December 1st.
The first snow fell over Konoha.
In the northern training grounds, Kitazawa was sparring with the puppet he controlled—the one Sasori had given him.
He was using Shikotsumyaku: Dance of the Willow. His whole body flowed around the puppet like water, unleashing a nonstop barrage of attacks.
Faced with that assault, the puppet could only go all-out on defense. It couldn't find a single opening to counterattack.
The sharp, continuous clashing lasted a full ten seconds before finally coming to a halt.
Kitazawa pulled back to open some distance.
After that match against the puppet, he had completely mastered Dance of the Willow.
Next, he just had to learn one more Shikotsumyaku technique—Dance of the Camellia—and he'd be able to complete his system mission.
Of course, in this past month he hadn't only learned Dance of the Willow. He'd also mastered Wood Release: Multiple Wood Clone Technique.
As for his next Wood Release jutsu, he'd decided on Wood Release: Cutting Technique.
In the original story, Cutting Technique was the Wood Release attack Obito used all the time.
Kitazawa had originally thought that was a Wood Release technique unique to Obito, since only he ever used it.
But he'd found the jutsu recorded in a scroll in the Senju compound's basement.
Thinking about it, that actually made perfect sense. Obito's Wood Release had been taught to him by Madara.
Madara's Wood Release obviously wasn't self-invented; most likely he'd learned it from Konoha in the first place.
Kitazawa wanted to learn Cutting Technique for one simple reason: the sheer destructive power.
Leaving aside high-tier Wood Release, in terms of killing power among mid-tier techniques, it was probably one of the strongest.
Its effect was to grow sharp wooden spikes from the arm; once they pierced into a target's body, they could branch and keep extending further inside.
It was a brutal, but undeniably lethal, Wood Release jutsu.
Footsteps crunched on the snow.
Kitazawa turned around instinctively and saw Konan.
He couldn't help raising an eyebrow.
Back in late October, he had given her a month off to investigate the state of the Land of Rain's government.
Outside the hidden villages, the nations of the ninja world were all still in a feudal era. You didn't need much imagination to guess how rotten and corrupt their bureaucracies were.
After all, shinobi were essentially mercenaries who took money to do jobs. They didn't participate in governing a country.
The "power-rules-all" logic of the ninja world didn't apply in those nations.
What Kitazawa hadn't expected was that Konan would be gone for a month and a half before returning.
"Kitazawa."
Konan started to speak, then hesitated.
In that month and a half in the Land of Rain, her eyes had been opened.
The way the Daimyo and his noble officials preyed on the common people was downright horrifying.
She'd even discovered that half of the money Akatsuki sent back to the Land of Rain was being skimmed into their pockets.
Only the remaining half actually went to the people—and that was already under the pressure of Akatsuki's military intimidation.
On top of that, the Land of Rain was weighed down by all kinds of heavy taxes.
Citizens involved in the silver jewelry and rainwater businesses had to pay extra levies on top.
She didn't even dare imagine how insane those Daimyo and nobles would be if there were no Akatsuki watching over them.
"Looks like you've grown," Kitazawa said with a soft chuckle. "So? Did my prediction come true?"
"…Yeah."
Konan nodded. "I didn't think things in the Land of Rain would be that bad."
"This is actually normal," Kitazawa explained. "It's not just the Land of Rain. All the major countries are like this."
At its core, it was a problem baked into a feudal society.
"So what should I do?" Konan asked hurriedly.
"Replace them," Kitazawa said after a brief pause. "If you don't want to replace them, you can use genjutsu."
Konan froze.
From a traditional ninja standpoint, what he'd just said was practically heresy.
By shinobi rules, you were not supposed to lay a hand on your employer.
And in theory, all Daimyo, nobles, government officials, and merchants were your "employers."
That was exactly why so few ninja ever caused them trouble.
Even Akatsuki, a group made up of missing-nin from across the world, had never really touched them—let alone the Five Great Villages.
Hearing Kitazawa say something like this was completely beyond her expectations.
She'd thought he would come up with some clever, roundabout method—not something this simple and direct.
"You've been with me this long, and you still think like a traditional ninja?" Kitazawa noticed her expression and smiled.
Konan snapped out of it.
Just the fact that she was handling the silver jewelry and rainwater businesses already meant she was far from a conventional shinobi.
"You're right," she said at last, having made up her mind.
As a member of Akatsuki, she was destined to stand on the opposite side of the Five Great Villages. Clinging to the old ninja code really didn't make sense.
Even so, Kitazawa's way of thinking still amazed her.
How had he ended up with a mindset so completely different from traditional shinobi?
He'd grown up in Konoha since he was a child. By logic, there was no reason for him to be this rebellious.
Konan couldn't figure it out. In the end, she could only chalk it up to one word—genius.
"Go take care of it. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back," Kitazawa said, waving her off.
"Thank you," Konan said, genuinely grateful.
"It's nothing," Kitazawa replied casually.
[Current Mission: Help Haku learn three Ice Release jutsu.]
[Mission Reward: Ice Release.]
[Mission Completed. Reward Granted.]
Kitazawa glanced at the three lines of text that popped up in front of him without much surprise.
Haku had been working on Ice Release: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals for a long time now, after all.
He waited for a bit, but no follow-up mission appeared like it had with Shikotsumyaku.
Was it because there were so few Ice Release techniques shown in the original?
Looked like he'd have to invent new ones himself.
Kitazawa shook his head, sealed the puppet away, and headed toward the Ninja Academy.
Even with snow falling, it didn't stop the Advanced Class from training.
"Leaf Dragon God!"
Naruto's voice rang out, full of energy.
Kitazawa looked over at him.
Master Chen was standing beside Naruto, watching him with eager anticipation.
The wind howled.
Naruto spun in place.
A massive surge of chakra erupted outward, spiraling around him in a greenish stream.
The snow around him was sucked into the vortex and shredded instantly.
When the vortex reached its peak, a huge green dragon took shape.
"Got it down?" Kitazawa asked, studying the dragon.
"It's amazing!" Rock Lee clenched his fists, visibly thrilled. "In the name of youth, I have to learn it too!"
He'd been training Leaf Dragon God alongside Naruto, but his progress was clearly lagging behind.
Sasuke's hand tightened subconsciously around his Sword of the Thunder God.
There was no doubt that, in their spars from now on, he would have to face this Leaf Dragon God head-on.
He could have learned it as well, but when given the choice between Leaf Dragon God and Hatake-style swordsmanship, he'd picked the latter.
Unfortunately, Hatake's swordsmanship was incredibly difficult. He still hadn't mastered it fully.
Neji instinctively activated his Byakugan.
Only then did he realize that Leaf Dragon God wasn't just some simple taijutsu.
The violent currents of air were like a mass of razor-sharp blades, making his skin crawl.
His first thought was that his Gentle Fist would be hard to use here.
In this situation he couldn't get close, and he wouldn't dare charge into that tornado.
His only option would be to rely on his Fatefeather Bow.
But whether that would let him pierce through the tornado, he had no idea.
Kimimaro frowned, his expression extremely grave.
Shikotsumyaku was supposed to be the nemesis of close-combat fighters—but Leaf Dragon God clearly wasn't something that could be "countered" that easily.
If he rushed in, he'd be sliced to ribbons.
"This is insane…" Kiba muttered helplessly.
His mindset, however, was fairly calm.
With or without Leaf Dragon God, he couldn't beat Naruto anyway.
"That is what a real genius looks like," Jūgo said with a sigh.
Chōji nodded silently.
"…"
Tayuya opened her mouth, then closed it again.
She just couldn't understand how someone like Naruto existed—a genius that far ahead of them.
"At this rate, first place is probably going to be Naruto's for a long time," Ino said, shaking her head.
"Hmph, Sasuke-kun definitely won't lose!" Sakura shot back immediately.
The next second, the green dragon shuddered violently, the air currents scattered, and Naruto staggered out of the collapsing vortex, dizzy and dazed.
"Looks like Naruto still hasn't fully mastered Leaf Dragon God," Shikamaru observed.
Sasuke, Neji, and Kimimaro all let out the same quiet breath of relief.
That meant they still had time to catch up.
"Everyone, back to training," Kitazawa said, stepping forward.
Naruto not having it down perfectly yet wasn't all that surprising.
He was still young, and Leaf Dragon God was an S-rank taijutsu.
"Yes, Kitazawa-sensei!"
The students snapped back to themselves, scattering to different spots to continue their practice.
Naruto woke up shortly afterward and went right back to training under Master Chen's guidance.
"Shion."
Kitazawa called out to Shion just as she was about to head toward the artificial lake for more chakra-control drills.
"Kitazawa-sensei," Shion said, quickly walking over to him.
"Your water-walking practice ends here," Kitazawa said with a bright smile.
"I finally don't have to stand on water anymore!" Shion immediately lit up with joy.
Doing the same thing over and over got boring fast.
"You might have powerful abilities, but your body hasn't caught up. So we'll start you on Leaf-style taijutsu," Kitazawa said after a moment's thought.
"Okay!" Shion didn't really care what she was learning. Changing up the training routine was good enough for her.
"Iruka."
Kitazawa didn't plan to teach her personally this time; instead, he called over Umino Iruka.
"Huh? I'm involved in this?" Iruka blurted out, startled.
"You are a teacher for the Advanced Class, you know," Kitazawa said, unable to resist a laugh.
"I mean, yeah, but my strength's clearly nowhere near yours," Iruka said, very aware of his own limits.
"Shion's only done chakra-control training so far. She's basically just set foot on the path of a shinobi," Kitazawa explained. "So teach her Leaf-style taijutsu first, then the Three Body Techniques."
"Leave it to me. I can handle those at least," Iruka said, suddenly full of confidence.
Kitazawa nodded.
He wasn't teaching Shion himself simply because he had other students to handle—and he also needed time to train.
Iruka, on the other hand, only actually taught class one day out of seven. He was very free.
Kitazawa walked over to Neji.
Neji could now fire nine arrows at once with Multiple Arrow, so today Kitazawa taught him Burst Arrow.
The Fatefeather Bow, just like the Moonchaser Bow, had a Yin-type monster sealed inside.
As a result, Burst Arrow worked almost exactly the same way on both.
Once Neji was done, Kitazawa turned to Hinata.
Her Multiple Arrow had reached six arrows at once.
Kitazawa was considering what the next bow-type secret technique should be.
Spiral Arrow was focused on raw power. Multiple Arrow specialized in quantity. Burst Arrow was geared toward emotional interference.
He rubbed his chin.
What they needed now was a true finisher.
In theory, if Multiple Arrow could be pushed to "ten thousand arrows at once," it could serve as a finisher too—but neither of them was anywhere close to that level yet.
Kitazawa thought of Shinnō's Ancor Vantian.
Powered by the Zero-Tails, it could fire a chakra beam cannon similar to a Tailed Beast Bomb.
Based on that, it should be possible to create a full-power, max-output… Worldbreaker Arrow.
The pros and cons were obvious.
Pro: overwhelming power.
Con: it would drain a huge amount of Yin-type energy in one shot.
Most likely, after using Worldbreaker Arrow once, the bows would be unusable for a while until they recharged.
But in a life-or-death situation, those drawbacks didn't matter.
Kitazawa nodded to himself. He decided to go ahead and create this Worldbreaker Arrow.
Easier said than done, though. Actually pulling it off would be tricky.
The biggest problem was that neither Hinata's nor Neji's bow was really suitable for creating a Worldbreaker Arrow.
If one shot left them out of commission for ages, that would be terrible for their day-to-day training.
The same went for Kitazawa's own Demon-Slaying Bow.
Then he thought of the Dragon Vein.
Using the Dragon Vein's terrifying chakra to power a Worldbreaker Arrow would be perfect.
With that, he decided to postpone development of the technique for now.
"Kitazawa-sensei!"
Kiba came running over, excited. "I mastered Earth Release: Rending Drill Fang!"
Kitazawa nodded.
He kept a close eye on the progress of every student in the Advanced Class.
Kiba learning Rending Drill Fang around this time was exactly what he'd expected.
"Then I'll teach you a new Earth Release jutsu: Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet," Kitazawa said. He'd already prepared it for Kiba long ago, so he just pulled it out.
"What does it do?" Kiba asked eagerly.
"Earth Dragon Bullet is an upgraded version of Earth Fang Shot with added shape transformation. Put simply… it explodes," Kitazawa explained.
Kiba's eyes lit up.
Just from the description, he could tell it was clearly more powerful than Earth Fang Shot and Rending Drill Fang.
Which made sense.
Earth Dragon Bullet was roughly B-rank in difficulty, and its power was on another level.
Kitazawa made a shadow clone to teach Kiba, while his real body went to find Shikamaru.
These days, Shikamaru was very diligent.
Kitazawa had taught him Shadow Wall before, and he'd already mastered it to a very high level.
Honestly, Kitazawa should've taught him other jutsu earlier.
The reason he'd waited till now was that he had custom-designed a Yin Release secret technique just for Shikamaru.
"Kitazawa-sensei," Shikamaru said as soon as he saw him, immediately guessing why he was here. "Are you going to teach me a new jutsu?"
"Correct."
Kitazawa smiled. "I'm going to teach you the Shadow Substitution Technique."
"Shadow Substitution?" Shikamaru thought about it, but it definitely wasn't any Nara clan secret.
Obviously, this was another one of Kitazawa's original creations.
"How's it different from normal Substitution?" he asked curiously.
"Ordinary Substitution swaps you with a log or some other object," Kitazawa said. "Shadow Substitution swaps you with your shadow."
"So I become a shadow?" Shikamaru asked reflexively.
"It's more like you dive into your shadow," Kitazawa chuckled. "Attack me—I'll show you."
"Alright."
Shikamaru pulled out two kunai and threw them at Kitazawa.
Just as they were about to hit, Kitazawa vanished, leaving only his shadow on the ground.
The kunai sliced through empty air.
Shikamaru blinked, then pulled out another kunai and threw it at the shadow.
The kunai stabbed into the shadow and… nothing happened. The shadow was totally unharmed.
Then the shadow slid across the ground, moved into the distance, and rose up into Kitazawa's shape again.
Shikamaru's eyes went wide.
This was way beyond what he'd imagined.
"When you're in shadow form, you can ignore physical attacks," Kitazawa said, walking up to him. "But you can't ignore ninjutsu damage, like Fire Release."
"That's amazing," Shikamaru said sincerely.
"It's also very difficult—harder than B-rank, close to A-rank. With your talent, you'll probably need at least half a year, maybe a full year," Kitazawa said with a smile. "Anyway, let's not waste time. I'll start teaching you now."
The day flew by.
When the Advanced Class was dismissed, Iruka stopped Kitazawa before he could leave.
"Did something happen with Shion?" Kitazawa asked.
"No," Iruka quickly said. "It's about the final exam."
"Set the final exam for December 15th," Kitazawa said after a moment's thought.
"Any changes to the format of the combat test?" Iruka asked.
"No need. Just keep it the same," Kitazawa replied, shaking his head.
Final exams were important, but not that important.
Especially for the Advanced Class students; their daily training mattered more.
Next year, though, he could change it up.
It would be a new year, a good time to show off the Advanced Class a bit more.
"I got it. I'll start preparing tomorrow," Iruka said, nodding.
"Thanks, Iruka." Kitazawa gave him a quick nod of farewell and left the academy.
A week later, at the Anbu base—
Kitazawa received intel from Itachi.
It was only two lines, but it was crucial—a real breakthrough.
Mukade had left the Hidden Sand and arrived in Rōran.
After visiting the Dragon Vein, he'd settled nearby and begun studying the Dragon Vein seal Namikaze Minato had left behind.
Kitazawa thought back to how things had gone in the original story.
Saying "Mukade broke Minato's Dragon Vein seal" wasn't exactly correct.
Minato's seal came from the Uzumaki clan's sealing techniques. Mukade didn't have the skills to truly break it.
What he did instead was use a cheap trick: forcing the Dragon Vein's power to collide with the seal.
That was what caused him, Naruto, and the others present to be thrown through time.
With that in mind, Kitazawa wrote a reply to Itachi.
Once Mukade finished his research, Itachi had to inform him immediately. If Kitazawa couldn't get there in time, Itachi was to stop Mukade by force.
If he wasn't there in person, there'd be no way to trigger the time travel.
After passing the letter to the Anbu, all Kitazawa could do was wait.
Time moved on to December 15th.
The Advanced Class final exam officially began.
The very next day, Kitazawa took Hinata, Rock Lee, and Chōji out on a mission.
This time he didn't go far. They stayed within the Land of Fire for a simple escort mission.
The reason was that New Year's was just around the corner. He didn't want to lose too much time to travel.
There was also Hinata's birthday on December 27th.
She was the last of the "Konoha Twelve" to have her birthday each year.
Once the New Year passed, all of them would be stepping into another year of their lives.
~~~
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