AN:
If we hit 80 power stones in 24h I will publish another chapter so Good luck guys ;)
The man's eyes widened as he flew towards him with the tantō in hand, but before he could cry out in alarm, Naruto slid the blade across the front of his neck.
A stream of red spurted out, spraying his face with warm blood. With a gurgle, the man fell to the ground.
...
That made it the second time he'd seen someone die. However, while he'd been gawking the first time, there was a strange clarity in his head now that made it possible for Naruto to wipe the tantō on his pants before returning it to his back.
Picking up the scroll that the man had been carrying, he looked around for the remaining bandit.
Spotting the tell-tale rags getting rapidly farther away, Naruto jumped up the sides of a tree. Feeding extra chakra down to his feet, his leaps between each tree grew stronger and longer, and with his shadow clone slowing the bandit down, he soon closed the distance.
Naruto could see the man from up close now; like the others, he was not wearing any identifying hitai-ate. The bandit's age was inscrutable, though the face was scruffy with stubble and worn down. The man could see the Naruto too now; his features twisted in visible shock.
"You're just a child!" he said, just as Naruto's shadow clone reached him.
The man pulled out a kunai from a pouch and waved it threateningly at him. The clone easily kicked it out of his hand, and as it spiraled into the air, the real Naruto grabbed it. Knocking the man off balance with a leg sweep, Naruto pushed the bigger man down onto his knees with his foot, and pressed the kunai against his common carotid.
"Why did you attack the caravan?" he asked. When the man didn't respond, he added pressure to the blade. A thin line of vivid red appeared on the bandit's neck, and Naruto could hear the man's heart begin to beat faster.
"Let me go," pleaded the man, his voice raw with desperation.
"Tell me."
"I have a son waiting for me. He's six. We just needed money. Please."
Naruto paused. It didn't seem like the man was lying, but his mission came first. And the mission details did not include letting go a bandit who would undoubtedly attack other innocent merchants in the future.
With a gurgle identical to the first man, the bandit before him fell to the ground. Red blood came bubbling out of the sides of his mouth as he attempted to say something.
"Hiro..." the bandit choked out, before his eyes glazed over. He twitched once and then he was still.
Wiping the blood off the kunai and returning it to his holster, Naruto picked up the remaining scrolls and tucked them besides his tantō on his back. As he did so, there was a flicker of movement, and Kakashi appeared beside him with the body of the other bandit. Helping Naruto shoulder the second body, they returned to the caravan.
All the fires had been put out, and the bodies of the two bandits that Kakashi had dealt with had been arranged neatly on the side of the road for their companions to later claim. The two bandits' bodies were laid to rest beside them.
No one in the merchant's family had been more than superficially injured and with Naruto returning the scrolls that the two escapees had made off with, their finances were also more or less protected.
Naruto mutely accepted the gushing praises of the fat man, all too aware of the still wet bloodstains on his face and clothes. While Rai gave him a nod of acknowledgment, Mayu shot him a look of fear before turning away to comfort some of the younger children.
When Naruto was alone, he raised a hand and touched his face. Lowering it, he saw that his fingers were stained red.
He'd taken the lives of two men in the same amount of time it'd have taken him to eat a meal. It had been so easy too: just a single slash across their necks, and they had ceased to matter. His thoughts turned to what the bandit had been trying to say in his final moments. 'Hiro...' His son's name, perhaps?
By the time Kakashi told Naruto that he could rest for the rest of the journey to Yugakure while the jōnin took over his position, he was so tired that he accepted without comment.
Clambering into the wagon and lying down, he immediately felt sleep envelope his weary body.
The road to becoming Hokage is going to be long indeed, Naruto thought to himself as he drifted off.
In his dreams that night, the bandit's body was gone from the side of the road. The only sign that it had been there was the faint trail of dirt and broken grass blades that led into the forest.
...
Yugakure was a peaceful and prosperous village in the Land of Hot Water. The village was tucked away high up in the shrub-covered mountains, connected to the ground by carved pathways that spiraled down the side of the cliff rock.
The country received its name from their famous hot springs, which were sourced by the many small rivers that furrowed through the land. These rivers all eventually cascaded down the side of the valley as thin waterfalls before joining a vast river.
The village was apparently very popular as a tourist spot, and as Naruto and his team wearily walked past the entrance gates, they could see quite a number of families coming in with them. Within the village itself, there were a large variety of souvenir stalls selling festival masks, local specialties, and fans among other things. The center of attraction however seemed to be the big wooden archway with the words 'Hot Springs' at the center of the village, which the majority of the people were headed towards.
The sky was bleached with orange and purple as the sun set, and Kakashi decided that they would stay the night before leaving for Konoha at dawn. Hearing of their decision and overcome with gratitude for a job well done, the silk merchant gifted them with tickets for an overnight stay at a famous local inn with its very own hot spring.
And so that evening, Mayu headed off by herself to the women's bath while Naruto and Rai hunkered down in the heated pool in the men's bath. Resting a soaked towel on his head, Naruto closed his eyes, letting his tired muscles soak in the hot water. With his eyes closed, he idly began to pick up the jumbled chatter of multiple surrounding conversations; the way they washed over him had a very relaxing effect.
"Oi, Naruto!"
Naruto opened a single eye to see Rai looking at him from the opposite end of the pool. Mirroring Naruto with a folded towel on his head, he had a mischievous look on his face.
Much more than Mayu, and even more so since the incident with the bandits, Naruto had noticed that the other boy was talking to him with increasing frequency. It was a little bewildering and altogether new for Naruto; a small part of him skeptically wondered whether Rai was setting him up for something. However, since preserving the team harmony would be most beneficial to successfully completing their missions, he didn't rebuff the other genin.
"What is it?" he said.
Rai waggled his eyebrows. "Think Kakashi-sensei'll take off his mask in the bath?"
Naruto pondered this for a moment. It was true that he had also never seen their sensei's face in its entirety, though he had never before thought too deeply on it. "I don't see why he wouldn't," he said. "I don't think he has a medical condition that requires him to always have a facemask on."
"I bet he's hiding a weird mole." Rai smirked. "Or something else," he added with a more sober look, touching with his hand the knotted scar that ran across his cheek.
"Who's hiding a mole?" said a voice.
It belonged to Kakashi, who appeared to be stepping into the bath area. He was standing where the white steam from the baths was thickest, and they could only make out the outlines of his body. As the man stepped closer to where the two genin were resting, Rai stood up impatiently with a splash, straining to see his exposed face.
Naruto remained seated, but strangely enough, he also began to find curiosity bubbling within him.
Just as Kakashi was about to come into view, there was a soft hissing sound in the bath indicating new hot water was being pumped in. A sigh of appreciation rising up among the men, a cloud of white steam drifted up, concealing everything around them. Soon, Naruto couldn't even see Rai, who was right in front of him, though he could hear the other genin gnash his teeth in frustration.
"This is nice, isn't it?" he heard Kakashi comment congenially. "Hm, this steam's making it hard to see anything." There was a splashing sound. "Oh, there goes my towel. Guess I'll have to get a new one..."
There was another splashing sound, and then the sound of a wet foot slapping on rock as Kakashi climbed out of the bath.
This is it!, thought Naruto. Quickly making the appropriate hand seals, he then slashed his hand in Kakashi's direction. A gust of wind swept through the bath, rapidly clearing the steam clouds. There was a whistling sound, and then something that sounded like barrels crashing on rocks and breaking. This was soon followed by the sounds of high-pitched screaming from the women's side of the hot spring.
"Nice one, Naruto!" cheered Rai.
The steam had all but cleared from the bath now, and Naruto now saw that there were at least twenty other people standing around in towels. They were all looking around, blinking in confusion.
"Where's Kakashi-sensei?" asked Naruto.
"Ah, thanks for that Naruto," he heard Kakashi say from behind him. "I found my towel." Naruto and Rai whipped around, to see Kakashi back in the hot spring pool. He was still wearing his hitai-ate on his forehead, and had wrapped his newly rediscovered towel around the bottom half of his face.
Covering his face with a hand, Rai let out a groan.
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