Although he had no support items like summons or secret scrolls, Naruto, with his Super Kage 3,000-point skills, still maintained that matches like these would be a breeze. Easy peasy.
Although Naruto had initially wondered why only matchmaking was lit up in the arena, he soon found out.
Never mind that there were no ninja in his inventory at all; just seeing the three ninja on the opposing side suddenly made Naruto feel awful.
He had no idea whether his opponent was an actual player, but their lineup looked downright hellish: Super Armor [Blue Minato] in slot one, Release [Death Minato] in slot two, and Perseverance [Gate of Death Guy] in slot three.
"What kind of outrageous matchmaking is this? I can't even put together Young Team 7, and you match me against this?"
Naruto felt miserable. How was he supposed to fight this? He could understand reaching Super Kage with Young Team 7; Mengbiyousi had the skills for it, after all. Although he could try it himself, he had no summons, no secret scrolls, and none of the familiar feel of playing on an emulator. What if his opponent was a hardcore sweat, too? How was he supposed to play? This outrageous matchmaking system was simply unbearable.
Especially after seeing his opponent's inputs, Naruto became even more certain of his guess.
Before Naruto's [Feces-Splashing Young Naruto] even started moving, the opposing [Blue Minato] flew straight at him with a Super Armor Rasengan. What followed was a sequence everyone knew all too well: you substitute, I summon and follow with Flying Thunder God, then basic-attack you until your substitution comes back; you use a skill, I counterguard (the hard-to-trigger one); I get hit, I substitute, then perform the classic one-two-three combo and take you into the little grove with my ultimate.
Looking at his three little blue crosses, Naruto was furious. What kind of outrageous matchmaking was this? How was he supposed to play? Most importantly, the arena's daily gift pack actually required him to win two matches before he could reliably claim it. Refusing to believe it, Naruto began his struggle. The problem was that every opponent he matched against had at least Super Kage 3,000-point skills, particularly hellish ninja, and mechanics and game sense worthy of the very best players. Even Naruto, a former Super Kage 3,000-point player, began doubting himself. In the end, after several hours of fighting, Naruto barely managed a single win, leaving him wondering whether MoreFun had rigged things against him.
He was beaten to tears. Naruto was thoroughly beaten to tears. He had never encountered opponents this strong: they resisted every kind of pressure, baited substitutions, predicted moves, fought blind, and reacted with absolute precision. Every last one of them was practically a human cheat.
They beat Naruto into shutting himself away and logging off.
After his consciousness emerged from the system, Naruto began thinking about the people he had encountered in the arena. Some pulled off brain-dead plays, while others performed all sorts of terrifyingly outrageous maneuvers. Every one of them was like a combination of top players such as Wanan and Xinan at their peaks. Naruto could tell that these opponents absolutely could not have been bots. But the thought of the daily arena being this hard made him feel as miserable as if he had eaten shit. It looked like obtaining rewards in the future would be somewhat difficult, never mind the ranked mode that had yet to unlock. That would definitely be even harder.
At that moment, Naruto suddenly remembered the world chat feature and decided to see whether he could exchange information with them.
But after searching for ages, he discovered that the feature simply did not exist. There was not even a feature for adding friends and sending stamina. Now Naruto's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally died altogether. It looked like he would never leave this Naruto world.
For a while afterward, Naruto's daily life became very regular. Through the system's daily quests, his strength slowly increased, until the events of one particular day gave him a profound understanding of his own strength.
During this period, Naruto kept feeling that some major event might happen soon. Unfortunately, he had still been in elementary school when he watched the anime Naruto, and there were many things he could not remember very clearly. Although he had watched it a second time afterward, that had been far too long ago as well.
Besides, Naruto was still too young to attend the Ninja Academy, and the original story had shown so little of what happened at this age that he had absolutely no idea what would happen soon. Fortunately, Naruto worked hard grinding his dailies every day, and the ninja in his inventory gradually increased. Of course, his own strength rose along with them. Compared to before-no, even compared to Naruto in the original story-he was already much stronger. If he had to make a comparison, he should have been able to handle the current Sasuke with one hand. Two Sasukes with one hand, at that.
One day, Naruto happened upon Hinata in the street. Her tiny figure followed behind a servant like someone with severe social anxiety: timid, head lowered, and afraid to look up at anything around her. She still had that familiar short blue hair. The instant she raised her head, he could faintly make out a trace of tears in her white eyes, as though they were telling of the hardships of this outing.
Naruto kept clicking his tongue at the sight. So this was Hinata as a child. Sure enough, with some kids, you could tell from childhood whether they would grow up beautiful. But wasn't she a little too socially anxious?
Only after seeing Hinata did Naruto recall that the Kumogakure ninja would soon be coming to Konoha for negotiations. It was during that period that the delegation Kumogakure sent to Konoha secretly went to the Hyuga Clan and abducted their little princess, Hinata.
Fortunately, Hyuga Hiashi gave chase swiftly, rescued Hinata in time, and killed the culprit. But the death of a member of Kumogakure's delegation in Konoha gave them an opportunity to pressure Konoha. One could say they had planned it all, knowing how terribly cowardly that old bastard Sarutobi was. They had originally only wanted to bluff the old bastard, but who knew he would be that spineless?
Unable to withstand the pressure, that old bastard Sarutobi promptly put pressure on the Hyuga, perfectly embodying a domestic bully who cowered before outsiders but struck hard against his own. The final result was that Neji's father, the unlucky Hizashi Hyuga, was pushed forward to die in Hyuga Hiashi's place and appease Kumogakure's anger.
Whenever Naruto thought of this, he felt that old fuck Sarutobi had lived all those years for nothing... He could not even be bothered to curse him out.
As for now, Naruto only felt as if two little Narutos were tussling above his head.
One had a halo above his head and a pair of immaculate wings sprouting from his back, while the other had two black devil horns on his head and a pair of black wings on his back. Both voiced their own thoughts.
The haloed Naruto spoke first. "Save her, save her. She's your future wife, after all."
The devil-horned Naruto retorted, "Come on, dude. You flap your lips and say we should save her, and that's that? Then let me ask you: do you have the strength right now to go duel the ninja Kumogakure sent? Answer me. Look in my eyes! Tell me! Why baby why?"
Watching the devilish Naruto grab the angelic Naruto by the collar, about to serve him his favorite-a hefty slap-Naruto finally could not stand watching any longer and stopped their argument.
In the end, Naruto decided to try saving Hinata. After all, he had become Naruto. He did not know whether his future in-laws would give him the cold shoulder, but this was Hinata. Who wouldn't like her? Keh keh keh~
Besides, he had been quietly farming for so long. Surely he had to try some real combat?
His combat strength had already undergone a qualitative improvement, and after recruiting many ninja, his combat power had even broken through the 10,000 mark. As for his skills, they were somewhat passable.
"System, show my personal panel."
Host: Naruto Uzumaki Strength: Novice tier one Abilities: Naruto Uzumaki Two Thousand Barrage, Chidori, Paint Prank, Iron Ball Trap, Clone Great Explosion, Shadow Clone, Hidden Weapon Needle Shot, Byakugan... Combat power: 10256 Chakra: 32452 System evaluation: (A slightly stronger bot that can splash feces)
Although this system closely resembled the Naruto mobile game developed by MoreFun in his previous life, raising his combat power was far too difficult, nothing like the ease he had imagined. Even obtaining ninja was extremely hard, nowhere near as easy as when he had first played the game. Apart from certain events, the only way to obtain ninja was through draws in Shinobi World Recruitment. There had originally been a shop feature, but it showed that Naruto's combat power was too low to unlock it.
The unlock requirement was particularly harsh, too: he actually had to reach 1,000,000 combat power before it would unlock. Right now, he could not even open it.
Fortunately, Naruto had also obtained his first A-rank ninja, [Uchiha Itachi], abbreviated as (Akatsuki Itachi), and drawn his first skill, Clone Great Explosion. When he drew that skill, Naruto was nearly beside himself with joy. It was currently his longest-range and highest-damage ranged skill. There was also the Byakugan skill he had obtained from the C-rank ninja [Hinata Hyuga]. Although its level was relatively low, it was absolutely sufficient for the current stage.
Using the Byakugan to locate enemies from afar, then Clone Great Explosion to strike them at range-when it came to kiting enemies, Naruto maintained that he could now attack when advancing and defend when retreating.
After careful consideration, Naruto still decided to take out the Kumogakure ninja who would abduct Hinata. He had to engage in actual combat sooner or later. He could not just fight in the arena every day, could he? After all, there was still a difference between reality and the system's arena. This would be a good opportunity to test his current strength.
At last, Naruto's wait paid off. Heading out as usual, Naruto happened to discover a group of dark-skinned men on Konoha's streets. In particular, even as they looked at everything around them with envy filling their eyes, they kept disparaging the place.
Looking at everything around him, Sukisu felt envy from the bottom of his heart. Compared with their village, this place was far, far better.
"Boss, Konoha really is a great place."
Jessica glanced at his subordinate without contradicting him. After all, he was telling the truth. Konoha had the largest plain in the Land of Fire. That fact alone was something the other villages could not match.
Add to that the Third Hokage, who was already old and decrepit and had lost his fighting spirit, and they set their sights on Konoha...
"If you think it's nice, take a good look."
Leaving those cryptic words behind, Jessica departed with the Konoha Anbu who had come to receive them.
He did not notice that Sukisu's gaze kept sizing up the spot where Naruto stood.
Naruto noticed Sukisu's gaze, too, and the corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
"This guy really thinks Konoha is somewhere to stock up on goods?"
Night fell, and a crimson full moon hung high in the sky. A tiny figure crouched in the snow, seemingly waiting for someone fate would bring his way.
Before long, a burly, dark-skinned man came toward him, panting with a sack over his shoulder. His already dark face seemed to have gained a slight flush from the strenuous exercise. He nervously looked back, as though anticipating the arrival of the person on his mind. Like someone having an affair who feared discovery, he constantly checked behind him.
After all, this was Konoha. He had sneaked into the Hyuga Clan, seen a little girl, and abducted her. Presumably, when the Hyuga Clan discovered it, hardly anyone would mobilize too much manpower for a little girl, would they?
Unfortunately, he had miscalculated. Should one call him lucky or unlucky? He had grabbed someone at random and caught the Hyuga Clan's little princess. That luck was truly unmatched. But there was no need to think about it: the entire Hyuga Clan would absolutely mobilize and pursue him, the culprit, with everything they had.
Just as he was still fleeing for his life, a voice came from ahead.
"Oi~"
Already creeping along furtively in the dead of night, he shuddered in fright at the sudden voice. Even Sukisu, a grown man several feet tall, let out a trembling cry.
"Ah, fuck!!"