Ice Queen Beauty Trap? Naruto: Your Wife Is Great—Now She's Mine!

Those dozens of Ice Senbon, tempered with bone-chilling killing intent, had virtually no interval between appearing and arriving.

They sliced through the air with piercing whooshes that set teeth on edge, sealing off every vital spot on Naruto's body where a single strike could kill him—his heart, neck, temples, and more.

The attack was vicious, and the timing was devious—it had precisely seized the instant after Naruto's forced burst of power, when his blood and energy were ebbing and the muscles in his right leg were still screaming in stiff agony!

It was practically a textbook assassination!

"Damn!"

Kakashi, amid the ruins of the Water Prison Technique, sharply narrowed his Sharingan!

This ambush was incredibly high quality!

With Naruto's back turned and his previous momentum spent, he was vulnerable enough already. Even at his peak, Kakashi would have had to use the Substitution Technique immediately to evade such a vicious attack. He would never dare take it head-on!

On the bridge, Sasuke's newly awakened One-Tomoe Sharingan spun wildly. Amid that frigid glint, he clearly saw the fleeting stiffness in Naruto's back!

"This timing..." Sasuke's mind went cold, not from fear, but from a genius's instinctive analysis of the battlefield. "That's the price of that kick! He isn't invincible! He has openings too!"

"Watch out!"

Kakashi's roar had barely left his mouth before it caught in his throat.

Because the expected sight of blood spraying everywhere never came.

But neither did Naruto emerge unscathed and composed.

At that critical moment, the golden figure made a response beyond everyone's imagination!

He did not turn around. He did not even try to dodge!

Boom!

Chakra erupted violently from beneath his feet—not to move, but to generate a savage rotational force!

Naruto spun like a high-speed top, his golden hair whipping up a fierce wind!

In the midst of that rapid rotation, his right hand became a blurred golden afterimage, actively meeting that barrage of death!

Clang! Clang! Crash! Thud—!

A series of dense impacts that made everyone's scalp crawl rang out!

With almost beastlike instinct, he deflected and knocked aside most of the Ice Senbon using his arms, the backs of his hands, even his knuckles, all at bizarre angles!

Yet no defense was flawless!

Several of the deadliest needles still pierced through that spinning web of defense!

But just as they were about to stab into his heart and neck, that hand swinging behind him finally seized them tightly in his palm at the very last instant, missing by a hair!

"Hiss—"

Naruto sucked in a sharp breath, and his spinning came to an abrupt stop.

He slowly opened his hand. The Ice Senbon he had caught had already shattered beneath his terrifying grip, but the sharp ice shards had still pierced his tough palm. Thin streams of blood slowly ran along the lines of his hand.

He was injured.

It was only a negligible flesh wound, but it undeniably declared one fact—he was not a god.

Thousand Flying Water Needles!

A cool, clear cry came from the forest shadows.

A slender figure wearing a Hidden Mist ANBU mask appeared on the water like a ghost, blocking Zabuza, who was about to flee.

"Zabuza-sama, go!"

It was her.

Naruto slowly raised his head, a trace of icy killing intent flashing through his blue eyes.

He did not even look at that loyal "tool" protecting her master. Instead, he brought his bleeding hand to his mouth, extended his tongue, and licked the blood from it with savage intensity.

His gaze seemed to say: You've successfully angered me.

"Haku! You..." Zabuza was shocked and furious.

But before he could finish, the golden demon across from him moved!

Boom—!

The water beneath Naruto's feet suddenly exploded into a circular crater!

His body transformed into a golden cannonball tearing through the air, charging violently toward Haku and Zabuza!

This time, he was not an uncapturable bolt of lightning, but a visibly discernible charge that was still fast enough to drive people into despair... a pure advance of brute force!

Fast!

Too fast!

Kakashi's Sharingan could follow his path, but a profound sense of helplessness rose in his heart.

That was not technique. It was a primordial beast using the most primitive possible method to shorten the distance between two points!

Sasuke's One-Tomoe Sharingan was spinning at its limit, even bloodshot at the edges!

He saw it!

He clearly saw every pulse of Naruto's leg muscles as he charged, as well as the violent path of chakra flowing across his body!

"It's not the Body Flicker Technique... He's coating the soles of his feet with chakra to reduce friction, then combining that with the explosive power of a Sage Body... I see! This is true speed!"

Despair?

No!

Not only was there no despair in Sasuke's eyes, they instead burned with an unprecedented fire called [Analysis] and [Desire]!

Demonic Ice Mirrors!

Faced with that earth-shattering momentum, Haku's ever-confident eyes showed an emotion called shock for the first time!

She made her decision instantly, her hands forming seals like lightning as she prepared to unleash her strongest Kekkei Genkai!

However, Naruto's battle instincts were far more terrifying than she had imagined!

At the instant she formed the seals, Naruto forcibly twisted his body during his high-speed charge and plunged his right hand into the water!

Splash!

He scooped up a massive sheet of water with brute force, turning it into an irregular water wall that smashed fiercely toward Haku!

The move was crude, savage, and utterly devoid of grace, yet it was the most effective tactic!

For the first time, Haku's prideful sealing speed was forcibly interrupted in such an unreasonable manner!

She had no choice but to take half a step back to avoid the water wall.

And that half-step was already an impassable gulf!

The moment the water wall exploded apart, that golden figure was already upon her!

"!"

Haku's mind went blank in an instant!

She only felt an irresistible, terrifying force clamp around the wrists of her hands that were still forming seals!

The grip was so strong that she felt as if her bones were about to be crushed!

Strength, speed, combat intelligence... everything had been utterly crushed!

Before Haku could recover from that devastating gap in power, Naruto suddenly yanked and twisted his arms!

Using a grappling technique, he pulled her entirely off balance, sending her body spinning uncontrollably into him!

"Ah—!"

Haku let out a brief cry of surprise. The next second, she felt herself tightly imprisoned from behind in his embrace by a pair of arms like iron pincers!

It was a perfect combat hold. Her arms were pinned behind her back, her body restrained—she could not use any ninjutsu at all!

Shame, fear, helplessness... all sorts of emotions instantly overwhelmed every trace of Haku's calm!

"Let... let me go!"

She struggled desperately, but the iron arms wrapped around her did not budge in the slightest!

Click.

A faint sound.

Amid her violent struggle, the white ANBU mask on her face—the symbol of her identity as a "tool"—finally gave way. A crack split across its center, and then, with a snap, it fell into the water.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment.

On the bridge.

Sakura and Sasuke stared blankly at the unbelievable scene on the water.

Beneath the mask was a face... a face so beautiful it could make heaven and earth lose their color!

Her skin was whiter than snow, her brows like distant mountains, her lips like cherry petals.

That face, cold beyond compare yet beautiful beyond compare, was like a pure snow lotus quietly blooming atop a snow-covered mountain peak that never melted—breathtakingly beautiful!

This... this assassin who was so powerful...

Was actually a woman?!

And a... a girl this beautiful?!

Sasuke's usually cold face froze completely.

He felt as though Naruto had once again smashed his worldview to pieces in the most brutal manner possible!

He had called himself a genius, yet a single Water Clone Technique had defeated him in one move.

He looked down on women, believing they were all troublesome creatures.

Yet now, this powerful enemy who had forced both him and Kakashi-sensei into a desperate situation, who had even seized the chance to injure Naruto, was actually a girl even prettier than Sakura?!

What the hell?!

Amid the ruins of the Water Prison Technique, Kakashi was completely dumbfounded as well.

His Sharingan was wide open, as though his eyeball might pop straight out of its socket.

First, his student had turned out to be a deeply hidden humanoid Tailed Beast, kicking apart an A-rank Water Release with one blow.

Now, this powerful and vicious Hidden Mist assassin was also a breathtakingly beautiful girl disguised as a man?

What kind of hell-difficulty dungeon was this Wave Country mission?!

As the center of everyone's attention, Naruto lowered his head and studied with interest the panicked, peerlessly beautiful face in his arms, along with her snow-white neck flushed crimson with shame and fury.

Feeling the soft yet resilient body in his embrace, and the weak force of her desperate struggles that felt more like coy resistance, the domineering possessiveness belonging to a male instantly surged within him!

He leaned close to Haku's ear and whispered teasingly in a voice only the two of them could hear:

"You're too pretty to be an assassin."

"How about becoming my personal collectible instead?"