The night grew deeper.
Naruto Uzumaki clutched the scroll and ran for his life through the woods.
Branches whipped his face, stinging fiercely. Roots tripped him again and again. Whenever he fell, he scrambled up on his hands and feet and kept running.
The scroll dug painfully into his chest, but he only held it tighter.
Behind him, those footsteps kept trailing at the same distance. He could neither shake them off nor pull away.
"Run, Naruto."
Mizuki's voice drifted from behind him, utterly relaxed.
"Run a little faster."
Naruto Uzumaki gritted his teeth and poured every last ounce of strength into his legs.
Suddenly, light appeared ahead.
Moonlight spilled down over a clearing.
He burst out of the woods, his legs buckled, and he stumbled forward, collapsing in the middle of the clearing.
He had nothing left.
He couldn't run another step.
Branches rustled behind him.
Mizuki strolled into the clearing and reached back over his shoulder to take down the enormous shuriken.
"The game is over."
With one hand, he swung the enormous blade in a full circle-
And hurled it!
The instant the enormous blade left his hand, it churned the air throughout the clearing.
It spun with an eerie howl, like a millstone running at full speed, grinding toward Naruto just above the ground.
The bushes and broken branches along its path were sliced clean through, as though by an invisible scythe. Fallen leaves swept up in its wake were shredded, trailing behind the blade in a roiling tail of fragments.
Naruto Uzumaki looked back.
All that remained in his pupils was a spinning iron disc, rapidly growing larger.
He couldn't move.
"Naruto-!!"
A shout cracked like thunder.
A figure slammed in from the side and wrapped Naruto's entire body tightly in his arms.
Thud-
The