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.
...
After the three had finished soaking in the hot spring, they changed into cotton yukata provided by the inn (Kakashi somehow managing to put his facemask back on as well) before rejoining Mayu at the outdoor garden. Several families were by the pond, admiring the colorful fish that swam in its depths. It was dark, so the garden was lit with several paper lanterns that hung from lines strung all around the walls.
Attracted to different aspects of the garden, the team soon split up. Kakashi settled down on the bamboo veranda with a book, while Rai joined several other boys who were admiring some ornamental weaponry on display within glass cases. Mayu, seemingly entranced by the bobbing lights, excused herself to walk through the garden.
In the end, finding himself alone, Naruto hovered by the veranda for a few minutes before slowly making his way over to the pond. The families had moved on, and there was now only one other man who was by himself at the pond's edge. Together, they stood in silence for several minutes, watching the fish dart through the shadowy water.
"Nice chakra control earlier, kid," the man said suddenly. "Though you packed a lil' too much punch in it."
Startled, Naruto gave him a cursory glance; the stranger had short, slicked-back silver hair, but he was even younger than Kakashi. He was fit and his arms were muscled, indicating extensive training. The man – or was he a teenager? – was not wearing a yukata like everyone else, but rather simple nondescript black shirt and pants. Around his neck was a hitai-ate that Naruto didn't recognize: It had three diagonal lines. Naruto wondered whether the Land of Hot Water also had a ninja village hidden away somewhere.
"What village are you from?" he asked.
"Yugakure," replied the man with a careless shrug of his shoulders.
Naruto's brow furrowed in thought. "You mean this place used to be a hidden village?" He couldn't imagine a sleepy tourist village such as this one being the headquarters of a group of highly skilled assassins. Yet the man standing before him was undoubtedly a shinobi, and from what he could sense, a very skilled one at that.
"It used to be a proper ninja village, before these fat merchants came in and turned this place into the laughingstock it is now," said the man, folding his arms across his chest. "Now, the village's become just like this pond...and the people, simple ornamental fish."
Naruto didn't respond. The man had yet to make any threatening moves, but there was something off about the man. It wasn't just the bitterness that laced the man's words; the combination of the cold, steely glint in his violet eyes and the just barely self-contained tremor in the man's muscles sent off every alarm in Naruto's mind.
There was a splash as a pair of children in yukata ran to the pond's edge. They examined the koi fish, pointing out and laughing at specific ones that caught their eye.
"Look at that fat one!" said the little girl, her fishtail braid dipping below the water's surface. She looked a year or two younger than Naruto, who observed them silently. "Do you think mom'll let me take it home, Taki?"
Her brother, standing beside her in a bright blue yukata, swiped at the fish in question several times before huffily giving up. "It's just a stupid fish. It'll die in a day anyways, like all your other ones." Jumping out of the pond, he waddled away. Calling out for him to wait, the girl shot a second glance backwards at the fish before struggling up and following.
Naruto felt the sudden explosion of killing intent a moment before the foreign ninja disappeared.
Dashing forward, he grabbed the sibling pair underneath each arm and jumped. Flying through the air with the two children struggling in his arms, the ground where they had been standing on just a moment earlier blasted apart into chunks of broken earth.
When the dust had cleared, it revealed a giant steel katana in the hands of the silver-haired man. Looking up with a smile as he met Naruto's eyes, the man yanked the katana out of the ground. Jumping back with a vindictive giggle, he slashed at a passing woman and then disappeared again. The woman stared down in disbelief as bright red blood suddenly came spurting out of her thigh, and her leg collapsed in on itself.
The explosion had stunned everyone into silence, but it was only after her single pained scream pierced through the garden, that pandemonium set in.
"What's going on?!" shouted Rai, racing over.
Naruto could barely hear him over the screaming; if they weren't careful, they could be trampled.
"There's a man on the loose," he said, just as Mayu – looking terrified – reached them, with Kakashi on her heels. "He's strong, sensei."
"Alright, team Kakashi," said the jōnin, looking around grimly. "I'll take care of him. You three focus on evacuating the citizens."
They jumped into motion. Rai ran over to the locked entrance gateway, which a crowd of panicked people were now pummeling their fists against. Looking around frantically, he spotted the weapons on display that he had been looking at earlier. Immediately shattering the glass with his fist, he pulled out a scythe. Dragging it over to the gate, he smashed the doors open, and the terrified crowd began to pour out.
Meanwhile, Mayu and Naruto had begun to help the various injured persons that were lying scattered across the ground. As Naruto helped up a middle-aged man bleeding from a deep slash across his stomach, the man let out a groan.
"Hidan...Please, stop him..." The man slumped against Naruto as he fell unconscious.
Mayu rushed over, and together, they propped the man upright against the wall of one of the buildings. Straightening up, Naruto quickly looked for Kakashi with shrewd eyes. He had never seen the jōnin look so serious before, and even the horror of their situation couldn't distract him from the opportunity this presented. Now, Naruto would be able to see him truly in action.
He quickly spotted Kakashi standing in a clearing...and shivered.
Even dressed in a yukata as he was, Kakashi's coldly furious face would have set the most battle-hardened veterans running in the opposite direction. As it was, however, the silver-haired man – Hidan? – only laughed maniacally as he begun to swing the heavy katana around.
Despite himself, Naruto couldn't help but feel impressed by the sheer raw strength and power the man was displaying.
"Don't just stare at me," said Hidan, tightening his grip on the handle of his blade. "Show me what you've got!"
Without responding, Kakashi disappeared in a flicker of white, and faster than Naruto had ever seen him move, kicked Hidan directly in the chest. Caught off guard, Hidan flew backwards toward where the two genin were watching. Leaping out of the way, they watched the man collide into a tree instead, which collapsed from behind him upon impact.
A deafening crackling sound reminiscent of a thousand birds filled the area, and a bright blue ball of spinning chakra quickly formed between Kakashi's hands. As Hidan angrily brushed aside fragments of wood from his chest, the jōnin shot towards them, leaving behind a small path of destruction. Just before Kakashi struck however, Hidan let out a mocking laugh as he reached out for something with his free hand.
"The boy!" cried out Mayu, but Naruto had already begun to move.
Pushing himself to run faster than he had ever done before, he leaped into the air. The struggling boy in the blue yukata stared with terrified eyes at the incoming jōnin as he hung from Hidan's hands like a meat shield. Grabbing the neck of the boy's yukata with his hands and tearing him away, Naruto spun through the air. The crackling ball of lightning chakra passed by mere inches from his face. Hidan snarled in frustration and leaped backwards; Kakashi followed.
Landing on the ground, Naruto set the struggling boy on the ground. Mayu rushed to the boy's side to check for injuries, but he immediately pushed her away. He looked up at the two genin with only fear in his eyes.
"Get away from me! You monsters!" he screamed, his small body shaking like a leaf in the wind.
"We're here to help you," said Mayu gently, holding her hands up to show she wasn't holding anything.
"No! You killed Nami!" bellowed the boy, staggering backwards in his desire to get away. Naruto remembered the girl with the fishtail braid the boy had been playing with earlier. "Don't kill me too!"
Naruto stopped in his tracks as he remembered the bandits he had killed the day before. His clothes back in the inn were being washed, but it would take several more washes before the bloodstains completely faded. He suddenly wondered if the man's son was waiting for his father to come back, shivering alone in the dark underneath a forgotten bush.
Would he be as frightened as this shivering boy in a torn yukata before him?
"I won't allow you to die." Naruto held his hand out to the boy. "Trust me."
The boy stared back at Naruto with wide eyes, his mouth falling open a little. "I..." He stopped. And he must have found sincerity in Naruto's expression, because he stopped trembling.
Behind them, Hidan screamed in pain and in fury, and the terrible shrieking sound of shattering metal followed. Naruto saw, as if in slow motion, a jagged shard of steel whistle through the air as it headed straight for the boy who now reached for his hand.
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