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At last, the finals of the third phase of the Chunin Selection Exams begin!
In the first battle, Naruto faces his opponent Hyūga Neji, widely considered the most talented young ninja in Konohagakure.
With his newly discovered ability to access the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox, can Naruto defeat his genius opponent?
Or will Neji overcome his family's troubled history to triumph in the match?
…
These words had been written in elegant script on the promotional board standing in front of the Art Store for three days now.
And Nara Shikaku — fifteen years old, a chunin of the Nara clan — had read them every single time he passed the store during those three days.
Which was why he was now standing in front of the golden door…
At dawn.
'Let's run the numbers one last time.'
thought the boy as he yawned, hands in his pockets, back leaning against the wall.
'The queue on release day takes three hours at minimum. Three hours standing, in the middle of the crowd, with the sun over my head and children stepping on my feet.'
'Whereas waking up at dawn costs me ten minutes of walking and half an hour of waiting in peace and quiet.'
'Ten troublesome minutes… versus three extremely troublesome hours.'
Shikaku yawned again.
'Mathematics spares no one.'
And with the first true light, the golden door opened from within.
"Oh?"
The store's owner stood at the entrance, in his black suit and his usual smile, and looked at the lone customer standing in the blue dark.
"A customer before sunrise. That's new."
"The queue is troublesome."
"And waking at dawn isn't?"
"Less troublesome."
Rob looked at the boy with the ponytail and the two scars that would one day appear on his face, and read what was running through his head with the store's sense — and found in it a complete comparison table between types of troublesomeness, sorted down to the minute.
'Nara.'
'Even their laziness requires equations.'
"Come in, then."
said Rob, opening the door wide.
"The first copy of Volume Twelve… for the first customer in the world."
…
Shikaku entered the empty store and walked toward the counter, where the stacks of new volumes stood arranged in even towers.
He reached out, and took the first copy.
Then he stopped.
The cover was before him.
In the background, a sky crossed by purple clouds, spanned by wires and cables of different colors, branching out from green electrical towers that dominated the center of the image.
And atop one of the towers, a boy reclined.
Black hair tied into a small ponytail like a pineapple. A gray jacket over a mesh shirt. A face of utter boredom, a body entirely relaxed, and two eyes gazing at the world with the look of someone who has just woken up and wishes he hadn't.
And behind him, slightly higher…
stood Naruto.
Leaning forward, one hand raised over his eyes like a man scouting the horizon, grinning his wide grin beneath an enormous red paper umbrella.
And at the bottom, beneath the large orange title, written in elegant script:
Story & Art by: Uzumaki Rubirō
Volume 12
Shikaku stared at the cover for a long time.
'…'
'Shikamaru.'
Recognizing him required no thought at all. Eleven full volumes, and that boy kept appearing and disappearing between the pages — with his full name, his ponytail, and that look every mirror in the Nara household knew by heart.
Nara Shikamaru.
The manga had never once said who his father was. No name had appeared, no face, not even a hint.
But Shikaku knew generational arithmetic: a boy of thirteen, twenty years from now. And the Nara of his own generation qualified to father that boy… could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
And a few weeks ago, at the dinner table, his father Hikitsu had set the volume aside and said, in the tone of a man commenting on the weather:
"That little one sits exactly like you. And gives up at odd moments exactly like you."
Then he added, without lifting his eyes from his plate:
"Hurry up and find a wife."
'…'
'And here is that troublesome prediction now, on the cover of Volume Twelve.'
'In front of the entire world.'
'Reclining. Relaxed. With a face that says being there wasn't his idea.'
Shikaku closed his eyes for a moment.
'If he isn't my son… then I owe someone in this clan a very long apology for everything I've been thinking.'
'And if he is my son…'
Then he opened them, gave the bored face one last look, and something very small stirred at the corner of his mouth.
'…then at least the cover is good.'
Shikaku placed his coins on the counter, took his copy, and walked toward the corner farthest from the platform, where the seat that touched the wall waited.
And from behind the counter, Rob followed him with his eyes, smiling.
'He bought the first copy of the volume that will turn the world upside down…'
'…because the queue is troublesome.'
[ Publishing Cycle Initiated: Volume Twelve ]
[+1 AC from Nara Shikaku]
'And here we go.'
…
Then the sun rose.
And the flood came.
"Open the door! I've been here for an hour!"
"We've ALL been here for an hour!"
"Mom said a seat in the middle! If I get a seat in the back one more time she'll kill me!"
"Volume Twelve! The finals! Naruto versus Neji from page one!"
"Who said page one? The artist might stall us with twenty pages of flashbacks first."
"Don't say that! Don't give him ideas! He can hear us, I'm sure he can hear us!"
Behind the counter, Rob hid a small smile as he arranged the paper towers.
'I can hear you.'
And the readers poured inside like a river that had finally found its course, and the rows filled up seat by seat, and the familiar din rose — the one the store knew on the morning of every release.
[+1 AC from Akimichi Choza]
[+1 AC from Yamanaka Inoichi]
"Shikaku?! Since when have you been here?!"
"Since dawn."
"YOU?! You woke up at dawn?! You — the one who was late to the team meeting because getting out of bed was troublesome?!"
"The queue is more troublesome. Sit down and be quiet, the math checks out."
And the trio sat in the corner, and Inoichi opened his mouth to argue — then saw the cover in his friend's hand…
and closed it again.
"…Shikaku."
"I see it."
"The boy you think is—"
"I see it, I said."
"The boy you think is your son, on the cover of Volume Twelve, right next to Naruto—"
"Choza, feed him something so he shuts up."
"Let him be, Shikaku — this is a historic moment!"
said Choza, opening his first bag of chips.
"The first man in history to get nervous over a son he hasn't even confirmed is his."
"I'm not nervous."
"You bought the first copy at dawn."
"Because the queue is troublesome."
"Of course. The queue."
"…"
"I hate you both."
…
And in the quiet corner, Minato and Kushina sat in their usual seats.
Kushina had snatched the volume first, as always, turned it over in her hands, and stared at the cover.
"The red umbrella is pretty."
"It is."
"And the reclining boy looks like that lazy one from Team Ten."
"It's him."
"But wait… why these two, of all people, on the cover?"
The girl brought the cover closer to her face, her eyes narrowing.
"The cover always hints at something inside the volume. Volume Eleven had Jiraiya and Naruto on it, and it was the training volume. So what does it mean that this cover puts Naruto together with the lazy one?"
"That each of them has an important role in this volume, at the very least."
"In the same exam…"
Kushina looked at the cover, then at Minato, then at the cover.
"…These two — it looks like their matches will come one after the other."
"A fair possibility."
"Naruto versus Neji — that much we know. But who is the lazy one going to fight?"
"Well… I honestly have no idea."
"Isn't that exactly what makes reading manga fun, Minato?"
"Which is exactly why I want to read."
"Haha! Come on, let's start — I'm SO excited! How is Naruto versus Neji going to go, I wonder!"
…
And at the entrance, two people came in who had not exchanged a single word all morning.
Jiraiya took his copy from the counter with one hand and set down the coins with the other, offering no comment on the cover, nor the queue, nor anything at all.
And behind him, Tsunade did exactly the same.
And before the white-haired man turned toward the seats, his eyes met the store owner's for a single second.
Jiraiya said nothing.
And Rob said nothing.
But an entire month of waiting passed between them in that second.
Then Jiraiya walked to his seat.
'You came braced for it, Jiraiya-san.'
thought Rob as he arranged the coins in the drawer, having read what was in the man's head without even trying.
'You strung your nerves tight for a whole month, and came today prepared for the worst page of your life.'
'But this volume will not answer you.'
'Two matches, my friend. That's all there is. The boy versus the Hyūga, and the lazy one versus the fan girl.'
'As for the page you fear…'
'…it is still in my inkwell.'
[+1 AC from Jiraiya]
[+1 AC from Senju Tsunade]
…
And the Third Hokage entered in his usual small procession — the hat on his head, the pipe in his mouth — and sat at the head of the hall.
And beside him, Uzumaki Mito sat, and took her copy with calm hands.
And Sakumo and Kakashi came in; and Dai and Guy arrived running straight from morning training; and Fugaku and Mikoto entered toward the western wall with a carefully measured distance between their shoulders; and the Hyūga filed into their eastern section in orderly silence.
And in the middle of the crowd came a perfectly ordinary shinobi who drew no one's attention, stood in the queue like any eager reader, paid the price, and took two copies.
'One for me…'
'…and one for the old man.'
[+2 AC from... a very ordinary shinobi]
'Welcome back.'
thought Rob, without looking at him.
…
And when the hall had filled to the last seat, and every reader had settled into place, and hundreds of copies lay upon hundreds of laps…
Rob stood behind his counter, and swept the hall with a single glance.
The Hokage and his hat. Tsunade and Jiraiya, braced for what would not come today. Orochimaru, smiling slyly. Kushina and her excitement. The Nara boy in his far corner beside his father, with the old Ino-Shika-Cho trio and the new one as well — his volume opened a full hour before everyone else's, waiting for them all so he could begin.
'Half the hall expects the invasion to begin in this volume.'
'And the other half has strung its nerves tight, bracing for some catastrophe.'
'And what you hold in your hands, ladies and gentlemen, is two matches. Two beautiful matches — nothing more.'
'Naruto versus Neji… and Shikamaru versus Temari.'
Rob smiled to himself.
'Enjoy them.'
'For these are the last quiet pages I will draw for you in a long, long time.'
Then he raised his voice with the sentence that opened every month:
"Enjoy the reading!"
And the readers opened Volume Twelve.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 223: Stop Underestimating Me!
Chapter 224: Absolute Defense
Chapter 225: Hard Work… Is Just an Illusion!
Chapter 226: The Bird in the Cage!
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