"All right, I'll take this mission. From now on, you're my client."
Naruto nodded solemnly, holding Kazahana Koyuki securely in his arms as he prepared to catch up with his companions ahead.
The icy breath of the blizzard still lingered at the tunnel entrance, its lingering chill biting to the bone.
Just as the two slipped into the shadows of the deep tunnel, something suddenly changed along the tracks behind them, which lay buried beneath thick ice!
A muffled, oppressive rumble drew closer from afar, like a sleeping steel beast awakening beneath the ice and roaring.
A train?
Naruto recognized what was approaching.
It was the first time he had heard that sound since coming to the Shinobi World.
The sound came not from deep within the tunnel, but from the direction they had come from-the far end of the snow-covered plain!
The frozen rails beneath his feet gave off faint yet unnerving cracks.
The ice covering them began melting at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Frigid meltwater quickly gathered into rivulets, flowing along the grooves of the rails.
This was no natural rise in temperature.
"It's the train! He's here!"
Kazahana Koyuki's voice rose sharply with uncontrollable terror. Her body stiffened in Naruto's arms, and her nails instinctively dug into his clothes.
She knew these signs all too well. They were the horn of a reaper coming to claim her life!
It was Kazahana Dōtō, along with his steel monster that devoured everything!
Naruto did not hesitate.
The instant Kazahana Koyuki cried out, he spun around to face the tunnel entrance.
His gaze pierced the dark tunnel, as though he could already see that enormous machine tearing through the blizzard, belching black smoke as it crushed the frozen tracks and hurtled toward them!
Without forming hand seals,