As Tenten bent down to put away the sample ninja tools she had just taken out, the bell on the door rang.
"Welcome—"
Tenten straightened up with her habitual customer-service smile, but before she could finish speaking, the smile vanished from her face as swiftly as a frost-stricken flower.
It was not that she did not want to smile. It was that two ANBU members wearing animal masks had entered the shop.
The one in front wore a cat mask, while the one behind wore a dog mask.
Their footsteps were extraordinarily light. From the entrance to the counter, they made almost no sound at all; even the wooden floor did not creak beneath them.
The cat-masked ANBU stopped before the counter. His gaze lingered on Tenten's face for less than a second before sweeping over the inventory ledger and order slips she had not had time to put away.
The dog-masked ANBU did not approach the counter. Instead, he stood with his back to the entrance, hands behind him, his eyes slowly scanning the ninja tools displayed along the shop's walls through the mask's eyeholes.
"What did Naruto Uzumaki buy here just now?"
The cat-masked ANBU asked in a low, steady voice without the slightest inflection. Yet precisely because it was so flat, the question carried an especially heavy weight in the silent shop.
"Huh?"
After saying goodbye to Tenten, Naruto walked back along Konoha's streets.
The setting sun sank behind Kage Rock, wrapping the entire village in gentle twilight. Shops along the street gradually lit their lamps, warm yellow light spilling through window after window and scattering uneven patches of brightness across the ground.
Naruto made a trip to Konoha's public market.
The market was nearly closing at this hour, and the remaining vegetables had already been picked through several times. Still, he managed to buy a small bag of rice, several scallions, two eggs, and a piece of meat from an elderly woman preparing to close her stall.
The old woman kept her head down as she accepted the money, counting it twice without once looking up at Naruto's face.
Naruto did not mind. He thanked her and left.
Back at his apartment, Naruto got busy in the spotless little kitchen.
He had learned to cook when he lived alone in his previous life. He was no great chef, but making a few simple home-style dishes was no challenge.
He washed the rice and put it on to cook, sliced the pork thin and stir-fried it until it rendered fat, chopped the scallions and fried them until fragrant, then poured in the beaten eggs and stir-fried everything together, finishing with a splash of soy sauce for flavor.
Less than half an hour later, a plate of stir-fried pork with scallions, a plate of scrambled eggs, and a bowl of white rice sat on the small low table, which had been wiped spotless.
After eating, Naruto wrapped the leftovers in plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator.
The fridge no longer contained only expired milk and instant noodles. Fresh vegetables and meat were neatly arranged in the refrigerated compartment, while two Pacific saury lay frozen in the freezer.
He had bought these over the past few days in batches. Konoha's market had several stalls, and he went to different ones each time, buying meat in the east and vegetables in the west, doing his best not to attract attention.
After finishing dinner and wiping down the kitchen counter, Naruto went into the living room and created several Shadow Clone Techniques.
The clones sat facing the original body and began discussing the finer points of throwing Kunai.
The clones spoke one after another in voices neither too loud nor too soft. Naruto even deliberately had them mention Chakra a few times, letting their voices carry through the walls and ventilation window so the ANBU crouching in the tree across from the apartment could hear.
More than twenty minutes later, Naruto yawned. He told the Shadow Clone Techniques to keep talking, then took a change of clothes and entered the bathroom.
The instant the bathroom door closed, Naruto took a Kunai engraved with a five-pointed-star Flying Thunder God Mark from his ninja tool pouch and silently hid it away.
As long as that Kunai remained there, he could teleport back from Waterfall Cave at any time.
The last time, he had used Shadow Clone Technique and Transformation Technique with a garbage bag to sneak out. Although it had worked, the process was too cumbersome and too prone to mistakes.
Now that he had a Flying Thunder God coordinate hidden in the apartment, getting in and out would be much simpler.
As long as he sensed the Kunai's location, he could return with a single thought.
Naruto turned on the shower. Hot water splashed noisily across the bathroom floor, and white steam quickly filled the entire cramped space.
Standing beneath the shower, he closed his eyes and slowly spread out his perception.
Outside the apartment, the two ANBU's Chakra signatures remained in their original positions.
There was also no sign of the Third Hokage's Telescope Technique probing him. He did not feel that needle-like sensation of being watched. Hiruzen Sarutobi was probably busy preparing for the Chunin Ninja Exams.
Naruto took a deep breath, mobilized the Chakra within his body, and focused his mind on the fixed Flying Thunder God Kunai hidden deep within Waterfall Cave.
The instant the Flying Thunder God Formula activated, the steamy white mist in the bathroom twisted slightly. A thread of golden light, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, flashed through the air, and then Naruto vanished from the bathroom.
The shower continued pouring out hot water, its sound steady and unbroken, while the steam remained thick enough to be impossible to see through.
The next second, Naruto's feet landed on the rocky ground of Waterfall Cave.
He opened his eyes, and a domed cavern five hundred meters in diameter filled his view.
The Perception Isolation Barrier was still operating steadily. Its walls were intact, without any trace of having been touched or tested.
The cave was permeated by a faint dampness created as mist from the waterfall drifted in and mixed with the dry rock. The temperature was at least five or six degrees lower than outside.
The roar of the waterfall crashing into the pool filtered through the rock walls, low and muffled, like the sound of a drum buried beneath several layers of blankets.
"Everything's normal."
After confirming that everything was in order, Naruto walked to the center of the cave. There was an open space he had specially leveled there. "Then tonight's training begins."
He formed a cross-shaped hand seal.
"Shadow Clone Technique."
Bang bang bang bang...
Forty clouds of smoke exploded in the spacious cave. When the smoke cleared, forty Shadow Clone Techniques stood neatly across half the open area, forty pairs of eyes turning toward the original body at once, full of energy.
"Everyone, let's begin."
Naruto said.
"Yeah!" x40
All the Shadow Clone Techniques answered in unison, then quickly scattered and found their own positions throughout the cave.
Tonight, Naruto had set several clear directions for breakthroughs in his Flying Thunder God training.
The first was the speed of formula inscription.
Minato Namikaze's most terrifying ability was not Flying Thunder God itself, but his ability to inscribe the Flying Thunder God Formula onto an enemy the instant he touched them in battle. After that, the fight was over.
The classic example was Minato Namikaze's battle against Two-Five Boy Obito. In the split-second flash as they crossed paths, Minato struck him with a Rasengan and used the momentum to carve a Flying Thunder God Mark onto Obito's body. From beginning to end, the battle lasted only a few breaths.
That was what Naruto needed to practice: during high-speed combat, the instant his fingers touched any part of an enemy's body, he had to inscribe the formula without the slightest delay.
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