The Nine-Tails Shows Its Might, and the Protective Senju Clan

Kushina Uzumaki's steps paused.

She turned around and glanced at Nawaki.

Nawaki's expression had already returned to normal. Leaning back in his chair with his right hand on the armrest, he nodded at her.

He said nothing.

There was no need to.

Kushina turned back and walked into the arena.

Nabi was still laughing. Electricity crackled between his fingers, blue-white light reflecting off his face and making him look especially punchable.

"So this is what you Konoha call protection?" His gaze passed over Kushina toward Nawaki in the waiting area. "Last time, you sent three chunin to steal someone and still failed, disgracing Hidden Cloud Village. Today, I'll win fair and square—"

"You sure talk a lot."

Kushina stopped twelve meters away from Nabi.

Nabi's smile froze for half a second.

Then he smiled again, but his tone changed. It was no longer teasing provocation; there was genuine malice beneath it.

"Red tomato."

The air in the arena seemed to congeal.

Several genin in Konoha's waiting area exchanged glances. That nickname had circulated around the Academy for a while—red hair, red cheeks, and even redder whenever she got angry.

The three words Kushina hated most.

"You—"

"What?" Nabi tilted his head, the electricity between his index and middle fingers dancing more wildly. "Did Red Tomato get mad? Your face is even redder now. With that mop of red hair, you look just like—"

He never finished.

Because Kushina moved.

No stance. No buildup. No warning whatsoever.

Her right foot shattered the stone slab beneath it as she shot forward. The twelve-meter distance was shorter beneath her feet than Iron Fire's fifteen-meter sprint—not because she was faster than Iron Fire, but because she used too much force, blasting a crater into the ground with every step.

Nabi's reaction was not slow. After all, he was a genius chosen by Hidden Cloud Village.

"Lightning Release—Lightning Armor!"

Blue-white current erupted from his body, forming a thin layer of armor against his skin. Hidden Cloud Village's signature physical enhancement technique—with this armor on, his reaction speed and muscular explosiveness doubled.

He shifted sideways, intending to circle around Kushina and counterattack from the flank.

Kushina's fist had already arrived.

A right straight. No technique. No angle. No ninjutsu enhancement.

A pure, savage, utterly unreasonable punch.

Nabi crossed his arms to block. Lightning Armor buzzed along his forearms as arcs of electricity leaped frantically.

The fist came down.

His guard broke.

Not the Lightning Armor—the Lightning Armor was still there. But Nabi's arms were blasted apart by that punch, his blocking stance collapsing like it was made of paper. The force of the blow did not weaken in the slightest as it slammed straight into his chest.

A dull boom.

Not an ordinary dull boom. It was the kind that seemed to come from the depths of his chest cavity, a sound whose vibration even the spectators in the stands could feel.

Nabi's body bent into a bizarre arc—his upper body flew backward while his lower body remained rooted in place, his heels carving two deep trenches through the ground.

He flew eight meters.

His back struck the arena wall, smashing a human-shaped indentation into it.

Rubble clattered down.

The entire arena fell silent.

In the Hidden Cloud Village section, the bald, muscular man rose to his feet.

Nabi slid down from the wall and dropped to one knee, blood at the corner of his mouth. His Lightning Armor remained active, but the arcs over his left chest were in disarray. The armor had clearly been cracked by the blow.

He looked up at Kushina.

Kushina stood in the center of the arena, her right fist still held in the position of her strike.

Her hair was moving.

There was no wind. The arena was semi-enclosed, and the breeze was too weak even to stir a flag.

Yet her red hair was moving.

Strand by strand, it floated upward as though lifted by water, slowly spreading through the air. At the tips of her hair was an incredibly faint, nearly invisible orange-red glow.

In the waiting area, Nawaki lightly pressed his right hand against the armrest.

The Sage Body's senses told him clearly—there was a hairline crack in the seal within Kushina. It was not that the seal had loosened; the Nine-Tails' chakra was instinctively seeping out whenever her emotions ran high.

The amount was tiny. Less than one percent of the tailed beast's chakra.

But even that one percent had sent her physical capabilities soaring.

Nabi climbed to his feet. He wiped away the blood at his lips, and something new appeared in his eyes.

Fear.

But Hidden Cloud Village shinobi did not retreat because of fear. It was an education beaten into their bones from childhood.

"Lightning Release: Lightning Ball!"

He formed hand seals with both hands, and a basketball-sized sphere of lightning shot from his palm. It was incredibly fast, its arcs illuminating half the arena.

Kushina did not dodge.

She raised her right hand—and caught it.

The Lightning Ball exploded in her palm. Electricity crawled up her arm, crackling and snapping for three seconds.

Her fingers closed.

She crushed it.

The arcs scattered and vanished.

White smoke rose from her palm, and her skin was faintly red. But that orange-red film had blocked ninety percent of the damage for her.

Kushina shook her hand.

"That's it?"

Nabi's face went completely white.

Kushina gave him no more chances.

Her second step cracked a fissure straight through the ground.

Her right fist drew back to her waist while her left fist blasted forward—

This punch was even heavier than the first.

Nabi had no time to evade. He tried to withstand it with Lightning Armor, crossing his arms again.

It was useless.

Her fist smashed through his guard and drove both him and his lightning straight into the ground.

The stone floor of the arena exploded into a three-meter-wide crater. Rubble flew everywhere, and the cloud of dust obscured half the field.

The dust settled.

Nabi lay motionless at the bottom of the crater. His Lightning Armor had vanished, more than half his clothing was in tatters, and the bone in his right arm bent at an angle it never should have. He was unconscious. Completely unconscious.

Kushina stood at the crater's edge as her red hair slowly settled. The orange-red glow faded, returning to normal.

She let out a breath and flexed her wrist.

In the stands, a Hidden Sand jonin picked up the scroll he had dropped, flipped through it, then set it back down.

The intelligence written on it no longer had any value.

In the Hidden Cloud Village section.

The bald, muscular man clenched his fist until his knuckles cracked. His gaze shifted from Nabi at the bottom of the crater to Kushina in the arena, and his lips moved slightly.

Then—he moved.

He did not leap from the stands. But his hands rapidly formed seals before him as Lightning Release chakra erupted from his body, carrying the distinctive pressure of a jonin as it spread toward Kushina.

This was not an attack.

It was intimidation. The killing intent a jonin released toward a genin, enough to make an ordinary person's legs go weak.

Kushina felt it. Her shoulders tensed.

In the waiting area.

The sound of wood breaking.

It was faint, but the Hidden Cloud Village jonin heard it.

He looked down.

A wooden spike had burst from the spectator seat beneath his feet, piercing through the top of his right foot and nailing it to the wooden floor.

Blood dripped down onto the seat.

Pain reached his brain half a second later.

The muscular man's hand seal froze.

He turned his head.

Nawaki was still sitting in the waiting area. His posture had not changed. His right leg was crossed over his left, and his left hand rested naturally on the armrest.

His right palm faced downward, pressed against the seat.

That was the hand. From thirty meters away, through the structure of the stands, it had precisely grown a wooden spike.

"Sit down."

Nawaki's voice was not loud. But Sage Body chakra carried the sound waves over, forcing every word clearly into the Hidden Cloud Village jonin's ears.

The muscular man gritted his teeth and lowered his head to look at his impaled foot.

"You—"

"I'll say it again."

Nawaki's gaze swept over him evenly.

"Anyone who touches one of my Senju Clan people won't leave Konoha."

The entire arena was silent.

The Third Hokage sat on the main platform with his pipe between his lips, but he did not take a puff. His gaze shifted twice between Nawaki and the Hidden Cloud Village jonin. His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing.

What could he say? Stop Nawaki?

Just last night, this twelve-year-old boy had taken three commercial streets from him.

The Hidden Cloud Village jonin stared at Nawaki for three seconds. After three seconds, he slowly withdrew his hands from their seals. His killing intent receded.

Nawaki lifted his right hand.

The wooden spike pulled free from the Hidden Cloud Village jonin's foot, shrinking back into the seat and disappearing.

Blood gushed from the puncture wound. Without a word, the muscular man tore off a piece of his clothing, wrapped it around the wound, and sat back down.

He did not look at Nawaki again.

But the two Hidden Cloud Village attendants beside him had already memorized the face of that twelve-year-old boy.

On the field, the referee wiped his sweat and raised his hand.

"The winner—Kushina Uzumaki!"

Kushina gave a cheerful "Yeah!" and jogged back to the waiting area.

She could not stop in time when she reached Nawaki, throwing herself straight into his arms.

"I won!"

Nawaki caught her. He raised his right hand and stroked her red hair, the motion natural as his fingers slid from the crown of her head to her shoulders.

"You did well. But control your emotions better next time. Don't let your chakra run wild."

"I know, I know—"

In the stands, Minato's gaze rested on that hand.

The hand stroking her hair.

He lowered his head.

Jiraiya opened his mouth, but for once, he said nothing.

Mikoto handed over a water flask. Kushina drank half of it in one go, then wiped her mouth.

The waiting area became noisy again.

The next few matches held no real suspense. Two Konoha chunin faced Hidden Sand, winning one match and losing one. A Hidden Mist shinobi slowly ground down Konoha's logistics-type shinobi with Water Release.

Nawaki barely watched. He was waiting.

The lottery board spun for the final time.

Names flickered across it for over ten seconds.

The sounds throughout the arena gradually died down.

Then it stopped.

Everyone in the waiting area looked toward the board at the same time.

Nawaki Senju VS Minato Namikaze.

The atmosphere in the arena changed. Not from chakra fluctuations, but from people's breathing. Hundreds of people held their breath at once.

Nawaki stood up.

In the waiting area across from him, Minato stood as well.

The two looked at each other across the entire arena.

Minato's hands hung at his sides. The index finger of his right hand curled slightly—that was his habitual motion when gripping a kunai.

Nawaki looked away from Minato's face and lowered his head to pat Kushina's head.

"Watch carefully."

He stepped toward the arena.

Behind him, Jiraiya's voice was low, audible only to Minato.

"Are you sure? That kid's Wood Release isn't something you can handle at your current level."

Minato walked forward.

"I know."

A kunai appeared in his hand. It was three-pronged, with a strip of special sealing paper wrapped around the hilt.

Jiraiya looked at that kunai, and his pupils contracted.

"When did you—"

"Over the last three months." Minato walked out of the waiting area, sunlight falling across his face. "I made a revised version of the Flying Thunder God Formula you taught me."