After a short, suffocating silence, deafening laughter erupted on the bridge.
"Hahahaha! Listen! What did he say? Clean up?"
"Did this brat not take his medicine before leaving? He wants to clean up hundreds of us by himself?"
"Hey, brat, did that orange outfit come from a circus? It's quite eye-catching, makes it easier for us to aim!"
Gato, standing at the very front, was laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face.
He pointed his cane at Naruto, his fat body jiggling.
"Brat, I admire your courage, I really do.
After I chop you into eight pieces, I'll put you back together so you have a complete corpse, hahahaha!"
Hundreds of thugs brandished their weapons, letting out bestial roars, like a filthy tide ready to engulf everything on the bridge.
Zabuza gripped his kubikiribōchō, and beside him, Haku's Chakra had already begun to re-condense.
Sasuke's Sharingan spun rapidly, his brain calculating angles for a breakthrough, while Kakashi shrugged lazily, knowing Naruto would act and he wouldn't be needed.
Naruto stood motionless at the very front, then formed a simple hand sign.
"Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu."
Boom—!
There was no earth-shattering bang, only a muffled explosion.
The next second, the entire bridge was completely engulfed by countless white smoke.
When the smoke cleared, a vast crowd appeared on the bridge; thousands of Uzumaki Naruto appeared everywhere from one end of the bridge to the other.
Gato's laughter stopped abruptly.
The thugs charging at the front also subconsciously stopped in their tracks.
"Wh-what the hell is going on?"
"Th-this... what kind of genjutsu is this?" a ronin stammered.
The smoke came and went quickly.
When visibility cleared again, the whole world fell silent.
On the bridge, it was no longer four Konoha Ninja and two rogue Ninja.
But an army.
Thousands of identical Uzumaki Naruto, dressed in orange uniforms, expressionless, without shouting, without superfluous movements, thousands of blue pupils, cold, uniform, devoid of any human emotion.
They stood in groups of three, in teams of five, like a precise machine programmed with the optimal solution, standing silently, forming an impenetrable, hair-raisingly massive square formation.
The thugs charging at the front had their feet nailed to the ground, their wild laughter frozen into extreme terror.
In front of them was Naruto, to their left was Naruto, to their right was Naruto, and when they looked back, their retreat was blocked by a wall made of Naruto.
"Th-this is..."
Kakashi's breathing stopped, his dead-fish eyes slowly widening.
"He's truly a monster.
Not to mention the army-like formation effect, just the number of these Shadow Clones must be over a thousand.
Such an enormous amount of Chakra... Naruto must have tamed the Nine-Tailed."
"I always thought my 'not much Chakra' was just a humble understatement..." he muttered to himself, "Now it seems I was quite honest."
Zabuza's body was stiff as a stone.
As the "Demon of the Hidden Mist," he had killed countless people in his life and seen all kinds of hellish sights.
But this scene before him surpassed the Cognition his experience brought.
Haku slowly walked to his side, and they exchanged glances.
"Lord Zabuza..." Haku hesitated.
"Haku, why are you trembling?" Zabuza looked at Haku's hands.
"A Ninja's hands are the last thing that should tremble."
Haku smiled bitterly, "I was just imagining what the outcome would have been if I hadn't accepted this child's proposal."
Zabuza was speechless for a long time, then let out a helpless sigh: "We'll see soon enough."
On the bridge, Naruto's main body slowly emerged from the formation.
He didn't even give a command to charge, merely raised one hand and made a simple, downward gesture.
"Clear."
Boom!
Thousands of Shadow Clones moved.
They were perfectly synchronized, like a giant, precise war machine, activated instantly.
A thug, swinging a katana, hadn't even clearly seen a figure when three kunai from three different, tricky angles simultaneously pierced his sword-wielding wrist, shoulder, and knee.
The moment he screamed and fell, another Shadow Clone already moved in, delivering a clean, decisive hand chop to the back of his neck, silencing him completely.
The entire process took no more than two seconds.
"Wh-what a joke..." A thug trembled, his spear falling to the ground.
"Mon... monster..."
The formation of Shadow Clones, like a merciless meat grinder, instantly tore through the thugs' fragile and vulnerable formation.
Their coordination was inhumanly precise.
Some were responsible for blocking, some for advancing, some for finishing blows.
Every movement was precisely calculated, wasting not an ounce of Chakra, not a second of time.
Screams, wails, the sound of weapons falling, the sound of bones breaking, intertwined into a symphony of despair.
But soon, these sounds rapidly diminished, eventually fading into silence.
The entire process took less than three minutes.
When the last thug fell, thousands of Shadow Clones disappeared with a "poof," turning into white smoke.
On the bridge, apart from Team 7, Zabuza, and Gato, no one else was standing.
The blood pooled on the ground reflected a dazzling light in the sunlight.
Zabuza looked at the hellish scene before him and finally completely abandoned all hope.
He realized that what he had been facing was not a Konoha Genin at all.
It was a monster named "War," disguised in a child's skin.
He turned his head, looking at Haku beside him, his voice hoarse, with a sense of relief and bitterness from surviving a disaster.
"Haku... what you did was right."
He then turned back, forcing a joke towards Kakashi: "Kakashi, are your Konoha Genin also so terrifyingly out of line?"
Kakashi spread his hands and shook his head: "This is an anomaly, I'm more confused than you."
Zabuza slowly opened his mouth: "We truly were building a ship with sand."
This admission of defeat represented his complete submission as the "Demon of the Hidden Mist."
Naruto's main body, stepping through the viscous blood, walked one step at a time towards Gato, who was already paralyzed on the ground, soiled with his own excrement and urine.
His footsteps were light, but on the dead silent bridge, they sounded like the Shinigami's tolling death knell, each step striking Gato's heart.
"Don't... don't come any closer! I have money! I have a lot of money! It's all yours! It's all yours!" Gato, snot and tears streaming, scurried backward on all fours, looking utterly pathetic.
Naruto stopped in front of him and slowly raised the kunai in his hand.
Just then, a tall figure suddenly flashed in front of him.
It was Zabuza.
He held the massive kubikiribōchō, his head bowed, and spoke in an almost pleading tone.
"Lord Naruto."
This address stunned both Kakashi and Sasuke.
"This bug..." Zabuza's voice was filled with suppressed rage and humiliation, "Please allow me to handle him."
He looked up, and in those eyes belonging to the "Demon of the Hidden Mist," there was now only a resolute determination.
"This is my, Zabuza Momochi's, pledge of allegiance... to join your plan."
He voluntarily defined himself as a part of Naruto's plan, a weapon to be used.
Naruto looked at him, his blue pupils calm and unmoving.
After a moment, he nodded, stepped back, and handed over the "execution right."
"Granted."
Zabuza no longer hesitated.
He raised the kubikiribōchō that had been with him for half his life and, facing Gato who was slumped on the ground, swung it down with the most cruel and resolute manner.
The blade's flash severed a dirty contract.
It also severed his past as the "Demon of the Hidden Mist."
Zabuza turned around, his great sword propped on the ground, and knelt on one knee before Naruto.
"Mission accomplished."
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