The scroll slid onto his back. Naruto stood in the center of the moonlit clearing, perfectly inhabiting the role of the winded but proud student who had just mastered an incredible technique.
He was ready for Mizuki. His sensory perception caught the rapid approach of an aura.
But the aura bursting into the clearing was different. Fast, panicked, and... warm.
"NARUTO!"
Iruka-sensei flew out from behind the trees. His chunin vest was disheveled, his face etched with undisguised horror. His breathing was ragged—he had run at his absolute limit.
"Naruto! What... what have you done?!" His voice broke into a scream. "Do you even realize what you've stolen?!"
Naruto, maintaining the legend, looked at his teacher with a gaze full of hurt and stubbornness.
"I was just... taking the extra exam, Iruka-sensei! Mizuki-sensei said that if I learned the technique..."
"What exam?!" Iruka grabbed his head. "Naruto, there is no extra exam! Mizuki lied to you!"
SWISH-
Instincts sharpened by Qi howled a split second before the sound sliced the air. Naruto didn't flinch. There was no need.
Iruka reacted with lightning speed. A dash, the clang of metal—a kunai knocked away a fan of shuriken aimed at the boy's back. Sparks lit up the clearing.
On a thick branch above them, a silhouette appeared. Mizuki's smile was wide and absolutely dead.
"As always, Iruka. Always sticking your nose where it doesn't belong," he sang. "And you did well, Naruto. You exceeded my expectations. Now, be a good boy and hand over the scroll."
"Naruto!" Iruka shouted, shielding his student with his body. "Don't do it! He used you! He's a traitor!"
Cold, barking laughter tore through the silence.
"Lied? Used?" Mizuki smirked, jumping down onto the grass. "I just opened his eyes! Iruka, are you really going to protect him? Give me the scroll, and I'll leave you to deal with your... little demon."
"I... I won't give the scroll to a traitor!" Iruka's voice trembled, and Naruto felt the vibrations of his fear. Mizuki was the same rank, but his Killing Intent was overwhelming.
"Then you die here," the traitor shrugged. "But first... Naruto. Since we're all here, you deserve to know. Do you even realize why everyone avoided you?"
"Mizuki, no!" Iruka screamed in terror. "It's forbidden!"
"FORBIDDEN?!" the chunin roared. The fake calm evaporated, exposing pure hatred. "You mean the law that hides the truth from him?! Village of idiots!"
He bored into Naruto with burning eyes.
"You want to know why you have no friends, no family? Twelve years ago, when the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked the village, the Fourth Hokage couldn't kill it! He had to seal it... Inside a newborn baby!"
A finger pointed at the boy's chest like a sentence.
"That baby was you, Naruto! You are the NINE-TAILED FOX!"
Silence.
"You are the MONSTER that killed Iruka's parents! You killed my family! The whole village hates you! That's why you are the Outcast!"
Iruka squeezed his eyes shut, expecting a scream. Expecting Naruto to break.
But there was no scream.
Naruto stood frighteningly calm. The word "Outcast" grazed an old wound, but... the rest? Just confirmation of facts. He had already met the "voice" in his head.
"I know who I am, and what is inside me," he said quietly. His voice was even, without a hint of hysteria, which hit the nerves harder than a scream. A palm rested on his stomach. "But he is not me."
He turned his head. Cold blue eyes met the tear-filled gaze of his teacher.
"And you, Iruka-sensei?" the question sounded quiet, but sharp as steel. "Do you... hate me too?"
The moment of truth. All life in the Academy, all the ostentatious kindness... Was it a lie?
Iruka looked at him. At the twelve-year-old boy who had just learned the most terrible secret of his life and didn't break, but asked a question. He didn't see a demon. He saw a student.
"Of course not..." Iruka whispered, tears tracing paths on his dusty face. "How could I? You... you are not a monster. You are Naruto Uzumaki. You are..." he swallowed hard, "you are my best student!"
Naruto nodded slowly. Qi Sensory confirmed: in Iruka's aura, there was not a shadow of falsehood.
His gaze returned to Mizuki.
"And you," Naruto's voice turned icy. "You are a traitor."
"Whatever!" Mizuki roared. The plan had collapsed, the brat hadn't broken, and it infuriated him. "I'll kill you both and take the scroll! Die, cursed monster!"
He ripped a giant Fuma Shuriken from his back. A sharp swing. The enormous blade sliced through the night air with a whistle, aiming for Naruto's throat.
"Naruto, run!" Iruka screamed, throwing himself to intercept.
But Naruto didn't move.
"No," he said, raising his hands in the familiar cross-shaped gesture. "I'll handle it."
The floodgates opened. The entire chaotic blue ocean surged into the formula.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
BOOOOOOOOM!
Not a pop. An explosion. The clearing shuddered, drowning in a thousand clouds of white smoke.
The giant shuriken, having almost reached its target, slammed into a living wall of bodies, ricocheted, and embedded itself into a tree trunk with a dull crack.
Iruka and Mizuki froze.
The smoke settled.
The clearing disappeared beneath the feet of an army. Not ten. Not twenty. Hundreds. A thousand Narutos. All of them stood silently, with identically cold, serious faces. Blue eyes sparkled in the moonlight like stars.
"What..." Mizuki backed away. "What is this?! These... these can't be shadow clones!"
One of the duplicates smirked.
"You're about to find out."
The grey tide surged forward.
Mizuki panicked. He fought back like a cornered beast. Stabbed one with a kunai—Poof! Kicked another—Poof! But for every fallen one, three others took their place.
The Chakra Clones were brute force. A sledgehammer. A distraction.
"Enough! Enough!" the chunin roared, drowning in the raging grey mass.
A clone grabbed his ankle. Another jumped on his back. Two more hung on his arms, stretching him out, opening his guard.
"Gotcha!"
Mizuki was immobilized. And then, through the parting crowd, stepped the real Naruto.
He moved differently. Didn't run. Glided. Movements honed by Qi Taijutsu were silent and economical. He approached the crucified traitor.
Mizuki's eyes widened in terrified recognition.
"You..."
Naruto was silent.
Qi concentrated in his fist. Not crude Chakra. Pure energy, reinforced by bones hard as granite. A one-inch punch. Straight into the solar plexus.
Thud.
An almost inaudible sound. The dull knock of knuckles against the vest.
Mizuki froze. The air was knocked from his lungs. The pulse of Qi traveled through his muscles, delivering a devastating shock to his nervous system.
The clones released their grip. Poof. Poof. Poof.
Mizuki didn't fall immediately. He stood for a second with glazed eyes... and collapsed face-first into the grass like a marionette with cut strings. Consciousness left him before his body touched the ground.
The thousand clones vanished.
Naruto remained alone, towering over the defeated enemy.
Bug squashing, the Fox muttered sleepily and fell silent.
His gaze shifted to Iruka. The teacher sat on the ground, dazedly shifting his gaze from Mizuki to Naruto and back to the scroll.
"Iruka-sensei?"
Iruka blinked. Slowly, as if coming out of a trance.
"Naruto..." his voice rasped. "Come here."
Naruto took a cautious step.
"Close your eyes."
Instincts screamed: Don't trust. But Iruka's warm, shocked aura said otherwise. His eyelids lowered.
Rustle of fabric. The sensation of something cool and metallic resting on his forehead. The knot tightened at the back of his head.
"You can open them."
Naruto opened his eyes. Iruka stood before him, smiling through dirt and tears. For the first time without his own protector.
"Congratulations..." his voice trembled with pride. "...on your graduation, Genin."
A hand rose slowly to his forehead. Fingers touched the cold steel with the Leaf spiral.