Seeing a pair of hands grabbing his feet is quite shocking, to say the least, and the masked man immediately uses his technique and makes his feet intangible while he jumps far away from the utility pole.
The masked man landed at the top of the wall of the Uchiha Clan Compound, and his eyes never left the pair of hands that still stuck out from the shadow.
The masked man was sure that the hands weren't an illusion but was still unable to see how Naruto managed to pull it off. He didn't know there were such techniques throughout the entire village hidden in the leaf.
Just as the masked man wonders what Naruto did, Naruto slowly rises from the shadow while his eyes stare at the masked man with interest.
It wasn't the interest of a battle maniac, but something else; even then, the masked man still felt his spine cold from the almost empty eyes of Naruto.
"I didn't expect to meet someone who had such a high-level space-time technique," Naruto calmly said.
"Even Minato didn't have such a high-level space-time technique," Naruto added.
The masked man only squinted his eyes for a bit before calming down. It doesn't matter to him if Naruto manages to identify his technique; at the end of the day, he will still win in this fight.
The masked man was just about to launch multiple kunai in Naruto's direction as a distraction to his main attack when Naruto once again began speaking.
"You used this space-time technique to turn your body intangible by transferring it to another dimension, but there are multiple downsides to this technique," Naruto calmly said.
"What is it?" The masked man asks while at the same time thinking about the action he has to take right now.
It already surprises him that Naruto manages to identify his technique, but to see its downside as well is something the masked man can't tolerate.
Even Minato only manages to learn some of the weaknesses of his technique due to multiple reasons, but Naruto manages to see it in just a short period of time despite being careful, which was absurd, to say the least.
If Naruto manages to realize everything about his technique, he has to make sure to kill Naruto before he can inform others about it.
If he fails, his plans will definitely be delayed for many years.
"Aside from the large amount of chakra consumption using this ability, there's also the fact that there's a time limit where you can be intangible. When attacking, you also have to turn yourself tangible, or else your attack will simply fail," Naruto said.
"Still, it's definitely a broken ability, which really brought me many ideas for my technique," Naruto added.
The masked man immediately throws kunai towards Naruto while at the same time vanishing at the top of the wall as well.
Naruto easily dodges the kunai and surveys the area for any signs of the masked man, but like previously, the masked man suddenly vanishes in the area.
Naruto already knows where the masked man is and is just waiting for him to appear.
While waiting, a golden eight-spoked Dharma Wheel appeared behind Naruto as he was already planning to make a counter to the masked man's space-time technique.
While Naruto is confident about defeating the masked man right now, he wants to improve his arsenal so if he encounters people who have similar abilities, he already has an option to defeat them.
The masked man immediately appeared behind Naruto and tried to stab him with a kunai in his hand when Naruto easily dodged it and swung his hand to attack the masked man.
The masked man uses his intangibility to defend himself from the attack, which only made Naruto smirk a little bit, which really wasn't missed by the masked man, but he was unable to decipher the meaning behind the smirk.
The masked man waves a few hand signs in rapid succession and says out loud, "Fire Style: Fire Ball." A massive fireball is released from the masked man's mouth and flies towards Naruto, which he easily dodges by sinking himself in the shadow.
Naruto immediately appeared beneath the masked man to launch his counterattack, but before he could even begin releasing his techniques, the masked man once again turned himself intangible, making Naruto's attack fail.
Yet it didn't bother Naruto at all, but instead he continued to pressure the masked man to fight Naruto in close combat. The masked man tries to distance himself but later finds out that Naruto can do long-distance attacks, and Naruto didn't even have to do it since he can just appear beneath the masked man.
"Wind Style: Wind Orb Barrage"
Multiple balls of wind chakra are flying at high speed towards the masked man, but the latter quickly jumps around, dodging the attack, and the wind chakra balls hit the walls and destroy them in the process.
Naruto uses this opportunity to close his distance in a short period of time and send a punch enhanced by both chakra and cursed energy directly to the masked man's groin.
The masked man's eyes widen slightly before his body turns intangible, making Naruto phase through, but his smirk only widens.
The golden eight-spoked Dharma Wheels behind Naruto already spin one time.
Just as they are about to continue their fight, both of them smell the thick blood smell, which makes the duo temporarily stop and glance in the same direction.
"So it's already begun, huh?" The masked man muttered.
Naruto's eyebrow slightly raised after hearing the masked man. Clearly the blood smell he sensed was due to the masked man's plan, but Naruto doesn't really give a damn about it.
"Seems like I am unable to kill you right now," the masked man said while staring at Naruto, his eyes burning with intense killing intent.
"As if you can kill me," Naruto scoffed.
"I can, and in the future I will." The masked man slowly disappeared in a swirling distortion. Naruto didn't do anything and just intently watched the masked man until he completely vanished.
Naruto didn't take the threats of the masked man seriously since, in his opinion, the masked man was far weaker than he was, and he didn't even have to go all out yet just to stand toe-to-toe with him.
Still, Naruto had to admit that the space-time techniques of the masked man were far superior to his own space-time technique in some aspects, but overall his space-time technique is still far better.
The only question that Naruto was unable to solve was the strange pattern of the Sharingan that the masked person had. Naruto first thought that the masked man had the typical three-tomoe sharingan, but after careful observation, Naruto saw that the eye of the masked man was under an illusion hiding the strange pattern of the sharingan.
This really intrigued Naruto, and he even started to plan on investigating the abnormal Sharingan despite his busy schedule.
Naruto then looks at the Uchiha Clan Compound and thinks deeply if he should visit and try to find out the reasons behind the blood smells or ignore it.
It would be lying to say that what happened in the Uchiha Clan didn't intrigue him, but Naruto also knows that if he decides to find out, there's a chance that the troubles will follow him.
While he wouldn't back down on a troublesome problem, having one isn't ideal, especially due to his busy schedule.
Still, after thinking about it for a few moments, Naruto decides to see what's going on in the Uchiha Clan Compound.
The reason for this decision, aside from satisfying his curiosity, was due to the masked man, who clearly knows and is involved in what is currently happening in the Uchiha Clan Compound.
Naruto secretly entered the Uchiha Clan Compound and went straight towards the source of the thick blood smells he sensed.
He arrived and saw many middle-aged and elderly Uchiha Clan members dead from injuries, and Naruto even noticed that some of them even suffered a terrible quick torture from the culprit.
Still, that didn't really attract Naruto's attention, but something else did, which greatly surprised Naruto for a bit.
Some ANBU ninja were patrolling the area or, more accurately, checking if there was anyone still alive while robbing the eyes of the dead Uchiha.
Naruto couldn't help but scoff at it; clearly this disaster was part of the plans of the higher-ups of the village as well as the masked man's slight manipulation.
From fighting against the masked man, Naruto notices the fact that he only had one Sharingan eye, and while the masked man moves as if he had two eyes, which is clearly thanks to intense training, in the face of an equal or much more skilled individual, such a disadvantage is terrible, to say the least.
Still, while Naruto did suspect the masked man about this incident, he was still curious about who was the one who killed these people.