The spy lunged. He didn't need to understand this madness. He only needed to end it.
The kunai arced through the air, sharp and true—
But before it could strike—
A hand caught his wrist.
No.
Not just caught—crushed.
"Gah!" The spy gasped, his fingers forced open by sheer pressure. His kunai fell to the forest floor.
The boy's grip was like iron. No, worse than iron. It was alive, pulsing, adjusting—
His bones cracked.
The pain was unbearable.
"Interesting..." The boy tilted his head. "So I can use a chimpanzee's grip too?"
What.
The spy yanked his arm back with all the force he could muster, leaping away, distancing himself. His hand—his dominant hand—was ruined.
This was no child.
This was something else.
A freak. A monster. A failed experiment.
He had to leave.
Forget killing the brat. He had the intel he needed—Konoha had something unnatural in its hands.
He needed to report this to the Tsuchikage.
With a burst of chakra, he fled.
One leap. Two. Three—
And then—
Something moved.
Not moved—teleported.
No sound. No rustle of leaves. No shift in air.
And yet—
The boy was suddenly hanging upside down in front of him, hands and legs gripping the tree branch like a spider.
"Spider-monkey."
The spy's heart nearly stopped.
He veered left, but the child was there.
Veered right—there again.
No hesitation. No fear.
The boy studied him.
Like he was nothing more than another piece of the forest.
Another animal to dissect.
The spy had had enough.
This had to end.
His one good hand flew to his pouch, fingers pulling out a smoke tag—
"Black Panther."
The world blurred.
The boy vanished.
Not in the way a shinobi vanishes—no, there was no flicker, no burst of chakra displacement.
It was natural.
Fluid.
Like a predator.
Then—he was there.
Too fast.
Too close.
The spy barely dodged, his body twisting midair, but before he could recover—
"Chimpanzee."
A snap.
A sharp, sickening pop.
For a moment, the world tilted.
The trees spun. The sky spun.
Then—
Nothing.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
—ToT—
Naruto stared at the blood staining his hands. It was warm. Sticky. He flexed his fingers, feeling it smear between them. The scent was sharp, metallic. It clung to him, to his clothes, to his skin.
He had lived over a million lives. He had died a million deaths. Yet never, not once, had he killed a human before.
It was always him who was hunted. Devoured.
As a mouse, he had felt the snap of an owl's beak closing around his tiny ribs.
As a fish, he had been swallowed whole, his world turning to darkness as razor-sharp teeth shredded his body.
As a deer, he had run—fast, faster—but the lion had been faster. Claws digging into his throat. Teeth sinking into his spine. As a horse, he had been killed in war, in betrayal, in cold blood.
But now—
Now he was the one who had killed.
Why?
His grip tightened. His nails dug into his palm, dragging red streaks through the blood.
The man had been running away. He had already lost.
So why had Naruto killed him?
He didn't know.
He should feel something, shouldn't he? Guilt? Regret? Relief?
But all he felt was... nothing.
Naruto lifted his head to the sky. The moon hung heavy, glowing silver against the black void. It was beautiful. A constant presence across all his lives.
It's 3 a.m.
How did he know that?
As a wolf, he had known time instinctively, even in the darkest nights. His body had understood the world in a way no human's ever could. The pull of the earth. The way the stars shifted. The scent of morning before it arrived.
Was that why?
A strange thought curled in his mind.
He had never been able to use his past lives' abilities before. Each time he died, his skills—his instincts—vanished, locked away in the body of whatever he became next.
A fish could not use the speed of a cheetah.
A deer could not wield the venom of a snake.
A rabbit could not fly like a hawk.
One set of abilities per species. That was the rule.
That had always been the rule.
But now...
Now he was human.
And for the first time, he could remember.
Not just memories. Not just knowledge.
Abilities.
The raw, physical instincts of creatures that had lived and died before him.
Naruto closed his eyes. Took a breath.
Then—
"Cheetah."
The world blurred.
The ground vanished beneath his feet. The trees stretched past him, flickering shapes in the night. Wind roared in his ears, tearing at his clothes, biting his skin.
Speed.
Pure, unrestrained, unfiltered speed.
It was not chakra. It was not the artificial, shinobi-created speed of the Body Flicker.
No, this was real.
This was muscle and bone. This was evolution refined over thousands of years. This was instinct.
He ran.
Faster.
Faster.
His heart pounded in his chest, but not in exhaustion. His lungs expanded, feeding oxygen to his limbs, keeping him from tiring. His feet barely touched the ground before launching forward again, his body moving with precision honed through millions of lifetimes.
He could see.
The night did not hinder him. Shadows held no secrets. The forest stretched out before him in perfect clarity, each detail crisp and sharp, as if the world had been waiting for him to awaken to this sight.
The speed did not scare him.
It felt right.
Naruto's lips curled.
He had never been strong before. Never been the hunter.
But now?
Now he could be anything.
TBC