What Are You Up to, Clown?

Dog spawn? Dog? Spawn?

Shock and fury appeared in his scarlet eyes.

After a grating grind of clenched teeth, a roar burst through the cell door, carrying a powerful gust of wind.

"Brat! I'll kill you!"

Naruto scoffed. Deliberately conjuring up a vicious-looking image like this was a classic trick of trash Genjutsu that could only scare people.

He stood where he was and beckoned. "Come on."

Bang!

Five enormous, guillotine-like claws thrust through the bars, crashing with a boom that sent ripples across the water. But they were still half a lake away from Naruto.

The monster grew even angrier. Its huge claws alternated, stabbing and swiping as it slammed against the door in a frenzy.

It wanted to see fear on Naruto's face, but there was none. Not a trace. Naruto only watched it with indifferent eyes.

It gripped the door with both claws and shook it violently, letting out a long, furious roar of helpless rage.

Naruto gave a dismissive snort. "Clown, what are you even doing?"

The dark face abruptly lowered, pressing against the ground and the cell door as it glared at Naruto with hatred. "Get lost!"

Naruto finally got a clear look at the monster: an orange fox with red, slit-pupiled eyes and pitch-black eye sockets and ear cavities.

Before he could comment, it was as if something shoved his consciousness. He left the sewer and returned to the moonlit woods.

Naruto smiled. With his intelligence and courage, breaking through a mere Genjutsu really was as easy as getting dressed or having a drink.

He put down the Scroll of Seals, stood up, and called out, "Stop hiding like a coward. Using such a ridiculous trick is just embarrassing."

"Hahaha! I never thought you'd figure out it was me."

A shadow leaped from branch to branch in the treetops, then landed lightly opposite Naruto. The false warmth had vanished from his face, leaving only naked malice.

It was Mizuki.

He had just informed the Police Force that Naruto had stolen the Scroll of Seals. Now all he had to do was kill Naruto, dispose of the body, and escape disguised as him. Then he could keep the scroll for himself and learn Forbidden Jutsu.

Mizuki pulled the person-sized shuriken from his back. "Hand over the Scroll of Seals, get on your knees, and beg for mercy. I'll let—let—hahaha! Sorry, I can't keep pretending. I'll torture you mercilessly! I'll make sure you die in agony!"

Naruto folded his arms. "Then go ahead and try."

Mizuki's smile froze. He spun the shuriken like a fan, and a few falling leaves were shredded to pieces in an instant. "Big talk for a brat. I'll break both your legs first!"

Whoosh!

Mizuki swung the shuriken, sending it spinning at high speed toward Naruto, aiming to cut him in half.

Naruto knew there was still another teammate lurking nearby, but he wasn't about to trust his life entirely to someone else and face a blade head-on. He quickly leaped aside.

But the shuriken seemed to have a tracking function. Following the arc of Mizuki's arm, it curved around and chased after Naruto.

Just then, Iruka leaped down from the tree above Naruto. He fired shuriken in quick succession at the spinning weapon. They clanged against it, throwing off sparks, but couldn't stop it.

In desperation, he turned his back and threw himself over Naruto, intending to block the shuriken with his own body.

"Get out of the way!" Naruto's pupils suddenly widened. Under Iruka's anxious gaze, he halted, spun back, and shoved Iruka away with all his strength, facing the shuriken himself.

At the last possible instant, the world lit up.

A brilliant blue bolt of lightning fell from the sky and blasted the shuriken to pieces.

Then a shadow flashed forward at a speed invisible to Naruto's eyes. A knee slammed into Mizuki's stomach, followed by a palm strike to the back of his head. Mizuki vomited blood and collapsed to his knees, curled into a ball.

The man standing beside him had slanted, broom-like white hair. A Forehead Protector and black mask covered most of his face, leaving only his right eye exposed.

Iruka let out a relieved breath. "Kakashi, couldn't you have stepped in sooner?"

Kakashi clasped his hands behind his head and spoke lazily. "A ninja's true nature is deception. You should take your opponent by surprise and kill him in one strike."

Hearing that, Naruto instantly lost much of his admiration for ninjas.

His adoptive father, Hell, had taught him that a strong person should always face an opponent openly and defeat him with overwhelming strength.

When he was young, he'd wanted to become a ninja because his horizons had been narrow. He'd looked up to everyone and everything, believing whatever he was told.

But after truly looking down over mountains and rivers and experiencing the ways of the world, he could form his own judgments.

So ninjas were simply weaklings who endured in silence.

Kakashi dragged Mizuki over and crouched in front of Naruto. "You're calmer than I expected. Well done."

"That's called intelligence." Naruto pointed to his temple, correcting the stranger's assessment.

"Naruto!" Iruka suddenly shouted.

Naruto sighed. He was softhearted, and he still listened when people close to him spoke. "I know, respected teacher..."

Iruka took off his Forehead Protector and placed it on Naruto's head with a smile. "Congratulations! You've graduated!"

Naruto froze.

Kakashi clapped listlessly. "Lord Hokage said that if you could complete this mission, you'd be allowed to graduate."

Iruka brushed aside Naruto's blond hair and fastened the Forehead Protector's ties. "You did very well today."

For some reason, Naruto felt moved. It was as if the boy he'd once been had finally received recognition. It wasn't much, but tears still welled in his eyes. Feeling a little embarrassed, he wiped them away.

He kicked Mizuki in the mouth just as Mizuki tried to bark like a dog.

Ninja Academy.

Naruto, dressed in a pure-black trench coat, entered the classroom and casually took an empty seat at one of the rows of desks.

"Naruto? What's that dead-last doing here?"

"Isn't this briefing only for people who passed the graduation exam?"

The students talking covered their mouths with their hands, as if whispering, but their voices were loud enough to carry across the entire classroom.

Naruto turned around and saw a small group of seven or eight gathered in a circle, laughing and pointing at him.

He checked the time. There were still ten minutes before the meeting began, so he walked straight over to the group.

He asked gently, "Were you talking about me?"

The group fell silent for a moment, surprised that the person in question had come straight over.

But a boy who was already over five feet tall and quite muscular stepped forward. "That's right. What are you doing here? Is this really the place for a dead-last who failed the exam three times?"

With someone taking the lead, the others immediately laughed, openly mocking him to his face.

Everything about Naruto—from his hair to his eyebrows to his whiskers—was fair game for their taunts.

Naruto sneered. "I came to be your master. Why else would I bother coming here? I couldn't bear to part with my stupid slaves."

The smiles on the students' faces froze. Their eyes blazed as they stared at Naruto, unleashing the pure malice of children.

The same muscular boy immediately swung his hand, slapping hard at Naruto's face. "You fatherless, motherless bastard! If you want a beating, I'll give you one!"

But his hand never landed. Instead, he let out a piglike scream.

Naruto pivoted on one leg and swept his foot around, his shin smashing into the boy's forearm with a sharp crack.

The group flew into a rage. They vaulted over their seats and surrounded Naruto from both sides.

"How dare you fight back!"

"Apologize! Get on your knees and apologize to Kinmoku!"

Naruto grinned. This was the kind of relationship he wanted. How could anyone focus on studying if he had to be humble and accommodating with a bunch of bugs?

He grinned, showing a mouthful of white teeth, and kept moving, kicking Kinmoku again and again. "You're a bunch of useless cowards. You're too weak to bully anyone without ganging up on them and making excuses."

"If you dare provoke me, Naruto the Conqueror, then you'd better be ready to pay the price!"

A powerful aura erupted from Naruto.

His trench coat billowed without a breeze.

His Chakra surged.

He had successfully adapted the technique he'd mastered in the Magnetic Field World—creating an electric current by rubbing his cells together—to generate Chakra through friction.

"You useless cowards can all come at me together."

The members of the group felt a shiver of fear. But the other students watching from around the classroom—especially the girls, Haruno Sakura, Yamanaka Ino, and Hinata Hyuga—made their faces burn.

It felt as if ants were crawling all over them. They couldn't bring themselves to back down.

"Get him! Beat that bastard Naruto down!"