space where she stood formed the shape of a heart.

"You bastard, that's way too flashy! You're doing this on a battlefield?"

Compared to that, the deaths of the other three trash seemed utterly unremarkable.

The key was that while clashing hidden weapons with me, he still managed to kill three shinobi and arrange a heart-shaped pattern around the person he was protecting.

Was the gap between us really that huge? And he was only a child?

Matsudaira Kazuto felt exhausted.

A genius? No, a monster! This was far too demoralizing.

Pfft!

A gleaming blade pierced through Matsudaira Kazuto's chest.

"You know this is a battlefield, yet you still dared to lose focus?"

Uchiha Cheng spoke calmly.

He possessed the number-one Shuriken Throwing Technique in the ninja world. Only after using it did he discover that he could wield even kunai as effortlessly as his own limbs. It seemed this Shuriken Throwing Technique encompassed all ninja tools.

Bang!!!

Matsudaira Kazuto turned into a cloud of smoke, and a log dropped to the ground.

Substitution Technique!

Several Exploding Tags beneath where Matsudaira had been standing had already burned to their ends.

Boom!!!

Flames and shockwaves instantly swept through everything around them.

"Cheng-nii!!!"

Kushina, who had just been filled with excitement at Uchiha Cheng's appearance, burst into tears.

"Still too young! What a pity about your Sharingan."

Matsudaira Kazuto jumped down from a nearby tree, shook his head, and slowly walked toward Kushina.

"Will you obediently leave with me at full speed, or should I cripple you and stuff you into a sack? I've run out of patience!"

Matsudaira Kazuto stressed the word "cripple."

"Even if I die, I won't go with you! I'll make you pay for Cheng-nii's life!"

Her eyes red, Kushina pulled a kunai from the ground and glanced at the heart-shaped pattern below.

Her heart ached again.

Gripping the kunai, she leaped over the heart-shaped pattern and stabbed recklessly at Matsudaira Kazuto.

Die! We'll die here together.

"Hmph!" Matsudaira swept aside Kushina's right hand holding the kunai.

To his surprise, he had not knocked the kunai from her grip.

Her tender little hand, tightly clutching the kunai, had already turned red and even begun to bleed.

She refused to let go of the kunai even at the cost of injury? Interesting!

Then he reached for Kushina's throat.

At that moment, within the heart-shaped pattern behind Kushina, the first kunai that had flown over transformed into a puff of smoke.

"You little fool!"

Uchiha Cheng's figure sprang out from it. He wrapped an arm around Kushina's hand holding the kunai and thrust forward.

Pfft!

The sequence of movements was crisp and seamless, as though it had been prepared long ago.

The kunai held by their two tender little hands stabbed viciously into Matsudaira Kazuto's chest once more.

Matsudaira's raised right hand had only just reached Kushina's neck.

"When?" The shock on his face froze instantly.

"Cheng-nii?" Kushina, who had been utterly despairing moments ago, immediately beamed with joy.

A faint healing glow lit up from their overlapping little hands.