Chapter 57: Kakashi Finally Realizes—Damn, I Was Careless!
A few more days passed.
It had already been two days since they safely escorted Tazuna back home.
Just as Tazuna had said,
he had a beautiful daughter and a young grandson.
But that had nothing to do with the hired workers.
Back to Kakashi's side.
Ever since they encountered assassins from another village on the road
and witnessed the huge gap in strength—
the slightest carelessness could get them killed.
Now Team 7 was like they had eaten Li Ming's stolen seasoning—
bursting with energy.
They trained day and night without rest!
Sakura wanted to catch up to Naruto's pace.
She knew it was an extremely difficult path.
She might walk it to the end
and still never catch up.
But if she didn't try at all,
she might not even see Naruto's back anymore.
Sasuke pushed himself even harder than before.
Especially after seeing Naruto's performance in that battle a few days ago.
It stimulated him constantly!
One day, when he suddenly snapped out of it,
he realized the gap between him and Naruto was unimaginably vast.
That guy had been the dead-last just half a month ago!
Sasuke couldn't accept such a massive disparity!
Today's training continued as usual.
How to use chakra to move quickly through the forest.
And how to precisely control chakra to walk on the lake surface.
As Team 7's teacher, Kakashi saw how serious his students were
and taught with genuine enthusiasm.
Of course—except for Naruto.
The whole team was serious…
Because Kakashi had discovered an awkward problem.
It seemed… he didn't really need to teach much.
Naruto had already mastered all the basics!
And he used them even more proficiently than Kakashi—an elite jonin!
Honestly, it was pretty embarrassing.
"Alright, everyone—take a break."
Kakashi clapped his hands, speaking to Sakura and Sasuke who were still practicing.
The two had gotten up at five or six in the morning
and trained straight until noon.
They still refused to stop.
This was a good thing.
But pushing too hard for too long would lead to exhaustion.
Rest when it's time to rest.
Balance work and rest.
"Kakashi-sensei—I'm not tired."
Sakura wiped the bean-sized sweat beads from her forehead with the back of her hand.
Sasuke said nothing and kept practicing his kunai accuracy!
Kakashi's eyelid twitched slightly.
Fine—let them rest when they're actually tired.
He'd find a spot to read.
Learning makes me happy every day.
He had just lifted his foot when a scene suddenly flashed in Kakashi's mind!
Like a burst of inspiration!
He remembered something.
In an instant, his expression turned extremely ugly.
"That damn bastard!"
"Tch… he got away. I should've checked more carefully. I was careless!"
Seeing Kakashi's unusual reaction,
Sakura and Sasuke stopped.
Naruto wasn't surprised at all.
Kakashi wasn't an idiot.
Given enough time,
he was bound to notice something was wrong.
Sakura walked over, taking the chance to rest a bit.
But compared to resting,
she was far more concerned about Kakashi's reaction.
"Kakashi-sensei—what's wrong?"
Kakashi raised an eyebrow and said gravely:
"I think we were tricked by that tracker ninja from the Hidden Mist!"
"Huh??? No way?"
"Zabuza shouldn't have died that easily. Even in a sneak attack, I believe he could've blocked those few senbon!"
"And there's one major suspicious point!"
"I remember Hidden Mist tracker ninjas usually destroy the body on the spot—cut off the head and take that back."
"Compared to carrying the whole corpse, a head is much more convenient!"
"To prove the target is dead, a head is the easiest proof!"
By the end,
Kakashi's tone carried clear anger.
What happened to the most basic trust between ninjas?
If there wasn't even that,
what was there to talk about in the ninja life and ideals?!
Damn it—so unlucky!
Good grief!
Best not let me run into you again.
Otherwise—you're done for.
Kakashi was furious inside!
Being played like this felt terrible.
In the past, it was always Kakashi playing others—nobody dared play him.
Now some guy had toyed with his trust.
Right in front of his three cute students.
If there weren't people around,
Kakashi might have let it slide.
Chalk it up to ninja world deception—plenty of examples.
But the guy didn't even give him that much face!
Sorry—you're finished!
"Ah?! Then what do we do?"
Sakura covered her small mouth in shock.
She had thought Zabuza was dead.
These past few days she had slept soundly.
But now Kakashi was saying Zabuza wasn't dead—
and that he was working with that Hidden Mist tracker ninja.
Sakura's mentality collapsed.
What if… what if that masked pervert came back to cause trouble?
What if he targeted her?
She wasn't Naruto.
She had zero chance of winning against Zabuza alone.
Kakashi smiled.
"What else? You two keep training. Get some self-defense ability first!"
"If your strength is lacking, once you're outside the village's protection, be ready to die at any moment."
"Train hard!"
Sakura's pretty face crumpled completely.
"Ah… this…"
"Kakashi-sensei—even if we train as hard as we can, we can't possibly beat Zabuza, right?"
As she spoke,
Sakura subtly glanced toward Naruto, who was resting under a tree with his eyes closed.
She hoped Naruto would say something.
Best-case scenario: let her move next door to Naruto.
That way she'd have protection.
Even… share a room…
Sakura's face flushed instantly.
For some reason, dirty thoughts popped into her head.
She was willing.
But Naruto would never agree.
Still—she knew that in her heart.
She could only fantasize.
Kakashi said seriously:
"You don't need to worry about that. Your current mission is to train hard."
At that moment Sasuke suddenly spoke.
"That Gato guy…"
Kakashi remembered this matter.
"Since we accepted this mission, it means we've indirectly declared war on him."
"Things are a bit tricky, but not impossible."
"Whatever—talking about it now is useless. Rest's over—back to training."
With that, Kakashi waved his hand.
He pulled out his ever-present "spiritual food" (Jiraiya-sensei's personal autobiography)
and left in three quick steps.
Very fast.
Kakashi's personality had always been "deal with trouble when it comes."
If he had free time to think about random things,
wouldn't reading be better?
Back to Naruto resting under the tree.
He wasn't just cooling off.
He was using his mind to control the puppet shadow clone.
Gotta say—
the system-rewarded puppet shadow clone was really useful!
With this ninjutsu,
whether for combat,
tracking, assassination, etc.—
it was like adding wings to a tiger!
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