Tazuna, Sakura, and Shorai did not return to the house immediately. The old carpenter insisted on navigating the winding, narrow streets of the island's primary town to forage for whatever supplies remained in the local markets.
As they strolled, Shorai watched the passing scenery with a detached, clinical eye. The houses were dull—grey timber weathered by salt air and neglect. The citizens moved with heavy, rhythmic steps, their clothes tattered and faces etched with a peculiar kind of exhaustion.
When they turned the corner into the central market, Sakura's breath hitched. The trader's stalls were skeletal. Most were empty; others displayed only wilted roots or dented tin wares. Tazuna approached a vendor, haggling with a grimace for a few heels of leftover bread, then moved to the next stall to secure the final, solitary vegetable on display.
"This is horrible..." Sakura finally whispered, her hands clutching the straps of her pack.
"Tribalism," Shorai commented, his voice flat. "The law of the jungle. When the weak cannot band together to offer resistance, the strong simply enforce their will until there is nothing left to take. You're looking at the end result of unchecked exploitation."
"But... how can they live like this?" Sakura asked, her green eyes shimmering with rising moisture.
"This is why I want a brighter future for our nation," Tazuna replied, sighing as he tucked the bread away. "The bridge is everyone's dream, Sakura-chan. If it fails, there is truly nothing left for us."
Shorai turned to the bridge-builder. "Tazuna-san, you have a governing figure. A Daimyo. Yet the palace enjoys its comforts while you spend your personal savings to build a bridge. You people have fallen into a state of 'learned helplessness.' You live under a ruler you didn't choose, and your conditions deteriorate, yet you pay taxes. Do you even know what those taxes buy? Protection? Infrastructure?"
"Shorai-kun..." Sakura warned, glancing around nervously.
"Kid, it's not that simple," Tazuna snapped, though his shoulders sagged. "Gato has the money. He has the ships. Our ruler tries, but without a military..."
"He made a pact with a demon to save his own skin," Shorai concluded. "And because you have no military strength, Gato realized he didn't need to be a partner. He could be a god."
A strange squeak from Sakura interrupted them. Shorai turned to see a small boy with disheveled hair staring at her. He didn't look like a beggar; his expression was one of cold, silent demand.
Sakura's face softened. She reached into her bag and pulled out one of her white sliced baps, handing it to him.
"Give him another one, Sakura-chan," Shorai said softly. He gestured toward the shadows of a nearby alley, where a second child sat, watching the exchange with hollow eyes.
Sakura followed his gaze and wordlessly handed over a second portion.
"You will see more of this," Tazuna muttered, his voice thick with shame. "People get used to the hunger."
As they reached the edge of the city, the heavy silence was shattered by the sound of scuffling and shouting.
"Get him! Don't let the brat run!"
Shorai's pulse-sensory web flared. He caught two flickering dots of chakra—weak, unrefined, but hostile.
"I-Inari!" Tazuna shouted.
A young boy in a striped hat burst from the tree line, clutching something to his chest. Behind him, two of Gato's thugs—armed with katanas and wearing the arrogant smirks of men who knew no one would stop them—closed the gap.
Inari lunged into his grandfather's embrace, trembling.
Shorai exhaled, stepping forward. The air around him seemed to hum. In a sudden gust of wind accompanied by a sharp, static crackle, he vanished.
Woosh.
In a white flash, Shorai materialized between the thugs and the cowering family.
"Do you want to die, brat?" the lead thug roared, unsheathing his blade. He was a mountain of meat with a dragon tattoo snaking up his arm.
"He is under Konoha's protection," Shorai said. He didn't draw a weapon. Instead, he unleashed a pulse of Yin-Release intent. It wasn't a genjutsu, but a raw projection of killing intent so dense it felt like a physical weight.
The thugs froze, their skin turning ashen. Shorai's hair began to lift, static dancing between the strands as a low wind swirled at his feet.
"Y-you don't scare us, freak!" The dragon-tattooed man charged.
He was too slow. To Shorai, the man moved as if through molasses. Shorai took a single, frictionless step.
Pah!
A palm strike, reinforced by a localized expulsion of chakra, slammed into the thug's sternum. The man didn't just fall; he was launched, skipping across the dirt and disappearing into the dense brush thirty meters away.
Shorai turned his turquoise gaze to the second man. "Scram. Maybe your friend is still breathing. Maybe he isn't."
"T-thank you! Please!" the partner shrieked, dropping his hat and sprinting for his life.
Shorai deactivated the effect, the wind settling instantly. He walked back to the group, his expression once again one of calm, bored indifference.
"That was... incredible," Tazuna whispered, clutching Inari.
"That move... it was so fast, Shorai-kun! And the sparks?" Sakura blinked, still trying to reconcile the Academy student she knew with the lethal operative she had just seen.
"Just inherent power I've been refining," Shorai replied, looking curiously at the boy.
"Ah! That's my grandson, Inari!" Tazuna said, standing up with a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Greet our saviors..."
"Hmph. They won't survive for long, Grandpa!" Inari snapped, his face hardened.
Shorai studied him for a moment, then crouched down to meet his gaze. "Maybe. Inari, right? We're the shinobi your grandfather called to protect your dream. Listen, Inari. We aren't heroes—our hands are often tied by politics—but we won't let your efforts go to waste. We're already putting our lives on the line."
Shorai paused, his eyes glowing with a strange intensity. "An outsider can only do so much. To change your reality, the willingness must come from within. We are the hand reaching into the water to lift you out, but you have to be the one to grasp it."
He rose, gesturing toward the path. "Our comrade, Naruto... he is the perfect example of that. You should talk to him."
Shorai's calm confidence cast a quiet shadow over them. "Let's go back."
"R-right!" Tazuna said with a smile, and the group headed back.
On the way, they learned that Inari had been hiding for the past day at a carpenter's friend's house in the city. Gato's men had apparently tried to catch him for blackmail.
"Inari! Where—" Tsunami's voice, equal parts concern and authority, stopped as the boy rushed into her arms.
"He was in hiding, Tsunami. Don't be too hard on him," Tazuna said, defending him.
——
Later that evening, while Shorai assisted Tsunami with the cooking, he noticed her eyeing his tactical gear.
"Shorai-kun?" she asked softly. "Your clothes... they are so beautiful. The patterns... I've never seen anything like them."
"They're from a shop in Konoha called 'Heavenly Lotus,'" Shorai replied.
"Oh! I've always had a hobby for tailoring," Tsunami admitted, a shy smile lighting up her face. "The way the fabric flows... it's masterwork."
"I could share some design sketches with you," Shorai offered casually. "I'm in business relations with the owner."
Sakura, who was washing vegetables nearby, perked up. "W-what? Business relations?"
Shorai realized his slip. He rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling. "Well... I'm a model for them. The 'Heavenly Prince' in the magazines? That's a Henge-masked version of me."
Sakura's explosion was nearly as loud as the Great Waterfall Jutsu.
"YOU?! EVERY GIRL IN KONOHA IS DYING TO KNOW WHO THAT IS! AND WE'VE BEEN SHARING THE SAME CLASS FOR YEARS?!"
"I prefer my privacy, Sakura," Shorai said with a sly smirk. "Ino was the only one perceptive enough to figure it out."
"I... I... You..." Sakura pointed at the white-haired boy, still too stunned to form a complete sentence.
Tsunami laughed softly, watching the exchange between them. "I'd be very happy with even a crude sketch."
"Then I'll give you a couple of my design ideas. Maybe you'll like them." Shorai smiled.
Sakura froze so completely that even the carrot in her hand slipped to the floor.
"You're... the Heavenly Prince?"
She pointed at him with one shaking finger, then at herself, then at him again, as if the logic of it had broken somewhere along the way.
"The one from Konoha's magazines?"
"Yes," Shorai said.
Sakura made a strangled sound and went rigid all over again.
Just then, Tsunami's voice brought them back to reality.
"Well... you two need time to talk about that. If you aren't going to help me, then do that."
"Eh?" Both returned to the ingredients. "Y-yes, ma'am!"
The conversation ended there for the moment, as they returned to preparing dinner.
——
Late that night, after a brief medical check-up on a recovering Kakashi, Shorai met the Jonin in the woods. Kakashi was leaning on his crutch, his eye sharp.
"That move you used to save the boys earlier," Kakashi began. "The flash and the chirping sound. That wasn't a standard Academy trick."
Shorai nodded. He placed a sound-proof barrier around them. "I trust you, Kakashi-san. It's a combination of Lightning and Wind. I call it Swift Release."
Kakashi's eye widened. "A dual-element Kekkei Genkai? At your age? No wonder the Hokage is keeping you in the shadows."
"I'm honing the vibration of the Lightning and the molecular direction of the Wind," Shorai explained. "I've developed two applications."
He looked at his hand, where the leather lotus bracelet Ino gave him sat securely.
"The movement is Shadowless Flight," Shorai announced, his voice carrying the weight of a new legend. "And the weaponized version... the one that blinded Zabuza's clone..."
He smiled into the darkness.
"That is Swift Release: Blinding Flight."