"Clone Technique?"
"No... it's the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!"
The courtyard gate opened, and Asuma stared blankly at the courtyard packed full of Roys. For a moment, he was completely dumbfounded.
Although he was rebellious and often deliberately slacked off in ninjutsu studies just to spite Hiruzen, who desperately wanted his son to succeed, Asuma was still the Hokage's son. He often came and went through Hiruzen's study, and even if he didn't go out of his way to read Hiruzen's things, he had still picked up knowledge of some powerful ninjutsu over time.
In the original story, the reason he died at Hidan's hands was partly because Hidan's faith in an evil god was simply too obscure and bizarre.
Anyone who didn't understand Hidan would have fallen for it if Hidan managed to get even a drop of their blood.
As his gaze moved, hundreds of Roys looked at Asuma all at once. The boy, who had already passed the Chūnin Exam and earned promotion through real battlefield achievements, felt his pupils shrink sharply.
Facing Roy's calm gaze, he didn't know why, but a chill ran down his spine, and fine cold sweat prickled out across his back.
It felt as though he had been seen through in a single glance—from inside to outside, from top to bottom, all the way to the bottom of his soul.
With a soft flare, the Eye of Truth activated automatically.
A stream of information entered Roy's mind.
[Name: Sarutobi Asuma]
[Species: Ninja]
[Constitution: C]
[Manifest Chakra: C- (74,781 / 100,000)
(Note: approximately 0.6 Kakashi-units)]
[Latent Chakra: B- (200,000 / 1,000,000)]
[Rating: C]
About standard Phantom Troupe level.
Roy withdrew his gaze.
One clone after another followed the main body's thought and vanished with soft puffs, turning back into streams of hazy aura. They carried their memories, consciousness, fatigue, injuries, and everything else back to Roy's true body.
It had to be emphasized that every shadow clone created by the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique was an independent individual with its own consciousness, thoughts, memories, and ability to act.
Naturally, once the clone was dispelled, the experience, memories, fatigue, and even injuries it had carried would all be received and endured by Roy without the slightest loss.
The injuries and mental fatigue mixed into that feedback were another important reason why this jutsu could be deadly to ninja.
Senju Tobirama simply hadn't written that part into his notes.
Perhaps, to the Second Hokage, someone without a strong enough will was destined never to become an excellent ninja anyway...
Roy guessed silently, then let out a soft breath.
His glossy black hair fell behind him. At that moment, he turned his head and looked at Hiruzen again.
Hiruzen seemed as if he was still immersed in the green days of the past. He stared blankly for a moment, then lightly knocked his pipe against the rim of a nearby trash can to extinguish it.
"You win. The Scroll of Seals is in the bookshelf behind you. Go choose one more jutsu yourself."
Hiruzen paused.
Then, remembering the boy's terrifying learning speed, he hesitated and changed his words.
"Two. You may choose two more."
Only then did Roy's expression improve somewhat.
Without saying a word, the boy walked to the bookshelf, found the place Hiruzen had pointed to, reached out, and firmly grasped a scroll.
He lowered his head and slowly opened it, immediately searching for the Impure World Reincarnation Technique.
Finally, at the end of the scroll, he saw the words Impure World Reincarnation.
Roy's brows grew focused as he carefully read through the technique, converting every part of its contents into Nen script and storing it in his mind.
Then, among the categories of offense, sealing, defense, and release techniques, he saw the three characters Rashōmon.
In that instant, he thought of Orochimaru's iconic Triple Rashōmon, used to block the Tailed Beast Bomb fired by Four-Tails Naruto.
"Rashōmon, huh? I wanted to learn that one too," Minato said, his blond hair falling over his shoulders as he leaned in and rested his chin on his hand. "Unfortunately, I don't have Earth nature chakra, and I'm not particularly good at summoning techniques either, so I gave up on it..."
"After all, that is a technique developed by the First Hokage. Its meaning comes from 'the Rashō city of rebirth,' said to be the gate leading to hell," Hiruzen said quietly, pointing out the key point. Then he gave Roy a meaningful look. "You have a connection with the First. This technique suits you."
What does that mean?
How is Roy connected to the First Hokage?
Hearing the hidden meaning in Hiruzen's words, Minato paused slightly and looked at Roy. Only then did he notice, with surprise, that the necklace around the boy's neck looked very much like the one Lady Tsunade always wore.
In other words...
Lady Tsunade had already met the boy.
Not only that, something must have happened, because she had even given him her most precious necklace.
That alone showed how highly she regarded him.
"Then this one," Roy said.
He focused and converted Rashōmon into Nen script, storing it in his mind as well. Then, honoring his agreement with Hiruzen, he placed the Scroll of Seals back where it had been.
The boy let out a long breath. His goal for this trip had been achieved.
He was about to say a simple goodbye to Hiruzen and Minato and leave when, in the unseen, an invisible ripple spread from the void.
In an instant, Roy frowned and stopped.
"Who?!"
The spatial ripple came faster and faster. Before Hiruzen and Minato could react, Roy reached straight toward the direction the disturbance was coming from and grabbed.
Sumeru Mustard Seed—
spatial connection.
In the blink of an eye, a hole opened in the void, and a toad was exposed!
"This old man should be asking who you are!"
"Brat, let go!"
As Sumeru Mustard Seed opened and closed, a suddenly lengthened tongue shot out, trying to knock away Roy's hand.
But what the toad hadn't expected was that the hand Roy had thrust into the void was wrapped in deep, shadowy light around the fingers, bone, and flesh. Even though the toad's tongue was faster and sharper than an ordinary blade tip, it still couldn't break through.
Instead, Roy caught the opening, intercepted it halfway, grabbed hard, and dragged the toad out.
"Ow, my old back..."
Thud.
The toad landed with a croak and was instantly caught by Roy, who pinned its back beneath his foot.
The sudden change began and ended in a single instant.
By the time Roy withdrew Sumeru Mustard Seed and the hole in the void disappeared, Hiruzen and Minato had come back to themselves and looked down at the floor.
The corners of both their mouths twitched hard.
They recognized the toad immediately.
"Lord Fukasaku..."
Isn't that Jiraiya / Sensei's summoning beast?
Hiruzen suddenly realized what had happened and quickly said to Roy, "Ren, he's one of ours. Let him go."
"Oh."
Roy gave a flat hum. Naturally, he had also recognized Fukasaku. That little tuft of signature white beard and white hair could only belong to Fukasaku, one half of Jiraiya's closest partners, the toad couple Fukasaku and Shima.
The boy innocently released Fukasaku.
Minato helped Fukasaku up at just the right time. The old toad held his waist and groaned twice in self-pity.
"Ouch... gently... mind my back..."
Roy simply looked up at the sky, pretending he had seen nothing.
This really was a case of the flood washing over the Dragon King's temple—family accidentally attacking family.
The old toad was probably here to deliver a battle report from Jiraiya at the front to Hiruzen.
Sure enough—
Fukasaku was angry, but he hadn't forgotten the real matter.
After being helped by Minato and catching his breath, the old toad opened his mouth and spat out a spiral of wind, which carried a scroll slowly toward Hiruzen. Hiruzen caught it firmly in one hand.
"Little Jiraiya sent me to tell you that recently, on the front lines, they discovered traces of the Raikage's son. He's brought a boy named Killer Bee deep into the battlefield and killed quite a few people, tightening the front line. So Little Jiraiya sent me over to ask—"
"When will reinforcements arrive? You have to speed things up. Otherwise, he won't be able to hold out alone much longer."
A...
Killer Bee...
The A-B Combo.
So it really is them?
Roy listened silently from the side. His heart, eager to head for the battlefield, began to stir.
That place was the graveyard of great nations, the meat grinder for Konoha, Kumogakure, Iwagakure, Kirigakure, and countless smaller ninja villages.
It was the burial ground of ordinary ninja and elite ninja alike.
And of course...
it was also fertile soil for nourishing Life Energy.
Roy did not like war.
He did not like killing people either.
But he had to admit that whether in his previous life, the Hunter world, the Demon Slayer world, or the Naruto world before him now, wherever there were people, there would be factions, politics, conflict, filth, and ugliness waiting for the sun to shine upon and purify.
An invisible longing slowly transformed into battle intent and spread out from Roy's body...
Hiruzen, who had been listening to Fukasaku while staring at the scroll, seemed to sense something. He suddenly looked up and glared at Roy.
"You are not allowed to go!"
"This old man has already said it. Anyone may go, but you absolutely cannot!"
Fukasaku, still rubbing his waist, froze slightly in surprise at Hiruzen's attitude. He turned to Minato and asked, "Who is he?"
Minato looked at Hiruzen, then at Roy, and said gently, "His name is Ren. He's a child of the Uchiha family."
Uchiha?
Fukasaku instinctively frowned.
That clan was born evil. How had one of them ended up in Hiruzen's study?
And from the look of it...
Hiruzen was actually protecting this boy quite a bit?
Had the sun risen from the west today?
Fukasaku stared at Roy with a wrinkled brow.
His back and tongue still ached faintly from being grabbed and pinned earlier.
How strange.
Don't be fooled by his small size and soft tongue. He was a toad sage with eight hundred years of senjutsu cultivation. Even though he had signed a contract with Jiraiya, Jiraiya still had to respectfully call him "Boss."
In terms of combat strength, he absolutely wouldn't lose to Konoha's jōnin.
So how had this brat subdued him so easily just now?
Fukasaku thought of the layer of shadowy light wrapped around Roy's palm earlier.
Faintly, he sensed that something about it was wrong.
His gaze remained fixed on Roy.
As the two met for the first time, a hazy causal line slowly and firmly connected them.
Roy answered Hiruzen flatly, "I know."
In his heart, he already had his own plans.
Then he glanced back at Fukasaku.
A curve of light suddenly flashed through his clear, bright eyes. Through the causal line between himself and Fukasaku, he saw countless other causal threads drifting and stretching behind the old toad...
All of those causal lines were indirectly connected to Roy through Fukasaku.
Roy stood on this end.
On the other end, he could faintly make out several shadows.
One had white hair like a lion's mane falling behind him, and a forehead protector marked with the character "oil." That should be Jiraiya.
One had purple lips, purple hair, and green skin, only slightly lighter than Fukasaku's. That should be his wife, Shima.
One was an enormous red toad with a gigantic pipe in his mouth. That should be Gamabunta.
The others—Gamahiro, Gamaken, and the rest of the toads—were all different in size, skin color, weapons, and demeanor.
But they all pointed toward the same final destination—
Mount Myōboku.
In the unseen, the final causal line drifted into Roy's vision.
The boy faintly sensed something and narrowed his eyes toward the other end of that thread...
A stretch of mountains and ridges.
A small temple hidden among them.
Below it, beside a stream, stood a platform enshrining the character "sage."
From just above that character came faint, intermittent snoring.
Roy followed the sound.
There, he saw an orange old toad with a string of prayer beads around its neck. At the center of the beads was a pale purple cat's-eye stone, engraved with the same character "oil" as Jiraiya's forehead protector. On its head was a scholar's cap.
Half-asleep, it suddenly opened its cloudy yellow eyes and asked in a trembling, raspy voice, rougher than a broken bellows:
"Who comes?"
Roy said nothing.
The old toad mumbled once, and getting no reply, its head drooped again as though it had fallen back into sleep.
Roy recognized it instantly.
Then he curiously glanced at the temple before slowly withdrawing his gaze.
Buzz.
The causal line withdrew with him.
Everything seemed to return to normal.
But what Roy did not expect was that, not long after he left, the old toad who had fallen asleep suddenly opened its eyes again, as if disturbed by a nightmare.
It woke with a start and said faintly,
"A thousand years, Hagoromo... Since your death, the Child of Prophecy... has finally appeared..."
Whoosh.
A breeze of chakra carrying natural energy swept outward.
As the old toad spoke, countless toads cultivating across the mountain suddenly lifted their heads, each stopping what they were doing.
At that moment, the same words echoed in all their minds—
including Fukasaku and Shima, who had been summoned outside.
The Child of Prophecy?!
In Hiruzen Sarutobi's house,
Fukasaku's yellow eyes, with their black horizontal pupils, shook. His expression changed instantly.
Minato, who was supporting him, noticed at once and asked with concern, "What's wrong, Lord Fukasaku?"
Hiruzen's gaze followed.
Fukasaku drew in a deep breath and said gravely,
"The ninja world is about to change."
The Great Elder could not be wrong.
He had never been wrong.
Because his prophecies always came true, he was honored as the Great Toad Sage.
So if he said the Child of Prophecy had appeared, then the Child of Prophecy had definitely appeared.
As for who it was...
Fukasaku glanced at Roy.
It couldn't possibly be an Uchiha, born evil as they were.