The night forest of the Land of Fire turned into a dark green corridor through which five shadows sped at maximum velocity.
Naruto was at the head of the wedge. His sensory perception worked proactively, scanning the space half a kilometer ahead.
The squad moved silently. No unnecessary words. Only the rhythmic clatter of sandals on branches and the heavy breathing of Chōji, bringing up the rear.
Suddenly Naruto raised his hand, clenching his fist.
Gesture: Attention.
The squad didn't stop but tensed up.
Naruto's Qi Sensory picked up distortions ahead.
Three. Waiting in a triangle. Classic 'Pincer' ambush. They want to split us up and pick us off one by one. And the fourth, the most powerful and cold signature (Kimimaro), is going further with Sasuke.
The Uzumaki didn't slow down. He showed a series of quick hand signs they had agreed upon before leaving.
Enemy ahead. Trap. Don't stop. Breakthrough.
Then he assigned targets:
Kiba—left flank. Neji—right. Shikamaru and Chōji—center. I—elimination.
Shikamaru nodded. Surprise flashed in his eyes—Naruto read the battlefield faster than he could analyze the situation himself.
They flew out into a wide clearing surrounded by age-old trees.
The enemy was waiting for this moment.
"Gotcha, puppies!" a screechy voice rang out from above.
Kidōmaru, hanging from a branch on a web, formed hand seals.
"Ninja Art: Spider Web Flower!"
A giant net soaked in chakra, sticky and strong as steel cables, crashed down on the squad from above.
Simultaneously, the ground beneath their feet trembled. Jirōbō slapped his palms on the soil.
"Earth Style: Earth Dome Prison!"
Walls of stone began to rise around them, striving to close the trap.
It was a perfect combination. The net binds, the dome locks. End of the chase.
For ordinary Genin.
"Now!" Naruto barked.
Neji Hyuga didn't even slow down. He began to spin in mid-jump.
"Eight Trigrams: Rotation!"
A blue vortex of chakra cut the sticky web into shreds a fraction of a second before it touched them. The way up was cleared.
"Chōji!" Shikamaru commanded.
"Human Bullet Tank!"
Akimichi turned into a giant spinning ball. He didn't look for an exit. He smashed into Jirōbō's rising stone wall with the inertia of a cannonball.
KA-BOOM!
The unfinished dome shattered into a hail of stones. Jirōbō, not expecting such intense resistance, staggered from the recoil.
The trap was crushed in a second. The Konoha squad didn't stop for a moment. They burst into the Sound battle formation, turning the ambush into a meeting engagement.
"What the?!" Sakon, standing on a branch, bulged his eyes. "They broke through?!"
He didn't have time to finish.
Right at him, ignoring gravity, flew Naruto.
It didn't look like a Body Flicker or a chakra dash. Naruto pushed off the tree trunk with such monstrous physical strength that the ancient pine cracked and tilted. The bark at the push point exploded into splinters.
Qi Control: Dash.
Naruto covered thirty meters in a single heartbeat. He became a projectile.
Sakon barely managed to put up a block.
Naruto's knee strike slammed into his crossed arms.
CRUNCH.
Sakon was swept off the branch. He flew backward, breaking bushes, and smashed into a rock.
"Bastard..." the leader of the Four hissed, spitting blood. "Ukon! Kill him!"
A second head separated from Sakon's back, followed by a body. Ukon. His twin brother living in the same body with him.
Ukon rushed at Naruto, disintegrating at the molecular level.
"Parasitic Demon Demolition Jutsu! I'll enter you and tear your cells apart from the inside!"
He latched onto Naruto's shoulders; his flesh began to flow into the Uzumaki's body. It was their signature technique—a parasitic kill against which there is no defense.
Naruto froze. He felt the alien, dirty substance penetrating under his skin.
He wasn't scared. His lips stretched into a cold, cruel grin.
"You made a mistake," he uttered quietly. "My body is a furnace."
He activated energy circulation.
He mixed dense, hot Yang-Qi with the caustic, toxic Kyūbi chakra that always radiated in his channels.
For Ukon, it was like jumping into a vat of acid.
"AAAAHHH!!!" an inhuman scream tore through the forest.
Ukon, who had already half-submerged into Naruto's shoulder, flew back out as if scalded. His skin smoked, covering in blisters. Naruto's cells, saturated with higher-order energy, simply burned the parasite.
"Hot! I'm burning!" Ukon squealed, rolling on the ground.
Sakon watched his brother in horror.
Naruto stepped toward him. A kunai flashed in his hand.
"You're next."
Strike. Hard, economical, to the base of the neck.
Sakon collapsed next to his brother.
Naruto didn't waste time finishing them off. He simply cut the tendons in both their legs, immobilizing them.
Meanwhile, in the center of the clearing, Shikamaru caught Jirōbō, who was trying to crush Kiba, with his shadow.
"Gotcha, fatso," Nara hissed, holding the jutsu with his last strength. "Naruto!"
Naruto was already in the air.
He crashed down on Jirōbō's back.
Rasengan.
The blue sphere slammed into the giant's spine.
CRUNCH.
Jirōbō arched his back and went limp. His spine was broken.
Kidōmaru remained.
The Spider, seeing his team destroyed in a minute, tried to escape via the upper paths.
"You won't get away!" Kiba barked. "Akamaru! Fang Over Fang!"
A double vortex of claws and fangs drove Kidōmaru onto a lonely rock.
The Spider prepared his bow, aiming at Naruto.
"Die!"
But he forgot about Neji.
Hyuga appeared behind him silently.
"Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm!"
An air wave strike knocked Kidōmaru down, right to Naruto's feet.
He didn't even draw a weapon.
Spinning kick—a heel hard as a hammer smashed into the enemy's temple.
Kidōmaru flew into the bushes and went quiet.
Silence.
The whole thing took no more than two minutes.
The Konoha team stood in the middle of the clearing. Everyone was breathing heavily, but there were no serious wounds.
The enemy—Orochimaru's elite squad, which had fought on equal footing with Konoha Jonin during the Invasion—lay at their feet, broken and destroyed.
Shikamaru wiped sweat from his forehead.
"Troublesome... But effective. You're a scary man, Naruto."
Neji looked at the Uzumaki with newfound respect. He saw how he burned Ukon with just his aura.
"Are we finished?" Hyuga asked.
Naruto walked over to Sakon's body. He checked the pulse. Alive, but not fighters.
"Leave them," he ordered. "They won't be able to pursue. We don't have time for prisoners."
He turned north.
To where a wide clearing disappeared, as if paved by a giant.
Qi Sensory felt two auras there, in the distance.
One—dark, pulsating, familiar. Sasuke.
The second—cold, sharp as a bone razor. But it smelled of death and sickness.
"Don't relax," Naruto's voice became harsher. "That was a warm-up. The main enemy is ahead. The one with Sasuke right now... he's on a different level."
Kiba sniffed.
"Smells... of bones. And blood. Old blood."
The Uzumaki looked at his team.
"It gets harder from here. Forward."
Five shadows took off again, leaving the defeated enemies behind. The chase was entering the home stretch.