The Wind of Konoha Is Too Weak

The air in the ninja academy's final exam venue was thick with the scent of youth-specific sweat and a faint, lingering tension.

The afternoon sun spilled lazily over the playground, gilding everything with a layer of gold. The graduation exam for this class immediately followed the finals, and although the graduation exam content consisted only of the Three Body Technique, the results of the final exam did not affect graduation status—serving merely as an inspection of staged learning achievements, yet it also functioned as a way to gauge the students' foundation.

The final rankings would be written into the records, and nobody wanted to leave an unsightly mark in their files right from the start. Surrounded by male and female peers in the examination hall, no one wanted to be compared unfavorably to male classmates of the same rank or make a fool of themselves in front of the girls.

"Next, Naruto!"

As the examiner read out that name, the faces of several tail-end students at the edge of the field instantly bloomed with joy, exchanging an "you know how it is" look with a sense of relief.

A hedgehog-haired boy even spoke up loudly and without courtesy, "Hey, Naruto, I'm counting on you! This year's last place in the grade depends entirely on you to defend, hahaha!"

A burst of laughter erupted around them.

In the corner, Hinata Hyuga nervously poked her two index fingers together, her small face flushing red with internal anxiety, though she lacked the courage to voice a rebuttal.

Sakura customarily sighed, glanced sideways at that blond idiot, and had already mentally rehearsed the Quan scene of him making a fool of himself shortly.

She pulled back her gaze and gazed infatuatedly at Sasuke Uchiha beside her; this was where her attention ought to be focused.

Under normal circumstances, that blond boy would either flush red and argue loudly or rush up in defiant protest, but today, he simply stood quietly, as if those harsh taunts were merely a breeze brushing past his ears.

His gaze didn't even drift toward the provocative classmate, instead falling upon Konoha bathed in the distant sunlight.

Densely packed rooftops, lush green trees, and the faint Hokage Rock in the distance. Complete peace, complete tranquility.

Yet, superimposed over this bright scenery, another picture flashed instantly into Naruto's mind. Beneath a crimson sky, endless black scorched earth stretched out, the air heavy with a mixed stench of ozone, fresh blood, and rotting corpses. Amidst deafening artillery fire, countless human soldiers in crude armor roared "For the Emperor," launching a desperate suicide charge against distorted, incomprehensible Chaos monsters.

That was the "homeland" for which he had once shed blood in battle, a world perpetually struggling on the brink of destruction.

"Naruto! It's your turn! What are you daydreaming for?" The examiner, Chunin Mizuki, urged with a hint of impatience. In his view, this perennial loser was simply here to go through the motions.

Naruto pulled back his thoughts, the last trace of past confusion completely erased from those azure eyes, leaving only a deep-sea-like calm and chill.

He stepped forward into the arena.

"Exam content: combat. Your opponent is me." Mizuki casually assumed a stance with a trace of contempt at the corner of his mouth. "As long as you can last three moves against me, you pass."

The implication was that this already constituted massive leniency.

Naruto didn't reply, simply sinking his center of gravity slightly and adopting a deceptively simple yet flawless fighting stance.

Mizuki scoffed, his figure flashing as he rushed toward Naruto, intending to end this boring test in the simplest and most direct way.

The moment his fist was about to touch Naruto's face, a sudden change occurred!

Naruto's figure became like a phantom, shifting slightly at an angle most people would find extremely difficult to achieve, precisely dodging the wind of the fist. Immediately following, his elbow swept upward with thunderous momentum, colliding with terrifying precision against Mizuki's jaw.

The entire movement was fast, accurate, and ruthless, devoid of any superfluous flair, brimming with the pure efficiency born for slaughter.

Mizuki's pupils contracted sharply; combat instincts cultivated over many years forced him to lean backward, managing a pathetic dodge of the elbow strike that would otherwise have knocked him out on the spot.

Before he could steady his footing, Naruto pressed in close. A whip kick, carrying the howling sound of tearing air, went straight for his ribcage vitals.

Mizuki only had time to cross his arms in defense.

"Bang!"

With a dull thud, Mizuki was sent flying sideways by a tremendous, overwhelming force, rolling across the ground several times before barely coming to a halt. He felt his arms go numb, his bones feeling as though they had fractured.

The Quan arena fell dead silent.

Those students who had originally been watching the joke all dropped their jaws, wide enough to stuff an egg inside.

This... this was still just one move?

This was a unilateral suppression!

Mizuki struggled to his feet, looking at Naruto with eyes full of shock and incomprehension. He could feel that during that previous strike, the opponent hadn't even utilized chakra—it was purely physical strength and technique. That kind of technique was cold, cruel, and every move resembled a murder art honed through a thousand trials.

On the sidelines, Sasuke Uchiha's body gave a sharp jolt, and the emotion of "shock" appeared for the first time in a long while within those perpetually arrogant eyes.

He stared fixedly at Naruto, replaying the recent combat in his mind over and over again.

The playback process was swift, and the conclusion was unquestionable.

If he had been the one standing there, he probably would have looked ten times more pathetic than Teacher Mizuki.

He might even have... failed to dodge that fatal blow.

A familiar sense of helplessness wrapped around his heart like poisonous vines, as if dragging him back to that bloody night and letting him see the cold light reflected off Itachi Uchiha's blade once more.

"Next item." Naruto spoke calmly, as if he had merely performed an insignificant triviality.

At the examiner's podium, Iruka and several other teachers exchanged glances, each seeing thick shock in the other's eyes.

"Cough... Next item, shuriken throwing." Another examiner gave a dry cough, forcibly pushing the procedure forward.

The target stood fifty meters away.

Naruto picked up five shuriken, weighing them casually in his hand. His posture was standard yet exuded a unique steadiness. Arm, wrist, and fingers formed a perfect straight line.

Without the slightest hesitation, he flicked his wrist.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"

Five streaks of cold light tore through the air in a triangular formation, arriving almost simultaneously.

The next second, crisp metal impact sounds merged into a single line.

"Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!"

On the distant humanoid target, five shuriken precisely pinned to the exact same point in the bullseye. The tail of the final shuriken even quivered slightly, wedging the previous four in deeper.

If the earlier taijutsu had been shocking, this was utter, complete stupefaction.

The entire examination grounds fell pin-drop silent; even the rustle of the wind blowing through the leaves was clearly audible.

At this, even Hinata forgot to be happy. Her small mouth parted slightly, her eyes filled with sheer disbelief. She rejoiced in Naruto's change, but the unfamiliarity shining from those cold pupils also made her feel a rising wave of panic.

Naruto-kun... what on earth happened to you?

Everyone's gazes converged on the blond-haired boy. He still wore that nonchalant expression, as if he were not the one who had just performed such a god-tier feat.

That was not technique; that was machine-like precision.

In the examiner's stand, Iruka subconsciously pushed up his headband and muttered to himself, "This... how is this possible..."

He suddenly remembered the theoretical test paper he had just graded. That paper—from ninjutsu principles to historical common sense, all the way to tactical analysis—was Quan correct. Perfect. Every single answer could be called flawless. Even on some open-ended questions concerning tactical applications, the answers Naruto provided were... cold, efficient, and filled with the ironclad logic of minimum sacrifice for maximum victory.

Iruka felt a chill run down his spine.

This was Zetsu not the Naruto he knew. What shone between these lines was a disturbing, Zetsu rationality.

The exam ended, and several classmates who used to have decent relations with Naruto mustered up their courage and walked over.

"Hey... Naruto, man, did you take the wrong medicine today?"

Naruto merely swept a glance over them with those cold blue pupils. That gaze carried no emotion, yet it instantly made those classmates shut their mouths and subconsciously take a step back.

Without a word, he turned and walked straight away.

His back was straight, his pace steady, and the distance of every step was precisely uniform, exuding a Zetsu, close-no-friends alienation.

Hokage's Office.

Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi watched the Quan process of Naruto's exam through the crystal ball without a word. When Naruto pinned the five shuriken into the exact same point, the pipe dangling from his mouth almost dropped to the ground.

His expression was unprecedentedly solemn.

From that child's body, he could no longer feel the past sunshine and mischief. Replacing it was a thorough, marrow-deep change.

It was the gaze of... one who had experienced mountains of corpses and seas of blood, crawling back from purgatory.

Naruto walked the road home.

The bustling crowds on the street turned into heaps of disordered, under-vigilant "biomass units" in his eyes. Those familiar shops and houses became "tactical strongpoints" that needed their defensive value evaluated.

This was not home.

This was a stronghold urgently awaiting reinforcement and regimentation.

His thoughts drifted back once more to that world of blood and fire.

It was on the training grounds of the Schola Progenium, the Imperial commissar's cradle. An instructor whose face looked cast from iron held an electric whip and bellowed.

"You are not human! You are weapons! You are the extension of the Emperor's will!"

"Forget pain! Forget fear! Forget pity!"

"The only things you need to remember are loyalty and obedience!"

The electric whip lashed fiercely across his back, and the excruciating pain almost caused him to faint, but he still stubbornly straightened his spine. For he knew that the slightest weakness would be met with on-the-spot execution.

It was precisely training like that which forged his present taijutsu. Every strike was for the highest efficiency in eliminating the enemy.

Late at night.

The door to the Hokage's Office was knocked on urgently.

Iruka rushed in, his face full of anxiety and worry.

"Lord Third! Regarding Naruto... everything today is just too abnormal!"

"His theory, his taijutsu, and his gaze... that is not the gaze a child should have!" Iruka's voice trembled slightly. "It looks like... like a killing machine!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi smoked his pipe in silence, the swirling smoke obscuring most of his face.

Sounded a bit like a zealot from the Land of Hot Water, too.

After a long while, he slowly spoke, his voice hoarse and heavy.

"I know, Iruka."

"I will personally conduct a deeper level of observation on him."

He lowered his pipe and looked out the window at Konoha beneath the moonlight.

"I'm afraid this child will bring a... massive variable to Konoha that none of us can predict."