"—and then the whole tower just groaned, right? Like a giant with a massive stomach ache! And I'm standing there, and the air is just full of slug-slime and snake-breath, and I think: this is it. This is the big one."
Naruto sat on the edge of the stone fountain, his fingers tracing the pitted, sun-warmed concrete. The water behind him made a rhythmic glug-splash that tried to soothe his nerves, but his leg wouldn't stop its frantic, hyper-vigilant tapping.
Konohamaru sat beside him, his eyes so wide they looked like they might actually fall out of his head. "And then? Boss, what happened then?!"
Naruto struck a pose, thumb hooked into the collar of his flight jacket. The fabric felt stiff and gritty with travel dust. "Then? Then I—"
Something white, heavy, and smelling of wet cedar and raw muscle hit Naruto in the small of the back with the force of a runaway carriage.
"OOF!"
Naruto ate the pavement. His nose smushed into the dry, gray stone, tasting grit and old rain. Before he could scramble up, a wet, sandpaper tongue began a high-speed tour of his left ear.
"Akamaru! Down, boy! Bad dog! I'm a hero! Heroes don't get licked to death in the middle of the street!"
Naruto scrambled to his knees, shoving at the furry white mass. He stopped mid-shove, his eyes narrowing. Akamaru wasn't the little fluff-ball that could sit on Kiba's head anymore. He was sturdy—shoulders broader, his coat coarse and thick, his paws the size of Naruto's fist.
"Wait, did you get... longer?" Naruto poked at the dog's ribs, feeling the dense, corded muscle beneath the fur. "Is that even allowed? We were only gone like a month!"
Akamaru let out a sharp, happy bark—a deep, chesty vibrato that sounded less like a squeak and more like a threat. Without warning, he lunged, clamped his teeth into the hem of Naruto's orange pants, and began backing up toward the training grounds with a stubborn, mechanical drag.
"Hey! Stop! Let go! Konohamaru, save me!"
Konohamaru just waved, a tiny, helpless smile on his face as he watched his idol get dragged backward down the main thoroughfare like a sack of grain. "Uhh... good luck, Boss. Don't... don't let him eat you!"
Naruto sat on the dry grass of Training Ground 4, vigorously rubbing his ankles. The air here smelled of crushed clover and drying pine needles. Kiba stood over him, hands on his hips, looking obscenely smug. He was wearing a new navy-blue mesh undershirt—the rough, industrial texture of the weave making him look like he was trying way too hard to be "serious."
"So," Naruto grumbled, "you sent your dog to kidnap me because... why? I have a busy schedule, Kiba. Important hero stuff. Medals. Ramen."
"Hero stuff, my ass," Kiba snorted. The scent of wild mint and predator-musk rolled off him. "I heard you got beat up by a lady in a dress and then watched a castle fall down. Real impressive, Naruto."
"IT WAS A STRATEGIC RETREAT!"
"Whatever." Kiba's expression shifted. His eyes went sharp, his nostrils flaring as he tracked a scent only an Inuzuka could taste. "Listen. I've been thinking about that move you pulled during the Exams. The clones—it was stupid. But it worked. It overloaded me. It made me realize that if the environment is noisy enough, I lose the lock."
"Is this a compliment?" Naruto asked suspiciously. "Because it feels like you're calling me noisy."
"I need more Narutos," Kiba said, his voice dropping into that throaty Inuzuka growl. "I've been practicing scent-mapping with Akamaru. We're learning to tag a target with a 'hot' marker—a concentrated musk. Once we do, it doesn't matter if there are a hundred of you—we follow the mark, not the eyes."
Naruto froze. A lightbulb practically shattered in his brain. "OH! You want me to be the target!"
"God, are you really gonna make me say it? Yes. I need the swarm."
Naruto grinned—a feral, delighted thing. He slammed his hands together in the cross-seal.
"SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!"
POP-POP-POP-POP!
The clearing exploded in a wall of acrid, white sulfur smoke. Fifty Narutos appeared, the sudden division of his consciousness causing a sharp, pressurized throb behind his eyes. The clones began shouting and shoving, a chaotic sea of orange and blue.
"Find me, Dog-breath!" the real Naruto yelled, diving into the middle of the mass.
Suddenly, a high, familiar whistle cut through the air from the canopy above—a piercing, thin shriek that made his molars ache.
PING. PING. PING.
"Tenten?!" Naruto looked up.
The weapons-mistress was perched on a high branch. Her scrolls unrolled like a waterfall of dry parchment, the paper rattling in the wind. She waved, sticking her tongue out, and dropped a specialized smoke bomb right onto the real Naruto's head.
BOOM.
The area turned into a grey-out zone. The smoke was thick and gritty, tasting like wet ash and gunpowder.
"Akamaru! Scent-Lock: Orange Idiot! MAN-BEAST CLONE!" Kiba yelled.
Naruto didn't wait. Through the thickening haze, he saw four glowing red eyes and a flash of ivory fangs.
"NOPE. NOPE. NOPE."
The real Naruto scrambled up the nearest oak tree, his heart hammering a thud-crack rhythm against his ribs. He perched on a branch, pulling his knees to his chest. Below him, the smoke cloud turned into a dust-brawl. Clones were launched out of the haze like orange popcorn, vanishing with a soft, hollow puff.
He could hear the CRACK of Tenten's blunted training kunai pinning sleeves to the earth and the rhythmic, violent thrum of Kiba and Akamaru's Fang-over-Fang tearing through the illusions with the friction of a biological drill.
Naruto leaned his chin on his hand, watching the chaos with a small, tired smile.
"Everyone's getting weirdly good at this," he muttered. He reached into his pocket and found a stray piece of dried beef—leathery and salt-caked. He tossed a piece down into the smoke. "Go get 'em, Akamaru!"