Kimura Takuya's house.
"Where's Tonton? How come I can't see her?"
"Didn't I leave her food and water? She must be in a corner. Did she go to the bathroom? Is she under the bed? She's not under the sofa, either."
Kimura Takuya searched the entire room, turning over every corner, but he just couldn't find her.
Seeing Shizune, who looked like a quiet young woman, gradually starting to lose it.
Kimura Takuya turned to look toward the window, and his eyes lit up.
"Aha, she must be hiding behind the curtains! I've found you, Tonton!"
He yanked the curtains aside, but there was nothing there.
Then he looked at the windowsill and saw tiny pig hoofprints. It was clear as day: Tonton had run off again.
"Shizune, don't squeeze my neck! Let go, quick, I'm going to suffocate.
"Tonton ran off again. We have to hurry and go after her. I saw her when I left this morning, so she can't have gone too far."
At his words, Shizune stopped strangling Kimura Takuya in a frenzy and calmed down.
Tonton had been lost and found, only to be lost again. After such an emotional roller coaster,
even someone as good-natured as Shizune couldn't help losing it a little.
But her strength was at least at the level of a Special Jōnin, and she had the self-control to compose herself.
She took a deep breath and let go of Kimura Takuya, then examined the hoofprints on the windowsill.
The prints led out the window and onto a path.
They followed the path all the way into the depths of the woods, where the trail went cold.
Kimura Takuya's house was already in a bad spot within the residential district.
And the residential district itself was in the worst location to begin with.
It was close to several undeveloped areas and training grounds.
It was a rather remote place.
And the path eventually led to the very place
that served as the second test site for the Chunin Ninja Exams in the original story: Training Ground 44—the Forest of Death!
"Wait, Shizune, it's a restricted area up ahead! There are lots of traps and wild beasts, and no one is allowed to enter without permission."
"We don't have time to worry about that."
Shizune hadn't intended to bother with the rules.
But after thinking it over, she made a Shadow Clone and sent it to seek permission to enter from Tsunade. Only then did she go inside.
Although no one usually paid much attention to restricted areas like this, she was now the Hokage's student. Anything she did could be taken as the Hokage's doing.
Lady Tsunade had only just taken office, so her position was surely still shaky. If someone seized on a trivial matter like this to criticize her, it could cause serious trouble.
So Shizune decided to be cautious.
The two ventured deeper into the forest. Trees grew everywhere, and they were all enormous.
They couldn't tell whether the trees had grown that way naturally or had been created by the First's Wood Release.
They raced across the treetops, searching in every direction.
After tracking Tonton for a long time without success, Kimura Takuya spoke to Shizune.
"Shizune, we can't keep chasing her like this. Do you have anything Tonton has used? Couldn't we find a Ninja Dog to track her?"
Shizune froze for a moment, then came over to Kimura Takuya and grabbed his neck, shaking him furiously.
"Why didn't you say so earlier? Why didn't you say so earlier?!"
"Let go! Let go! I can't breathe!"
Shizune lost it again, strangling Kimura Takuya for quite some time before finally calming down.
"It's too late to go back now. Let's keep searching. If we haven't found her by nightfall, we'll request a Ninja Dog to help us look."
The two kept searching until they reached a clearing.
They found some small hoofprints that looked like pig tracks. They were from a piglet, but there was also a larger hoofprint beside them.
It was a little strange, but they didn't dwell on it.
After searching for so long, this was their only lead, so they followed it, tracking it all the way to a creek.
But it turned out to be a large wild boar and a piglet.
Disappointed, Shizune shouted and scared them away.
"Hey, Shizune, this isn't good. Look at the grass around us."
At his words, Shizune looked at the grass. The trees in the Forest of Death were enormous, and the grass was frighteningly tall, too.
The grass by the creek was taller than a person.
At that moment, the towering grass was swaying without a breeze.
There were occasional gaps between the dense stalks.
Through those gaps, they caught glimpses of an eye-catching yellow, mixed with a little black.
Tigers.
Enormous tigers!
And more than one.
There were probably more than a dozen Giant Tigers in the grass surrounding them.
The tigers crept through the grass on their bellies, yet even so, they stood taller than Kimura Takuya.
The grass could barely hide them!
"We're surrounded, Shizune. Can you take care of this many tigers? If you can't, I'll step in."
"Damn it! How dare you look down on me, you little brat? Watch this. Poison Kunai!"
Shizune sent a volley of kunai flying at the surrounding tigers.
Every Giant Tiger in the grass was instantly paralyzed.
"Well, kid? Still think you can look down on me?"
Shizune showed off, twirling a kunai in her hand.
But Kimura Takuya didn't respond for a long moment.
"This is bad. A whole pack of even bigger ones is coming."
Another group of Giant Tigers approached from the distance. Compared with them, the ones Shizune had just paralyzed were like dwarves.
They trampled down the grass and found the paralyzed "little tigers," which were still as tall as a person even lying down.
They licked the "little tigers" as if they were grown tigers licking their own cubs.
No, not as if. That's exactly what they were!
These new Giant Tigers, over three meters tall, were the parents of the "little tigers" Shizune had just paralyzed.
"Roar!"
When the Giant Tigers couldn't lick their cubs awake, they all charged at the two of them in a frenzy.
"Run!"
"Why aren't you throwing Poison Kunai at them?"
"I'm out! I've only got one left. Who carries that many kunai when they go out? Even if I had more, they were too huge. The anesthetic wouldn't be enough to knock them out."
They talked as they ran.
They were both moving at Jōnin speed and running fast. They deliberately headed up into the trees, leaping from one giant tree to another in an attempt to use the trunks to stop the tigers.
But they hadn't expected the Giant Tigers behind them to smash down the towering trees, each one wide enough for more than a dozen people to encircle!
Despite their massive bodies, the tigers were just as fast as the two of them.
Kimura Takuya could activate the Sound-Damping Technique to increase his speed, but he couldn't use it while carrying Shizune along, too.
He couldn't just abandon her, could he?
All right, enough pretending.
Time to come clean.
"Ninja Art: Rasen Barrage Cannon!"
Kimura Takuya spun around.
He brought his palms together in front of his chest, then thrust them straight out.
His palms pressed against each other, aimed at the pursuing Giant Tigers.
Chakra rapidly gathered in front of his hands, forming Big Ball Rasengans as large as boulders. He fired one as soon as it formed.
The massive Rasengans shot out one after another like a barrage of cannonballs.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Dozens of Giant Tigers were sent flying by the explosions.
They crashed to the ground.
Kimura Takuya had deliberately controlled where the Big Ball Rasengans landed, keeping them from hitting the tigers directly.
He had only detonated them nearby, knocking the tigers unconscious.
These were all Ninja Tigers!
They were far too large to be ordinary tigers. They were all Ninja Tigers.
They couldn't compare with the toads on Mount Myōboku, some of which were dozens of meters tall.
But they were much larger than the Ninja Pigs and Ninja Leopards Kimura Takuya and Team Guy had encountered before.
Kimura Takuya had important plans for these tigers, so he spared their lives.
He knew he'd spared them.
But the Tiger King, who was strolling unhurriedly at the back of the pack, had no idea!
Before you continue