[High-grade item detected — Scroll of Seals.]
[Would you like to scan it and register it in the system archive? Scan cost: 40 gold.]
"Yes," Naruto answered without hesitation.
A flash of light, visible only to him, swept across the surface of the scroll.
An enormous stream of information poured into the system in an instant.
[Scan complete.]
[Registered: Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, Flying Thunder God Technique, Reaper Death Seal… and other forbidden techniques.]
[Analysis complete: Some techniques are incomplete. Some require specific bloodlines or conditions to learn.]
[Current host may directly learn the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique using gold. Cost: 10 gold.]
[Learn now?]
"No."
Naruto refused immediately.
If he learned it now, the act would fall apart.
A play had to be performed from beginning to end.
He fixed his eyes on the words Multiple Shadow Clone Technique written on the scroll, furrowing his brows and muttering under his breath as if he were struggling desperately to understand it.
"Naruto!!!"
A shout full of urgency rang out from beyond the trees.
Iruka came rushing into the clearing, breathing hard, fury written all over his face.
"Iruka-sensei?!" Naruto "panicked" and hastily closed the scroll.
"Do you even understand what you've done?!" Iruka stormed up to him and barked, "Stealing the Scroll of Seals is a grave crime! Come with me right now and confess to Lord Third!"
He seized Naruto by the wrist and moved to drag him away.
No matter how much disgust and resentment Iruka carried in his heart toward Naruto, he still could not stand by and watch one of his students—even the one he disliked most—walk down the wrong path.
"Iruka-sensei, I…" Naruto "struggled" weakly, but his gaze flicked, almost imperceptibly, behind Iruka's back.
Whish! Whish! Whish!
At the instant Iruka turned with Naruto in tow, several sharp projectiles tore out of the woods behind them.
Poisoned kunai.
"Watch out!"
Iruka was a chūnin after all. His reaction was fast. He shoved Naruto away at once—but because he had moved too late to avoid them completely, several kunai still slashed across him. Blood instantly stained his flak jacket red.
"Mizuki?! Why is it you?!" Clutching his wound, Iruka dropped to one knee and stared in disbelief at the figure slowly emerging from the trees.
"Heh heh heh…" Mizuki let out a cold, sinister laugh. "Iruka, you always have to get in the way. Hand over the Scroll of Seals, and I might consider giving the two of you a quick death."
"Why… would you do this?" Iruka demanded, fighting off the dizziness brought on by the poison.
"Why?" Mizuki's expression twisted.
"Iruka, what are you still pretending to be a good person for? Don't tell me you don't hate him too."
He pointed straight at Naruto behind Iruka.
"Did you forget? Twelve years ago, it was this monster—the Nine-Tailed Fox—that destroyed the village and killed your parents! He's the reason your childhood was miserable!"
Those vicious words stabbed straight into the deepest wound in Iruka's heart.
"Shut up, Mizuki!" Iruka roared.
But his eyes wavered all the same.
Mizuki's words dragged up his most painful memories—the sight of his parents dying, the nights he spent crying alone in the ruins, the lonely childhood where he was mocked and isolated for having no family…
All that suffering suddenly seemed to point toward one clear source.
Uzumaki Naruto.
In that instant, the disgust and hatred Iruka had buried inside himself swelled violently, threatening to swallow his reason whole.
And then Naruto saw it—
the killing intent bursting in Mizuki's eyes.
He knew Mizuki was about to silence them both.
Mizuki pulled the giant Fūma shuriken off his back and hurled it at Iruka, who was frozen in the middle of his inner turmoil.
Now!
"Iruka-sensei!"
With a cry of "panic," Naruto lunged forward and shoved Iruka to the ground.
Thunk—
The sickening sound of metal sinking into flesh made the scalp crawl.
The Fūma shuriken punched straight through Naruto's body. The sheer force drove him stumbling forward, and hot blood splashed across Iruka's face.
Iruka froze.
He felt the warmth on his skin. Saw Naruto's face twisted in agony. His mind went completely blank.
Why?
Why would this child—the one he had always hated, the one he had always seen as the incarnation of the fox—throw his life away to save him?
"W-why?" Iruka's voice came out dry and shaking.
Enduring the pain of having his body pierced clean through, Naruto said weakly, his face pale as paper,
"Because… we're the same, Iruka-sensei."
"The same?" Iruka stared at him.
"I didn't have parents either. No one ever praised me. No one ever acknowledged me…"
Iruka remembered being a child, alone in his room, crying in front of his parents' memorial tablet.
"My talent is bad. I was always doing stupid things in class… just to get people to notice me…"
Iruka remembered the time he had deliberately fallen off the balancing rope into the river, only to earn laughter instead of attention.
"Even when I did something right once in a while, no one noticed that either. So I kept doing stupid things over and over… and it really hurt…"
Iruka remembered the attention he got after pulling pranks—attention that always ended with him bearing the scolding alone.
Then, suddenly, he felt large, burning drops fall onto his face.
Not blood.
Tears.
"Naruto?"
"Right, Iruka-sensei?" Naruto choked out, his voice heavy with a sorrow deep enough to pierce the soul. "You were lonely too, weren't you? You were hurting too, weren't you?"
Something twisted painfully inside Iruka's chest.
Every word Naruto spoke was like a mirror, reflecting back the lonely child he once was—the boy hiding behind his parents' memorial tablet, crying by himself.
"I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei…"
Then Naruto said the one thing that struck deepest of all:
"If I'd never been born… then maybe you wouldn't have had to carry memories like that."
Boom.
The words hit Iruka's mind like thunder.
How could he blame his parents' deaths—blame all his misfortune—on an innocent child?
"Naruto…" Hot tears finally spilled from Iruka's eyes.
He looked at the boy who had taken a fatal blow for him, and his heart filled with overwhelming remorse.
Inside the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi watched the scene through the Telescope Technique, and even his eyes softened.
"Danzō, did you see that?" he said quietly. "Even in darkness, this child's kindness has never changed."
Shimura Danzō's face turned ugly, but in the end he could only force out a dry reply.
"Hiruzen… you'll regret this."
Hiruzen let out a cold snort.
"Danzō, I am the Hokage."
Bang.
Danzō stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
Naruto's actions had left him with no opening to press the issue. For the time being, he could only swallow down his calculations.
"How moving. What a touching bond between teacher and student."
Mizuki's mocking voice shattered the tragic silence.
He had not expected Naruto to go this far—but that only strengthened his resolve to kill them both.
"In that case, I'll send the two of you off together. You can reunite in the next world."
Mizuki drew a kunai and charged forward with a savage grin.
"Naruto! Run!" Iruka tried to force himself up to protect him, but the poison and his wounds left him unable to move.
And yet Naruto made a move so shocking that Iruka's heart nearly stopped—
This badly wounded child stepped in front of him again.
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