This Naruto Is a Player!

Kakashi, serious as he was, lost.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura got the bells.

Seeing how breathless Kakashi-sensei was, Naruto felt that if he dragged it out any longer, Kakashi-sensei might just drop dead on the spot, so he ended the match early.

Kakashi-sensei was cool, but a bit weak.

However, it was understandable; defeating an enemy and controlling an enemy weren't on the same difficulty level after all.

Muttering to himself, Naruto glanced at his teammates.

Sasuke was already lying on the ground, gasping for air, almost completely exhausted.

Sakura was relatively better, standing strong with her hands on her knees, seemingly with energy left, but she was more of a participate-for-the-sake-of-it type, not putting in much effort.

While Naruto was observing them, Kakashi was also analyzing the three.

Naruto: Strongest, most talented, amazing perception skills. All his changes couldn't escape Naruto's perception. His Fire Style was surprisingly strong, even capable of creating his own ninjutsu. His taijutsu was also good, and his combat intuition was very sharp.

Additionally, judging by his self-created Fire Style ninjutsu, Naruto should have already mastered the nature and shape transformation of fire-style chakra.

Also, his chakra seemed bottomless; it was clear he hadn't used his full power.

He had at least Jonin-level strength, and being a Kage-level was not impossible.

A 12-year-old Jonin in peacetime?

He was indeed worthy of being Minato-sensei's astonishingly talented child.

Sasuke: A normal genius. Calm in combat, precise intuition. His fundamentals in all aspects were very solid. He had a decent amount of chakra and a good Fire Style.

Sakura Haruno: Weak in taijutsu, no ninjutsu. Generally average. Other aspects of her data needed to be observed.

Kakashi had originally intended to put his life on the line to protect these three, but now it seemed he could relax quite a bit.

After taking a couple more breaths, Kakashi stood upright.

"Alright, the assessment mission ends here. I understand your strengths. Very good."

Kakashi scanned the three, his gaze finally settling on Naruto, giving him a deep look.

Naruto met his gaze with a smile.

"This morning's training ends now. Meet at 1 PM in front of the Hokage building."

"Now, dismissed!"

With that, he turned and walked away.

"Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto called out, but it didn't stop his hurried steps. He felt like Kakashi was in a great rush.

Could he be scared?

It was just ramen.

Even though he looked a bit miserable right now, Kakashi-sensei was quite cool when he paid for dinner last night.

Kakashi had run off. Naruto turned to his other two teammates.

"What about you guys? Going for ramen?"

Sakura glanced at Sasuke; if Sasuke went, she would go too.

"I..."

"You're not thinking of going back for extra training, are you?"

Sasuke seemed about to refuse, but Naruto cut him off.

Seeing Sasuke's expression, as if his thoughts had been read, Naruto slyly smiled and said, "If you treat me to ramen, I'll tell you how I got so strong."

"Deal!"

Sasuke answered decisively, afraid Naruto might change his mind.

Naruto had been a dead-last in the academy, so why had he become so strong immediately after graduating?

Naruto, naturally, didn't care. He originally wanted to strengthen his teammates anyway.

When he became Hokage, his teammates would also need to become his assistants, adding bricks and mortar to his cause.

A scene change.

Ichiraku Ramen.

The carefree Naruto was slurping down ramen.

Sasuke had no appetite; he seemed preoccupied.

Sakura ate her ramen bite by bite, glancing at Sasuke, and seemed to be enjoying it.

Suddenly.

"Ah~~~ Sasuke-kun!"

With a joyful shout, Ino happily hooked her arm around Sasuke's neck. Shikamaru also suddenly appeared, greeting them cheerfully.

It seemed only Choji was missing.

Naruto turned his head.

Choji appeared too, eating potato chips and smiling at Naruto.

His eyes, already small, disappeared completely when he smiled.

"Hey guys, long... um, it's been 2 days," Naruto greeted them.

Only Sakura's reaction seemed the most intense. She yelled, "Ino Pig, let go of Sasuke!"

Sakura and Ino pulled at each other, almost getting into a fight.

Naruto broke into a sweat. These two seemed to have a good relationship, was this kind of good relationship?

After some commotion, the three newcomers sat down to eat ramen.

"Shikamaru, have you started taking missions yet?" Naruto tried to gather some intel.

"Just finished one this morning."

Just finished? That fast?

Naruto was a little surprised. "What kind of mission was it?"

"Collecting trash." Shikamaru replied reluctantly, recalling the mission he'd just completed.

Seeing his expression, Naruto knew his laziness had flared up again.

Shikamaru was good in every way—highly intelligent, and a decent person—but he was a bit lazy.

He'd rather lie down than sit, and rather sit than stand.

His favorite thing was probably lying on a rooftop watching the clouds.

But what did he mean by "collecting trash"?

Surely it wasn't literally collecting trash.

He seemed to recall encountering many freshly graduated genin doing various things when he used to skip class and wander around.

Things like collecting trash, catching cats, babysitting...

Were these their upcoming missions?

In the afternoon, Naruto and his team's suspicions were confirmed.

"Alright, let's go."

Recently, a large amount of garbage had been found blocking the Naka River downstream, causing a terrible stench and even affecting the daily lives of residents. It required an organized 'cleanup'.

Thus, the village issued this D-rank mission.

Although they were assigned the mission to save the river and the village, Team 7 wasn't exactly thrilled.

During lunch, hearing the complaints from the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, Naruto and his team had no interest in such tasks.

Glancing at Kakashi, who was as neatly groomed as ever, Naruto decided to test the waters.

"Kakashi-sensei, can you use Water Style ninjutsu?"

"Of course."

"Then, could you teach us some Water Style ninjutsu later?"

Hearing this, Kakashi was noncommittal, but seeing the eager expressions of the other two, he nodded.

"As long as you can learn, I can teach you anything."

"Awesome!" x3

The three little ones jumped with joy, and Naruto's objective was achieved.

It was time to seize the headlines and let Konoha see what a true genius looked like!

They didn't understand what it meant: "If Naruto Uzumaki wasn't born, the path of ninjutsu would be an eternal night!"

Moreover, these ninjutsu learned from Kakashi-sensei could all be openly displayed.

He could only hope Kakashi-sensei, as a Jonin, would last a while before being completely drained.

Not like this morning, where he got weak so quickly.

Upon reaching the location, Team 7 found the situation worse than expected.

There was more garbage than anticipated, and it smelled worse than anticipated.

"When will we ever finish collecting all this trash?" Sakura's sigh of exasperation was met with agreement from Sasuke.

Naruto, however, looked at Kakashi. "Kakashi-sensei, can you teach us that solid clone jutsu you used this morning? Otherwise, it'll take days for just the three of us to pick up all this trash."

Seeing the massive amount of garbage, Kakashi nodded.

The hand sign for Shadow Clone Jutsu was simple—just a simple Ram seal—but the difficulty of learning it was not.

"Too simple!"

Naruto shouted, drawing the attention of the other three, then formed the Ram seal.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

With a massive output of chakra, several, dozens, even hundreds of Narutos appeared.

Sasuke and Sakura gasped, while Kakashi's right eye twitched furiously.

He taught him the Shadow Clone Jutsu, didn't he?

How did he manage to produce the effect of Multiple Shadow Clones?

Seeing so many shadow clones, Naruto was very pleased. He wouldn't need to lift a finger for this entire mission; he could just let his clones do the work.

What kind of chosen worker?

He delivered his battle declaration: "Alright, our goal is to clear this section of the river. Now, let's move!"

"I'm not going! Why don't you do it?" the first clone retorted.

Then, more clones began to object.

"I'm not going! I want to play games!"

"I don't want to clean the river; I just want to see a river of blood!"

A hundred Narutos argued, chirping like birds, giving Naruto a splitting headache.

The other three all looked at Naruto: Is this your Shadow Clone Jutsu?