How much does a person really need? Depends on the person. And on the circumstances. Tazuna, for instance, was overjoyed like a child when he caught sight of familiar land — or rather, familiar waters. All because the escort team he had been assigned was absolutely unhinged, the jonin instructor most of all. The only one who seemed reasonably normal was the girl named Ten-Ten. The pale-eyed genin boy came across as a monster, and the miniature copy of the jonin was essentially indistinguishable from his sensei.
A great deal had happened over those three days. On the first, the architect had nearly died from physical exhaustion. Tazuna was no longer young, and running dozens of kilometers a day was too much for an old man — especially one who had previously led a fairly sedentary lifestyle. On the second day the architect nearly died three times. Once from cardiac arrest and oxygen deprivation — the blasted jonin had no intention of going easy on the client, and all of Tazuna's complaints on the matter were cheerfully ignored. A second time at the hands of a pair of Mist shinobi-for-hire. A third from a concussion — the stone that had accidentally hit him in the head was quite substantial, but Ten-Ten diagnosed only a bruise and no actual concussion, and so when the jonin returned, these monsters had wanted to resume their forced march. But Tazuna, drawing on his recent experience, had requested to be carried on a stretcher, or that something like a palanquin be constructed.
The naive architect had breathed a sigh of relief when the male members of the team began assembling a portable wooden box on two poles. The poles had seemed somewhat short to him, but shinobi knew best how to build these things — they were the ones who had to carry it, after all. The architect thought that now he would surely be able to relax, drink some sake, possibly even doze off in transit. But it was not to be. The moment Tazuna climbed into the palanquin box and pulled out his bottle from his pack, he was immediately launched upward; banging his head painfully on the "ceiling" of the box, the architect had let loose a string of curses at the time — but that had only been the beginning. The next two days turned into sheer hell for Tazuna. He had never suffered from seasickness and had never been motion-sick in boats or carts. Yet this time the team of monsters seemed to be tormenting the poor old man deliberately. The jostling inside the palanquin was of a kind that simply should not have been possible under any circumstances. Peering through the side opening, he had been horrified to discover that they weren't traveling over land at all, but through the air — leaping from branch to branch. He had only learned later that shinobi called this mode of travel "upper path movement." Why poles had been attached to the box at all if each shinobi carried it individually, taking turns, Tazuna couldn't fathom. Why they couldn't simply run along the ground was equally beyond him. Not only had his body acquired a generous collection of bruises and scrapes from this mode of transport, but rest stops in this regimen were not scheduled every few hours but once every eight.
"Thank Kami," said the pale-green architect, dropping to his knees. "I'm almost home. Just a little bit further…" he whispered. Tears stood in his eyes. But beneath his hat, no one noticed.
Three days of hell. Three! On the morning of the fourth, the ordeal was over. Wiping his eyes beneath his glasses and blinking, Tazuna raised his head and looked around.
The Nami Strait, separating the mainland from his homeland, was bathed in the light of the rising sun. The strip of sky near the water's surface seemed to have been painted orange, the rays of the golden sun fanning upward and dissolving into the clouds. A couple of moments later, the distant cries of seagulls became audible.
"It's beautiful," Ten-Ten said, taking in the view. "You don't see sunrises like this in Konoha."
"This dawn is just as beautiful… as our Dawn of Youth!" Gai declared, spreading his signature smile. His student only gave an enthusiastic nod at his sensei's words.
"I hate to interrupt the appreciation of beauty," Neji said coldly, stepping slightly forward, "but we have a mission. We'll cross the strait on foot — and the architect is transported in the box again?"
"No, no, no!" Tazuna protested, rising to his full height. "No more boxes. And besides, you treat clients terribly. I'm covered in bruises and scrapes from your method of transportation. I demand material compensation for the moral and physical damage I have sustained through—"
The architect stopped mid-sentence. Neji had spun around sharply, and the activated Byakugan was now fixed on him, which caused the rest of the man's words to stick in his throat.
"Did you say something?" the Hyuuga frowned. The veins around his eyes seemed to swell even further.
"N-no," Tazuna rasped.
Hyuuga snorted, but his Dojutsu remained active, his gaze studying the man in front of him intently.
"Bear in mind that deceiving shinobi regarding the content and nature of an assignment is effectively a violation of the law. Withholding mission details is equivalent to deception. Do you know what the penalty for deception is?"
The architect went even paler than before, his hands trembling involuntarily:
"N-no… I d-don't…"
The Hyuuga paused, holding the client in a stern gaze — then suddenly deactivated his Byakugan and turned away from the architect.
"Neither do I," the genin said grimly. "But keep in mind: the fact that we agreed to see this mission through is purely our choice. We could have abandoned you and refused such a client. But we are here. And we will see our mission through to the end…"
"In the name of the Power of Youth!" Lee shouted. "Four days remain. We'll complete the mission in a week! Actually, no — we can finish it even sooner. In five days. No… in four days! Definitely!"
"Lee!" tears welled in Gai's eyes. "That's the spirit. That's my teaching!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"Lee!"
"Gai-sensei!.."
Neji could only shake his head at this profound dialogue between the jonin and his genin. When teacher and student embraced tightly, weeping like small children, Ten-Ten tiredly rolled her eyes.
"Quite large," Ten-Ten said in surprise, studying the unfinished bridge. Only the general outlines were visible through the mist, but even so the structure's sheer scale was striking. Though it wasn't particularly wide, its powerful rounded columns supported the span, elevating the upper portion of the bridge nearly fifteen meters above sea level.
"So you have the money for something this massive. But when it comes to ordering an A-rank mission — suddenly the Land of Waves is poor…" Neji muttered in displeasure.
Tazuna only dropped his shoulders and hid his nervous gaze beneath his onion-shaped hat. He chose not to respond to the genin, pretending not to have heard.
"These stone blocks must be quite heavy," Gai scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I think hauling blocks like these would make excellent training."
"Yes, Sensei!" Lee exclaimed with enthusiasm. "In the name of the Power of—"
"Would you keep quiet," the boatman fussed. "I told you, no noise. Why do you think we're moving like this, engine off, on oars?.. So as not to draw attention, so we won't be noticed."
Rock Lee nodded frantically at the ferryman's words and assumed the most serious expression he was capable of. Ten-Ten nearly laughed at the sight. But when she noticed Neji's tense expression and his activated Byakugan, the smile quickly faded from her face:
"What's wrong?"
"They moved out of my range," Neji began, scanning the surroundings. "But there were four of them. One jonin and three chunin, from the looks of it."
Ten-Ten looked at her instructor.
Gai's face was calm, but his thick brows were slightly furrowed. The jonin didn't deliberate long, then outlined his plan:
"We disembark and head for the target's home. If we're attacked — Lee and I will draw them off and handle them. Neji and Ten-Ten, you're on client protection. Everyone clear?…"
"Yes, Sensei," the trio said quietly but clearly.
About ten minutes later the boat passed through a stone tunnel, and five minutes after that everyone disembarked on a small wooden pier near a dense stand of reeds.
"Well, my part is done," the boatman said. "Goodbye and good luck to you."
Despite the early hour and the not particularly warm weather, the young man was covered in perspiration. This struck Neji as suspicious, so when everyone had said their goodbyes, the genin fell back from the main group and watched the ferryman for a moment. The man reached for the boat's engine.
"Start that engine and I will kill you, ferryman. Do you understand me?"
The engine's noise would significantly compromise their concealment. And although there was no reason to expect a sudden attack from the hired men, he still had no desire for their location and arrival time to be so easily calculated.
The young man's hand froze halfway to its destination, then he swallowed audibly and turned toward the Hyuuga. Upon seeing the swollen veins around the genin's eyes — and the eyes themselves, lacking pupils, to which the ferryman had previously paid no attention — the young man rolled his eyes and fainted. Examining the body lying in the boat, Neji curled his lip in contempt.
"A fake," he muttered. The Byakugan couldn't be fooled — every process in the ferryman's body was nothing like that of a person who had lost consciousness. His rapidly accelerating heartbeat gave him away above all else.
Dismissing the hapless ferryman, Neji moved to rejoin his team. A dozen breaths later the sound of a motor reached them, and turning around, Gai's team watched the ferryman making his escape at full speed.
"Saitama, now is not the time to mess around," Anko was starting to boil. "We're on a mission. Keep your jokes to yourself."
The young man and the girl were almost at the Land of Waves. Only the strait remained to cross, and they would be there. Mitarashi wasn't certain Gai's team even needed help, but an order was an order, so the mission would be completed. Except that certain circumstances had brought the Special Jonin pair to a halt.
"What are you on about?" the bald man said in confusion. "What do you mean, walk on water?"
Anko exhaled slowly and began to explain:
"You're a shinobi. Any adult shinobi knows how to walk on vertical surfaces and on water using chakra…" seeing the blank look in the bald man's eyes, Mitarashi continued: "You were watching Naruto train, weren't you? Remember how he walked on trees and on water?"
"That's…" Saitama scratched his chin, trying to dig out the relevant memory. "I recall something like that. What about it? I'm not a shinobi, though. Why would I need to walk on water? Isn't it easier to just swim?"
The kunoichi clenched her teeth, lowering her head. She was starting to shake with irritation. She had long since come to terms with the fact that Saitama played the role of a dimwitted, useless idiot. But not on a mission, surely?! How was she supposed to get through to this blockhead?
The girl spun around and kicked the young man in his bald head. Her leg, however, might as well have struck a steel beam, and Saitama continued to stand exactly where he was, scratching his head in puzzlement:
"Why are you hitting me? Want to spar? We haven't eaten yet. Let's eat, then we can spar."
"Saitama!" Anko hissed, pointing a finger at the headband tied around the bald young man's neck. "You are a shinobi. Act like one…"
Over the next few minutes the kunoichi proceeded to give Saitama a thorough dressing-down for his unbecoming behavior and for playing the fool on his first serious mission. She also enumerated what she considered unbecoming behavior, reminded the young man of great shinobi like Hashirama and Madara. Then she moved on to how at any moment they might be attacked, and Saitama wouldn't take their enemies seriously and might even get himself killed through his own carelessness — or put his partner, meaning her, at risk. She talked about the Hokage and the Will of Fire. About supporting each other, and a great deal more besides.
By the first minute, the bald man was listening to the kunoichi in silence. By the second he had gotten bored and started counting birds flying past in the sky, yawning periodically. By the third his eye had begun to twitch and he was growing genuinely tired of the volume of verbal outpouring directed at him. So it was little surprise that after a while he simply couldn't take it anymore:
"Alright, that's enough already! Can you make it shorter?! Give me ten words and explain the actual problem."
Anko puffed up and, turning away, walked with confidence toward the water's edge:
"Stop playing the fool. Follow me. We don't have much time."
"Well," Saitama scratched the back of his head, "you could have just said that."
Mitarashi only snorted; running chakra through her feet, she walked out onto the water, deciding to ignore the bald shinobi's words. However, a sudden "blub-blub" from behind made the kunoichi turn around.
Saitama was following her with a brisk stride. The trouble was that he was already… waist-deep in the water. Anko nearly sank into the lake up to her neck in shock, but pulling herself together, she asked:
"So you weren't joking? You genuinely don't know how to walk on water?"
"Anko, why on earth would I joke?" Saitama said in bewilderment, coming to a stop. "We're on a mission. They're even paying me for it."
Mitarashi's eye twitched. She had never encountered an SS-rank shinobi who lacked basic skills. Where had he crawled out from? Only Naruto or other clueless children could believe that nonsense about a hero from another world. And how were they supposed to cross to the Land of Waves? They could have arranged passage with a ferryman, but that would take too long. The distance wasn't large enough to justify not covering it by water the way shinobi normally did.
"Don't look at me like that," Saitama said.
"Like what?" Anko was pulled from her thoughts.
"Like I owe you money," the young man said gruffly.
Anko snorted, but a moment later forced a strained smile:
"I'm not sure about the money, but you'll definitely owe me something."
The girl approached Saitama and, crouching down, offered him her hand. The bald man's response was an extremely wary look in her direction. He had no desire to be in anyone's debt. What if they demanded money in return?
"Oh, damn it!.. Phew, Saitama, phew, I hate you…"
"What for now?"
"You're, phew, too heavy…"
Anko was carrying the bald hero piggyback. She was running across the strait at a fairly quick pace. For the girl, this particular "stroll" with the bald man on her back turned out to be quite the ordeal — a kind of training not far removed from Gai's "Power of Youth" sessions. The chakra expenditure was incomparably greater than if she had been running alone.
The jonin pair had almost crossed the entire Nami Strait. The unfinished bridge was visible to their right. The shore was within reach.
"You make a fairly comfortable horse, actually — soft," Saitama drawled, watching the risen sun.
Anko flushed crimson and ground her teeth:
"I will drop you right now…"
"Doesn't bother me. I suggested from the start that I could swim alongside you. You're the one making such a fuss. Why?" the bald man didn't understand.
"You'd swim too slowly — it's faster to carry you," Mitarashi explained with displeasure.
"Hm…" Saitama pondered. "Or maybe you just like it?…"
"Shut up!"
Earlier, before boarding the boat, Gai and his student had removed and sealed their weights so the frail vessel wouldn't sink under the load. Once Team Three and the client were back on solid ground, the green duo had wanted to put the additional weight back on and continue their passive training. But Neji had managed to talk his sensei and teammate out of it with a compelling argument — in the form of one enemy jonin and three chunin that Hyuuga had detected during one of his terrain scans. The argument did actually work, though the genin had initially doubted he would manage to talk these green beasts out of anything.
"We don't know how many more there are," Neji said quietly. "This group of four hired men may not be the only shinobi present…"
"We'll read the situation as it unfolds," Gai said without breaking stride. "For now we proceed with the plan."
The five of them moved unhurriedly at a walking pace, so as not to walk into a trap if things went sideways. Neji periodically activated his Dojutsu and scouted the terrain, but the hired men kept hovering at the periphery before moving out of Byakugan range for a time.
The air in the Land of Waves was humid, making it slightly difficult for the genin to breathe until they got accustomed to it. The ground was damp as well. Despite the relative lack of clouds and the frequent appearance of the sun warming the earth, a light mist was visible in the forest. Given that midday was only a couple of hours away, this struck Hyuuga as somewhat unusual.
"Artificial mist," Neji frowned, studying the vapor. "Sensei, someone is already waiting for us," he addressed his instructor.
Gai said nothing. He came to a halt for a moment and signaled everyone to stop; the genin immediately complied, and Neji and Ten-Ten moved even closer to the architect. For about a minute they stood motionless like stone statues. Tazuna even held his breath.
The jonin's thick brows were furrowed throughout, as though he was listening for something.
"Get down!" Maito barked. Even the birds startled and took flight from their perches at his shout.
Whoosh.
Simultaneously with the jonin's cry came the sound of something cutting through the air. The genin instantly carried out their commander's order, and Neji knocked Tazuna flat, pressing the latter's head into the ground. The architect groaned at the treatment but chose not to complain, since his mouth was now full of damp earth mixed with humus.
Maito sprang to his feet, ready for battle. Lee followed his teacher's example, while the other team members lifted the spitting client and began slowly moving him aside.
A two-meter cleaver had just swept over their heads and embedded itself in a tree. On that cleaver a man now appeared, standing sideways to Team Three — bare, wiry torso, bandaged mask, and a Kirigakure headband as his main distinguishing features.
"Maito Gai, the Green Beast of Konoha, correct?" the stranger began in a raspy voice. "No wonder the Demon Brothers failed…"
"And you are?" the thick-browed jonin frowned. "Is that your idea of a greeting?" Maito nodded toward the sword that had almost just taken their heads off.
"You could say that," the shinobi smirked under his mask. "I am the Demon of the Hidden Mist, Momochi Zabuza. Surely you remember me…"
"First time I've heard the name," Gai shook his head, cutting his opponent off. "We have a mission, so say what you want quickly and we'll be on our way."
The man who had called himself Zabuza gave a quiet laugh:
"How short your memory is, Green Beast…"
"Sensei, three in ambush at three o'clock!" Neji cut off the Mist shinobi.
The masked man looked over the genin with the Byakugan and narrowed his eyes.
"A Hyuuga… What an inconvenient genin," he made a dismissive wave of his hand.
A couple of moments later three chunin with Mist headbands appeared in front of him. They looked alike, with utterly unremarkable faces — the kind you'd see and forget within minutes. Their identical uniforms with pale gray vests only emphasized the resemblance. Unlike the Demon Brothers, these chunin wore no mask respirators. Landing beneath their commander, they froze in low stances, ready to spring at any moment. Each held a tantō.
Zabuza dropped to the ground, deftly yanking the embedded cleaver from the tree. Touching down, he swung the blade up onto his shoulder and said:
"That old man is ours. Step aside — or you all die."
Oh damn… my head hurts so much. That was the Uchiha's first thought upon waking.
Opening his eyes, he squinted against the bright light that struck them. He felt nauseated, his thoughts were muddled. The last thing he remembered was the D-rank weeding mission, and then — thinking about why Naruto had gotten so strong and changed in such a short span of time. After that he had apparently proposed a spar to the blond. And then nothing. A blank. Occasional fantastical images surfaced, but he couldn't make sense of them.
Sasuke tried to sit up, but the slightest movement sent a sharp pain shooting through his skull. He carefully brought a hand to his head.
Bandaged? But when did I get injured?
Could it be that the spar had happened and Naruto had beaten him? But why couldn't he remember the details? How was that possible?
The Uchiha slowly looked around. It was logical to assume he was in the hospital, lying in a hospital bed. Based on the symptoms he had a concussion. How long he had been here, Sasuke had no idea. Judging by the sun, it was morning. So at least a day had passed, possibly more.
What did that idiot hit me with?
The door to the room opened, and in walked…
Sakura? What is she doing here? Though…
Knowing Haruno — or more precisely, her attachment to the brunette — seeing the girl here was no surprise. She had clearly been worried. The pink-haired kunoichi was, after all, completely head over heels for the Uchiha.
"Sasuke-kun, you've woken up," the girl said, going slightly pink.
The brunette snorted. Turning his head away sharply, he nearly cried out from the pain that shot through it.
"Careful," Haruno said with concern, moving closer to the bed. "You shouldn't make sudden movements…"
"What are you doing here?" Sasuke asked darkly.
Sakura's reaction was strange. She smiled sadly, as though remembering something.
"What's the last thing you remember?" she asked.
Sasuke snorted again, but didn't shake his head this time — and actually answered honestly: that he remembered almost nothing about the time leading up to the spar.
"Naruto-baka," Sakura fumed, clenching her fists. "Can't that idiot judge the force of his own strikes? Typical — all brawn, no brain…"
She grumbled for a little while longer, but after a couple of minutes spent cataloguing Uzumaki's numerous failings, she finally told Sasuke what had happened on Training Ground 66.
And what had happened was this. Naruto had brought them to the training ground and demonstrated his true capabilities. First he had shown how he trained and what techniques he possessed. Clones, sparring between clones, ninjutsu drilling. As the kunoichi told the story, the images Sasuke had previously dismissed as fantastical gradually began to take shape. He was starting to remember some things, but it all remained as though through fog, memories surfacing with great difficulty.
The spar between the blond and Sasuke, according to Sakura, hadn't lasted more than a couple of moments. The moment the Uchiha approached Naruto, he had immediately gone flying from a counter-strike. The actual blow from Naruto… Sasuke, unfortunately, couldn't remember it. But Haruno said she hadn't even been able to process what had happened. One strike from Uzumaki, and Sasuke was unconscious ten paces away. That was the training bout.
After the spar, Naruto had rushed to the brunette's body, checked Sasuke's pulse, then examined his eyes by lifting the eyelids, and after that — hoisting the brunette onto his shoulder — had hurried to the hospital. Sakura hadn't been able to keep up with him, as Naruto had been far too fast, but the girl had arrived later, and as a teammate she had been allowed to visit the Uchiha occasionally.
Incidentally, Sasuke had been out for two days. During that time the medical ninja had patched him up, and the boy's health was now no longer at risk.
Sasuke clenched his fists.
Beyond comprehension. When had Naruto managed to get this strong? Was it all because of his teacher? Then the Uchiha needed, by any means necessary, to get into this Saitama's good graces — learn more about him from Naruto, and then try to ask to be taken on as a student. The gap between himself and Uzumaki had turned out to be enormous, and at first Sasuke had berated himself for his weakness, feeling his own inadequacy as a shinobi. But thinking it through carefully, he concluded that this state of affairs actually worked in his favor. He had found a worthy rival to catch up to — and ideally surpass. After all, for his revenge against his brother, Sasuke had to become far stronger. And the opportunity to take as an instructor someone who was capable of turning even an idiot like Uzumaki into a monster — that was worth a great deal.
"You know, Sasuke," Sakura interrupted the brunette's thoughts, "I signed up for medical ninjutsu courses."
Sasuke didn't immediately register what Haruno had said.
"Back on the training ground," she continued, "when I saw Naruto's real abilities — and then you lying unconscious… I understood that I'm useless. Of our team, I'm the weakest. So, in order to be useful to you both, it would be better if Team Seven had a medical ninja. I don't know what rank I'll be able to reach, but I like medical ninjutsu…"
Sakura fell quiet for a moment. Her cheeks went pink.
"And also… I like… I mean…" she hesitated. "I like you…"
Sasuke raised a questioning eyebrow — though beneath the bandages it wasn't particularly visible. The girl flushed even more deeply:
"I… I don't want you to die. That's why I'm becoming a medical ninja!" Haruno blurted in a single breath, dropping her gaze.
She had most likely wanted to say something slightly different, but the Uchiha understood her and simply gave a slow nod, his thoughts already returning to Uzumaki. Sasuke needed to get stronger — he had no concern for the feelings of this weak girl. He only accepted equals.
Or those who were stronger. He had accepted Uzumaki.
Someday I will surpass you, Naruto. And I will settle things with Itachi. But before that… my immediate goal is Saitama. My goal is to become his student…