The night became an ally.
Konoha slept, but the Hokage Residence remained a vigilant, crouching beast. Naruto moved across the tiled roofs. His bare feet made no sound. He didn't run. He glided.
Every movement was calibrated by the Middle Stage of Body Tempering. He landed on the balls of his feet; tempered tendons and muscles absorbed the inertia, turning him into a ghost.
The shadow behind the tower's chimney became temporary cover. The target was directly ahead. His eyelids closed.
Qi Sensory: Activate.
The world turned into a map of vibrations.
Two stationary, powerful, calm auras, hidden in shadows on the roof. An Anbu patrol. Another, just as strong, floated down the corridor inside, right behind the Hokage's office window.
Without Qi, a cold thought pierced his consciousness, I would have been caught instantly. I wouldn't have even known they were there until a kunai entered under my shoulder blade.
The risk was unacceptable. He waited. Qi Concentration pulled taut like a string, reading the rhythm of another's vigilance. The internal patrol shifted to the far end of the corridor. The two on the roof broke visual contact for a split second, scanning the perimeter.
That was enough.
A dash from the shadows. Three silent steps. The office window. Locked.
A thin wire slipped from his pocket. A tool from a past life—the life of a hungry orphan picking donation boxes. But now, guided by Qi, the wire didn't just poke around in the mechanism. It became an extension of his nervous system.
Input. Click. Click. Click.
The pins fell into place. With a quiet sigh, the frame yielded.
He slipped inside.
The office greeted him with darkness, the smell of old wood and expensive ink. No lights could be lit. Sensory again. Scan. The Hokage's aura—warm, mighty, but infinitely weary—still hung here, soaked into the walls. But the scroll itself wasn't "visible."
Mizuki had said: "Under the desk."
Naruto dropped to his knees, fingers tracing the underside of the massive tabletop. Roughness. A tiny, almost invisible symbol. A seal.
He recognized the structure.
A simple "concealment" barrier. A finger pressed into the center, injecting a pulse of Qi and disrupting the chakra flow. A dull click—a panel in the floor shifted.
It was there.
A gigantic, heavy tube, bound with thick cords. Almost the size of the boy himself.
A heave—and the burden was on his back. The weight was substantial, but his tempered spine accepted the load without complaint. Exit through the window. Frame closed. The shadow dissolved into the night a moment before the Anbu patrol completed its round.
...
The forest clearing indicated by Mizuki was drowning in silence. Moonlight struggled through the thick canopy. The chunin wasn't there yet. Excellent.
The scroll hit the ground with a dull thud.
Naruto was breathing heavily—not from fatigue, but from anticipation.
The cords fell away. The parchment unrolled with a rustle.
The first thing that caught his eye wasn't techniques. Symbols. Complex, spiral, fractal diagrams. His gaze, sharpened by Qi Concentration, bore into the ink.
This is... his heart skipped a beat. The style of the Sanctuary. But... a hundred times more complex. This is true Fuinjutsu.
He read the headers, picking out familiar roots: "Five Elements Seal," "Four Symbols Seal," "Eight Trigrams Sealing Style"...
This was heritage. His blood and right.
He unrolled the scroll further, skipping formulas he lacked the theoretical base to understand, when suddenly his gaze stumbled. The most complex diagram. It occupied an entire section, depicting something that radiated a grave chill... a ghostly figure with a blade in its teeth.
Header: "Fuinjutsu: Shiki Fujin" (Dead Demon Consuming Seal).
Naruto didn't just read. He felt with his skin the residual, eerie energy emanating from these lines.
And in that moment, the silence in his head exploded.
THEY... THEY WROTE IT DOWN!
The Fox's voice wasn't just loud. It was filled with a primal, rare rage. The usual mockery vanished, burned away in the flames of anger.
What? What are you talking about? Naruto recoiled mentally.
THAT SEAL! THAT'S IT! THE SEAL THAT TORE ME APART! the Nine-Tails roared, and Naruto felt his own chaotic blue chakra boiling in resonance. THE SEAL OF YOUR CLAN!
In the beast's roar, there was something more than malice. Fear. Genuine, all-consuming terror of an immortal being suddenly remembering its own mortality.
Naruto instinctively pressed a palm to his stomach. This... seal?
NO, IDIOT! The Fox recovered crumbs of control, but his voice vibrated. On you is merely a cage! THIS... this summons Death itself! They used it to rip out my soul and lock it in a piece of meat! Your cursed ancestors... Uzumaki!
Naruto looked at the parchment with new eyes.
In his hands lay not a textbook. In his hands lay the most dangerous weapon created by his blood. A weapon that made the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox tremble at the mere sight of ink on paper.
A mixture of horror, awe, and strange, cold pride washed over him.
...
He needed to break away. Now was not the time for Fuinjutsu. He needed a technique for Mizuki. With an effort of will, he forced himself to scroll past dozens of deadly secrets.
Ninjutsu Section. First line.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" (Shadow Clone Technique).
Qi Concentration absorbed every word of the description.
"...unlike the standard Bunshin, which creates intangible illusions, the technique creates... solid duplicates. Principle of operation: even distribution of the user's chakra between the original and the clones..."
His eyes widened. He reread the phrase.
Evenly...
A switch clicked in his brain.
It doesn't need fine control! The realization hit like a shock. It doesn't care about finesse! It needs... simply VOLUME! The technique takes my chaotic storm and roughly chops it into equal pieces!
This wasn't a technique. This was a solution. The perfect tool for someone who possessed an ocean of power but couldn't pour it into a cup without breaking the porcelain.
Time waits for no one.
Using his Fuinjutsu base, he didn't just memorize the hand seals. He deconstructed the structure. Saw the internal formula—how it captured energy and gave it density.
Fifteen minutes. Mizuki would be here soon.
Naruto stood up. Fingers formed the cross seal.
Deep breath. He reached not for pure Qi, but for the raging blue ocean. But now he didn't try to tease out a thread. He opened the floodgates, directing the wild flow straight into the rigid formula of "Kage Bunshin."
POOF!
Not a pathetic pop like in class. A thick, dense explosion of smoke enveloped the clearing.
The smoke cleared.
Opposite him stood... himself.
Not a pale, twitching jellyfish. A solid, material, frighteningly real clone. Same clothes, same focused expression.
The clone blinked. Clenched and unclenched a fist. Looked up at the original.
"Whoa," the duplicate said.
A cold, predatory smile of satisfaction slowly appeared on the real Naruto's face.
I... I did it. My chakra... it's not useless. I was just using the wrong tool.
The rules of the game had just changed.
Rustling in the canopy. The rapid approach of someone's aura.
Here he comes.
The clone nodded without words and dispelled. Poof. The experience and memory of the double instantly flowed into the original's consciousness.
Naruto, ignoring this sensation, quickly rolled up the scroll. The trap was set.