Six thirty in the morning.
Haruno Sakura said goodbye to her parents, hoisted her pack, and headed for the gates of Konoha Village.
After learning that Naruto had borrowed money from Hinata, she felt relieved—and a little sorry for him.
After all, she had never had to worry about money, and she treated missions as training.
During their time together on Team Seven, she had discovered so many good qualities in Naruto: his strength, optimism, courage, and countless others.
"Should I say yes to Naruto? But... Sasuke is just so handsome!"
Her heart still leaned toward Sasuke, but she didn't want to reject Naruto's confession, either.
He'd said this would be his last time asking, and that he was serious.
If Sasuke married another woman, she might really marry Naruto.
The walls of Konoha Village stretched grandly into the distance. From far away, Haruno Sakura spotted Kakashi waiting beneath the gate. Surprisingly, he wasn't late.
She jogged over and waved with a bright smile. "Kakashi-sensei! Good morning!"
Kakashi turned his palm up. "Good morning."
Haruno Sakura bowed. "This is my first mission outside the village. My parents asked me to thank you for looking after me."
Kakashi smiled, his eyes narrowing. "Haha, that's the first time anyone's thanked me."
He'd almost forgotten that someone in his team had a whole family.
Haruno Sakura blinked.
Six fifty-nine.
"Morning!" Naruto came running out of the street on the right, yawning.
He was always sleepy, no matter how much he slept.
At the same time, Sasuke strolled out of the street on the left, arriving right on the dot as if they'd planned it.
When Naruto reached her side, Haruno Sakura realized he was taller than she was. At graduation, she'd been half a head taller than him.
Looking closely, she saw that his round, catlike face had grown more mature, too. His jaw had sharpened, giving him a more heroic air.
"Hey, I paid that much money, and all they sent to escort me were three brats?"
Their client, Tazuna, was a scruffy, drunken old man clutching a bottle of liquor. "Especially that girl. She's staring at those two brats like she's lovesick."
"Don't worry. You've got me, an elite jonin, too." Kakashi rested a hand on his hip. "Everyone's here, so let's get going!"
The tall, heavy wooden gates slowly swung outward, pulled by ropes and pulleys, revealing a dense forest growing over muddy ground.
The five of them set out on foot.
Naruto had never ventured beyond the forests outside Konoha Village. Now he was going abroad, and it felt a little like a bird escaping its cage.
As he drank, Tazuna rambled on about how the Land of Waves was an island nation with little farmland and scarce food. Even the daimyo had no money.
People starved to death every day, and there were hardly any street kids left to eat.
The whole country was counting on him to finish the bridge and open up trade with the mainland.
Naruto understood the feeling all too well.
This was the sorrow of the weak: the weak could only beg for mercy from the strong, while the strong had the right to choose whether to show mercy or exploit them.
The paradise his adoptive father had built was the finest realization of mercy for the weak.
The only thing required of them was loyalty.
Suddenly, Naruto sensed killing intent.
It came from a puddle in the middle of the road ahead.
The sun was high, and it hadn't rained the day before. There was obviously an idiot hiding in there.
Naruto walked toward the puddle as if nothing were wrong, while the cells in his body rubbed together, gathering Chakra.
A regular ninja's techniques were divided into Taijutsu and ninjutsu, but Naruto's martial arts made no such distinction. They were like a combination of the two.
In short, he used his wits to direct Chakra and strike without the cumbersome business of forming Hand Seals.
Against sneaky little thieves like these, he just wanted to kill them with one punch. And the best move was the ultimate technique of his adoptive father's lifelong nemesis: the most powerful, most unyielding attack!
"180,000 Volts Power! Whale-Killing! Overlord Fist!"
Naruto twisted his body like a rope. The instant his left leg crossed the puddle, he spun and raised his fist, then slammed it down with devastating force.
It was an incredibly simple, direct punch, seemingly without any technique at all. It crashed into the sharp steel claw lunging from the puddle.
A sickle attached to an iron chain flew out, hooking toward the back of Naruto's neck.
There were two ninjas hiding in the water!
Seeing Naruto face the weapon with his bare fist, Sasuke, who had only reacted after Naruto sprang into action, shouted, "You brute! Pull back!"
He pulled a Kunai from the holster on his pant leg and hurled it at the chain as the sickle reeled back.
Clang!
Metal rang out with a loud crash.
The steel claw and the prosthetic forearm were driven into the masked ninja's upper arm by Naruto's punch.
The blow pierced his shoulder. His bones shattered, and blood and pulp burst everywhere.
The ninja's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, a testament to his excruciating pain. Yet his iron mask swallowed every sound, leaving him mute as a corpse.
Naruto didn't stop moving. He swung his arm back and caught the handle of Sasuke's incoming Kunai, then used it to deflect the sickle and send it spinning into the ground.
Naruto had seized the initiative. The two masked ninjas had no time to gather Chakra or use ninjutsu. They could only face him with brute strength.
In the blink of an eye, one of the two vicious, skulking ninjas lay crippled on the ground, twitching, while the other had lost his weapon and was stumbling backward in panic.
Just then, Kakashi, who had been standing in front of Tazuna, suddenly burst into a wooden log. He'd been using the Substitution Technique to disguise himself all along.
Kakashi's real body appeared behind the retreating ninja. He locked an elbow around his neck and lifted him into the air as easily as a toy claw machine.
The single eye Kakashi turned toward Naruto was full of surprise.
He was the Fourth's student, so of course he knew that Naruto's mother had been from the Uzumaki Clan. Besides their abundant vitality, the clan possessed a gift for sensing.
But the Uzumaki Clan's most obvious feature was their red hair. Naruto had inherited the Fourth's blond hair, yet he had also inherited this special ability.
Kakashi had intended to test Team Seven's ability to respond to an enemy, but Naruto had crushed the ambush with sheer force.
Holding the choking ninja, Kakashi walked over to Tazuna and dropped him down. "They're Chunin from Kirigakure, famous for fighting to the death by any means necessary."
"C-rank missions don't include dealing with ninjas. I think you need to explain why we've run into enemies like these."
Tazuna's expression twisted with conflict. He said nothing.
Crunch!
Naruto stomped on the crippled ninja's head, crushing it like a watermelon and ending his suffering.
"Ugh!" Haruno Sakura threw up loudly, retching so violently it seemed she might cough up a lung.
When Naruto's fight began, she'd imagined his arm being crushed and his head being sliced off by the sickle and rolling away.
She hadn't expected his fists to be so hard, his movements so decisive, or killing to come so easily to him. His eyes hadn't even flickered.
As if he'd killed a hundred people.
"Team, fall back. We're returning to the village." Kakashi saw that Tazuna still wasn't talking. "The village will refund your fee within seven business days."
Team Seven turned around, all except Naruto.
His gaze was filled with compassion—the final gift the strong could offer the weak. "All the money?"
"All of it." The old man nodded as if compelled by magic.
He was sober now—or perhaps he'd never been drunk. Eyes shut, he shouted with all his might, "Don't go! I'll tell you everything!"
"I was afraid to tell you because my enemy is too powerful. You've definitely heard of him." Ignoring the blood all over the ground, Tazuna rushed to Naruto and grabbed his arm. "Gato!"
Naruto said, "Kakashi-sensei! Who's Gato?"
"The chairman of a shipping company, and the fourth-richest man in the world." Kakashi hadn't planned to abandon the mission. He'd just wanted to force the old man to reveal who was really behind this.
"How did you get mixed up with him?"
Tazuna explained his predicament. "Gato controls every port in the Land of Waves. For an island nation, that means he controls everything. That's why I want to build the bridge."
Naruto asked, confused, "What if he blows up the bridge once it's finished?"
Tazuna answered slowly, "I'm afraid of that, too. But building the bridge is our only hope."
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