Mizuki's breathing instantly grew ragged.
Feeling the pressure of Naruto's fingers on his throat, fear and anger surged together. He shot Naruto a vicious glare—his eyes bloodshot, the last scraps of his mask completely stripped away, leaving only venomous hatred on his face.
"You demon fox… You were born with monstrous power. How could you possibly understand?!"
Mizuki was practically screaming.
Naruto's expression didn't change. He simply tightened his grip a little, his voice still steady.
"Whether I understand or not doesn't matter. What matters is that you explain yourself clearly."
"Hahaha… explain clearly?" Mizuki suddenly burst into laughter—hoarse, desperate laughter. "Fine! I'll tell you! In this damned shinobi world, how far someone can go is basically decided the moment they're born! Talent, bloodline, clan… those things are an invisible cage that locks people like us at the bottom forever!"
Naruto's brows drew together slightly, but he didn't speak. He remembered Jiraiya, his father—even Obito, talking about things like this. In a shinobi world smothered by hatred, peace was painfully hard to reach. Back then, he hadn't understood the weight those words carried.
Mizuki coughed violently a few times, then continued.
"Look at Uchiha Sasuke from your class! Born into an elite clan, gifted from the start—of course he sits at the top as the number one rookie!"
"Yeah, I heard you got lucky and beat him once yesterday. So what? He's still a genius—still someone countless ordinary shinobi could never reach even if they spent their whole lives trying! And me? I have no clan jutsus, no kekkei genkai, not even proper guidance! If I want to get stronger, what else is there besides gambling my life?!"
By this point, Mizuki had completely lost control.
"Someone as mediocre as me—even if I really stole the Scroll of Seals, I probably couldn't learn more than a couple techniques from it… but I could offer it to Orochimaru-sama! He'd grant me brand-new, overwhelming power! Power that can break this unfair world you're born into!"
"For that, I'll pay any price! Getting rid of teammates who got in the way on missions—so what?! As long as I can climb higher, I'll do whatever it takes! Step by step, I'll crawl all the way to the top!"
"I'll make those bastards who were born above everyone else see it—this 'commoner' they look down on can grind them underfoot! That's my reason! Clear enough, you demon-fox brat?!"
He roared out the last words, chest heaving—years of suppression exploding into a mess of jealousy, resentment, and despair.
Naruto stared at him in silence, the sapphire-blue in his eyes turning thoughtful and complicated.
Mizuki's words were like a key—unlocking something Naruto had never truly examined across all those loops.
The dilemma of shinobi without backing. The narrow path upward. The built-in advantages that came with clan and bloodline… Naruto hadn't been completely unaware of these things.
But in his obsession with breaking the loop, he'd always pushed them aside.
He felt like he'd brushed against something crucial—something that might even be tied to the loop itself—but it slipped away before he could grasp it.
Konoha… maybe the entire shinobi world… really was covered by an invisible web woven from bloodlines and clans.
For shinobi without that, rising was like trying to climb to the sky with bare hands.
Just then, hurried footsteps sounded behind Naruto and Mizuki.
Iruka arrived, led by Naruto's shadow clone.
The moment he saw Mizuki pinned to the ground, his face twisted in shock and disbelief.
"Naruto… this… what you said earlier—was it all true?"
Iruka's voice trembled.
On the way here, Naruto's shadow clone had told him Naruto didn't actually fail because he couldn't perform the Clone Jutsu.
He'd noticed something off about Mizuki, so he'd deliberately failed the exam to bait him into revealing his true colors. In truth, Naruto had already mastered a jōnin-level Jutsu—Shadow Clone Jutsu.
At first, Iruka had been deeply skeptical. A student who hadn't even graduated yet using a B-rank jutsu? It sounded impossible.
But out of trust in Naruto, he came anyway.
Now, everything in front of him made it impossible to deny.
Mizuki really had been secretly manipulating Naruto. Naruto really could use tangible clones. His level was already more than enough to graduate.
Seeing Iruka's expression, Mizuki scoffed, his tone dripping with mockery.
"Iruka… you're here too? Looks like that demon-fox brat played me completely. Nice move."
"Why, Mizuki?" Iruka asked, grief-stricken, searching his former friend's face for even a trace of the person he thought he knew. "Why would you do this?"
"Tch. Annoying. That question again?" Mizuki turned his head away, refusing to look at him, bitterness in his voice. "That so-called friendship we had was just something I put on. What, are you going to act out some tragic goodbye scene now?"
Iruka froze, stunned.
"Yeah, your parents died heroes protecting the village, and you suffered—very sad, very sympathetic."
"But so what? Because of that 'tragedy,' you got extra attention and care from the Third Hokage. Do you have any idea how jealous that made me?"
Mizuki's voice rose even higher, as if he wanted to pour out every ounce of resentment he'd hoarded for years.
"For ordinary shinobi like us, with no background, no talent—how hard is it to get the village leadership to even notice us? Back then, I got close to you, comforted you… I never cared about you as a friend! I just wanted to use you to catch the Hokage's eye! I just wanted to climb higher! What's wrong with that?!"
"But even so… later on… we were genuinely close…" Iruka tried to protest, but his voice came out weak.
"Don't be stupid. It was all an act."
Mizuki cut him off coldly.
"And then I realized it didn't work anyway! No matter how hard I tried, no matter how well I performed, I'd never beat the kids from the big clans!"
When Mizuki was younger, he truly believed that if he worked hard enough, acted kind enough, and gained the Hokage's attention, he could rise straight up.
Reality slapped him in the face.
Promotion was brutal. The geniuses, the clan heirs—locked down the top spots.
They never left someone like Mizuki even the slightest opening to climb.
So Mizuki turned his eyes to Orochimaru.
Iruka stood there completely stunned, face gone pale, like his world was collapsing in front of him.
A friendship he'd believed in for years—revealed, in an instant, to have been nothing but lies.
Naruto watched quietly. He had gotten what he came for.
And at the same time, he could faintly sense he was circling the truth behind why he kept getting trapped in the loop.
It still felt like he was missing the final step—just one last push.
But overall, the hidden details had surfaced.
Before Iruka could recover from the shock, Naruto lifted his hand and struck with a precise knife-hand blow.
Clean. Efficient.
It landed on Mizuki's neck.
Mizuki let out a muffled groan—and went limp, unconscious.
The forest fell silent, leaving only the sound of the night wind stirring the leaves.
Naruto looked at Iruka, who was still dazed and hollow, and said quietly:
"Iruka-sensei… leave the rest to the ANBU."