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NAJ Chapter 73: A Spark in the Powder Keg
🕑 Added 2025-07-08 22:33:29 +0000 UTC“I’m dead tired…”
Short and still quite skinny, Naruto plopped down on the front steps of someone’s house, gasping for breath.
He cautiously looked around. Aside from a few villagers casting odd glances his way, there didn’t seem to be anyone suspicious in sight.
“Phew…”
“Guess I’ll take a quick break…”
Clearly, in Naruto’s mind, the only 'suspicious person' was Uchiha Keizumi!
But in the very next second—
Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar figure. As he instinctively turned his gaze, his breath hitched, and his heart skipped a beat in sheer panic.
“Hhhk—!”
The moment he sensed that person’s gaze turning toward him—keen and unmistakable—Naruto instantly sprang to his feet like he’d been launched by a spring.
Without thinking, he grabbed the broom lying next to him.
Frantically, Naruto swept his eyes left and right.
“Ten more days.”
A low, ghostly voice drifted in from the side—and Naruto practically jumped out of his skin. He whipped his head around in a panic, only to see Uchiha Keizumi, who had been over 100 meters away just a second ago, suddenly standing right beside him!
Naruto nearly burst into tears.
How was he supposed to live like this?!
What Naruto didn’t know was that someone else wanted to cry even more than he did—the Anbu agent secretly assigned to monitor him.
Why is Uchiha Keizumi here again?!
The Anbu ninja wanted desperately to step in and block any contact between Uchiha Keizumi and Uzumaki Naruto. After all, the Hokage had specifically instructed them to keep Naruto away from any shinobi of the Uchiha clan whenever possible.
But…
The Anbu couldn’t shake the feeling that if he tried to intervene, Keizumi wouldn’t even bother acknowledging him. And if it came down to a direct confrontation—he wasn’t confident he’d last more than a few seconds.
So he remained silent.
Mixing in a bit of personal judgment with the Hokage’s orders... should be fine, right?
He chose to hold back for now.
After all…
Uchiha Keizumi didn’t appear to be trying to manipulate the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki. Wasn’t this the man who claimed to follow 'Absolute Justice'?
If that was truly the case, then surely someone so obsessed with justice wouldn’t try to recreate something as horrific as the Nine-Tails’ Rampage—right?
Meanwhile—
Naruto’s eyes were drawn to a few drops of blood on the hem of Keizumi’s cloak. A flicker of confusion crossed his young face.
“Wait for me, senpai!”
Just then, a sweet voice rang out, drawing closer.
Naruto looked up curiously and saw a beautiful girl with long, straight black hair—the same one who always followed this terrifying man around. On her shoulder sat a fat orange cat.
“Meow~ Keizumi-sama killed more than a dozen scumbags today. That should be enough to scare off the trash lurking in the shadows for a while.”
—The cat had spoken!
Naruto’s mind was screaming.
Wait—huh?
Hold on…
His pupils shrank. The miserable expression on his face froze in place as his stiff gaze drifted back to the bloodstained hem of Keizumi’s cloak.
That phrase—killed more than a dozen scumbags—kept echoing through his young mind.
His face turned ghostly pale in an instant.
“Please don’t kill me!!”
“I swear I’ve learned my lesson!!”
Seeing the little blond kid fall to his knees in a full dogeza pose—forehead pressed to the ground, wailing in despair—Jirō, the orange cat, blinked and muttered in confusion: “…What’s wrong with this brat?”
Izumi rubbed her chin thoughtfully and murmured, “Looks like… he might’ve misunderstood something. But still…”
Looking at Naruto’s small and skinny frame, Izumi hesitated.
“Senpai… this kid doesn’t really look healthy. Are you sure it’s okay to make him do such intense labor?”
She couldn’t shake the feeling that, with arms and legs that thin, Naruto might collapse in the middle of sweeping the streets.
Uchiha Keizumi replied expressionlessly, “He’s the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki. This level of physical work is nothing to him.”
Izumi blinked, suddenly understanding—then did a double take. “Wait… Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki?”
She froze for a moment.
Jirō, perched on her shoulder, explained, “Keizumi-sama once said that the brat has a Tailed Beast sealed inside him—the same beast that caused the Nine-Tails’ Rampage years ago. That beast is called the Nine-Tails. And since Uzumaki Naruto is its container, he’s known as the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki.”
“!!!”
Izumi stared at Naruto in disbelief.
The Nine-Tails…
The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox!
Her Sharingan had awakened the night of the Nine-Tails’ Rampage. Her father had died that very night—slain by the beast.
“Kei… Keizumi-senpai… then doesn’t that mean…”
Her voice trembled, barely able to contain the surge of emotion.
Keizumi spoke calmly, “He’s just a container—and one who never chose to be. He became a jinchūriki the moment he was born. He never had a say in it.”
Jirō added, “Meow. Keizumi-sama said the one truly responsible for the Nine-Tails’ Rampage was Uchiha Obito. He used the Mangekyō Sharingan to control the beast, orchestrating the entire disaster from the shadows.”
“In other words…”
Jirō paused for a moment. He knew Izumi’s past. Then continued: “The one who killed your father wasn’t this kid. When your father died at the claws of the Nine-Tails… this boy was just a newborn baby.”
Izumi struggled to steady her emotions. But in her heart, she etched that name with absolute clarity—
Uchiha Obito.
None of them had made any effort to lower their voices—they spoke openly, right in front of Naruto.
Still kneeling in a full dogeza, pleading for Keizumi to spare him, Naruto was stunned.
I’m the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki?
I’m the container for the Demon Fox?
Inside me…
There’s really a demon fox?
This terrifying man wouldn’t just make something like that up… right?
In that moment, Naruto began to understand—
Why some villagers cursed him behind his back.
Why they called him 'the demon fox brat'.
Why he was treated as a walking disaster.
“…I…”
“…I’m sorry…”
His voice came out as a faint whisper, barely louder than a mosquito. Tears fell from his eyes with soft splashes, his frail body trembling. Even his words were choked and broken, drenched in confusion and helplessness.
...
There’s no such thing as a wall that keeps out every secret.
Before their deaths, Kyōsuke and his men had shouted all sorts of chaotic things—loud and frenzied cries that revealed their identities to many of the witnesses.
And so, the news that a daimyō’s envoy had been killed spread like wildfire, sweeping across all of Konohagakure in no time, like a hurricane.
Many had assumed that after last night’s events, the already unstable situation in Konoha would finally calm down a bit.
But no one expected that barely a dozen hours later, another major incident would explode—
And once again…
Uchiha Keizumi was at the center of it.
...
Konohagakure – Anbu Headquarters
“Nauma…”
Sarutobi Asuma, a cigarette hanging from his lips, stood in silence as he stared at the corpse of his comrade—Nauma, a fellow member of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. His body, head severed and drenched in blood, looked downright chilling.
Asuma took a deep drag, then exhaled heavily, a cloud of smoke billowing from his mouth.
The only thing swirling in his heart was a deep, burning rage.
The Twelve Guardian Ninja had always been politically complex.
This elite group of twelve didn’t all swear allegiance to the Daimyō.
Much like the Uchiha Clan, they were divided:
– the Moderates, led by Asuma himself,
– and the Radicals, led by Kazuma.
The moderates advocated maintaining the delicate balance of power between the Daimyō and the Hokage of Konoha.
The radicals believed there was no need for a Hokage at all—ninjas should serve the daimyō directly.
Nauma had been one of the moderates.
A trusted friend of Asuma’s.
And now, he was just a corpse.
“Phew—”
Asuma reached down and gently closed Nauma’s wide, lifeless eyes.
His bearded face was shadowed by a storm of emotion.
“Twice now… It’s happened twice, old man,” he muttered bitterly.
“How long are you going to keep enduring this? When did you—the Hokage of Konoha—become so soft? Uchiha Keizumi… just another shinobi from the Uchiha clan… is he really that important?”
He was talking to himself, the words filled with suppressed fury.
Asuma had never forgotten:
His older brother had died at Keizumi’s hands.
And every time he saw the widow his brother left behind—those eyes, forever stained by quiet sorrow—
The hatred inside him surged, impossible to contain.
His gaze slowly swept across the room.
There were more than a dozen bodies here, all decapitated.
Among them, the corpse of the daimyō’s second son stood out starkly—adding another heavy weight to the darkness on Asuma’s face.
The death of the daimyō’s second son would undoubtedly enrage the lord of the Land of Fire.
Kyōsuke had been his most beloved child.
And when that fury exploded—
The already fragile relationship between the daimyō and Konoha might very well collapse altogether.
And among the Twelve Guardian Ninja, the radicals were likely just waiting for a moment like this.
The instant they learned what had happened, they would no doubt push the daimyō of the Land of Fire to take a hard stance against Konoha.
Some of them might even try to use this incident as justification to abolish the position of Hokage altogether.
“You’re the Hokage, old man… Can’t you see what’s happening?”
Asuma bit clean through the cigarette between his lips. Alone, he muttered to himself: “Uchiha Keizumi’s existence brings far more harm than good to Konoha. I think you see that even more clearly than I do. So why—why do you keep protecting him?”
“My brother… was killed by him.”
“Nauma… was killed by him.”
“And now, even the daimyō’s son… couldn’t escape his hands.”
To Asuma, the prosperity of the Land of Fire had always relied on a delicate balance between the daimyō and the village of Konoha.
But everything Uchiha Keizumi had done—without restraint, without consequence—was bound to destroy that balance.
And once that balance shattered—
The Land of Fire…
Konoha…
Would never know peace again.
He lit another cigarette.
“Old man… let me oppose you one more time.”
“Uchiha Keizumi is already a threat to the village.”
“…Though maybe, by now, you’re used to my defiance.”
