Naruto: From Ninja Academy to an Early Grave

After leaving, Makoto didn't continue sightseeing. Instead, he headed farther and farther off the beaten path until he entered a small forest. This was one of the village's training grounds.

Judging by its location relative to the old district of Konoha, in Makoto's world, this was the very place where he had begun his journey of ninja training as a child.

What a nostalgic place.

Makoto sighed inwardly before turning toward several large trees.

"Kids, you've been following me since the drink shop. Your basic concealment skills are actually pretty decent. Why don't you come out and say hello?"

Chōchō: "Crap! We've been discovered! We're doomed!"

Inojin: "No way. Is his sensory ability actually better than mine?"

Shikadai: "What a drag. So we'd been exposed from the very beginning."

The new generation's Ino-Shika-Chō trio stepped out from behind the trees. Since the man had already noticed them, there was no point hiding anymore.

At worst, they could stall for time. They were still confident they could manage that much.

In the Ino-Shika-Chō formation, Chō was the attacker, while Shika and Ino specialized in control techniques.

Frowning, Shikadai asked, "So you really are a ninja? Can you tell us why you came to Konoha?"

"Why, huh?" Makoto thought for a moment, then flashed a crooked villain grin. "Give me a second. I'll make something up on the spot."

"My purpose is, of course—to destroy this place and make you great nations experience the same suffering as the small nations. Well? Genin of Konoha, are you going to stop me?"

Honor student Inojin blinked.

Why does that line sound so familiar?

He felt like he'd seen it before in history class, during the lessons about the two times Konoha had been destroyed in modern history.

Those two incidents occupied a huge portion of the textbook for a simple reason.

The person who had saved Konoha from disaster both times was none other than the current Hokage, the Seventh, Uzumaki Naruto.

"Damn it," Shikadai muttered. "Why do I always end up dealing with such troublesome situations?"

"Does saying that help at all right now?" Chōchō shot back.

Inojin nodded. "Looks like we'll have to make the first move. As long as we draw attention, the ANBU should discover us soon enough."

"I know that," Shikadai replied. "And I've already started attacking."

"Shadow Possession Technique—got you!"

From the forest behind Makoto, two dark shadows suddenly shot across the ground from opposite directions. They connected to the shadow beneath his feet and firmly bound him in place.

Shikadai's complaints had all been an act.

The conversation had merely been a distraction to lower Makoto's guard.

A clever little guy—lazy on the surface, secretly making plans behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, the gap in strength was simply too great. Intelligence alone couldn't make up for it.

For someone like Makoto, only opponents on the same level were worth preparing tactics for. Against everyone else, overwhelming force was enough to crush everything in his path.

A slight burst of chakra erupted from him.

The Nara Clan's Shadow Possession Technique shattered instantly.

Then, from beneath his feet, an even larger and more flexible shadow extended outward. Moving at astonishing speed, it wrapped around Shikadai like a coil of rope, tying him into a human pretzel before lifting him into the air.

The tip of the shadow transformed into a sharp kunai shape, ready to pierce the rookie genin's skull at any moment.

Partial Multi-Size Technique!

Desperate to save her teammate, Akimichi Chōchō enlarged her right arm until it became bigger than her entire body and grabbed toward Makoto, trying to force him away and break the shadow restraining Shikadai.

Makoto responded with the very same secret technique.

His left arm expanded into a gigantic hand.

Not only did it swat Chōchō's giant hand aside, it grabbed her like a chick and held her firmly in its grasp.

With a little force, he could turn the chubby girl into Chōchō paste.

At the same time, his eyes met Inojin's.

He effortlessly repelled Inojin's Mind Body Switch Technique, though he deliberately refrained from injuring him, giving him only a small psychological scare.

The trio's teamwork was excellent.

If an ordinary jōnin got careless and fell into their combination attack, they could very well be captured on the spot.

Unfortunately for them, their opponent was Higashino Makoto.

In a single exchange, he dismantled the combined assault of Ino-Shika-Chō and left all three unable to continue fighting.

Shikadai and his teammates were completely stunned.

What had they just witnessed?

An outsider had used the secret techniques of Ino-Shika-Chō.

Not only that—he had used them against the genuine heirs of the clans and utterly dominated them.

And he seemed even more skilled and proficient with those techniques than they were.

The seventeenth generation of Konoha's Ino-Shika-Chō had just made their debut, only to suffer a devastating blow that left them questioning the legitimacy of their own clan techniques.

Makoto smiled.

"Looks like you can't stop me after all."

Shikadai gritted his teeth.

"Even so, you won't achieve your goal. Before we came here, we already notified the village's ANBU. If I were you, I'd start running before you're surrounded."

"Is that so?" Makoto nodded. "Then I suppose this is where today's fun ends."

"See you later, kids."

He released all three of them and vanished instantly.

Chōchō let out a long breath.

"We're finally saved. Thanks, Shikadai."

Shikadai shook his head.

"No. The senior was joking around with us."

"He was bluffing."

"If he were really an enemy, we'd already be dead."

"Killing the three of us wouldn't even take a second. It wouldn't have delayed his escape at all."

Inojin asked, "I see. So what do we do now, Shikadai? Should we tell our families about this?"

"Of course we should. No matter what, we can't keep something like this hidden."

After reaching an agreement, the three immediately rushed back. Before long, they met Sarada and Mitsuki, who had come to meet them halfway, and Boruto successfully rejoined the group.

"Boruto, you idiot, you're finally back," Shikadai said. "Do you have any idea how worried we've been all this time? We thought you'd died somewhere out there."

"Exactly, exactly!" Chōchō chimed in. "Sarada was especially worried about you. Just look—she's gotten thinner."

Sarada secretly glanced at Boruto before glaring at her friend.

"Stop talking."

Boruto paid no attention to that and instead asked Shikadai, "Where's Makoto-sensei?"

"What sensei?"

"The guy you were following."

"He suddenly disappeared."

"Makoto-sensei isn't an enemy. You guys didn't attack him, did you?"

Shikadai, Inojin, and Chōchō all fell silent.

They had attacked him.

And gotten wiped out in a single exchange.

What was there to say?

Boruto's combat instincts were sharp. One look at his friends' expressions was enough for him to figure out they had definitely made a move.

Still, after seeing that they were all unharmed, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good thing Makoto-sensei isn't petty. He won't hold it against you."

The Kumogakure of the other world would have strongly objected:

Bullshit. He's absolutely petty.

...

That night, at the same training ground.

The former Konoha Twelve gathered once again.

There were exactly twelve people present—no more, no less—so calling them the Twelve was still perfectly accurate.

One loser in life was gone, and one winner in life had taken their place.

Of course, they were all getting up there in age now, so calling them the Konoha Twelve felt a little inappropriate.

Maybe it was time to rename them the Konoha Middle-Aged Twelve.

Give it a few more years, and they'd become the Konoha Old Geezers Twelve.

After an entire afternoon, everyone had finally learned Makoto's origins.

It was also the first time they discovered that besides their own world, another ninja world existed—the so-called parallel world.

Gathering all their former companions together that night had been Shikamaru's idea.

After receiving the information Sasuke had provided about the parallel world, the idea immediately came to him. After all, in that other world, every one of these people had been Higashino Makoto's student.

Playing the emotional card was useful no matter the era.

In addition, Boruto's three-man team and Shikadai's three-man team had accompanied the adults.

The final four attendees were the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade; the Sixth Hokage, Kakashi; and Orochimaru, who had come at their invitation.

Yamato stood behind Orochimaru.

In this world, the poor honest man had become a dedicated anti-Orochimaru monitoring tool.

It was honestly pitiful.

All that could be said was that Naruto had grown up—and his heart had grown darker.

Seeing how reliable and obedient Yamato was, he simply worked the poor man to death.

Even the Fourth Hokage, his father from the other world, wasn't that ruthless.

At this point, Uncle Snake had already been fully rehabilitated in this world. As one of the ninja world's most renowned all-purpose scientists, Konoha needed his participation.

Makoto had already noticed them while they were gathering.

The moment everyone arrived at the training ground, he appeared instantly above them.

There was no spatial fluctuation whatsoever.

No one sensed a thing.

"Oh? So many familiar faces. What a lively gathering."

Only after he spoke did everyone realize Makoto was floating overhead.

Curiosity filled every face.

Orochimaru, meanwhile, instinctively washed his face with his tongue—a habit he hadn't displayed in many years.

Ever since the Fourth Shinobi War, when the existence of the Ōtsutsuki behind the ninja world had come to light, he had believed he had finally understood the origins of ninjas and chakra.

Yet now he discovered that not only were there extraterrestrials in the universe of the ninja world, there were parallel worlds beyond it as well.

To Orochimaru, the mysteries of existence seemed truly endless.

As a result, he was extremely interested in Makoto.

He practically wanted to drag him down on the spot and haul him into a laboratory for a thorough examination.

He wanted to see whether people from a parallel world were physically different from those here.

After all, he couldn't imagine how an ordinary civilian without any chakra-origin bloodline could reach the level of a god through training alone.

Staring at the figure floating in midair, Orochimaru murmured, "No chakra fluctuations. The levitation isn't being achieved through Five Nature Transformation chakra. It seems similar to the Ōtsutsuki Clan... Flight is simply an instinct for him."

At the mention of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, everyone suddenly realized the situation really did resemble the people of Konoha surrounding and confronting an Ōtsutsuki.

Fortunately, Makoto didn't have horns growing out of his head.

Makoto drifted gently to the ground and looked at a certain snake.

"Orochimaru-san, I'd appreciate it if you toned down that gaze of yours. Otherwise, I'll start thinking you have some inappropriate intentions toward me."

Orochimaru didn't mind in the slightest that his obsessive stare had been noticed.

In his hoarse voice, he replied, "I heard Urashiki's body is in your possession. If you don't mind, could you share it with me?"

"Although several Ōtsutsuki have appeared in our world, unfortunately none of them left behind a corpse when they died."

"My apologies, but I'm only a special clone. Urashiki's body is with my original self in the other world. If the information I carry can be transmitted back when I disappear, my original self will find a way to ship you a sample."

"I'll look forward to your delivery, then," Orochimaru replied.

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I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> /TitoVillar

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