Chapter 31: Naruto's Strength

AN: Sorry for the long wait but I have a good reason for it.

Truck-kun hired an intern recently, Scooty-chan. She came to isekai me, but because of my fast reflexes, I suffered only some injuries, nothing life threatening.

Seriously, for a moment I thought this is it. But all is fine now.

Future updates might be a little slow as my hands are still injured so it took a lot of time to write this chapter.

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Hiruzen POV:

"It's been quite a few days and Naruto and Hinata's team still haven't arrived. What is taking them so long? The sand team already arrived breaking all records."

"Hokage-sama, we send a patrolling anbu to look into it, from the reports they are having a picnic in the forest and not looking for the scrolls." replied an anbu.

"But...sigh, with his strength, he can easily cross the forest but young people make their plans, nothing I can do."

Just as I was relaxing in the central tower with my anbu guards and Jonin senseis, a loud song disturbed the peace of the tower.

"This sound?" asked Kakashi.

Even I was quite surprised by the sound. I don't recognize this sound, never heard about a creature that can produce this sound.

It's like a song, but this song gives me a bad premonition and just as I was about to order the anbu to find the source of this disturbance that bad premonition came true.

A loud blast sounded from the distance and a considerable part of the forest was covered in flames and turned to ashes. It was visible from the top of the tower where we were monitoring the second exam. The blast was so loud that the whole of Konoha might have heard the sound.

What were those flames, the temperature increase can be felt even here.

"Kakashi..." Before I could even complete my orders he already responded.

"Hokage-sama we will go and see." Everyone in the room has a tense expression, they can also feel the change and see the catastrophic explosion.

Several kilometres worth of forest was turned to ashes in a moment. Even from here, I can feel that the affected part has become barren.

The worst part is that I didn't even sense the chakra required for the jutsu or whatever happened there. This is concerning, if it is some sort of weapon then just using it in the middle of Konoha can cause tremendous damage. I need to figure out the cause and apprehend the perpetrators.

.....

Kakashi POV:

Whatever that was is really dangerous. Even the tailed beast bomb might not cause that damage. The whole chunk of forest has turned to just ashes.

Just as I reached the outer area of the explosion, I can feel the heat, it was as if I am near some volcano. Everything here has turned to ashes.

I just hope my team is all right.

......

Hinata returned to Naruto after the explosion and tried to calm him down. She was quite happy to see her boyfriend burn down the whole forest because someone tried to harm her but now she need to control the situation. She has already seen that everything related to Orochimaru has been turned to ashes.

"Naruto-kun, Orochimaru has been killed. You should calm down." said Hinata while hugging Naruto from behind.

"Oh, I am pretty calm. I knew he couldn't harm you and with me being here that is just an extra guarantee. But someone tried to covet your body, if I don't kill him how can I look myself in the mirror.

And don't think he is dead. He is a cockroach, he will use his cursed seal to come back."

While they were having a conversation, apart from Sasuke and Kabuto, rest of them have passed out. Sasuke and Hinata covered their body with a chakra film, a jutsu advised by Naruto, to help them in sitauation like these, and will also help them in training elemental chakra armour.

Because of this chakra film, apart from Sasuke, Naruto and Hinata, all of them were covered with blisters. Naruto seeing it also felt bad for behaving so irrationaly. Such AOE attack also harmed his comrades.

"Hey Hinata, you try heal everyone and Sasuke you can dispose Kabuto, he has no use to me. If you want you can keep him as a prisoner but I don't recommend handing him to the village, danzo still has influence so he will be freed."

Hearing Danzo's name, Kabuto showed a shocked expression, 'What a man, with this much strength, I can say he is already in the leagues of Madara and Hashirama and still behaving like this. He even knows about Danzo and from Sasuke's expression, something must be wrong. Maybe it's related to the Uchiha massacre, oh... I get it now.

Danzo, Uchiha massacre and Sasuke's reaction. Danzo was responsible for the Uchiha massacre. Haha. I guess he's got a rude awakening coming to him.

I only have one regret now. If only I could also see Danzo's death.' Those were Kabuto's last thoughts as a sword pierced through his throat and Sasuke retracted his sword after confirming Kabuto has truly died.

"Naruto, Sasuke and ...Sakura, what are you all doing so close to the blast zone. And Sasuke, why did you kill a Konoha genin. That is not how we deal with fellow villagers." There was hint of impatience in his voice. He didn't expect to see his team member kill one of the Konoha genin.

"Kakashi," Sasuke replied with a nod and proceeded to tell him about what happened here while Naruto and Hinata healed the rest of the group. A basic mystic palm was enough to heal the blisters on their body.

"This guy here is Orochimaru's spy. His name is Kabuto Yakushi. Orochimaru attacked Hinata while she was collecting the scroll, so when she escaped, Naruto used one of his sword arts to kill him and the rest is as you can see."

"Well...that was quite short."

"That's all that happened." Sasuke responded with a stoic expression.

"Are you sure it was just a sword attack, was there any additional chakra covering Naruto, like very fierce chakra?" Kakashi tried to ask if Naruto lost control of Nine tails because of Orochimaru attacking Hinata.

"If you are worried about nine tails then don't worry, nine tails chakra was not involved" replied Naruto from behind him while his clone was carrying another redhead.

"You know.."

"of course I know, the villagers didn't really help in keeping it a secret."

"And what about her, who is she?"

"Oh she, she is Karin Uzumaki, I just adopted her as my sister. She came here with Grass ninja village, and I took her from them. That's all there is to her."

"Naruto that is not how it works, if word gets out, there will be diplomatic problem."

"Well she is an Uzumaki and I am keeping her, that's all there is to it." Naruto replied in a firm tone, with an air of finality.

Kakashi groaned, but still this matter is small. What is important is Naruto able use techniques like these, even Kages will be killed if they are in this zone. Naruto's strength has already reached at a level where even third Hokage can't reach him. Maybe he is on par with the First Hokage, but this thought was dismissed by Kakashi. Hashirama was called the god of Ninja. No way Naruto is at that level.

Two major conclusions that Kakashi has drawn and will be reporting is:

1. Naruto has already reached Kage level or even surpassed that level and entered the super-kage realm.

2. Orochimaru has some sort of plan in this chunnin exam and his target is Hinata Hyuga.

With these conclusions Kakashi returned to the central tower and reported it to the Hokage. Even Hiruzen was stunned by Naruto's strength.

Currently Naruto is maybe the strongest in the village. And with this much commotion, Danzo will also know about this. And that Uzumaki girl, Hiruzen can understand about it. He has seen Naruto grow up and now that he has found a family member, he will not let her go and with his strength, no one in the village can make him let go of her.

'Addressing the Grass village is just a trivial matter. What is more problematic is Danzo. He will want the Uzumaki girl for his roots and this will make him and Naruto clash and with this power, Naruto might turn his entire root base to ashes.

No I have to save my stupid friend. All this time I have been protecting Naruto from Danzo, but now I have to do the opposite.'

..............

While all this was happening, a merchant caravan entered the village. This merchant caravan came to establish trade during the fan fare organized by Naruto.

"Oh how much time has passed, Konoha has become quite weak from the last time I visited. And that Monkey is still the Hokage."

A beautiful figure, seated at the front of the caravan commented, while the rest of the members of the caravan gave a weird look to the lady seated at the front.

'Who are you to call the Hokage a monkey, we decided to gave you a lift to Konoha but why are you bringing us trouble by speaking such things, that too when we entered Konoha. If you have complains, keep to yourself, why speak aloud.' The whole caravan thought about it but none of them spoke a word. Many of them were beaten throughout the journey because they spoke out of line during the journey and even the escorting ninjas were weak in front of her. So they decided to tolerate her.

The lady in question has a beautiful round face with long bright yellow hair and sparkling blue eyes gleaming with mischeaf.

She gave a sunny smile to the caravan members and vanished from that spot leaving all of them stunned including the escorting Ninjas.