Twenty minutes later, the mist, no longer sustained by a jutsu, dissipated pretty fast.
In that time, I'd managed to patch up Zabuza, then heal Haku, and even send Shadow Clones to transport them, along with Kakashi, to the Konoha hospital. There, our special guests would get an equally special reception, and they wouldn't be able to run.
Now I was standing at the start of the bridge, watching as an entire mob approached me. There were nearly three hundred of them.
Stopping about ten meters away from me, this united army started to spread out, surrounding me to cut off any route of retreat.
After a bit, out of the crowd that was just standing there staring at me, a short man with a cane shoved his way forward, yelling at people to let him through. That was Gato.
"You, brat!" he poked at me with his cane. "Where are the others? Answer me!"
Folding my arms, I narrowed my eyes.
"I don't like canes," I remarked. My face went melancholic, my head tilting up to the sky as if on its own. "Though it doesn't matter. You came here to kill me. And I'm going to take everything from you."
Gato shouted something, but his words were drowned out by the roar of chakra spilling out of me. A golden aura flared up around me.
And right away, dozens of Adamantine Chains burst from my back, clanking as they arced up into the sky.
The mob flinched at my chakra, then stared in shock as the thick chains formed something like the outline of a dome around them.
A few seconds later, loud, booming thuds started coming from all sides, like something heavy was being driven deep into the ground, hard enough to make it tremble. At the same time, there were loud explosions out on the water behind me.
Then, suddenly, between the chains, a barrier glowing red flared to life. The bandits had no idea what it was. Not knowing just made them even more nervous.
"Neither by land, nor above it," I slowly enunciated each word as I started walking toward Gato. The chains behind me rang with every step. His underlings, still in shock, didn't even move to shield him. "Neither by water, nor above it. No one's getting away from me. You're all doomed."
Stopping halfway to Gato, I finally saw the people in front of me snap out of it. Fear and horror were written all over their faces.
"Waste the little bastard!" he shrieked hysterically, pushing his way back between the ranks of his bandits. "We'll figure out how to get rid of this shit later!"
That was the last thing he managed to yell before disappearing.
The mob still didn't dare move forward. I went on:
"You dug up information on the Copy Ninja, and fear started smoldering in your minds. You found out about Zabuza's weakness and lit up with greed. You gathered almost your entire force here. All of this, only because I let you."
My eyes searched the crowd. I picked out Shinto's face and a few of Gato's other lieutenants I knew. But even they… not even they dared to step forward.
And really… who here was there to move against me? Ragged, filthy. Whatever random weapons they could grab. Talking about armor would be a joke. That was enough to keep this tiny-ass country under control. But for them, everything was going to change today.
"Every one of you is just a puppet in my hands. But the show is over." I raised a hand in front of me. "And when the puppeteer hangs up his property, the puppets come together in one last, chaotic dance."
My hand clenched, and a much stronger torrent of chakra burst out of me.
The world, already red from the light passing through the barrier, went fully crimson. The air seemed filled with the smell of metal, and once again, a quiet moan of agony spread through it.
Everyone froze, unable to even breathe. Then, like a wave, a low murmur filled with animal terror rolled through the crowd.
People who a moment ago had been all fired up to fight me were methodically crushed by me mentally, until they scattered in panicked chaos, sprinting the pathetic hundred meters toward the edge of the barrier.
What they had just seen had made their hearts clench for endless seconds. The most terrifying scenes. The cruelest executions—with themselves as the victims. For some, the phantom pain was so strong and so real that they dropped to the ground in convulsions, unable to stand back up.
Unhurriedly, I started moving forward again. The clanking of the chains still echoed with my steps, but it was barely audible over the deafening screams of the crowd.
The bandits soon reached the barrier and started hammering at it with their fists, their blades, hammers, anything they could get their hands on. Completely pointless. Even if you put a couple of Nine-Tails in here, they wouldn't be getting out of this barrier. Just regular people, plus a handful of… samurai and some bargain‑bin knockoffs of shinobi? Not even funny.
They could literally feel me getting closer. Once they realized how futile it all was, they just bolted to the sides like terrified rats, just to be a little farther away.
But some of them were so terrified they couldn't run anymore. Gato was one of those.
When I appeared in front of him, he just dropped to his knees, unable to look away.
Only when my hand, one finger extended, moved toward his forehead did Gato start to shake.
Chakra lit up along a couple of joints of my finger. With a hiss and the spreading stench of burnt flesh, I drew a single horizontal line on his forehead. Ichi.
Tears of pain rolled from his eyes. But he still couldn't move.
"Your name is now 'Test Subject Number One,'" I said calmly, after drawing the number "one." "Or just 'the First.'"
All that came from him in response was a pitiful sob.
The capture had begun.
The roundup of the test subjects went fast. Especially after I made some clones to help. Knock them out, seal them away—basic routine.
After that, grabbing a couple more people that a clone had snatched at Tazuna's house, I headed for the southern port, where the rest of the crowd had gathered. Some of them had even come from the far end of the country, waiting for the boss to finish his business with the ninja.
A couple of small manipulations, a false alarm—and they all gathered on a pier that was just perfect for me.
Another barrier, more clones. And my stock got topped up with another hundred numbers.
I didn't get any enjoyment out of it, though I tried to when I was taking Gato's group. Guess I'm not that much of a sadist after all. The feeling of power, of absolute authority, and… how badass the image was—that's what really got the blood pumping. The terror on people's faces—that's just boring, even if it's necessary.
Looking at their fear, at their shaking hands, at the pleading in their eyes… I felt nothing. No satisfaction, no pity. It was… again, boring. Their reaction was predictable, animal. No complexity in it, no game, like in a match with Koharu or Kakashi. This wasn't a fight, it was just… pest control. And realizing that left me feeling a bit empty.
The moment I burned the number "one" into Gato's forehead, he changed in my eyes. He no longer had a past, a personality, a will, or a name. Now he, like the rest of his buddies, was just a test subject I'd use when I needed to… But even that didn't stir anything in me. If anything, it cut my sympathy off even more.
It was more of a ritual for me. And yeah, in that persona, that crushing pressure under the dome made sense.
Once I finished cleaning up the Land of Waves, I only briefly went back to the town where the bridge was being built.
After the thugs had stormed through, then some kind of earthquake had started, then some weird thing appeared off in the distance—it took several minutes after it all stopped before the locals finally began slowly coming out of their homes.
My ruthlessness was already bearing its first fruits, turning into freedom for a lot more people.
After watching for a bit, I warped over to the hospital. By then, my teammates should've been patched up. And I didn't mind waiting for them to wake up.
Interlude. Haruno Sakura
Smell was the first thing to return to her. The sharp, sterile stink of medicine, mixed with the faint scent of clean linen.
Then came a dull, nagging pain spreading across her back and shoulders, and a feeling of all‑consuming weakness.
Sakura slowly opened her eyes. White ceiling. White walls. She was in the Konoha hospital.
Her memory didn't come back all at once, but in torn, jagged flashes.
The thick, damp fog on the unfinished bridge. The cold radiating from the ice mirrors closing in around Sasuke‑kun. The desperate, useless blows of her fists against the smooth, unbreakable surface. The sound of steel, and Sasuke's short, pain‑filled cry.
And then… that one moment, frozen in her mind like an insect in amber. His desperate shout: "Stay out of my way, Sakura!" The sharp, piercing pain of dozens of senbon driving into her body. And the last thing she saw before her consciousness went dark—the cold, indifferent ice.
Her heart clenched, but not from fear for herself. Her first instinctive thought was of him.
Sasuke‑kun… is he okay?
The door to the room slid open quietly, and an elderly medic‑nin walked in. His face was calm and kind. He went over without a word and sat down on the chair by Sakura's bed.
"It's good you're awake," the medic said gently. "You're in the Konoha hospital. Everything's fine, your wounds weren't fatal, just unpleasant."
"Sasuke‑kun…? Kakashi‑sensei…?" the girl's voice was weak and hoarse. "Naruto…?"
"Everyone's alive, don't worry," the medic‑nin reassured her. "Uchiha‑san is in the next room, he's already coming around. Hatake‑san is here too. And Uzumaki‑san… he brought all of you here, and he's perfectly fine. I saw him in the hospital not long ago."
The girl nodded silently. The fight was over. And Naruto was the one who'd finished it.
After making sure his patient was stable, the doctor left soon after, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Free of the fog of unconsciousness, they all came crashing down on her at once.
Sakura replayed that moment on the bridge over and over in her head. "Stay out of my way." Those words, thrown at her with cold fury, drilled into her skull harder than any sound.
When she tried to help him, he just said, "Stay out of my way." He hadn't protected her. He'd used her as a tool to help him get out, then tossed her aside as a useless obstacle. The moment that ninja apparently got distracted by Sakura, she turned into something in Sasuke's way. And he'd been ready to sacrifice her…
And then, like a corrosive poison, Naruto's harsh, prophetic words rose up in her memory. "He'll use you," "you're just a thing to him, like everyone else around him," "at best an incubator for his clan." Before, she'd taken that as cruel, cynical mockery.
But during that talk about what Naruto's mark meant… Sakura had decided it was just his clumsy exaggeration, just a way to push her to get stronger and give her a chance to live how she wanted. That had honestly warmed her, even if the way he'd put it… wasn't perfect.
Now, though… it looked like bitter, naked truth. Her beautiful, idealized image of Sasuke as a suffering, tragic hero, which had already started to crack around the edges thanks to his indifference, contempt, and Naruto's words, split down the middle like glass in a frame, shattering and giving way to the portrait of an egotist, blinded and consumed by his revenge.
And Naruto? She remembered his monologue. "Ruthlessness for the Right to Love." His strange, frightening words about "digging through corpses," about "the abyss," about his desperate wish to protect "his close ones." Back then, they'd shocked her. Naruto had always seemed unreal to her—too strong, too confident… like he couldn't have problems, like he physically couldn't be defenseless. But that evening, he'd shown that he could be vulnerable too—and that he was carrying a huge, invisible weight just to keep that vulnerability from ever showing. He was paying a horrible price for his strength.
Now, after Sakura had seen the despair and fear in the eyes of the people of the Land of Waves, she fully understood what Naruto had been talking about. Structure A6—that was a protocol, one of the framework plans you followed to build an interrogation in a specific set of situations. And by following it, the kunoichi, besides compiling the intel her team needed for their next moves as shinobi, had also learned a whole lot of other things about the Land of Waves. Robbery, plain daylight robbery, and public executions of anyone who spoke out. Tsunami's second husband had just been grabbed and executed right there in the street because he stood up to Gato and his cartel. The locals were helpless, doomed to just suffer grief after grief.
And on top of that, the cartel had an entire list of other extremes and crimes they kept committing every single day. There really was a "tumor" in this world that had to be "cut out." With a fast, precise, doubtless stroke.
The strength Naruto had tried to give her, the strength she'd once so desperately wanted just to win Sasuke over… in Sakura's mind it had become something way more valuable and almost sacred than just a way to make an impression.
Sakura compared them. Sasuke, who wanted to destroy a single man for personal revenge, willing to sacrifice a teammate—her—for it. And Naruto, who was ready to be ruthless for the sake of protecting others. And with crushing clarity, she saw who of them was truly strong, and who was simply broken and obsessed.
"We'll be fine." That phrase surfaced in her memory, and her heart clenched painfully. Naruto had included her in his circle of "close ones." He, who always seemed so strange—one moment open and energetic, the next distant and sharp‑tongued—actually cared about her. Not just cared—he'd saved her. If she was here, in the hospital, alive and in one piece, that meant he had taken good care of her.
Sakura looked down at her hands—hands she'd trained to exhaustion to make stronger. But why? To impress Sasuke‑kun? To make him notice her? Suddenly, all that motivation seemed so pathetic, so small, so… childish.
Naruto had used his strength to try and save an entire country pretty much on his own. And her?…
Naruto's philosophy was becoming her new reference point.
What am I willing to fight for? What price am I willing to pay?
Sakura no longer wanted to be "Sasuke's girl." Like she once had, she wanted to be a strong kunoichi. Someone who could protect, not be dead weight. Someone who deserved to be in Naruto's "inner circle" not because she was in love with him, but because she respected him and wanted to be just as strong and reliable.
The door to the room slid open quietly again. The blond she'd just been thinking about walked in. He looked a little awkward.
Coming in, Naruto gave a hesitant little wave in greeting and tried to smile encouragingly, but the smile came out a bit crooked.
"How are you feeling, Sakura?"
As he walked over to the chair beside the bed, Sakura looked at the one who had warned her. The one who had taught her. The one who had saved all of them. And the one who had called her "close."
The whole weight of her realization, the sharp pain of Sasuke's betrayal, and the overwhelming wave of gratitude to Naruto all crashed down on her at once.
The self‑control Sakura had been clinging to fell apart. Her eyes instantly filled with tears. But they weren't tears of weakness—they were tears of understanding and relief.
Before the boy could say anything else, she jerked upright in the bed and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face into his shoulder. By then, he was already sitting beside her, so she could reach him easily. She wasn't just crying—she was sobbing, pouring out all the pain, all the disappointment, all the pent‑up tension, her whole body shaking in his arms.
Naruto froze for a moment, clearly stunned by such an outburst. Then, a little awkwardly but steadily, he put a hand on Sakura's back and started gently stroking her hair, letting her cry it all out, silently giving her the support she needed more than anything else in the world right now.
Uzumaki Naruto's POV
With a mix of surprise and sympathy, I stared straight ahead, absent‑mindedly stroking Sakura's head. By now she'd calmed down and seemed to be starting to doze off.
Yeah… she really had a lot built up. I don't know exactly what triggered that kind of reaction, but I'd put, say, eighty percent on Sasuke's not‑so‑brilliant tactical decision that ended with Sakura catching Haku's senbon. At the very least, back then her look toward the ice, toward where Uchiha was, had been really miserable. And it looked like that might have grown into some resentment. Given Sakura's habit of overthinking and turning everything into drama… I'm honestly scared to imagine what she might have cooked up in her head. Because judging by that reaction, this is definitely not some "he's only mean because he likes me" crap.
Well, time will tell.
The girl had fallen asleep. And maybe it'd be nice to stay with her, but… considering how things are between us, that'd be a bit weird. Besides, I still have a few things to do, even if they're not exactly urgent.
So I left a big, fancy fruit basket I'd brought in a storage seal on the nightstand on the far side of her bed. And also a sheet of paper with the words "Get well soon" and a smiling face. At the bottom, in smaller handwriting: "Unfortunately, I've got things to do, and our mission hasn't been canceled, heh‑heh. If you need me, or when you're fully recovered, tear this paper.
P.S. You look really cute when you're sleeping."
After that, I left her.
_____
You can support me and read up to 20 upcoming chapters ahead of release at –> patreon.com/Welydora