Bam---
The Nine-Tails shrank down to the size of a miniature toy figurine.
It looked adorable.
It appeared in the real world.
No one could tell that this was the once-mighty creature that had dominated the world,
the strongest Tailed Beast, feared by countless ninjas!
Only Naruto could sense its chakra.
It had hidden the rest of its presence perfectly!
"Not bad. You can definitely look like this."
Naruto rubbed his chin.
He gave it a favorable review.
It was just too bad the useless fox couldn't turn into a fox girl.
Just think of the beautiful, mature Nine-Tailed Fox from League of Legends.
Then look at the giant Nine-Tails in the Shinobi World!
The contrast was just ridiculous!
One was a monster girl, the other a beast.
They weren't even remotely comparable!
Under Naruto's gaze,
the Nine-Tails' fur stood on end. On the verge of tears, it said, "M-Master, I really can't change anymore."
"Got it. From now on, when I call you out, you'll appear like this. Understand?"
Naruto spread his hands to show he understood.
That disappointed look in his eyes
gave the nearly broken Nine-Tails a glimmer of hope.
Whatever you say goes, boss.
But let's forget about turning into a human.
That would be way too insulting to us Tailed Beasts!
"Yes, master!"
"Hey... There are two hostile presences rapidly approaching us!"
"What should we do, master?"
The Nine-Tails asked politely.
The two presences were extremely stealthy.
Even among ordinary ninjas,
they would be top-tier fighters!
But...
In the Nine-Tails' eyes, they were just a bunch of weaklings, weren't they?
The sort of things it could swat dead like mosquitoes or flies.
It was sure Naruto had sensed them too.
To show that it could still be of some use,
the Nine-Tails decided to make a good impression.
"Oh? Looks like they're enemies of my cheap old man. I'll use them to get some practice."
Naruto rolled his neck.
He did a few warm-up stretches.
Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage,
had killed many elite ninjas from other villages
when the Third Great Ninja War broke out.
He had earned countless merits in battle.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have become Hokage of Konoha.
Anyone who reached that position—
which one of them didn't have blood on their hands?
The families of those dead elite ninjas couldn't take on Minato Namikaze.
Did they think they could beat a weakling who'd only just become a Genin?
If they killed Naruto,
they could also seize the Nine-Tails inside him.
Two birds with one stone.
So quite a few talented ninjas had volunteered to form a small team and come assassinate Naruto.
"Hey... This is interesting. The Anbu stopped them."
Though he couldn't see them,
Naruto could sense the two presences heading his way.
They had stopped outside.
They couldn't get any closer to him!
"How boring... Those weaklings are so useless. They can't even get past the Anbu, and they still dare to come assassinate me?"
Naruto pursed his lips in dissatisfaction.
He'd thought he'd get to have some fun tonight,
and enjoy himself for a change.
Who would've thought those weaklings would die before they even got started?
They'd died on their way to assassinate him.
Good grief!
If you didn't have any skill, you shouldn't go out and embarrass yourself.
The Nine-Tails held back its urge to complain.
My master!!
The Anbu of Konoha weren't slackers.
They were more than capable of stopping a few nobodies.
That was what the Nine-Tails thought.
But it didn't take long for reality to slap it in the face.
An extremely stealthy presence slipped past the Anbu's blockade
and raced toward them.
"Oh? There's at least one decent one. Not all of them are useless."
Naruto grinned.
The Nine-Tails' mouth twitched.
A surge of anger rose in its heart.
Not at Naruto,
but at the bastard who'd gone undetected.
You almost made me lose face!
Worm!
I'll kill you!
"Let's go out and welcome our guest. I don't want to dirty my new house."
Bam---
A Puppet Shadow Clone appeared in front of him.
Naruto closed his eyes and focused.
His consciousness connected directly to the Shadow Clone.
At most, he could personally control ten Puppet Shadow Clones at once.
That meant controlling them himself!
Closing his eyes and focusing let him control them more precisely,
instead of simply giving the summoned Puppet Shadow Clones a general instruction or a single command
and then leaving them to act on their own.
That was the fundamental difference between the two.
The Nine-Tails was dumbfounded.
"Master, aren't you going out?"
Weren't you just itching
to stretch your muscles?
Good grief!
Why were you sending out your Shadow Clone instead?
Naruto's Puppet Shadow Clone rolled its eyes.
It looked at the Nine-Tails as if it were an idiot.
"Can't you have a little ambition?"
"Do I really need to use my real body to deal with one weakling?"
Its actions and expressions were exactly the same as Naruto's real body!
What shocked the Nine-Tails even more was the chakra the Shadow Clone possessed.
It was exactly the same as the chakra in Naruto's real body.
That couldn't be real...
Was this kid a monster?
The Nine-Tails had once seen Madara Uchiha do something similar.
Even with an enormous amount of chakra,
his Shadow Clone still didn't have as much as his real body.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have lost so many people in battle.
Everyone could just use Shadow Clones,
send them out to fight,
and stay home to relax.
Anyone could see that was impossible.
Back to Madara Uchiha—
the Nine-Tails wasn't surprised he could do that.
But Naruto, at such a young age, had mastered a ninjutsu it had never heard of or even seen before.
Wasn't that too outrageous?
He opened the door.
"Ah... Master, wait for me."
The Nine-Tails looked at Naruto's real body, then at his Shadow Clone.
In the end, it decided to follow Naruto's Shadow Clone outside.
The boss was leaving.
How could an employee dare to stay behind alone?
"Phew, according to the intel, this is the house, right?"
A thin man with an extremely stealthy presence
wiped the sweat from his forehead.
His companions were responsible for the feint,
drawing the attention of the Konoha Anbu.
He would take the chance to kill Naruto, who was still a nobody.
If you couldn't beat a tiger, could you really not kill its cub?
"So you're Naruto Uzumaki, huh? Tonight, I'll send you on your way and reunite you with your parents. That'll be a good deed for the country and its people."
"You should be grateful to me for freeing you from the pain of being hated by the village."
The man had received outdated information.
He thought Naruto was still the hated outcast everyone despised, a rat everyone wanted to beat.
"You've got guts. I admire useless ninja like you, with your inexplicable self-confidence and complete lack of self-awareness."
Naruto opened the door.
He'd heard the man muttering to himself and stepped outside.
He raised a universally recognized rude gesture at him.
The man was instantly dumbfounded.
Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
His assassination target hadn't hidden or run away.
Instead, he'd swaggered right out of the house
and raised a gesture at him that he didn't even recognize.
Happiness came too quickly, like a tornado.
I couldn't live without love. I had no time to run, I couldn't...
"Hmph, you brat. Since you've come right to me, don't blame me for showing no mercy."
The man reached for the ninja tools pouch at his waist.
He held a kunai in one hand and an Explosive Tag in the other.
"Ha ha ha... Kurama, where'd you find this clown? Since when do ninjas need kunai and Explosive Tags to fight?"
Naruto laughed so hard he doubled over.
Kurama had to admit it.
Naruto had a point.
After all, he'd experienced it firsthand.
The ninjas who'd fought him in the past
were always tossing a few kunai at him for no reason.
Not only was the damage pathetic,
they weren't even enough to make him itch.
What kind of ninja uses kunai in a fight?!
Do you?
I sure don't.
The Nine-Tails chimed in.
"I don't know where this country bumpkin came from. He's never seen the world and only knows how to use these two things."
The man froze.
Had he seen that right?
A doll had actually spoken!
And not only could it talk, it was mocking him as a country bumpkin?!
Didn't ninjas use kunai and Explosive Tags in battle?
Those were basic ninja skills!
If you couldn't use either of them,
how could you even call yourself a ninja?
This was a blatant insult!
The man flew into a rage. "Damn it! You little brat and your foul-mouthed fox doll—I'm gonna kill you!"
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