Chapter 11: Demon of the Mist Zabuza
"Water?"
On the way to the Land of Waves, Kakashi suddenly noticed a puddle on the road ahead.
On a bright sunny day like this, how could there possibly be a puddle on the ground?
Only then did Kakashi remember that before facing Zabuza, there seemed to be one more ambush.
Even so, Kakashi did not warn Naruto and the others. She simply kept walking forward calmly.
The moment they passed the puddle, ripples spread across its surface, and two ninja with bandages wrapped around their faces suddenly emerged from the water.
"First one!"
The instant they came out, they leaped into the air and hurled the chain in their hands toward Kakashi in front of them.
In the next second, the Kakashi wrapped by the chain was instantly torn into several pieces under their pull.
"Ahhh—"
"Kakashi-sensei!"
Only then did Naruto and the others notice the ambush, and terrified expressions immediately appeared on their faces as they stared at the scene before them in disbelief.
"Second one."
The two ninja obviously had no intention of giving them time to react. They swung their chain again and charged toward Naruto and the others.
Seeing this, Naruto's pupils shrank, his face turned deathly pale, and his body trembled so badly that he was completely unable to respond.
Uchiha Sasuke, however, was the exact opposite. He reacted in an instant, jumped up, and swiftly threw a shuriken from midair.
With a sharp clang, the flying shuriken knocked the incoming chain aside.
Then Sasuke landed above the two ninja and kicked out with both feet at once, sending them flying backward.
However, the moment they landed, they changed targets. Pushing off with both feet, they charged straight at Tazuna.
Seeing this, Sakura, though terrified, still moved. Holding a kunai, she stepped in front of Tazuna.
Sasuke reacted as well and quickly rushed in front of Sakura and Tazuna to protect them.
As he watched the two enemies rush at them with weapons in hand, Sasuke's mind raced, trying to figure out whether to block with Fire Release or something else.
Bang—
Before Sasuke could decide, the two enemy ninja were suddenly blasted sideways by some force.
"Not bad. Aside from a certain dead-last, the rest of you did pretty well."
Hearing that voice, the others looked closely and realized that Kakashi had somehow appeared there. She was slowly lowering her leg.
Clearly, the two ninja had just been kicked away by her.
"Kakashi-sensei, you're alive?!"
Sakura came back to her senses and asked in surprise.
"Well, if I got killed that easily by two nobodies, then my Jonin rank would be pretty fake, wouldn't it?"
Kakashi chuckled lightly.
"Show-off..."
Sasuke muttered speechlessly under his breath. Since she was fine, she could have just acted from the start. Instead, she waited until the critical moment.
"But Naruto, you're always shouting about wanting more challenging missions. Now that you've run into enemy ninja, why were you so scared you couldn't move? Sasuke reacted quickly, and Sakura did very well too."
Kakashi then shifted her tone and looked at Naruto in the distance.
If she didn't provoke Naruto a little, there was no way he would improve quickly.
"Damn it..."
Naruto could not argue with those words at all. At the same time, he began doubting himself. He had worked so hard during this period, and had even learned tree climbing and water walking, so why had he choked at the crucial moment?
Even now, his body was still trembling.
Damn it, damn it...
Sasuke had also gone through real combat for the first time just now. Wasn't he afraid at all?
"Judging from the way they attacked just now, their target was you, wasn't it, Mr. Tazuna?"
After seeing that Naruto had already begun reflecting on himself, Kakashi turned her gaze toward Tazuna behind Sakura and asked.
Even though she knew the plot, the necessary process still had to be followed.
"A mission that involves fighting ninja is no longer a D-rank or C-rank mission. It's at least B-rank. That's already beyond the scope of our mission."
"It's still too early for us."
Sakura quickly nodded in agreement, feeling it would be better to suspend the mission. Naruto's hand had also been cut just now.
The enemy's weapon was poisoned, so Naruto needed to return to the village, get anesthetized, and have the wound cut open to drain the blood.
"Damn it!"
Listening to Sakura, Naruto felt full of frustration. He had become the one dragging everyone down again.
No, absolutely not.
He could not lose to Sasuke.
"There's no need to go back. The mission continues."
Naruto quickly made up his mind. Then he pulled out a kunai and stabbed it into the wound on his left hand.
This scene instantly shocked everyone present.
In the end, because of Naruto's insistence, the mission continued.
When they reached the seaside and took a boat toward the Land of Waves, Tazuna finally explained his situation.
Their country had been targeted by Gatō. All maritime trade was controlled by Gatō's men now, and the country's only hope was the construction of a bridge leading to the mainland.
That was why he, as the bridge builder, had been targeted for assassination by Gatō's men.
But because they had no money, they could not afford to post a mission above B-rank, so he had concealed the truth and submitted it as a C-rank mission instead.
After hearing this, Kakashi naturally still chose to continue the mission.
After all, what she cared about was not the actual mission payment, but the Ninja Jewels from the system mission.
Main Quest 1: Land of Waves Mission
Mission Rank: S-rank
Reward: 20000 Ninja Jewels
Twenty thousand Ninja Jewels.
That was the equivalent of two hundred days of daily missions.
And now she could get all of it from a single mission.
There was no way she would give that up.
Some time later, the group stepped onto the land of the Land of Waves.
However, there was still some distance from the shore to Tazuna's home.
If I remember correctly, this is the stretch where they run into Zabuza.
As they walked toward Tazuna's house, Kakashi thought to herself and focused completely.
This was a powerful enemy.
Meanwhile, Uzumaki Naruto, trying to recover the dignity he had lost earlier, kept putting on a show.
Every few steps, he claimed there was an enemy nearby, and even started throwing shuriken randomly into the bushes.
"There's an enemy over here!"
"Naruto, stop messing around."
Sakura was getting tired of Naruto jumping at every little thing.
"No, this time there really is an enemy."
At that moment, Hatake Kakashi sensed an unusual presence, and her expression instantly turned serious.
"Get down!"
"Huh?"
Hearing that, Sakura froze instinctively for a moment, but their bodies still reacted quickly enough, and they all crouched down in time.
The very next second after they ducked, a huge sword suddenly flew out of the forest, passing right over their heads.
Bang—
The massive blade only stopped when it sank into the trunk of a large tree. At the same time, a figure descended with it and landed on the sword's handle, standing with his back to them below.
"Demon of the Mist Zabuza!"
"Kakashi of the Sharingan!"
"Hm? Wait, it seems the intelligence was wrong. So the famous Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi, is actually just a little girl?"