The little trio

Kakashi raised his head, the slightly shabby house before him leaving him momentarily dazed.

Was this really where his late teacher's orphan lived?

But that feeling vanished almost as soon as it appeared. After seven years in the Anbu, Kakashi had witnessed more darkness than he could count. Knowing full well what being a jinchūriki meant, he also understood the difficulties the Third Hokage faced.

After all, his teacher's wife had also been the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, and even she had been kept under constant surveillance until his teacher became Hokage...

"Let's go up and take a look." As though he had guessed what Kakashi was thinking, the Third Hokage interrupted his thoughts. "We can talk about that matter while we're at it."

Following the Third Hokage upstairs into Naruto's room, Kakashi found it empty. He surveyed his surroundings. With the open space on this floor and the window offering few blind spots, the light made it easy to identify several ideal positions for watching the room from outside.

Perhaps out of professional habit, Kakashi instinctively searched for the hidden eyes of the Anbu nearby.

To his considerable surprise, however, he found no trace of a single Anbu operative.

"I've already withdrawn them," the Third Hokage said. "There haven't been any Anbu around Naruto for a while now."

"...That could cause problems." Kakashi fell silent for a moment, seemingly puzzled, before speaking. "Whether because of Naruto's identity or the danger he poses as a jinchūriki..."

"And that is why I called you here today—to make that problem cease to be a problem." The Third Hokage casually ran his hand over the walls and windowsill. The brim of his Hokage hat concealed his eyes, making him look inscrutable. "I need you to assassinate Naruto."

Unaware of what was happening in his home, Naruto was training as usual.

He was at the Training Ground Guy had brought him to before. Just as Guy had said, everything here, from the equipment to the other facilities, was better than at the old, run-down Training Ground. For Naruto, who had all sorts of ideas he wanted to try, it could hardly have been more suitable.

Before leaving on his mission, Guy, the bushy-browed older man, had also spoken to Naruto. As a small apology for their earlier unpleasant encounter, he had given Naruto free use of the Training Ground, and Naruto could bring his friends along whenever he liked.

Guy would cover all equipment and repair costs.

Naturally, Naruto had no intention of holding back.

Today, two other figures were training alongside him, one of them the little Hinata.

After her embarrassing failure last time, when she had fainted as Naruto approached her, the shy Hinata had wondered whether she should keep a little farther away from now on, merely watching him so she wouldn't cause him trouble.

But every time, before she had even managed to follow him for long, Naruto would notice her, dash over, and pull her along to train with him.

Hinata simply couldn't refuse Naruto's requests.

And once they actually began training, Naruto's proficiency in taijutsu shocked her. Though her own skills were lacking, she still possessed the knowledge expected of the Young Lady of the Hyuga Main Family.

Hinata was certain that even Neji, whom the elders praised so much during the clan tournaments, was nowhere near Naruto's level. What stood out even more was how the Family's Guards behaved. Almost every time they saw Naruto pulling her away, they offered no objection, their attitude practically saying, "Go right ahead, Young Lady." They would even urge her to hurry along.

Hinata found this very strange.

But the young Hinata never imagined that it wasn't just the two guards. Her father was actually hiding far away, observing the scene with his Byakugan.

Indeed, after receiving Hyuga Hengzuo and Hyuga Ichita's reports, Hyuga Hiashi had finally been unable to sit still any longer.

For the past two days, he had personally followed his daughter outside. For one thing, he genuinely worried about Hinata's safety. Especially after Might Guy had slipped past her Guards with almost playful ease to put on that act, Hyuga Hiashi's first reaction had been to stop Hinata from going out alone.

For another, he was curious about Naruto, and watching Naruto train had indeed brought Hiashi quite a surprise. With his clan's comprehensive teachings and the Byakugan, which possessed the keenest powers of observation in the entire shinobi world, Hiashi concluded that Naruto Uzumaki's level of training simply did not look like that of someone without instruction. Someone worthy of being called a master teacher was guiding him behind the scenes, someone whose abilities ranked quite highly even across the shinobi world.

Whether it was shurikenjutsu, taijutsu, Chakra control, or any of his other foundational training, what Hiashi had observed over just a few days could be called an almost perfect model.

Could the Third Hokage, known as the Professor of Ninjutsu, be teaching him personally...? But as head of the Hyuga Clan, he quickly ruled out that possibility. He knew very well that no expert in the village could be secretly teaching Naruto. To this day, no village in the shinobi world had solved the problem of a jinchūriki's Chakra running out of control.

If the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki lost control, those Ninjutsu would become deadly weapons capable of destroying Konoha.

Third Hokage, what exactly are you thinking?

Another point worth mentioning was that Naruto's teaching ability had shocked Hiashi just as much.

Watching his daughter Hinata repeatedly struggle to understand Naruto's instructional wisdom—"You just do this first, then do this, and then do this..." —he could barely restrain the urge to rush out and shout, "Stop leading your student astray!"

Fortunately, Hinata finally realized she simply couldn't understand Naruto's overly abstract instruction. Only after she timidly protested and asked to work out how to learn on her own did Hiashi's anxious heart settle.

He really had feared Naruto would derail Hinata's training, leaving her to abandon the Hyuga Clan's comprehensive teachings in favor of studying this boy's learning methods, which no one could make head or tail of.

What surprised Hiashi even more was the other figure who appeared at the Training Ground that day.

The boy looked close to Naruto's age, and his dark gray, almost black clothes bore a familiar fan emblem.

Sasuke Uchiha.

"Damn it. Hey, how exactly are you throwing those shuriken?" Even after several attempts, Sasuke still refused to accept defeat.

"Let me see." Naruto glanced at the shuriken Sasuke had thrown. The first had struck the bull's-eye on the distant wooden post beautifully. A little puzzled, he asked, "Where did your second one go?"

At Naruto's completely earnest question, Sasuke couldn't help blushing. Only after a long moment did he point toward a large tree nearby.

Naruto narrowed his eyes and finally spotted a starfish-shaped throwing star glinting in the sunlight on that tree.

Wow, how did it veer all the way over there? Naruto grumbled inwardly.

"Why don't you ask your... brother? I figured it out myself after watching him do it last time." Naruto casually took out his own shuriken and threw them toward the wooden post in front of Sasuke.

With a crisp clang of colliding metal, a shuriken flying through the air suddenly changed direction and shot toward the one Sasuke had just embedded in the post. Naruto's shuriken then lodged firmly above Sasuke's, with another starfish-shaped throwing star caught precisely between the two.

"Wow, Naruto-kun, you're amazing!" Hinata stared at the sight in a daze.

"That's it! How exactly did you do that?" Sasuke exclaimed at the sight. As far as he knew, no one but Itachi could do it. That was why he had been so shocked when he first saw Naruto practicing shurikenjutsu. And when he realized the other boy wasn't much older than him, his unwillingness to lose had surged...

After that, wherever Naruto trained, Sasuke would appear.

Though his goal had shifted from wanting to beat Naruto to asking him for instruction, that change in attitude had taken less than a day...

The gap was just too big!