Late at night, Grass Ninja Village.
Naruto slowly opened his eyes.
He saw a dimly lit room, with four figures wearing eerie animal masks sitting around him, staring at him eerily.
"What the…!"
Seeing this strange scene, Naruto's heart skipped a beat, and he abruptly sat up.
"Is this… the Animal Path?"
"…What an impolite brat."
The figure wearing a bull-head mask slowly spoke, their voice ancient and filled with the weariness of age: "Uzumaki Naruto, this… is Grass Ninja Village, the place where you will live from now on."
"Ah, I remember now…"
Hearing the other party's words, Naruto slapped his forehead, realizing he had accidentally fallen asleep on the way.
Yawning, Naruto propped himself up on his knees and stood, looking at the person who had spoken with interest: "So… are you after the Uzumaki bloodline, or the Nine-Tailed Jinchuriki identity?"
"Nine-Tailed…"
Hearing this, everyone was startled, then the figure wearing a goat-head mask next to them suddenly stood up.
"No! This brat is from Konoha—"
"Rasengan!"
Before she could finish speaking, a Chakra sphere glowing with dazzling light instantly appeared before them!
However, just as the Rasengan was about to strike the bull-headed person, a Chakra barrier suddenly appeared in front of them.
Clang—
The Rasengan collided with the barrier, emitting a dull sound.
Then, the Rasengan slowly dissipated, and an invisible sense of restraint enveloped Naruto's entire body, pinning him in place, unable to move.
"Heh heh…"
"Hahaha!"
"To be able to use such a powerful Ninjutsu at this age, you truly are an extraordinary genius!"
The bull-headed person who spoke first laughed loudly: "But unfortunately, our Grass Ninja's Binding Jutsu is unrivaled!"
"Is that so…"
Naruto raised an eyebrow, a smile of unknown meaning appearing on his face.
The next second, a reddish-brown color slowly crept onto his face, and to their astonished gazes, the golden-haired brat before them gradually transformed into a vibrant young tree!
"Wood Release?!"
Seeing this, they all exclaimed in surprise.
Whoosh—
The moment the clone turned into a tree, another golden-haired brat instantly appeared before them.
Unlike the previous golden-haired brat, this time the golden-haired brat had fox ears on his head and nine orange-red fox tails gently swaying behind him.
And in front of him, he held a purplish-black spherical object several meters in diameter!!
"Art is an explosion! Allahu Akbar! Haa!"
Naruto roared, pushing the Tailed Beast Ball in his hand forward. The nine tails behind him quickly gathered into a sphere, enveloping his entire body.
"Tailed Beast Ball?!"
"No! This is impossible!!"
Boom——————
The terrified screams abruptly ceased. In the dark night, a dazzling blaze erupted in Grass Ninja Village!
And in that instant, within a hundred-meter radius, every Grass Ninja saw their great-grandmother!
This scene of family reunion lasted for a full half-minute before Naruto slowly dispersed his tails and emerged from the ravaged ruins.
The explosion of the Tailed Beast Ball had not caused him any harm, but this was only natural, as it was a Chakra tail identical to the Nine-Tailed, capable of withstanding a Ten-Tails' True Gudō Dama.
The masked perverts from earlier were long gone, and the ruins were littered with the bodies of fallen Grass Ninja.
"Enemy attack!!!"
In the ruins, a severely wounded Ninja knelt on the ground, clutching his arm and screaming hysterically.
Naruto, passing by, delivered a kick. With a snap, the Ninja's neck bent ninety degrees, and stark white bones pierced through his skin, a gruesome and terrifying sight.
"Ugh—"
Seeing this bloody scene, Naruto shivered, rubbing his arms with a look of disgust.
It wasn't that he was cruel; it was just that the Nine-tails Mode was too powerful, and a slight exertion of force resulted in this.
Averting his gaze from the bloody scene, Naruto's Kagura Mind's Eye quickly covered the entire Village, eventually locking onto a secluded corner of the Village.
There were two Chakra signatures there that were different from the others; one was vibrant and surging, while the other was weak and dim, but without exception, both carried a sense of inexplicable familiarity to Naruto.
Is it true that the Chakra connection between blood relatives is more pronounced…
Glancing at the approaching Grass Ninja in the distance, Naruto's figure flickered and vanished like a ghost.
"Damn it! Who was that?!"
"Where are the elders? How are the elders?"
"Quickly treat the wounded!"
Without their elders, the Ninja in the Village immediately fell into chaos.
Naruto glanced from afar, a contemptuous smile on his face. In a few breaths, he appeared in the corner of the Village, arriving at a dilapidated shack.
Inside, a dim oil lamp flickered, casting two shadows, one large and one small, onto the tattered curtains.
"Mom, why are you up?"
"Hmm, there seems to have been a battle in the Village. I might have to go to the hospital soon…"
The woman dressed herself, gently stroking the girl's small head, her voice gentle: "Karin, be a good girl and go to sleep, okay? Mom will be back first thing in the morning."
"But…"
The girl seemed about to say something else but was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.
"Hello, is anyone home?"
Naruto lightly knocked on the door, his voice languid.
"Coming…"
Footsteps sounded from inside, and the door opened, revealing a gentle-mannered woman before Naruto.
The woman looked a bit haggard; her normally vibrant red short hair had a dry, white tint, making her hair appear somewhat pinkish.
For those of the Uzumaki Clan, this was clearly a sign of excessive life force depletion.
"Hello, little one, are you here to tell me to go to the hospital?"
Seeing Naruto's clean and handsome young face, the woman gently bent down.
"Uzumaki Naruto, here to take you both away."
Naruto wasted no words, raising a hand to point at the uneasy red-haired girl inside: "You don't want your daughter to suffer the same fate as you in the future, do you?"
"Uzumaki…"
The woman was slightly stunned, then as if grasping a lifeline, she quickly ran to the girl's side and scooped her up.
The moment she looked at Naruto again, Naruto could clearly see a hint of determination in the woman's eyes.
"My lord, what do you need me to do?"
Naruto took a step forward and grabbed the woman's wrist.
The woman only felt her vision blur; the scene before her suddenly changed. In an instant, the three of them traversed hundreds of miles, appearing at Kazehana Koyuki's home in the Fire Capital.
The originally dilapidated small wooden house instantly transformed into a clean and tidy large house. This miraculous phenomenon greatly surprised both mother and daughter.
"Space-Time Ninjutsu."
Naruto said concisely: "This is the Land of Fire. You two stay here for now; I'll be right back."
With that, his figure flickered again, reappearing in the dilapidated shack where the mother and daughter had previously lived.
His gaze swept around the room. The simple environment made Naruto frown; this environment was far worse than his own small, broken apartment…
Just as he was thinking of summoning the Nine-Tailed to smash this unsightly house to pieces, a rapid footsteps suddenly came from outside the door.
"Hey, Kanako! What are you doing?!" (Karin's voice actor, Tojo Kanako.)
A burly, strangely-faced Grass Ninja burst through the door: "Have some self-awareness! With such a loud explosion, you—"
Noticing the golden-haired boy in the room, whose fox tails swayed as he watched him with a cold smirk, the Grass Ninja's voice abruptly cut off!