The dog-walking mission finally ended. The four of them returned the dog to the mansion without a scratch. The woman held the dog and inspected it for a full ten minutes before finally signing the mission confirmation form with satisfaction.
Kakashi led the three of them to the central mission office to settle the payment.
Combined, the three days of D-rank missions earned each of them enough to buy a few bowls of Ichiraku Ramen.
Naruto carefully tucked the money into his frog wallet and turned to walk toward his apartment.
He hadn't gone far when he passed the entrance to an alley behind a commercial street, and heard the sound of small, shuffling footsteps behind him.
He could clearly sense three small Chakra sources following him, sticking to the base of the wall. When they neared a large rock at the alley entrance, the rock even wobbled.
Naruto stopped and sighed, "Your disguise is way too obvious."
There was silence behind him for two seconds.
Poof!
A puff of smoke exploded in the alley, and the Transformation Technique was dispelled.
Three small figures jumped out from the smoke.
Standing at the very front was a mushroom-haired brat wearing a long scarf and goggles, hands on his hips, looking up at Naruto with his chin tilted so high it was almost pointing at the sky.
Behind him stood two other kids of the same age: a little girl with her hair in buns and a little boy wearing glasses with two streams of snot hanging from his nose.
"As expected of the man who will sooner or later become my rival, you saw through my peerless disguise so easily." Konohamaru poked his chest with his thumb, his face full of smugness.
"Anyone could see through your disguise."
Naruto replied expressionlessly.
Konohamaru seemed to have completely ignored this retort and continued speaking to himself, "Moegi, Udon, and I have been tracking you for a full half hour. My ninja intuition tells me you must be carrying out some secret mission, the kind that's very dangerous and can't be known by outsiders..."
"No, just walking the dog."
"As I thought, you're very tight-lipped. Then let me tell you, according to intelligence I've gathered, you are the Konoha super Genin who defeated the rogue Jonin Zabuza. So, I want to duel you. The loser must give up the path to becoming the Hokage. Come on, let's have a duel between real men..."
Naruto started to lose the desire to speak. He finally understood why Hiruzen always had that expression when facing a pile of documents every day.
He reached up to rub his temples, deciding to get rid of Konohamaru in the most effortless way possible.
"Fine, you win. The path to the Hokage is yours to take, I just want to go back to sleep now."
"What? Surrendering without a fight? That's not like you!" Konohamaru shouted while walking backward down the street.
"Besides, I overheard some super important news from Ebisu-sensei. I was going to tell you, but since you won't accept my challenge, I..."
Konohamaru was walking backward too enthusiastically and didn't watch where he was going. Halfway through his sentence, his back slammed into someone.
"Ah..."
Konohamaru stumbled forward, nearly falling, but Naruto reached out and grabbed him by the back of his collar.
After steadying himself, he quickly turned around, about to apologize, but the words got stuck in his throat. He had bumped into a wall... no, it was a person.
"That hurts, brat."
The person Konohamaru bumped into looked down, his voice gloomy.
He was wearing a grayish-white bodysuit, his face painted with dark purple stripes, and he wore the symbol of Sunagakure on his forehead.
Behind him followed a girl with four blonde pigtails, a fan wider than her entire body tucked at her waist, looking down at them with an expression somewhere between impatience and amusement.
Naruto's gaze swept over, and he froze.
Kankuro and Temari.
The children of Sunagakure's Fourth Kazekage, Gaara's brother and sister.
The appearance of these two on the streets of Konoha meant the Chunin Exams were about to begin and if these two were here, it meant Gaara must be nearby too.
Naruto expanded his perception, controlling the range of his Chakra sensing to a spherical area of fifty meters around him.
Absolute Control gave him extremely fine-tuned control over his senses, so he didn't need to release Chakra fluctuations to detect things like ordinary ninjas.
Sure enough, on a tree behind and to the right of Kankuro, there was a source of Chakra that was eerily quiet.
Through the gaps in the leaves, one could faintly see a patch of dark red hair and a pair of emotionless eyes.
Gaara.
The Jinchuriki of One Tail, the ultimate weapon of Sunagakure.
At this moment, he had not yet experienced any warmth or redemption. He was a killing machine that could lose control at any time.
Naruto calculated the time in his mind. Only three days after returning from the Land of Waves, the people from Sunagakure had already arrived. This meant that representatives from various countries for the Chunin Exams had begun to arrive in Konoha one after another and the official exam notification should be coming down in the next two days.
Time was tight.
He had originally planned to keep a low profile before Tsunade took office, using this time to train his Flying Thunder God Technique and Fuinjutsu to a level where they could be used in combat, but now it seemed the window of time left for him was much shorter than he had anticipated.
The benefit of transmigrating to this point in time was not having to go through the miserable life of his childhood. The downside was the tight schedule, having to face the major event of the Chunin Exams without time to prepare anything.
The Forest of Death, Orochimaru, the Tailed Beast transformation of Gaara, the Konoha Crush Plan.
However, on the other hand, there were benefits to the Chunin Exams coming early.
Hiruzen's attention would soon be diverted by the ninjas from various countries, Orochimaru's conspiracy, and the diplomatic standoff with Sunagakure, so the Telescope Technique focused on him would naturally decrease a lot.