____________
[— Manga Scene —]
"Die Brat!!!" The Rain shinobi formed hand seals for an offensive technique after sending his umbrellas into the sky.
'Ninpou!! Raining needles!!'
The umbrellas began spinning under the effect of the jutsu, then hundreds of sharp needles launched forward, targeting Gaara.
"Flying needles!!?" Kiba and his team were shocked by the sight, watching the battle from a nearby hiding spot.
"Ha… There is no escape from this Jutsu! Plus, all the needles are controlled by my chakra to strike their prey!!" Hundreds of sharp needles flew forward and struck Gaara, the Rain shinobi believing he had taken down his target with ease.
'Heh… too easy…'
But to his shock, Gaara appeared surrounded by sand armor, the needles having collided with it to create a scene that resembled a porcupine.
"Is that it…?" Inside the sand armor, Gaara stood with his arms folded as though nothing had happened.
"No way… Not a single one? He came out unscathed? Impossible…" The Rain shinobi was stunned. He attacked again with the needles, and the sand met his assault, as though the sand was protecting Gaara of its own accord.
'No way a jutsu like that would work against Gaara… Running into him was your misfortune…' Kankuro thought to himself, sweating.
"A rain of needles, eh? Then I guess I'll make it rain of blood." Gaara said with cold eyes, utterly devoid of mercy.
[— End Scene —]
...
..
Amegakure:
Inside the Art Store, the atmosphere was entirely different from what lay outside, where the heavy rain never truly ceased.
In this moment, the readers felt a chill run through them as though they were standing naked beneath that rain, and the cause was the killing look on Gaara's face at the end of the chapter.
The readers here, being Rain shinobi themselves, knew that jutsu well. The Rain of Needles, a tried and trusted technique against enemies faster than you, hundreds of needles guided by chakra, with almost no room for escape.
"This… this is impossible," One of the shinobi said in the tone of someone watching something contradict everything he had ever learned.
"The sand stopped the needles entirely… not a single one got through."
"If it were a normal jutsu, we'd understand… but that sand was summoned without a single hand seal."
The place fell silent for a moment.
Then a man who had been sitting in the back of the entire time without making a sound spoke up, an elder shinobi, his face carved by countless experiences.
"This sand protects its owner instinctively."
Several people turned to look at him.
"Instinctively… meaning?"
"Meaning he doesn't think about protecting himself. The protection comes before the thought."
Another silence fell, longer than the first.
"What kind of power works like that?" asked the young man who had spoken first.
The old man didn't answer.
But with narrowed eyes, he looked at the page where Gaara stood inside his sand armor, arms folded, eyes empty.
'Jinchuriki.' The old man thought the single word and said it to no one.
…
In the following chapter, Hanzo's eyes narrowed as he watched Gaara truly turn shinobi from his village into a rain of blood.
"Bastard…"
Even if these were scenes from a manga, perhaps a fictional story, the shinobi of his village and the name of Amegakure were still being used as disposable side elements, discarded with ease.
First, Sasuke had defeated one of the Rain genin without effort, and now Gaara was bullying three of them and killing them in a fashion so brutal that it made many readers vomit their breakfast right there in front of him.
And that was precisely what happened. Hanzo raised his head and saw some of the civilians heaving, undone by the gory scene that had just appeared in the manga.
Just imagine being mummified by sand and crushed into a rain of blood; it had terrified many readers into confronting just how savage the world of shinobi truly was.
"Gaara… what kind of monster is the Village of Sand going to produce in the near future?"
…
Elsewhere in the Amegakure Art Store…
Konan was reading in silence as she always did, her face giving little away in most circumstances.
But this time she stopped at that final line.
A rain of needles, eh? Then I guess I'll make it rain of blood.
'A rain of blood…'
No feeling in the words. No anger, no contempt, not even a desire to cause harm.
Only a cold statement of what would happen next.
And that was exactly what happened in the following chapter… Konan pressed her hand over her mouth, her eyes staring at the manga panel in pure horror.
"This boy is incredibly dangerous…" Yahiko's eyes went wide as he took in the tragic fate of the Rain shinobi.
"…" Nagato remained silent, staring into Gaara's eyes, those eyes empty of any light.
Nagato found himself feeling something closer to empathy with Gaara than sorrow for the Rain shinobi who had just been turned into a rain of blood.
Because he could feel something between himself and that boy from Sunagakure that they shared.
…
[— Manga Scene —]
"Gaara… Let's stop… Alright?"
"Don't say such cold things. Please listen to your sister, ok?" Temari tried to calm Gaara, who had been targeting the spot where Kiba, Hinata, and Shino were hiding.
"Gaara!!" exclaimed Temari.
"Fine…" Gaara retrieved the cork and sealed his gourd.
'Pft… This is why I hate brats…' Kankuro didn't dare say that out loud.
…
"Oh… So that's what you meant, Akamaru…" Kiba looked at Akamaru, who was hiding inside his jacket, and said:
"What is it…?" Asked Shino.
"Akamaru was saying that the tall guy was in trouble and going to get killed by that sand kid," Kiba said.
"Anyway… that kid from the hidden sand… I don't know who he is, but… He is too dangerous…"
[— End Scene —]
...
..
Iwagakure:
Ever since the Art Store had been discovered, Gari, the young boy burning to become a shinobi one day, had grown even more eager to pursue that dream.
But today, he felt real fear. Fear of what it truly meant to be a shinobi when standing before genuine power.
"S… scary…" He trembled, hesitating over whether to turn to the next page or not.
…
Inside the Art Store here in Iwagakure, the atmosphere had not changed much from the world outside.
Rock does not change easily.
Rob's Iwa Clone glanced toward the readers, who were sitting in silence at that moment.
'It seems my artist's remarkable skill contributed to making this scene even more graphic…'
Rob shook his head and let out a regretful sigh. Was he supposed to blame himself for being too talented? That was hardly reasonable…
For better or worse, he was a skilled mangaka. Even the finest and most gory details could be drawn by him with breathtaking clarity.
…
"He really did turn them into a rain of blood…"
One of the shinobi said in a dry tone that concealed what lay beneath it.
"The sand crushed them from the inside, it seems…"
No one finished the sentence. There was nothing left to finish.
At the far end of the room, Rōshi was still sitting with Han, their eyes never having left Gaara's face on the page since the chapter began.
Now that they had seen this scene, they didn't move.
They only closed their eyes very slowly, then opened them again.
'I hope you find what you're looking for, kid…'
'Before you disappear entirely.' Roshi thought.
Beside him, Han turned to look at him.
"Rōshi-san… have you ever seen anything like this before?"
Rōshi paused.
Then said quietly, "Yes."
He added nothing, and Han didn't ask a second time.
…
..
Konohagakure:
"For a moment I thought our Kiba was going to become a rain of blood too…"
Tsume Inuzuka sighed inwardly as she took in the final scene of the chapter.
Beside her stood a young man who resembled Kiba, staring at the same page with eyes that didn't quite reflect the calm of his face, though unlike the Inuzuka around him, he was merely a civilian.
"He's an idiot…" He said it in a relieved tone, as though grateful he hadn't been forced to watch Kiba turn into ground meat in the very next panel.
"Akamaru saved him," Tsume said with a restrained pride in her voice.
"Akamaru warned him first, but he didn't notice," One of the clan members beside her corrected.
"Same thing," Tsume replied firmly.
The young man's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Akamaru on the page.
'A small dog with this much intelligence… It seems the Inuzuka clan's dogs really are something special. If I married this stubborn woman, would I find a way to become a shinobi too?'
He thought to himself, glancing toward Tsume Inuzuka. For some reason, this young woman seemed intent on marrying him whether he liked it or not.
Tsume looked once more at the scene that preceded this one, where Gaara stood in the midst of what he had done.
Tsume was a chunin at this stage in her life. She had seen things most people never do. And the eyes of a killer had a shape she knew well.
'But Gaara's eyes were not the eyes of a killer.'
'A killer's eyes light up, even just a little, when they kill. From anger, or thrill, or even exhaustion.'
'These eyes didn't change at all...'
"Tsume-chan-" One of the older shinobi from the clan called out to her in a quiet tone.
"I know." She answered before he finished.
He looked at her, "What do you know?"
Tsume let out a short, dry laugh.
"That Kiba is lucky that girl from the Sand opened her mouth at the right moment."
Then she added in a lower voice, "And that this Sand boy won't be the last thing worth worrying about in this exam."
…
Elsewhere in the art store, in a quiet corner that suited its occupants perfectly…
The members of the Aburame clan were reading the way they did everything.
With calm. With distance. With observation that never rushes.
"The sand functions as a living shield…" Shibi Aburame said in a tone closer to thinking aloud than holding a conversation.
"It senses the threat before it arrives… and moves with complete independence from its owner's conscious will."
"Similar in principle." One of the clan members beside him said, and everyone present understood what he meant without elaboration.
'The Kikaichū worked similarly. Insects operate with collective awareness, sensing, protecting, and attacking with a level of coordination that exceeded what a human could direct moment by moment.'
'The difference was that the Kikaichū required a relationship built over the years.'
'This sand needs no relationship. It knows him instinctively,' Shibi thought, placing a finger to his chin.
Because what is inside him knows him.
He looked at Gaara's eyes on the page.
'What is that then?'
"Shino will come to understand this later…"
Shibi said quietly. He was around eighteen years old, already holding the rank of jonin, capable of noticing things in manga pages that most could not see.
"He will see that the battle his team was part of today was unlike anything else in this exam."
"Haha! Do you actually think Shino is your future son?" laughed one of the family members, voicing Shibi's thoughts aloud.
Shibi directed a cold look at him. Its content was clear: 'Stop broadcasting my thoughts.'
Shibi's focus returned to the manga pages.
'Come then. Let me see how far you'll go in this exam, Shino… I hope that sand monster hasn't shaken your resolve.'
…
And not far from there, in a place where the air was more formal and the seating more orderly…
The members of the Hyuga clan were following along in their own particular way.
The clan head, Masanori Hyuga, sat at the front as always. His face gave nothing away to those who didn't know him.
But those who did know him noticed that his white eyes had not left the page for quite some time.
"This sand armor is really solid…" One of the young Hyuga beside him said, unable to contain his curiosity. "Could the Byakugan see the nature of the chakra moving it?"
"It can see the flow of chakra."
Masanori answered in a tone that did not encourage excessive inquiry.
"But it would see something abnormal…" He continued after a brief pause.
"The chakra moving that sand is not the boy's alone."
Those present fell silent.
This was a conclusion obvious to anyone who knew how to read what was in front of them. But hearing it from Masanori meant it was real, beyond any doubt.
"Well… it seems our little Hinata is still going in this story."
Masanori Hyuga smiled, exhaling quietly with relief. He had not been prepared to watch Gaara finish off the girl he considered his precious granddaughter.
____________
Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
____________
Chapter 149: Things Are Getting Exciting.
Chapter 150: Naruto Hates Having the Spotlight Stolen From Him.
Chapter 151: End of the Seventh Volume! A Nervous Orochimaru?
Chapter 152: A Real Threat to the World's Plot.
____________
Support the journey and unlock advanced chapters!
If you're enjoying Rob's story, his journey of publishing the Naruto manga inside the Shinobi world, and the impact it has on the world, and you want to know what happens before everyone else… there's always a way to stay ahead.
I work on this novel every day, developing its world and chapters, and every bit of support helps me keep delivering higher-quality content at a faster pace.
By supporting me on Patreon, you'll get exclusive access to advanced chapters before they're released to the public. You can move ahead in the story and read up to 30 chapters in advance!
📚 Support Tiers:
$5 → Read 5 advanced chapters
$10 → Read 10 advanced chapters
$15 → Read 15 advanced chapters
$20 → Read 20 advanced chapters
$30 → Read 30 advanced chapters
Every bit of support, even a small one, makes a real difference and helps me continue writing this journey that we're experiencing together.
Join now and start reading the stacked chapters before everyone else:
Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/BlackStar_BH
You can also get the same benefits on Ko-fi:
https://www.ko-fi.com/blackstar_bh
Thank you to everyone who supports the story and believes in this world. You are the reason it continues. ❤️
____________