Early morning, by the river.
"Naruto, not yet?" Sakura urged from the side.
"Soon, soon. It's almost coming up."
The two of them were fishing.
Sakura wanted to learn Medical Ninjutsu, and she needed teaching materials—live fish.
Naruto, whose fishing skill was maxed out, volunteered to do the fishing.
It had to be said that the Land of Waves truly deserved its reputation as a country by the sea. Its fishery resources were abundant.
Just look at the catches beside them.
There were fish as large as one and a half meters, nearly as tall as Naruto, and terrifying giant fish ten meters long.
It had everything.
Except—
There were no small fish that Sakura needed.
You're making things difficult for me, Fat Tiger.jpg
If he had known, he would not have taken on the job so confidently.
"Sakura, why did you choose to become a medical ninja?" Naruto asked curiously during a lull.
According to Teacher Leopard's plan, Sakura was supposed to major in the Super Strength Taijutsu path, focusing on sheer brutality.
Once she trained to the later stages and reached Naruto's current level, she could practically punch one little friend at a time.
No, that was wrong. One punch per One-Tail.
That destructive power was simply insane.
But after talking with Kakashi-sensei yesterday, Sakura had actually decided to give up taijutsu as her main focus and specialize in Medical Ninjutsu instead.
She wanted to devote her talent and energy to Medical Ninjutsu.
That was like switching from top lane to support.
"Nothing much."
Sakura stuck out her tongue cutely. "I just suddenly thought Medical Ninjutsu was interesting."
"Oh."
Naruto nodded without giving it much thought.
Maybe girls did not want to be too violent and preferred becoming doctors who saved lives?
As for Sakura—
Staring at Naruto's profile as he focused on fishing, she sank into her memories.
When they had first been assigned to the same team, Sakura had not liked Naruto.
Back at the academy, Naruto had been an unremarkable dead last.
He did poorly in academic classes, and his practical lessons always ended in surrender. Many classmates had mocked him as the Master of Surrender.
Some had even maliciously guessed
that Naruto would quickly surrender when facing enemies in the future, perhaps even selling out information.
Sakura remembered that she had followed along and mocked him too.
Besides that,
Naruto loved pulling all sorts of pranks. Other children found them funny, but Sakura had felt that Naruto was a little too hyperactive and unlikeable.
That lasted until they were assigned to a team.
With three people to a team, Sakura had hoped her teammates would be as strong as possible. Sasuke's appearance had made her very happy, but the other teammate she got was Naruto.
At the time, Sakura had even believed that Naruto would be less useful to the team than she was.
Although she was not as capable in combat as Naruto, she had far more knowledge than he did and would contribute more to the team.
But everything began to change that afternoon.
Naruto's self-introduction and the analysis that followed changed Sakura's fixed impression of him.
Then came the mission test on the second day.
Sakura had never expected Naruto's stamina to surpass Sasuke's.
Then there was the bell-grabbing exercise.
For the first time, Sakura truly saw Naruto anew—the person with that bold, confident expression, skillfully using powerful ninjutsu.
His strength was something she had never dared imagine.
Was that really Naruto?
Sakura had thought she had mistaken him for someone else all along.
In any case, that day, she came to understand Naruto again, deeply and completely.
He was a powerful, trustworthy teammate.
Then came everything that happened afterward.
Sakura felt that she was the weakest link in the team. Even Naruto, who had once been considered dead last, could use his Shadow Clones to beat ten of her.
And Sasuke?
Always praised as a genius, his improvement was even more terrifying.
She wanted to catch up to them. She wanted to be useful to the team.
That was why she chose the path of a medical ninja.
The Carefree Pill was useful, but it had limits.
It could only treat external injuries and restore HP. It could not detoxify poison or treat other illnesses, and that would be her battlefield.
"Sakura? Sakura? Sakura-chan!"
The increasingly loud calls pulled Sakura out of her memories.
"Huh?" Sakura finally came back to herself.
Naruto examined her carefully. "What's wrong? Did you catch a cold?"
"No. Maybe I didn't sleep well last night."
Naruto handed her a small fish. "Here, I finally caught one. I didn't expect catching a small fish to be this hard."
Looking at the dozen or so massive catches of every variety beside them, Sakura wiped away sweat speechlessly.
"Extra! The great villain Gato has been killed!"
"Extra! The great villain Gato has been killed!"
A shout suddenly came from the road behind them.
Naruto turned and saw a "newsboy" running over from the road with a large stack of newspapers in his arms.
Looking closely, was that not Tazuna's grandson, Inari?
"Hey, Inari, where did you come back from?" Naruto stopped him and asked.
"Ah, Brother Naruto."
Inari, who had been won over by Naruto's sugar-coated tactics, was delighted to see him. Then he glanced to the side and immediately went wide-eyed.
"Th-that... that fish is huge." He was so shocked that he could not close his mouth.
"How can there be such a huge fish? Is this the monster fish Grandpa always talks about that eats children? That's terrifying!"
"Mom!"
Inari cried out and ran away in fright.
Naruto, Sakura: -_-||
Naruto looked at Sakura. "Should we head back?"
"Okay."
Naruto picked through the fish and directly chose to drag the biggest one home.
No other reason—it was the biggest.
This time, Naruto did not get lost.
When they returned to Tazuna's house, Inari had just finished receiving some psychological counseling.
There was no such thing as a giant monster fish, and no monster fish would eat children.
He was already a little man. He had to become a hero and be brave.
After some counseling, Inari had finally more or less returned to normal.
But the moment he opened the door, he saw that terrifying giant fish from earlier again, its huge mouth open right in front of him.
Its horrifying abyssal maw gaped wide, revealing a bottomless black abyss within.
That terrifying mouth could swallow ten of him in one bite without even feeling full.
Inari: Gah~
"Huh? What happened here?"
Naruto lifted the giant fish slightly and tossed it to the side, then saw Inari passed out at the doorway.
After a round of commotion, Team 7 gathered again. Kakashi held the latest newspapers as he analyzed the situation.
Inari was selling a total of three newspapers: "Water Country Observer," "Shinobi World Daily," and "Land of Waves Times."
On the surface, the three newspapers independently belonged to three different companies.
As for their contents—
The three newspapers had different leanings.
The "Water Country Observer" mainly praised "Hero of the Land of Waves Zabuza" in every possible way, praising this hero born in the Land of Water.
The "Shinobi World Daily" reported the incident neutrally and referred to Zabuza as the "Hero of the Land of Waves," essentially settling the matter.
The "Land of Waves Times" focused on Gato's evil and cruelty while also praising the greatness of "Hero of the Land of Waves Zabuza."
The full-color, ultra-high-definition photo Naruto had taken using the game function was undoubtedly the front-page headline of all three newspapers!
Gato really was dead!
However—
At this moment, everyone in Team 7 except Naruto wore strange expressions as they looked at the three newspapers.
Zabuza did this?
Wasn't he hired to assassinate Tazuna, destroy the bridge, and thereby ruin the Land of Waves?
How had he become the Hero of the Land of Waves?
In the end, Kakashi gave a complicated summary.
"Zabuza has grand ambitions!"
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Thank you to all the esteemed readers for the recommendation votes and continued reading.
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