Cradling his wounded hand, Naruto stared blankly ahead.
"Hey—you weren't hurt, coward?" Sasuke shot him a look edged with something between mockery and amusement.
He was smiling.
During their training, Naruto had consistently edged him out. They'd hit nearly every milestone at the same time, but Naruto's pace was always fractionally faster. Sasuke had never stopped noticing that.
But the Naruto who'd frozen just now—the one who'd thrown out all his hard-won progress—that Naruto had done nothing.
Because "Kakashi died."
"I—"
He'd made up his mind.
And done absolutely nothing.
Hanabi had neutralized both Mist ninja in an instant. Even Sasuke had managed something. But only him.
I couldn't do anything.
I made up my mind, said I wanted to be Hokage—
"Naruto. Their weapons were poisoned. Don't move for now. We'll need to cut the wound and bleed out the toxin."
Kakashi told Naruto to hold still, then dealt with the two Mist ninja before turning his attention to Tazuna.
At the end of the day, this was all because Tazuna had hidden things from them.
"Naruto got poisoned. What do we do?" Sasuke checked with Kakashi, then looked at Hanabi.
Hanabi hadn't said anything, but some instinct born of teamwork made Sasuke feel like she seemed to know something.
"If the mission's actual difficulty exceeds the stated briefing, we have no choice but to turn back," Kakashi pressed, still watching Tazuna.
Shame. Humiliation.
That suffocating feeling of being completely useless.
This is my fault.
Naruto's jaw locked. He yanked out a kunai and drove it into his own left hand—blood welling up hard and fast.
"I'll use this kunai to protect the old man! The mission continues!" He declared it like a vow.
"—My, my." Hanabi gently covered her mouth. "The resolve is admirable, Naruto. But at that rate, you'll bleed out the poison along with enough blood to kill yourself~"
"Guh!" Naruto's face went the color of overripe fruit.
Kakashi shook his head, caught Hanabi's eye, and walked over to bandage Naruto's hand himself.
Hanabi turned to Tazuna. "Tazuna-san—the Land of Waves is nearly out of usable funds, isn't it? Not just your side's funds—the daimyo's coffers are just as empty."
"So you saw through that too…" Tazuna's expression dimmed.
"Bridge construction is a complicated undertaking. But you've only asked us to guard you for about a month—which tells me the bridge is nearly finished. It only needs one final push." Hanabi paused. "Which also means the funds you mobilized to build the bridge are almost completely gone."
"…That's exactly it. Gatō, that bastard—he planned this from the beginning?!" Tazuna's face changed as the pieces fell into place.
Deliver the killing blow right when the bridge was nearly complete.
That was Gatō's merchant style—rotten to the core.
"Gatō? He's the merchant who built a shipping empire practically overnight, isn't he." Kakashi had heard the name before.
"That's him. On the surface he runs a shipping company, but behind the scenes he uses criminal networks and hired ninja to traffic in contraband, seize other companies, and take over entire countries. He's a monster with no line he won't cross. The Land of Waves is one of his victims—he used money and violence to seize control of every sea route to and from the island almost overnight. And the Land of Waves is an archipelago by nature. Control the sea lanes, and you control the country."
Hanabi added: "So the bridge Tazuna-san is building—once it's finished, the Land of Waves can reach other countries without Gatō as a gatekeeper. That was the idea."
"Exactly." Tazuna confirmed.
"Did you consider," Hanabi said, "that the bridge could still be destroyed, even after it's built?"
"He—he wouldn't dare." Tazuna's eyes went wide.
"Why are you assuming he wouldn't?" Hanabi's voice stayed calm. "Don't look at someone like this through the lens of an ordinary person. For merchants like him, once the profit margin clears three hundred percent, they'll trample everything the world holds sacred."
[???] [Old Marx is in the building] [A specter haunts—a specter haunts…] [Mods, ban them!] [Hanabi what are you doing, stop immediately!] [I'm actually crying laughing] [Tazuna is too sweet for this world] [Pure—dangerously pure] [Why did you assume he wouldn't?] [Clearly the Land of Waves folks are genuinely innocent—I half-expected it to be a morality play, but they literally just don't know]
"This mission is nowhere near as simple as a C-rank." Hanabi spoke plainly.
"But I don't have money anymore—not a commoner like me, not even the daimyo can scrape it together now…" Tazuna sighed. He had his own impossible position.
"Not now." Hanabi said. "But not necessarily in the future."
"The future?" Tazuna didn't follow.
"If the bridge gets finished, the Land of Waves gains direct connections to other countries. Better connections mean easier travel. Which means, eventually, the Land of Waves will have the money. Using future customs revenue as collateral—that solves the immediate problem."
[Wait, reverse engineering the finances?] [Is this the East India Company?] [I'm deceased] [Oh—so THIS is where the boomerang lands]
"Is that okay?" Naruto had his bandage on now and had walked over. "Can't we just help Tazuna-san build his bridge?"
"Naruto. Hanabi already said—even if the bridge gets built, it can still be destroyed." Kakashi said. He'd had a blind spot there too, until Hanabi had pointed it out.
"Take out Gatō?" Sasuke offered.
"But what if there's a second one?" Naruto asked, genuinely casual about it—he didn't even know what he'd said. But Sasuke went quiet.
"So. Sign a loan agreement." Hanabi said. "If the Land of Waves can use its future income as security, the Hyuga Clan of Konoha can provide financing. As for the mission's rank—we evaluate based on whatever danger we actually face. No upfront payment required."
"Konoha…" Tazuna blinked, processing.
It took him a few loops to get there.
"Th—thank you, so much!"
"Hanabi, you can't just charge people." Naruto still operated on simpler principles. And hadn't the daimyo's wife already paid them well?
Kakashi let out a slow breath. "Naruto. Hanabi means the loan is between the Land of Waves and the Hyuga Clan. If any other faction decides to come after the Land of Waves, they'll need to think about how Konoha—or at least the Hyuga—would respond."
"To put it plainly," Sasuke translated for Naruto's benefit, "she's using her family's name as a shield around the Land of Waves so no other gang of criminals will bother with it. Idiot."
[I'm Naruto in this scenario] [Okay—a thousand-layer play, and THAT'S what's inside it] [She's expanding her clan's sphere of influence, and it's completely aboveboard] [Wait, doesn't anyone remember Hanabi's conversation with the Third? Was it about this?] [So THIS is the boomerang!] [I'm the clown] [My wife has a kind heart. She can't stand watching people suffer]
With the downstream problem settled, the Demon Brothers looked at Kakashi. "What are you going to do with us?"
"I'm fine either way. Hanabi—what do you think?"
Kakashi had the easy composure of someone stronger. In the original novel, Kakashi had let them go.
Hanabi smiled. "Let them go, of course."
"Is that wise?" Kakashi asked.
"There are more ninja in the area watching us, beyond just these two—so killing them wouldn't accomplish anything." She paused. "Besides, this is the Land of Fire's territory. Mist ninja wouldn't normally operate this far in. Which means you're probably missing-nin, aren't you? Though—I heard Kirigakure had a coup before. I don't think you'd see yourselves as traitors to Kirigakure. Not given what happened."
These men were Zabuza's subordinates.
From Zabuza's perspective, he'd been staging a coup—with every intention of fighting his way back in eventually. He'd never meant to truly defect from the country.
"So I'm far more curious about why you'd work for Gatō." Hanabi's tone was light. "That's genuinely fascinating."
"Gatō—what do you mean?!"
The Demon Brothers flinched. They weren't confused—they were rattled. A possibility had just crystallized in their minds.
"Oh, just a shipping merchant. Nothing special." Hanabi smiled.
"You're really just going to let them walk?" Sasuke still wasn't satisfied.
Kakashi put a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. "Listen carefully. This is a mission—not a blood feud. They came here to do a job. As long as you stop them from completing that job, it's enough."
[Fighting to the death over a paycheck—is it worth it] [Kakashi: I'm actually a pretty chill guy] [Wait—Hanabi's setting this up perfectly. Wasn't the world map shown earlier? The Land of Water is an island nation, huge. Gatō controls the shipping…] [Holy—is Gatō the hidden hand behind all of it?] [No wonder they panicked] [Missing-nin hired as muscle by the secret patron of their own enemy village. That's genuinely miserable] [Perfect. Absolutely perfect] [This is better than killing them]
Hanabi's smile widened.
Whether Gatō was actually a proxy for the Land of Water and Kirigakure—she didn't know.
But he could be.
And even if he wasn't, she could frame it so that he was an unwitting puppet of whoever was.
It didn't matter what the truth was. What mattered was whether the story was compelling.
As Team Seven stepped onto the soil of the Land of Waves, the curtain finally rose.