Gaara

At the very front stood a mushroom-haired brat wearing a long scarf and goggles. With his hands on his hips, he looked up at Naruto, his chin practically raised to the sky.

Behind him stood two other little kids around the same age: a girl with her hair in buns, and a boy wearing glasses with two streams of snot hanging from his nose.

"As expected of the man I've taken a liking to! As expected of you, my future rival! You saw through my peerless disguise so easily!"

Konohamaru jabbed a thumb at his own chest, his face full of pride.

"Anyone could see through that disguise."

Naruto replied flatly.

Konohamaru seemed not to have heard the jab at all and continued talking to himself.

"Moegi, Udon, and I have been tracking you for a full half hour. My ninja instincts told me you had to be carrying out some kind of secret mission—one that's extremely dangerous and can't be known by outsiders..."

"No. I'm just walking my dog."

"Just as I thought. You're tight-lipped."

"Then let me tell you this. According to the intelligence this young master has gathered, you're now Konoha's super genin who defeated the rogue jōnin Zabuza. So I challenge you to a showdown! The loser must yield the path to becoming Hokage!"

"Come on, let's have a duel between real men..."

Naruto was starting to feel like he did not want to talk anymore.

He finally understood why the Third Hokage always wore that expression whenever he faced a mountain of paperwork.

He rubbed his temples and decided to get rid of Konohamaru in the quickest way possible.

"Fine, fine, you win. The path to Hokage is yours. I just want to go home and sleep now."

"What? Surrendering without a fight? That doesn't sound like you!"

Konohamaru shouted as he walked backward down the street. He spun around so enthusiastically that his scarf nearly tangled around his feet.

"Besides, I overheard a super important piece of news from Teacher Ebisu. I was going to tell you, but you won't even accept my challenge, so I..."

Konohamaru was so caught up in walking backward that he did not watch where he was going. Halfway through his sentence, his back slammed solidly into someone behind him.

"Ah..."

The impact knocked Konohamaru forward, and he nearly fell before Naruto reached out and caught him by the back of his collar.

Once he had regained his footing, he hurriedly turned around, ready to apologize—but the words caught in his throat.

What he had hit was a wall. No, it was a person.

"That hurt, brat."

The person Konohamaru had run into lowered his head, his voice dark.

He wore a grayish-white bodysuit, with dark purple stripes of face paint across his face and the symbol of Sand Village on his forehead.

Behind him stood a tall girl with four golden ponytails. A metal fan wider than her entire body hung at her waist, and she looked down at them with an expression somewhere between impatience and amusement.

Naruto's gaze swept over them, and he froze for a moment.

Kankuro and Temari.

The children of Sand Village's Fourth Kazekage—Gaara's older brother and sister.

The fact that these two had appeared on Konoha's streets meant the Chūnin Exams were about to begin. The Sand Village people had already arrived, and if these two were here, Gaara had to be nearby as well.

Without showing any reaction, Naruto extended his senses outward, precisely restricting his chakra perception to a spherical area fifty meters around him.

Absolute Control gave Naruto extremely fine control over his senses. He did not need to release conspicuous chakra fluctuations like ordinary ninja to probe his surroundings.

Sure enough.

In a large tree behind and to Kankuro's right, there was a chakra source so quiet it was almost eerie.

Its chakra had a peculiar quality—vast, cold, and violent. Yet it was currently suppressed to an extremely low level, like a dormant volcano covered by a thin layer of ice.

Through the gaps in the leaves, he could vaguely make out a flash of dark red hair and a pair of emotionless eyes.

Gaara.

The One-Tail Shukaku's jinchūriki, Sand Village's ultimate weapon. At this point, he had yet to experience any warmth or redemption. He was a killing machine that could lose control at any moment.

Naruto calculated the timing in his mind.

It had only been three days since they returned from the Land of Waves, and the Sand Village people had already arrived.

That meant representatives from every nation for the Chūnin Exams had begun arriving in Konoha one after another.

The official notice for the exams should come down within the next couple of days.

Time was tight.

His original plan had been to keep a low profile as much as possible before Tsunade took office, using this period to train his Flying Raijin and sealing techniques until they were practical in battle. But now, it seemed the window he had was much shorter than he had anticipated.

The advantage of arriving at this point in time was that he did not have to endure the miserable life of his childhood. The disadvantage was that time was pressing; before he could prepare anything, he had to face the major event that was the Chūnin Exams.

The Forest of Death, Orochimaru, Gaara's tailed beast transformation, the Konoha Crush Plan.

Then again, there were advantages to the Chūnin Exams coming early.

The Third Hokage's attention would soon be diverted by ninja from other nations, Orochimaru's conspiracy, and the diplomatic standoff with Sand Village. Naturally, he would use the Telescope Technique to keep an eye on Naruto far less often.

While these thoughts ran through Naruto's mind, Kankuro made his move.

He grabbed Konohamaru by the collar and lifted him off the ground like a chick.

Konohamaru's legs kicked wildly in the air. His scarf cinched tightly around his neck, and his little face turned red from lack of air. He tried desperately to pry Kankuro's fingers apart, but how could a seven-year-old child possibly match the strength of an official Sand Village ninja?

Kankuro raised Konohamaru until they were at eye level. Tilting his head, he looked over the brat who did not know his place, a far from friendly curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

"You run into someone and don't even know how to apologize?"

"Is that how Konoha teaches its ninja?"

Moegi and Udon were so frightened that their faces went pale.

Moegi's lips trembled a few times. Gathering her courage, she rushed forward to kick Kankuro in the shin, but Temari casually brushed her aside.

Udon simply dropped onto the ground, his glasses crooked and his snot dangling all the way down.

"I suggest you let him go."

At that moment, a hand firmly clamped around Kankuro's wrist.

Kankuro looked down and discovered that Naruto had somehow appeared in front of him.

The fingers gripping his wrist did not use much force, but their placement was exceptionally tricky.

The thumb pressed against the ulnar nerve point on the inner side of the ulnar styloid process, while the other four fingers fit precisely between the radial artery and the palmaris longus tendon. It was a standard wrist lock.

If the other person exerted even a little more force, his entire forearm would go numb and weak, leaving him unable to use any strength at all.

So fast.

The same thought flashed through the minds of everyone present, as well as the person hiding in the tree.

Temari unconsciously lowered the arms she had been lazily folding across her chest, her fingers quietly settling on the handle of her iron fan.

Gaara, up in the tree, narrowed his eyes slightly as well, his gaze falling on Naruto.