On the sea off the Land of Waves.
The gentle splashing of the sea reached their ears, then gradually faded away.
The boatman rowed the six of them beneath a bridge and stopped by the shore.
They still had to make their way to Tazuna's house.
Several days had passed since the Demon Brothers' attack.
Luo Mang and the others had spent most of those days chatting and shooting the breeze.
Occasionally, they listened to Tazuna explain just how powerful the man targeting him was. If they failed to finish the bridge, the exploitation would never end.
Tazuna had even brought up his grandson, playing on their sympathy to strengthen their resolve to help him.
Frankly, he was lucky they were Konoha ninja-or, more specifically, that the ninja in charge happened to be Kakashi. Ninja from other villages probably would have ignored him. They might even have stabbed him with a couple of kunai.
They reached the edge of the forest.
Naruto stopped pestering Sasuke and came over to Luo Mang instead.
"Bro Mang, you're amazing! Could you teach me?"
"I want to learn Water Release too."
Luo Mang froze at that. With Naruto's chakra reserves, it probably shouldn't be called Water Release, but Sea Release. He had as much as Tobirama, perhaps even more.
While Luo Mang's thoughts wandered, Sasuke suddenly spoke up beside him.
"Idiot. You can't learn ninjutsu just because you want to. How do you even know you have a water affinity?"
"Huh?"
Naruto instantly deflated at those words. With a drawn-out groan, he turned toward Kakashi.
"Kakashi-sensei, how do I find out what my chakra nature is?"
Kakashi turned his head to look at Naruto.
"There's special paper for testing that. Inject chakra into it, and its reaction will tell you quite clearly."
"I have