"I-I'm thirteen—no, fourteen."
The sudden interrogation made Naruto feel incredibly guilty.
He silently regretted not using the Transformation Jutsu to sneak inside beforehand!
"No one under eighteen is allowed inside." The massive bouncer kept his arm raised, firmly blocking Naruto's path.
"Huh? Even Konoha doesn't have a rule like that." Naruto scratched his head in genuine confusion.
What's going on? Konoha didn't enforce strict age restrictions like this.
Those kinds of "specialty" magazines were practically shelved right next to the normal books.
Whenever Naruto and Konohamaru went hunting for material, they had to dig through the regular aisles for quite a while.
Why would an adult specialty store in Kumogakure refuse to let him enter?
Was Kumogakure really this strict?
"Naruto-niichan, I'm here!" Konohamaru finally caught up and sprinted over to Naruto's side.
"Stop! How old are you?" The bouncer raised his other arm, blocking Konohamaru too.
"Hm?" Naruto scratched his head again.
Why did it feel like this bouncer was barely putting any effort into his job?
Did he really need to ask Konohamaru's age? The kid was barely half Naruto's height!
"I-I'm eighteen."
Konohamaru's eyes darted around nervously before he boldly cast the Transformation Jutsu right in front of the bouncer, turning himself into a tall adult.
His logic was flawless.
Both activating and releasing the Transformation Jutsu produced the exact same puff of white smoke.
If the bouncer was just an ordinary civilian, how could he possibly tell whether Konohamaru transformed into an adult, or if he simply dropped a disguise to reveal he was an adult all along?
If questioned, Konohamaru could simply insist he had deliberately transformed himself into a kid earlier as a joke.
To Konohamaru's utter surprise, the bouncer did not question him at all.
"Heh... go on in, little guy. I knew you were only pretending to look young." The bouncer lowered his arm and stepped aside.
"Ooh!" Konohamaru happily bounced into the shady shop.
Naruto had absolutely no idea what to make of that exchange.
After briefly debating whether to transform immediately or leave and return in a proper disguise, Naruto chose to remain exactly as he was and confidently bluff his way through.
"I'm fifty! My name is Jiraiya."
"Jiraiya, huh? Go have fun, old man." The bouncer lowered his arm for Naruto too.
"Huh? It's really that easy?!" Naruto was overjoyed.
'This guard is an absolute idiot! He actually bought a lie that obvious!'
"Wait." Just as Naruto was about to walk inside, the bouncer suddenly called out again.
"W-What is it?" Naruto's face immediately fell.
He knew it.
There was no way a ridiculous lie like that would actually hold up.
"Jiraiya should be a VIP member of our chain. Did you bring your membership card?"
"Uh... no." Naruto's mouth twitched.
"Without your membership card, you won't receive the loyalty discount or the complimentary massage and drinks. Please remember to bring it next time."
After delivering the monotone corporate reminder, the bouncer said nothing else.
"I... can go inside?" Naruto pointed uncertainly at the dark entrance.
"Yes. Please enter."
"..."
...
Elsewhere, after traveling for the entire afternoon, Killer B arrived at the massive Island Turtle.
He tracked down Motoi and handed his childhood friend both the Sage Mode training assignment and the confidential scroll.
Motoi accepted it, though his heart was filled with deep suspicion and resistance.
Motoi was the very same chūnin who had attempted to assassinate Killer B in the original timeline.
His father had died during one of the Eight-Tails' violent rampages, so Motoi chose to seek revenge by trying to kill the beast's vessel.
After the assassination failed, he distanced himself from B.
He hated him, yet also felt deeply guilty about his own treacherous actions.
Eventually, during the original Island Turtle arc, the two reconciled through a fist bump, and Motoi finally understood the sheer suffering and loneliness endured by a jinchūriki.
It sounded quite inspirational on paper.
However, nobody had ever managed to logically explain why people who hated Tailed Beasts also chose to hate their human hosts.
Before the era of perfect jinchūriki, the relationship between most Tailed Beasts and their hosts was completely hostile.
If someone hated the smell of a sewer, would they really go out of their way to blow up the toilet?
Besides, Tailed Beasts were the ultimate strategic weapons.
Even if a ninja village never deployed one in combat, its mere existence maintained the geopolitical balance of power and preserved the village's elite status.
If a mere chūnin could casually decide to destroy a strategic asset of that level, how was that any different from outright treason against the village?
There was neither a greater cause nor a decent personal justification for it.
And now, after receiving the scroll, Motoi's first paranoid thought was:
'Did Killer B finally figure out that I was the one who tried to assassinate him? Is he using this deadly training mission as an excuse to get rid of me?'
To make sure Motoi trained carefully, Killer B personally explained all the safety precautions.
Even though the instructions were clearly written in the scroll, he repeated them aloud so Motoi would absorb the gravity of the situation.
That included the fatal danger of natural energy eroding the body.
At Mount Myōboku, anyone overwhelmed by unrefined natural energy would permanently turn into a stone toad.
Therefore, Motoi absolutely had to empty his mind completely before attempting to absorb it.
Motoi was only a chūnin.
When he heard that such a dangerous, difficult, and advanced form of Sage Mode training had somehow been entrusted to a middle-rank ninja like him, it was only natural his paranoia spiked.
"I'll be training with you."
Killer B was actually quite perceptive.
Noticing his friend's severe hesitation, he immediately dropped the bombshell.
"What? But you're a jinchūriki!" Motoi was stunned.
Killer B had only recently gained full control over his Tailed Beast and stopped the rampages.
Now he wanted to practice a highly unstable Sage Mode too?
Wasn't that asking for the bloody tragedy from years ago to repeat itself?
"This is necessary to protect the village. But no one can know that I'm training, and I won't be able to openly teach the other ninja in the village. That responsibility will fall to you. Motoi, from this day forward, you'll be Kumogakure's very first Sage Mode instructor!" Killer B patted Motoi firmly on the shoulder.
"This... Can a chūnin really become a Kage-level instructor?"
The grand, glorious future Killer B just painted immediately went to Motoi's head, instantly washing away all his previous suspicions.
That question alone proved Motoi knew absolutely nothing about Umino Iruka.
Once Naruto became Hokage, forget being a simple academy instructor—Iruka could become the Academy principal without a single person in Konoha daring to object.
He would become a man whom every ninja, from fresh genin to elite jōnin, had to respectfully address as "Sensei."
"Of course you can. And you won't only be contributing to Kumogakure. You'll be helping the entire shinobi world."
Killer B then explained the diplomatic hostage situation: the Konoha group would not leave the village until at least one person successfully mastered Sage Mode.
"In other words, the sooner you master it, the sooner the other villages can begin learning it too. No one knows when the Ōtsutsuki clan will attack. Every moment you save makes the entire shinobi world that much safer."
"...Alright! I'll start training immediately!" Motoi's fighting spirit ignited. He reached out and exchanged a firm fist bump with Killer B.
"Yeah!"
After completing the fist bump, Killer B pulled something from his pouch and handed it over.
"What's this? A gift?"
"Yeah! It's a special ninja tool that'll assist with the training." Killer B nodded.
He had just purchased it from Kumogakure's local 'Bottle-kun' branch store.
In Naruto's specific vocabulary, it was a genuine artifact of "ultimate bliss."
The two childhood friends finally let go of their old grudges, found a quiet, secluded cave, and began training together.
Then, as expected, the unexpected happened.