An Army All by Myself

After a brief, suffocating silence, thunderous laughter erupted across the bridge.

"Ha ha ha! Did you hear that? He said he was going to wipe us out?"

"Did this brat forget his medicine before leaving home? He wants to take on over a hundred of us by himself?"

"Hey, brat, did the circus give you that orange outfit? It's pretty eye-catching. Makes it easier for us to aim!"

Standing at the front, Gato laughed so hard tears nearly came out. He pointed his cane at Naruto Uzumaki, his fat body shaking. "Brat, I admire your courage, I really do. After I chop you into eight pieces, I'll even stitch you back together and leave you a whole corpse. Ha ha ha!"

More than a hundred thugs brandished their weapons and roared like beasts, surging forward like a filthy tide ready to drown everything on the bridge.

Zabuza tightened his grip on the Kubikiribōchō. Beside him, Haku's chakra had begun gathering again.

Sasuke's Sharingan spun rapidly as his mind calculated every possible angle of escape. Kakashi gave a lazy shrug. He knew Naruto Uzumaki was about to act; he would not be needed.

Naruto Uzumaki stood at the very front, utterly still. Then he formed the simplest of hand seals.

"Multiple Shadow Clone Technique."

Boom—!

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a dull blast.

The next second, countless clouds of white smoke completely swallowed the entire bridge.

When the smoke cleared, a vast crowd filled the bridge. More than a thousand copies of Naruto Uzumaki stood everywhere, from one end of the bridge to the other.

Gato's laughter stopped abruptly.

The thugs charging at the front instinctively halted as well.

"W-What the hell is this?"

"W-What kind of Genjutsu is this?" a ronin said, trembling.

The smoke came quickly and vanished just as quickly. When their vision cleared again, the entire world fell silent.

There were no longer four Konoha ninja and two rogue ninja on the bridge.

There was an army.

More than a thousand identical copies of Naruto Uzumaki stood in orange uniforms, expressionless. There were no shouts, no unnecessary movements. More than a thousand pairs of blue eyes stared coldly and uniformly, devoid of any human emotion.

They stood in groups of three and squads of five, silent as precision machines programmed with the optimal solution, forming an enormous airtight formation that made everyone's scalp crawl.

The thugs at the front felt as if nails had pinned their feet in place. The wild grins on their faces froze into utter terror. Naruto Uzumaki stood before them. Naruto Uzumaki stood to their left. Naruto Uzumaki stood to their right. When they turned around, even their retreat was blocked by a wall made of copies of Naruto Uzumaki.

"T-This is..."

Kakashi's breath caught, and his dead-fish eyes slowly widened.

"What a monster. Setting aside the army-formation effect, there are already over a thousand Shadow Clones. With such an enormous amount of chakra... Naruto Uzumaki may have already tamed the Nine-Tails."

"I always thought that saying 'I don't have much chakra' was merely relative modesty..." he murmured. "Now it seems I was actually being pretty honest."

Zabuza's body had gone as stiff as stone. As the Demon, he had killed countless people and seen all kinds of hellish scenes. Yet what lay before him surpassed everything his experience had taught him to comprehend.

Haku slowly walked to his side, and they looked at each other.

"Zabuza..." Haku began, then hesitated.

"Haku, why are your hands shaking?" Zabuza looked at Haku's hands. "A ninja's hands are what should never shake."

Haku gave a bitter smile. "I was only imagining what the outcome would have been if I had not accepted this child's proposal."

Zabuza was speechless for a long time. Then he let out a helpless sigh. "You'll see it soon enough."

Naruto Uzumaki's original body slowly stepped out from the formation.

He did not even give the order to charge. He simply raised one hand and made a simple downward gesture.

"Clean up."

Boom!

More than a thousand Shadow Clones moved.

They moved in perfect unison, like a massive, precise war machine activating in an instant.

One thug swung his katana. Before he could even make out a figure, three Kunai stabbed simultaneously into his sword hand's wrist, shoulder, and knee from three different vicious angles. The moment he screamed and fell, another Shadow Clone filled the gap and struck the back of his neck with a clean hand chop, silencing him for good.

The entire process took less than two seconds.

"H-How can this be..." A thug trembled as the spear fell from his hand.

"M-Monsters..."

The formation of Shadow Clones became a merciless meat grinder, instantly tearing through the thugs' fragile formation. Their coordination was so seamless it did not seem human. Some blocked, some charged in, and some finished the job. Every movement was precisely calculated. Not a trace of chakra was wasted, nor was a single second.

Screams, wails, weapons striking the ground, and bones breaking intertwined into a symphony of despair. But those sounds swiftly faded, until they finally fell silent.

The entire process lasted less than three minutes.

When the last thug fell, more than a thousand Shadow Clones vanished into white smoke with a series of pops.

On the bridge, aside from Team 7, Zabuza, Haku, and Gato, not a single person remained standing.

Pools of blood reflected a blinding glare beneath the sunlight.

Looking at the hellish scene before him, Zabuza finally abandoned every last shred of hope. He realized that what he had faced before was not a Konoha Genin at all.

It was a monster called "war," wrapped in the skin of a child.

He turned to Haku beside him, his voice dry and carrying the relief and bitterness of surviving a disaster.

"Haku... you did the right thing."

Then he turned back and forced a joke toward Kakashi. "Kakashi, are Konoha's Genin always this terrifyingly absurd?"

Kakashi spread his hands and shook his head. "This is an exception. I'm more confused than you are."

Zabuza slowly opened his mouth. "We really were building a ship out of sand."

Those words of surrender represented the Demon's complete submission.

Naruto Uzumaki's original body stepped through the sticky pools of blood, moving one step at a time toward Gato, who had collapsed to the ground in terror, his pants soaked with filth.

His footsteps were light, but upon the deathly silent bridge, they sounded like the tolling of a Death God's bell, each step pounding against Gato's heart.

"D-Don't come any closer! I have money! I have lots of money! I'll give it all to you! All of it!" Gato sobbed uncontrollably and scrambled backward on his hands and feet, looking utterly pathetic.

Naruto Uzumaki stopped in front of him and slowly raised the Kunai in his hand.

Just then, a tall figure flashed in front of him.

It was Zabuza.

Holding the massive Kubikiribōchō, he lowered his head and spoke in a tone that was almost pleading.

"Lord Naruto Uzumaki."

That form of address stunned both Kakashi and Sasuke.

"This maggot..." Zabuza's voice suppressed towering rage and humiliation. "Please leave him to me."

He raised his head. In those eyes that belonged to the Demon, there was now only absolute resolve.

"This is the token of allegiance I, Momochi Zabuza, offer for joining your plan."

He had taken the initiative to define himself as a part of Naruto Uzumaki's plan, a weapon that could be used.

Naruto Uzumaki looked at him, his blue eyes calm and without ripples.

After a moment, he nodded and took a step back, handing over the right of execution.

"Permission granted."

Zabuza did not hesitate again.

He raised the Kubikiribōchō that had accompanied him for half his life and brought it down viciously upon the Gato sprawled on the ground, in the cruelest and most resolute manner possible.

The flash of the blade severed the filthy contract.

It also severed the past in which he had been known as the Demon.

Zabuza turned around, planted his massive blade on the ground, and dropped to one knee before Naruto Uzumaki.

"Mission complete."