章 31: Nindō 0031: Interruption

"This is tiresome," Momoshiki spoke apathetically as the alien threw a set of black chakra rods at Kokuō, The Five Tails. The rods all instantly appeared close to the horse-like beast, piercing through the pure-white skin as it released a pained and ear-piercing screech that resounded through the grassy valley.

The slender alien didn't even bother getting off of the shoulder of his servant and pointed its palm at the beast's incapacitated visage, the skin on his palm separating to reveal the red Rinnegan that released an absolute pulling force on the beast which was absorbed within moments.

"We're done, Kinshiki," Momoshiki spoke. "Only the final source remains. Once I take the fox, we can finally leave this planet and report the mission completed. And that fool can continue to waste his time there." The noble alien even got off of the shoulder of his servant and shot off into the distance, Kinshiki catching up moments later.

…

A flat-sounding grunt sounded out through the cheering crowd as Sarada's punch met Mitsuki's abdomen, the white-haired genin disappearing in a cloud of smoke soon after.

'A shadow clone.'

Sarada clicked her tongue and jumped to the side, right before Mitsuki's leg swung down to the ground.

"It's already been three minutes, Sarada, you must be nearing your limits," Mitsuki's flat voice sounded like a taunt to Sarada who ignored him and started attacking him with taijutsu. He was forced to passively fall into a stalemate with Sarada as she continued using taijutsu to attack him. With the advantage of her dōjutsu, she was not only able to keep up with Mitsuki's clearly superior physical strength, but she even seemed to have the upper hand in the entire battle.

Mitsuki, instead of attempting to retaliate, got stuck in the fight with Sarada, deliberately wasting time to let her exhaust her chakra so that he wouldn't have to show too many of his capabilities. What he didn't realize was that Sarada had plenty of chakra to spare. She had been passing the time to let her teammate drop his guard, counting on the information that he had about her.

'Unfortunately for you, Mitsuki, information is a shinobi's most important weapon and yours is outdated.'

Her smirk was hidden as her hair whipped across her face when she performed a pirouette to gather momentum and kick Mitsuki's midriff. The quick movement of the kunoichi forced him to block her attack with his forearm as he maintained the stalemate without pushing himself too far. He expected himself to be thrown away but realized that she hadn't put any strength into her kick. Just as Mitsuki processed the feint, Sarada's punch was upon him as he raised his arm to block her punch.

Suddenly, Mitsuki felt Sarada grabbing his other hand which was half-raised to support his blocking arm, and joining her palm with his to form the snake seal. The action left him momentarily confused as her punch connected with his other arm, once again weaker than it should've been. Still, it wasn't so weak that he would merely brush it off. Just as his wrist and hand slackened momentarily, he found her fingers crossing over his to form the ram monkey seal. She kicked him once again, and while he was still processing the actions that she had taken, she had already formed another seal using his hand in the middle of their hand-to-hand bout.

'Katon: Great Fireball Jutsu.' She mumbled inwardly as her chakra stirred to concentrate on her mouth. Instantly, she took in a deep breath and fired her jutsu at Mitsuki's face. The white-haired boy wasn't able to understand where in the world Sarada could've gained the necessary chakra to cast such a large jutsu after having fought him for well over four minutes. It was a completely unexpected move from her, forcing him to narrow his eyes as he prepared to unleash his real strength, solely to protect himself. If the attack hit him, he would be left badly wounded. Suddenly, he felt a huge sense of suppressive force from his surroundings, preventing him from exploding with power.

A whistle sounded out and a golden barrier appeared around Mitsuki, blocking Sarada's point-blank attack. The two fighters' gazes honed in on the Hokage's visage as they noticed him standing beside them. He didn't show any outward presence of chakra, but the barrier around Mitsuki was clearly conjured by him.

"Yes!" Sarada pumped her fist excitedly, looking at Naruto with bright eyes.

Naruto smiled at her before turning to Mitsuki who was looking at him with a confused and almost hostile gaze, "You both fought valiantly, showcasing the amazing skills of Konoha's ninja youth," He said before turning back to Sarada, "But we could only have one victor for the match. He grabbed her arm and raised it high as cheers exploded in the arena. Boruto jumped down from the stands and approached the group in the center of the arena which consisted of his two teammates, his father, and the referee of the match.

Sarada didn't notice it, but Naruto put his hand on Mitsuki's head and met his eyes for a moment, the surprise and suppressed hostility completely vanishing from the genin's face. No one truly noticed the subtle expression that Mitsuki had on his face in the first place, allowing Naruto's actions to be considered as no more than simple encouragement.

[Nice move, copying your father's technique to cast jutsu in the middle of a taijutsu bout. Did he tell you about our fight from back then as well?]

Sarada heard Naruto's voice in her head, abruptly turning her head toward him. She realized that he was talking to her telepathically. Before she could question him about it, Boruto ran up to the three of them.

"How did you make your Sharingan last for so long? Not to mention your chakra capacity. When did it increase so much?" The blonde asked Sarada, unable to hold in his curiosity. He was equally as surprised as Mitsuki, who also looked at her expectantly for an answer.

Not knowing how to answer, the girl turned to Naruto, only to see him looking distracted and looking up at the sky, "Seventh-sama …" The words barely escaped her mouth as a loud sound reverberated through the surroundings, shaking her ears and causing her to cover them while whining in pain. Boruto and Mitsuki reacted the same way as a sonic boom resounded out through the stadium.

"They're here …" Naruto mumbled to himself and at that instant, the bulky alien appeared in front of him, kicking in his direction.

Naruto calmly reacted to the assault and met the kick with his own, generating a shockwave that sent the three genin tumbling back. He ignored the shockwave's effects and leaned forward, elbowing Kinshiki before the alien could react. The moment his elbow made contact with the bulky alien's chest, he was thrown backward as the orange glow of lava exploded from the point of contact, making the alien skid a few steps backward. Cheers filled the stadium, the crowd not truly understanding the gravity of the situation just yet. Still, Naruto had some very competent people around him who did understand the gravity of the situation, the Anbu acted quickly under Sai's guidance, evacuating the people as quickly as possible.

At the same time, the jōnin of the village supported them, the ones like Ino, Sakura, Choji, Kiba, Shino, and the others reacted quickly and started evacuating the stadium.

"Fox!" The slender Ōtsutsuki of the duo shouted at Naruto, looking down at him from his airborne spot while descending into the arena. "You are the reason I had to collect those weaklings first instead of just taking care of you and finishing my mission. You better not resist, or else I will destroy this place that you so care about."

"Get behind me, Boruto, Sarada, Mitsuki," Naruto said calmly with a frown, grabbing Mitsuki's shoulder and pulling the kid behind him. "You must be the two Ōtsutsuki clan members whom Sasuke fought recently …" He said while inwardly confused about the change in their plans, From what he remembered, they were supposed to directly come to him after getting fooled by Killer Bee's decoy. Instead, Momoshiki's words told him that these two had already taken the other beasts as well.

"Hokage-sama!" Naruto heard a scrambling, almost desperate voice from behind himself, "Please, stand back. Allow me to show these people the power of our village." Naruto didn't even say anything as the chubby researcher passed him and pointed his tool at the Ōtsutsuki duo. "Villain, you have no place here, behold the power of science and begone." The scientist released all sorts of attacks from his ninja tool, huge elemental bullets, some variations of the Rasengan, and more.

Momoshiki on the other hand, smiled widely, not noticing Naruto's apathetic yet expectant expression. He raised his palm and disdainfully absorbed all of the attacks thrown at him.

"These techniques you ninja use, jutsu," The alien commented, "an interesting design, for lower life forms that is. Allow me to show you a display of true power." He ate a pill and threw a magnified fire attack at Naruto at a speed that even Sarada was unable to track the attack with her Sharingan.

A huge cloud of dust rose in the center of the arena, shaking the entire foundation of the structure as the people finally started panicking and moving along instead of resisting the evacuation efforts.

Boruto, Mitsuki, and Sarada were completely frozen in place when they registered the approaching attack, barely flinching and closing their eyes before hearing the shockwave.

Sarada opened her eyes, only to see a golden glow surrounding her and her three teammates, looking around, she saw Naruto standing straight, covered in yellow and black markings.

'Master …' She couldn't help but feel awed as she was reminded of the one other time she had truly seen Naruto display his power. This time, however, she felt it to be far more condensed and, if it was even possible, much stronger than before.

"Took you long enough," Sarada heard Naruto's voice and was confused for a moment before noticing a black blur in front of her.

"Dad!" She called out excitedly as Sasuke entered Naruto's chakra cloak that had blocked Momoshiki's attack.

"They deciphered the scroll," He said. "It was warning us of people coming to collect the chakra fruit. These two are both firmly stronger than Kaguya, which is why she was so desperately preparing for their descent."

Naruto grunted in response, acknowledging Sasuke's words.

***

Some constructive criticism would be helpful. Please let me know if I made any mistakes, and I'll fix them. I'm only human, I make mistakes.

If you want to support me, check out my Patréon. I post advanced chapters there and do weekly polls to decide the stories that I will be posting for the week. No pressure though, I'm eventually going to post my content publicly regardless.

www.patrèon.com/addyctive

(Replace the è with e)