"This kid with the dark circles looks even more arrogant than Sasuke~"
"And the people around him are obviously afraid of him. Look at the one with face paint—his eyes never leave him, totally on guard."
"Looks like Shukaku's jinchūriki is pretty strong. According to the intel Kabuto Yakushi gathered, he can use Shukaku's power. Maybe he's even gained Shukaku's acknowledgment."
"Tch~ It's just Shukaku. That little bit of chakra—how strong could he be? Bet even that Uchiha brat could take him down!"
"Kurama, even if Shukaku doesn't have as much chakra as we do, he's still very powerful."
"Yeah. At least I can't beat it. And if I remember right, even you, Kurama, don't really—"
"Shut up!"
"…"
On a street in Konoha, with two hours still to go before noon, Naruto stood among the crowd using the Transformation Technique. He held a notebook in his hand, jotting things down. Hearing several Tailed Beasts bickering inside his mindscape, a faint smile flickered in his eyes. He then turned and slipped into a nearby alley.
Half an hour later, in the Hokage's Office.
"Hokage-sama, I've already arranged for the Sunagakure team to be settled in the resting area of Kikyo City."
A burly man with several vicious scars on his face pushed open the door and walked in. After glancing at Yamato, who stood beside the Third Hokage, he strode to the desk and handed over a stack of documents.
"We've verified the roster of those coming to participate in the Chūnin Exams."
The Third Hokage took the documents and nodded. "Good work, Ibiki. Have your people keep them under close surveillance. Once the other villages arrive, I'll assign more personnel to support you."
"Yes."
Ibiki responded and turned to leave the office.
"Is Naruto still training?" the Third Hokage asked, flipping through the documents.
"Yes," Yamato nodded lightly. "The original just reported that on his way to his usual training grounds, he happened to run into the Sunagakure team and took out his notebook to record some observations."
The Third Hokage took a puff from his pipe, exhaled a ring of smoke, and asked again, "Still focusing on taijutsu?"
Yamato touched his earpiece. After a moment, he replied, "Ever since he signed up for the Chūnin Exams, Naruto's been practicing taijutsu every day, using the same training methods Rock Lee taught him. Right now, he's wearing weighted gear and rock-climbing in the mountains behind the village. He actually seems quite well-suited for taijutsu training."
"Hm…"
The Third Hokage shook his head. "A few days ago I specifically had Shikamaru remind him to prepare more thoroughly. Who would've thought he'd spend all his money buying explosive tags again."
"Naruto might not necessarily risk his life again," Yamato said thoughtfully. "He'll probably use them for traps. After all, last time he combined explosive tags with Shadow Clones to ambush Kakashi-senpai, he passed out on the spot. Unless it's absolutely necessary, he wouldn't want to suffer that backlash again. And Sasuke is very strong now—having him around should make the Chūnin Exams relatively safe."
"Oh?"
The Third Hokage looked at Yamato in mild surprise and smiled. "You also think Sasuke is very strong?"
"Yes."
Yamato nodded seriously. "I feel Sasuke is starting to resemble Itachi from back then. And even if something unexpected happens during the Chūnin Exams, with me watching from the shadows, I can—"
"From now until the end of the Chūnin Exams, you don't need to follow Naruto anymore."
The Third Hokage cut him off, his tone firm. "Both he and Sasuke managed to give Kakashi trouble during the earlier mock training. There's no reason they won't make it to the final stage of the Chūnin Exams."
At the same time, Yamato, who had been monitoring Naruto from the back mountains, quietly withdrew. Unaware of this, Naruto sat resting on a rock, his consciousness deep within the Mirror World, examining Kabuto Yakushi's memories.
"Orochimaru will arrive this afternoon… hehe. Kabuto is digging into my background."
Watching Kabuto holding Team Seven's personal files while questioning Yamanaka Fū about him, Naruto found it rather amusing. After all, Yamanaka Fū told Kabuto that aside from Sasuke, the other two members of Team Seven were civilians.
Checking Yamanaka Fū's memories confirmed it was Danzō's instruction. Naruto then reviewed Danzō's memories as well and discovered that, to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, Danzō had ordered his subordinates to develop a regenerative multi-layered barrier specifically targeting Shukaku.
Such a barrier wasn't anything special. In the original canon, Kumogakure's barrier team on Turtle Island used similar techniques designed to restrain jinchūriki.
After pondering for a moment, Naruto found Kakuzu's icon.
"Why hasn't Pain shown himself lately…?"
Naruto felt something was off. In Kakuzu's memories, Konan had become the one effectively running Akatsuki. All current missions were being arranged by her alone, and Pain didn't even use the Phantom Dragon Nine Consuming Seals projection technique for meetings anymore.
As a result, Naruto could only obtain limited intelligence on Akatsuki through Itachi and Kakuzu for the time being.
"Oh? Kakuzu really lives up to his reputation—he actually managed to catch Deidara's tail."
Naruto couldn't help but admire Kakuzu's persistence. For the sake of the remaining bounty, Kakuzu had traveled to the southern Crimson State Island and then spent an entire month eating sand in the ruins of Rōran.
Just when Naruto thought the harvest was secured, something unexpected happened.
The moment Hidan hooked Deidara's thigh with his triple-bladed scythe, Deidara's upper and lower body separated completely. Kakuzu immediately extended his arms and grabbed Deidara's hands, but they detached at the elbows as well. Then, from both sides of Deidara's remaining torso, three insect-like segmented limbs burst out and burrowed into the sand dunes.
Kakuzu's synchronized memories ended there—Deidara had escaped.
"But in the original canon, when Deidara absorbed the Dragon Vein's seal, wasn't he still human?"
Just as Naruto was puzzling over this, the Five-Tails, Kokuō, suddenly appeared.
"Good news!"
Naruto's heart stirred. "You got Reanimation Jutsu?"
"No."
Kokuō pulled up a massive interface window and opened a data template. "I just received a notification. That Ice Release reward you couldn't claim before now has a clear analysis progress."
"Huh?"
Naruto looked at the window and saw that the text in parentheses had changed.
It now read: 'Relevant data acquired. Time remaining until reward can be claimed: 11 hours.'
Below it was a progress bar at roughly ten percent.
"What happened?" Naruto asked, looking up at Kokuō. "Did you fight Haku's puppet again just now?"
Kokuō shook his head slightly. "No."
"Then what does this 'relevant data acquired' mean?"
Naruto froze. "On my way here, I didn't run into anyone. And if data were being collected, the Mirror World should've notified me."
"Unless…"
Naruto exited the Mirror World at once and immediately received feedback from his Shadow Clones stationed in the Land of Snow.
Dozens of Shadow Clones had been frozen solid while experimenting with injecting Wind Release chakra into a Water Release Rasengan.
"So the data came from here… Huh? Why is Yamato no longer watching me?"
Just as Naruto realized he had stumbled onto the path to Ice Release, he sensed that Yamato's chakra—always nearby—had vanished. The closest Yamato was now inside the Third Hokage's office.
Naruto returned to the Mirror World, opened the Third Hokage's icon, and after understanding what had happened, felt rather speechless.
Yamato had long been one of Naruto's chosen experimental subjects. He'd even planned to have Yamato "disappear" during the second stage of the exams and pin it on Orochimaru. But now the Third Hokage had abruptly pulled him back.
"What are you thinking about?"
Kurama appeared silently behind Naruto.
"Of course, our plan," Naruto replied, turning around. "Kurama, have you figured out what happened last time?"
"As for the old man… I don't actually know that much," Kurama said, gazing down at Naruto with a complicated expression. "I only know he's been guarding this world all along. That's the sole reason he taught humans how to use chakra, dividing the Ten-Tails' chakra into us nine Tailed Beasts."
"I understand," Naruto said, his eyes shining. "As long as what he protected wasn't humanity itself."
"Tch."
Kurama sneered. "What right do humans have to be worth the old man's concern?"
"Hey, don't say that," Naruto replied with a grin. "I'm human too, you know."
Kurama's ears perked up. "Do you really need anyone looking out for you?"
"Of course," Naruto said calmly. "Who knows—maybe the Sage of Six Paths has been watching over me all along."
"Huh?"
Kurama froze, then suddenly leaned down until his head hovered over Naruto's. "Did those three tell you something?"
"What do you mean?"
Now it was Naruto's turn to be surprised. "Are you all hiding something from me?"
"Nothing!"
Kurama's pupils contracted. Without lifting his head, he summoned a notification window and tapped it without even looking. In Naruto's puzzled gaze, Kurama turned into a streak of light and vanished.
Near midnight, Naruto appeared out of thin air on the frigid northern ice fields of the Land of Snow. It wasn't a full moon, yet the moonlight remained bright and clear.
At that moment, howling winds seemed drawn by some unseen force, converging around Naruto. He leapt diagonally into the air, and the shrieking wind followed, whipping dense snowflakes that wrapped tightly around his body.
Yet Naruto didn't fall. Instead, in an incredibly elegant posture, he continued ascending. When he reached over a hundred meters above the ice fields, he stopped. The swirling wind and snow rapidly condensed behind him, forming a crystal-clear chair.
"My chakra's increased quite a bit again…"
Naruto murmured as he sat down on the chair formed of wind and snow.
Seven days later, in the afternoon.
"What's this?"
In the laboratory of the Land of Snow, Sasuke asked as he accepted a small box Naruto handed him.
"Something you'll need for the second stage of the exam," Naruto said flatly. "It can help conceal your three-tomoe Sharingan."
"Huh?"
Sasuke opened the box and exclaimed in surprise, "Contact lenses with a two-tomoe Sharingan?"
"Put it away. The exam starts tomorrow. Now listen carefully—there are a few things I need to tell you."
Naruto raised one finger. "First: because your left eye is a three-tomoe Sharingan and lacks the ocular power of the Mangekyō Sharingan, the duration of Izanagi's time offset is only three days. To prevent it from expiring, your right eye needs to be transplanted with another three-tomoe Sharingan."
"Another three-tomoe Sharingan?"
Sasuke's gaze sharpened. "You've recently obtained someone else's Sharingan!"
Naruto replied calmly, "Is that strange?"
Sasuke fell silent.
A few minutes later, Sasuke replaced his eyes with a pair of crimson three-tomoe Sharingan, though his expression looked odd.
"How does it feel?" Naruto asked with a faint smile.
Sasuke shook his head. "These aren't my eyes."
"They were never your eyes to begin with," Naruto replied indifferently, then changed the subject. "Can you deactivate them?"
"Of course."
Still puzzled as to why Naruto asked, Sasuke looked at him. His pupils instantly turned pitch black.
"Very good."
Naruto nodded lightly.
This Sharingan had once belonged to Gen Yoshiyuki, its unknown will erased during a previous experiment. Naruto wanted to see whether anything special would happen when Sasuke—an Uchiha by blood—received it. For now, nothing unexpected seemed to occur, but he would still check Sasuke's words later in the Mirror World.
After all, that earlier comment—"These aren't my eyes"—felt oddly loaded.
"You said that was only the first thing," Sasuke reminded him quickly, noticing Naruto's strange stare. "What about the rest?"
"The second thing is simple," Naruto said with a smile.
"Tomorrow, during the written exam, I want you to hand in a blank paper."
◇ BONUS & SUPPORT ◇
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 10 reviews — drop a comment!
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 70 chapters ahead on P@treon → patreon.com/FinalArcHero789