A furious roar tore through the damp fog like a blade through fabric.
"Wind Release: Major Breakthrough!"
Chakra flared and a violent gale uncoiled across the battlefield. The whirlwind slammed into the fog and ripped it apart, scattering the mist into tatters. When the air cleared, Naruto and a dozen of his shadow clones stood there as if they'd always been part of the scene — arms folded, clothes dusted with dirt, hair wind-blown and wild, faces lit by confident, mischievous grins.
Zabuza Momochi's hidden face drained of color. "What… what kind of chakra is that?!" he choked. The man who once cut down opponents the way others cut wood could not hide the tremor in his voice.
"How could a newly graduated genin carry such power?" one of the stunned onlookers whispered.
Naruto's arrival was nothing short of theatrical. He strode forward without hurry, head high, and though his clothes were scuffed and his hair unkempt, his eyes burned with a fierce, unshakable light. The grin on his face was simple and genuine — the expression of someone who'd just surprised even himself.
He had smashed Zabuza's Hidden Mist with a single technique: Wind Release — Great Leap. Where Mists were meant to hide and choke, Naruto's wind cut and cleared. The fog that had been a weapon became his stage.
Kakashi allowed a rare smile to curve his mouth. His visible eye twinkled like a slitted crescent.
Hinata breathed in a long, relieved sigh, then squealed softly, "Naruto-kun!" Her joy was the quiet, intense kind that tightened her chest.
Sasuke, arms folded, let his usual frown slide across his face in a disapproving arc. "Show-off," he muttered, but even he seemed less burdened — as if some weight had been lifted from him by Naruto's success.
Everything had happened in a heartbeat. Thick fog had swallowed the area, and when Kakashi and the others moved to protect Tazuna, a flash of steel had shimmered without warning. Had Kakashi not intercepted it, the old bridge-builder would have been beheaded in an instant.
The worst fear had been Naruto — caught in the fog, isolated. The way the fog had descended suggested intent: someone had meant to carve them up in the murk. If Naruto had hesitated at all, he would likely have been killed.
So Kakashi and Hinata watched, breath held, as Naruto scattered the fog with the force of wind. Relief crashed over them like a wave.
Zabuza, hidden behind his water technique, scowled and seethed. "Wind Release: Major Breakthrough?" he repeated, incredulous. "Has he truly defeated my Secret Mist Technique?"
He could not conceal the tightness around his eyes. "Just a blond brat," he spat. "Where does he draw such power?"
That Naruto, a genin freshly minted from the academy, could produce Wind Release of this caliber was itself a marvel. The technique's scale, the amount of chakra behind it, the raw, biting force — it felt almost like a small tailed beast in miniature.
Kakashi walked forward slowly, positioning himself with Tazuna behind him and his students arranged to shield the old man. "Zabuza Momochi," Kakashi said evenly, "I told you—underestimate Naruto and you'll pay for it."
"Worth noting," he added, glancing at his team, "all three members of Team 7 have talent. Real talent."
Something inside Zabuza tightened. The man's masked face twitched with a cold, dangerous patience. He hated being surprised. He hated losing the initiative.
Without further parley, he attacked.
Like a phantom, he dissolved into shadow and flashed behind Tazuna. The executioner's blade arced down in a single, silent motion — meant to sever neck from body, clean and fast.
But Kakashi was faster. He had predicted Zabuza's move—seen the pattern in his opponent's mind—and with a piercing clang his kunai met Zabuza's blade, deflecting it. Tazuna's life hung in the balance and then did not.
"Good," Kakashi muttered through clenched teeth. "Expected from Kakashi Hatake."
Yet the field was fickle; Naruto's voice suddenly rose in alarm. "Kakashi-sensei! Watch out!"
A figure loomed behind Kakashi — an executioner's blade descended in a merciless arc and in a sickening instant it split through the place where Kakashi had been, severing the air and cutting cleanly through nothing that should have been there. A cry of horror froze the blood in Hinata's throat.
"Kakashi-sensei!" she screamed, white as a pale ghost.
Sasuke's brows drew together hard. "Is that a shadow clone? Or—"
Zabuza sneered. "Caught!" he said, triumphant. He and the water clone surged at Tazuna.
Then, impossibly, a kunai plunged savagely into one of the corpses strewn about the battlefield. The blade sank in with a wet, brutal sound.
Zabuza whirled in surprise. "Kakashi Hatake — was that your water clone just now?"
Kakashi's voice was calm, dangerous. "When you used the Water Clone Jutsu, I already copied your ninjutsu." He watched Zabuza's expression crumble into disbelief as the water clone puddled, saturating into nothingness.
The main body of Zabuza let out a breath that might have been pride — until the truth struck him like ice. "So you've a copy ninja, then?" he hissed. His smile froze into something sharp and cold.
Kakashi's heart thudded under his chest as a terrible thought shuttered across his mind. He pivoted, eyes narrowing toward the thickest part of the fog.
"Naruto! Pay attention!" he shouted.
At that instant, from the mist behind Naruto, a blade flashed down. An executioner's sword slashed in a silent, merciless arc like an owl diving on its prey. It meant death — swift, clinical. Kakashi should have seen it. Only at the last heartbeat did he realize the body in front of him was not the true body but a shadow clone. The true Zabuza had been hiding in the fog the whole time.
He'd been waiting for the right moment.
The target of that hidden killing intent? Naruto.
Kakashi spun to save his student and activated a body-shift technique, a desperate gamble. But the water clone seized the opening and launched a surprise attack from behind Kakashi. The jonin now had to defend himself and could not turn all his attention to Naruto.
Lightning split the air — Hinata, Sasuke, even Kakashi gasped in stunned awe.
Naruto's head — seized in a flash and sliced clean — tumbled away. The severed head hit the ground with a sick, wet thud. Bones cracked. The scene should have been final and horrifying.
And yet, in a blink, everything changed.
Kakashi and the clone he faced clashed with lethal intent. The two blades rang, and for a moment the world seemed to slow. Then both combatants recoiled, and what they saw left them mute.
Naruto's severed head dissolved into a wind, scattering like a phantom mirage. His body? It had already rematerialized dozens of meters away, perfectly whole.
"What the—?!" someone cried.
"Body Displacement?!" murmured another.
"No. This isn't a normal Body Shift. It's not just a clone trick. That afterimage left a wind-shaped echo — and he used Wind Release at the same time to maximize his speed." Zabuza's voice was taut with disbelief.
This was no ordinary jutsu; it was something new, something born not of tradition but of innovation. Wind Body Shudder — Naruto's self-created technique.
Kakashi, Hinata, and Sasuke felt their chests throb as the truth landed. Naruto was not merely brave. He was inventing ways to fight — and surviving by sheer cleverness and adaptability.
Naruto, breathless but grinning wide, laughed out loud and called, "That's right! I made it myself!"
"Are you kidding me?" Sasuke scoffed, but there was admiration threaded through the barb. Hinata's eyes shone like stars.
Inside, Naruto's heart had been pounding like a trapped bird. Sweat slicked his temples. If Kakashi hadn't shouted a warning at that microsecond, Naruto would have been dead — his head gone for real. The severed mockery on the ground might have been the last image in Tazuna's eyes. The idea made Naruto's knees feel small with vertigo.
Zabuza's hands were white around the executioner's knife. For all his experience, for all his cold-blooded skill, he had failed to finish a "brat." The realization scraped at his pride. He gritted his teeth, voice low and snarling. "That was a Jonin-level trap, and even that wasn't enough to finish him. A genin…?"
If a hundred genin had attacked him at once, each alone would have been less dangerous than this blond whirlwind.
"Die, you brat!" Zabuza hissed, surging toward Naruto with renewed fury.
Naruto's clones shimmered and folded into a dozen directions. Wind whipped. The air hummed with chakra and intention. Naruto darted and feinted, the battlefield alive with movement. The villagers and guards had gathered, eyes wide, thunderstruck by the spectacle of tactics and raw power.
Hidden Mist's ugliness met Wind Release's clarity, and the two vied for dominance. The duel was not only a clash of blades; it was an argument about method and will. Zabuza, cruel and seasoned, represented cold efficiency. Naruto, loud and raw, represented a stubborn, careless, startling hope.
In the moments that followed, Kakashi watched his student with a complicated pride. Naruto had not only survived — he had forced an old, deadly predator to question himself. That alone was a victory.
When the wind died down and the echoes faded, the field smelled of ozone and wet earth. Zabuza, face hard as iron, reassessed the boy before him. He saw talent, recklessness, and — most worrying — the sort of instinct that made an opponent unpredictable.
Naruto, for his part, was still grinning — hungry, alive, indomitably himself. He had invented something new and had the courage to use it. That was worth more than applause. It was the spark of something that could change the way the world fought.
On the old bridge, Tazuna exhaled a long, shaky breath and looked at the youngest of his defenders with gratitude and something like relief. The Four of them — Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata — had endured a trial by fog and blade and had come out the other side, bloodied but not broken.
The mist would come again — the world was full of blades that slid in the dark. But here, in the raw fire of this moment, a new wind had been born.
Advance Chapters avilable on patreon (Obito_uchiha)