Morning at Konoha's front gate was busier than Naruto expected.
Merchants shouted as they checked wheels and harnesses. Shinobi passed in and out, some in flak jackets, some in masks, all looking cooler than he did. A couple of guards at the gate checked papers with bored efficiency.
Naruto stood there in the middle of it all, a bulging backpack strapped to his shoulders, two extra bundles hanging from each hand, and his jacket half unzipped.
The straps cut into his shoulders.
"Why is my pack the heaviest?!" he yelled. "I'm the shortest one here!"
"You volunteered," Sakura reminded him, adjusting her much smaller pack. "You said, and I quote, 'Load me up, I've got monster chakra, dattebayo.'"
Naruto opened his mouth. Remembered. Closed it again.
"Past me was an idiot," he muttered.
Sasuke stood a little apart, pack slung over one shoulder like it weighed nothing, eyes drifting over the road beyond the gates like he was already ten kilometers away.
Tazuna leaned on the fence, sake bottle in hand, peering at all of them as if they'd crawled out from under a rock.
"Hmph," the old man grunted. "You kids better not slow me down. I didn't pay for babysitters."
Naruto bristled. "Oi! We're full-fledged ninja now! We'll protect you no matter what, dattebayo!"
Tazuna squinted at him. "You look like you'd fall over if the wind blew too hard."
Naruto puffed his cheeks out. "I'll show you falling over…"
The ghostly number hovered just at the edge of his vision, bright and full.
10000
Kakashi was, of course, nowhere to be seen.
Sakura checked the sun. "He's late again…"
Naruto shifted the bundles in his hands, face scrunching. "He's supposed to be the leader! Leaders are supposed to show up on time!"
Sasuke "hn"ed, which could have meant anything.
A swirl of leaves appeared right on cue.
Kakashi stepped out of it, hands in his pockets, barely ruffled.
"Yo," he said.
Naruto nearly dropped everything. "YOU'RE LATE!"
Kakashi tilted his head. "Mm. I got lost on the road of life."
"WE'RE LITERALLY AT THE GATE!"
Sakura sighed into her hands. Sasuke looked mildly offended on behalf of punctual people everywhere.
Kakashi let the shouting wash over him like rain.
"Alright," he said eventually. "Listen up. This is your first mission outside the village. Even though it's officially C-rank, once we leave these walls, anything could happen. Bandits. Wild animals. Maybe a drunk client falling in a ditch." He glanced at Tazuna.
Tazuna snorted and took a swig.
"You three," Kakashi went on, eye sweeping over them, "stay alert, watch the surroundings, and listen to my orders. Got it?"
Naruto straightened as much as the pack let him.
"Got it!" he yelled.
"Yes, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said.
Sasuke just nodded.
Kakashi's eye curved in that lazy smile. "Good. Then—"
He jerked his chin toward the gate.
"—let's go."
They stepped out of Konoha together.
---
The road wound through trees and rolling hills, sun warm on their backs.
After the first hour, Naruto decided walking was the worst thing ever invented.
"Hoooow much longer?" he whined, dragging his feet.
"Naruto," Sakura said through her teeth, "we've been out of the gate for one hour."
"It feels like ten!"
The chakra number in front of his eyes drifted up and down in tiny, lazy dips and rises as they walked.
10000 → 9900 → 9950 → 10000
He'd used a single Shadow Clone back at the gate to try and adjust his pack straps, burning a little chakra in a puff of smoke.
Kakashi had dispelled the clone with two fingers to the forehead.
"Don't waste energy on things you can do yourself," he'd said mildly.
Naruto grumbled under his breath and tightened the straps manually.
Now, with the rhythm of footsteps and the soft rustle of leaves overhead, his chakra felt settled and full. The number liked that. It liked walking. It liked laziness.
Naruto… did not.
"So, old man," Naruto said, shifting a bundle from one hand to the other. "What's so special about your bridge, anyway? Is it secret? Does it explode? Is it haunted?"
Tazuna snorted. "A bridge is a bridge. It connects one place to another."
"That's boring."
"It's also huge," Tazuna said. "And important. Without it, my country stays under the thumb of a certain rich bastard. With it, we might actually breathe again."
Sakura tilted her head. "So people are… targeting you because of that?"
Tazuna's hand tightened just a bit on the bottle neck.
"Bandits don't like change," he said. "Neither do men who profit off everyone else's misery."
Sasuke watched him closely from the corner of his eye.
Kakashi walked ahead, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his book, but Naruto knew that eye was skimming every tree and bush.
"…So it might not just be random thieves," Naruto realized.
He felt the number in his vision pulse a little, like it knew something might actually happen today.
He grinned instead of worrying.
"Good," he said. "I wanna punch something that deserves it."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "You're impossible."
Sasuke didn't argue.
---
The sun climbed higher.
The road narrowed through a patch of thicker trees. Birds chirped. Insects buzzed. The air grew more humid, heavy with the smell of damp earth.
Naruto trudged along in the middle of the line: Kakashi in front, then Tazuna, then him, then Sakura, Sasuke bringing up the rear.
He stretched his arms above his head, pack creaking.
"It's so hot," he groaned. "I'm melting. I'm soup. I'm—"
He caught a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision.
His gaze slid to the side.
A puddle lay across the path, dark and still, filling a shallow dip in the road.
Naruto squinted.
"…Huh," he muttered. "It hasn't rained…"
Sakura walked around it without noticing.
Tazuna sloshed right through.
Kakashi's foot dipped into the water, sandal splashing.
Naruto watched him, something prickling at the back of his neck.
His instincts murmured: weird.
His brain said: puddle.
His stomach said: I'm hungry.
He opened his mouth.
"Oi, Kakashi-sensei, this water is kinda—"
Sasuke snapped, "Naruto, shut up for once," from the back. "If you're going to complain, at least complain about something useful."
Naruto whipped around. "What does that even mean, teme?!"
His attention snapped off the puddle like a rubber band.
The ghost number in front of his eyes drifted, unimpressed.
10000
By the time he faced forward again, they'd already passed it.
---
He didn't notice the two dark shapes rising from the puddle behind Sakura.
Chains rattled softly.
In less than a second, they were there: two shinobi in bizarre clawed gauntlets and rebreather masks, bodies wrapped in bandages, moving in perfect sync.
Naruto only heard the chain whistle through the air.
It looped around Kakashi in a blur.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura screamed.
Naruto spun in time to see the chain snap tight, blades biting deep as the two hidden-nin yanked in opposite directions.
Kakashi's body jerked.
For one horrible instant, Naruto saw his sensei's blood spray, heard the tearing sound as if the jounin was being ripped apart.
His heart stopped.
The chain snapped back between the two attackers, crimson and wet.
Kakashi's slashed form slumped and hit the ground like a discarded rag.
Naruto's brain blanked.
"…Eh…?"
The world narrowed to that image: Kakashi, torn. Blood. The smell of it.
Something huge and cold crashed over Naruto from the inside.
His survival instincts grabbed that terror the same way they had in the alley.
The world… almost shuddered.
The number flashed sickly.
10000 → 9200 (–800 chakra bled off in instinctive panic, not quite latching onto the freeze)
Everything felt like it slowed for a heartbeat—but it was just his perception, a gut recoil, not the clean, absolute stillness he knew.
The attackers were still moving.
Chain snapped back.
In a blink, it wrapped around Naruto's body instead.
Metal dug into his jacket, spines pricking his skin.
"Got one," one of the masked shinobi hissed.
Naruto jolted, breath punching out of him.
His hands scrabbled at the chain.
"K-Kakashi-sensei…?" he choked, eyes fixed on the spot where his sensei had fallen.
The ragged shape on the ground didn't move.
His stomach lurched.
He couldn't think. Couldn't reach for the Everything Stop Thingy on purpose. The panic that had tried to grab it had missed, chakra spilling out in useless shivers under his skin.
Sakura froze, hands over her mouth.
Tazuna stumbled back, eyes wide.
The two shinobi yanked the chain, spikes biting deeper, and launched themselves forward along it, straight toward Naruto and Tazuna, claws raised.
It all happened in seconds.
Naruto's legs refused to move.
He'd watched someone "die" in front of him once already in his life. A crowd of villagers. A flash of red.
He'd never seen a sensei die.
His chest locked.
Move, he thought wildly. Move, move—
The number in his vision jittered, bleeding a little at the edges.
9200 → 9000
Still no freeze.
He couldn't grab it. His brain was too busy screaming.
Someone else moved instead.
Steel flashed.
The chain around Naruto snapped as a kunai bit into it, cutting it clean. Naruto tumbled sideways, landing hard.
A foot slammed into the ground where he'd been.
Sasuke landed in front of him, kunai in one hand, body low, eyes sharp.
Naruto gaped.
"Hn," Sasuke said without looking back. "You're wide open, dobe."
The two masked ninja recovered fast, claws swinging.
Sasuke darted in with a speed that made Naruto's eyes widen. Kunai met metal with a shower of sparks. Sasuke slipped between them, feet light, using the linked chain against them, wrapping it, twisting it.
"These guys…" Naruto thought dazedly, "they're… real shinobi… and Sasuke's…"
Cool, the bitter part of him supplied.
Sasuke feinted high, dropped low, and in three clean movements the chain was tangled. The two attackers stumbled. Sasuke kicked one in the ribcage, flipped, and drove his kunai into the other's shoulder, pinning him to a tree.
Naruto felt the impact in his bones.
For a moment, he forgot Kakashi on the ground.
"How did you—"
His words died in his throat.
Something moved behind Sasuke.
The pinned brother, teeth clenched, yanked his free hand. The chain jerked. The other brother tore himself loose with a roar, claws carving grooves in the ground.
"Second one—!" Sasuke snapped, turning.
Too slow.
The loose brother whipped his chain around. It snaked past Sasuke, fangs gleaming, straight toward Tazuna.
The old man froze, bottle slipping from his hand.
The chain blurred toward his chest.
Naruto watched it come, brain burning.
If it hits him, he'll die.
The thought wasn't "someone died in front of me."
It was will die. Now. Because of me.
Because I didn't do anything.
His stomach dropped.
Not again.
The cold panic that had tried and failed to grab the world earlier twisted into something else. Anger. Shame. A stubborn, ugly refusal.
His body moved before his mind caught up.
"NO!" he shouted, throwing himself between Tazuna and the chain.
He didn't even try to freeze everything this time. He wasn't thinking about numbers, or time, or rules. He was thinking only of getting in the way.
His chakra surged with him, wild and messy, but not reaching for the stop.
The number plunged a little anyway.
9000 → 8200 (–800 chakra burned by that wild burst of movement and fear)
He pulled a kunai from his pouch, hand shaking, and thrust it out in front of him.
The chain hit.
The force of it ripped the kunai from his grip. The spikes on the links punched through his hand.
For a second, white-hot pain swallowed everything.
"GUAAAH—!"
Naruto screamed, fingers spasming around cold metal. Blood ran down his wrist.
The chain jerked.
Every instinct screamed at him to let go.
He didn't.
He tightened his blood-slick grip.
"If I let go… he dies," Naruto thought, vision swimming. "Not… letting… go…"
He planted his feet, heels digging into the dirt. The chain went taut, the attacking shinobi yanking on the other end.
Naruto's arm felt like it was being ripped off. His hand felt on fire. The world narrowed to the red running down his fingers and the iron taste in his mouth.
The brother snarled and pulled harder.
Naruto snarled right back.
"YOU WANT HIM," he shouted, teeth bared, "YOU'VE GOTTA GO THROUGH ME FIRST!"
The ghostly number in his vision flickered, stabilizing.
8200
Sasuke moved again.
His kunai flashed. In the heartbeat the brothers were focused on Naruto and Tazuna, Sasuke slipped in, cutting the chain near Naruto's bleeding hand.
The sudden slack made the attacker stumble.
Kakashi appeared beside the man, one hand gripping his wrist, the other casually holding a kunai just under his chin.
"You fail," Kakashi said.
Naruto's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"K-Kakashi-sensei?! But you— you got—"
He looked wildly back to where his sensei's body had fallen.
A shredded log lay there instead, chain still wrapped around it.
Substitution Jutsu.
Kakashi's eye curved.
"You have to see through cheap tricks like that one day," he said. "But for now… you did one important thing."
He twisted. Both brothers were suddenly pinned and immobilized with a flurry of efficient movements, claws ripped away, chain discarded.
Naruto sagged.
His knees hit the dirt. He stared at his hand, at the chain fragments still stuck through his palm.
The pain caught up all at once.
"OW OW OW OW—!"
Tazuna stumbled forward, face pale. "B-boy… you…"
Sakura snapped out of her shock and rushed to Naruto's side.
"Naruto! Hold still!" she yelled. "Let me see—"
"Don't touch it, it hurts, it hurts—"
"If you keep flailing, it'll hurt more!"
Kakashi walked over, crouched, and gently but firmly took Naruto's wrist.
"Let me," he said.
Naruto hissed as Kakashi assessed the damage with quick, skilled fingers.
"Hm. Through the palm. Missed the tendons. Lucky," Kakashi murmured. "On purpose?"
Naruto blinked at him through tear-prickled eyes. "Wh-what do you mean, 'on purpose'?!"
"You angled your hand at the last second," Kakashi said, sounding annoyingly calm. "Instinct. Good instinct."
Naruto stared, replaying the last second in his head.
Chain.
Tazuna.
His hand moving without thinking.
The number in his vision flickered back at him.
8200 → 8100
"…I just didn't want him to die," Naruto muttered. "That's all."
Kakashi's eye softened.
"Good," he said.
He wrapped Naruto's hand with bandages from his pouch, movements gentle but firm as he pulled the chain through with one swift tug.
Naruto screamed again. Sakura winced but held his shoulder steady.
When it was done, Naruto's hand throbbed like it had its own heartbeat.
He flexed his fingers experimentally.
They worked.
"That was… reckless," Sakura scolded, voice shaking a bit. "You could've lost your hand!"
Naruto grinned weakly at her. "Hehe… but I didn't…"
Tazuna stared at him for a long moment.
"Why?" the old man asked, voice rough. "Why would you…"
Naruto blinked at him.
"You're our client," he said, like it was obvious. "Saving you is the mission. I'm a ninja now. That's what ninja do, right?"
His hand trembled around the bandages.
"I… I ran before," he admitted, remembering trees and blood and Mizuki's voice. "Iruka-sensei had to take a hit for me. I'm not gonna run again. Not when I can move."
His stomach twisted at the memory of Kakashi's "death."
Move now. Don't freeze.
The number in his vision nudged up the tiniest bit, as if approving.
8100 → 8200
Kakashi stood, eye cool again as he looked at the bound shinobi.
"These aren't bandits," he said. "They're the Demon Brothers of the Hidden Mist. Chunin-level assassins. They were targeting Tazuna specifically."
Sakura stiffened. "Chunin… but this is supposed to be a C-rank…"
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Tazuna.
"You lied," he said.
Tazuna flinched.
"I… might have left out some details," he muttered.
Naruto blinked between them. "Oi, what details?!"
Tazuna looked at the ground, shoulders sagging.
"The man I mentioned… the one who doesn't like my bridge…" he said slowly. "He's not just 'some rich bastard.' His name is Gato. He owns a shipping company. And men. And weapons. And half my country. He doesn't want my bridge finished, because it would break his monopoly."
Kakashi folded his arms.
"So he hired shinobi to kill you," he said. "Which bumps this mission's real danger up to B-rank at least."
Sakura's face went pale. "B-rank?!"
Naruto's heart jumped.
B-rank meant real ninja. Real fights. Real danger.
He remembered Iruka, bleeding.
He remembered Mizuki on the ground.
He looked at his bandaged hand, the ache deep and throbbing, and the flicker of the chakra number hovering nearby.
8200
Kakashi's tone turned serious.
"Tazuna," he said. "By hiding this, you put my team at risk. By the rules, I'm supposed to end this mission here and return to the village."
Naruto's stomach dropped.
"What?!" he yelped. "No way!"
Sakura frowned. "But if it's more dangerous than we were told—"
Sasuke's jaw clenched. "If we back out now, we're running away from a fight."
Kakashi held up a hand.
"However," he said, "if my team agrees to continue, knowing the risk, we can proceed—on the condition that once we return, the mission is paid as a higher rank."
Tazuna swallowed.
"I don't have more money," he said quietly. "If I did, I would've said so. But if I go back now, my country stays under Gato's heel. My daughter… my grandson… everyone…"
His voice trembled.
"They're counting on me," he finished.
The road went quiet.
Naruto looked at the old man's bowed head. At the calluses on his hands. At the way he shook, just a little.
He thought of villagers looking away from him. Of Iruka's tired smile. Of the Hokage saying, "You will protect your client."
His hand throbbed.
He didn't look at the number this time. He didn't need it.
"I wanna keep going," Naruto said.
Everyone turned to him.
He grinned, despite the sweat, despite the pain.
"I already decided," he went on. "I'm not running. If we go back now, Kakashi-sensei will just make us chase the demon cat again and we'll have let a bad guy win. No thanks."
Sakura stared at him like she'd never seen him before.
"Naruto…" she murmured.
Sasuke snorted. "Tch. I came out here to fight real enemies, not pull weeds. If there's a chance to face someone stronger than these two, I'm not wasting it."
He glanced at Naruto's bandaged hand and scoffed.
"And I won't let that idiot get ahead of me."
Sakura chewed her lip.
Her gaze flicked to Tazuna. To the road ahead. To Kakashi.
"I…" she began.
She took a breath, straightened her shoulders.
"I'll go too," she said. "If we stay together and listen to Kakashi-sensei, we can handle it."
Kakashi watched them, unreadable for a long moment.
Then his eye crinkled.
"Well," he said, "it looks like the team has decided."
He turned to Tazuna.
"We'll see this mission through," he said. "But from now on, you tell us everything. Understood?"
Tazuna bowed deeply, glassy-eyed.
"Th-thank you," he stammered. "I… I will."
Naruto puffed his chest out, trying not to wince as the movement tugged his bandages.
"Of course we will!" he said. "We're Team Seven, dattebayo!"
The chakra number in his vision glowed steady and strong.
8200 → 8300
He'd burned some. He'd spilled some. He'd probably burn a lot more before this mission was over.
But for the first time outside the village walls, with a throbbing hand and a client behind his back, Naruto felt like that number was moving at the same pace as something inside him.
Not freezing.
Not running.
Moving forward.
---
They left the bound Demon Brothers for retrieval, marked the area, and pressed on.
The trees grew taller. The air turned damp and cool. Mist clung low to the ground, curling around their ankles.
Naruto flexed his bandaged hand as they walked, testing it, hissing quietly.
"Think it'll leave a scar?" he asked Sakura.