Cherry Blossoms | A Naruto FanFic

Chapter Seventeen: The Demon's Arrival

Eventually they made it out of the tunnel and the bright lights of the sun temporarily blinded them for about a few seconds.

Once they fully regained their vision, Natsumi was the first one to look around and discover everything this new country had to offer.

It wasn't much since the only thing they could see was that they were in a river of the Land of Waves and most of the place was covered in a large vegetation covering them.

They continued to row deeper into the village with Natsumi and now Sasuke looking around the area.

From now they could see that the area that wasn't vegetation was large mental homes in the far distance.

They continued to their destination, "Stop the boat" Naruto said, he got down and pulled out a kunai.

Seeing their teammates' judgment, everyone got down and the man stopped rowing the boat.

They were hidden by the vegetation, "Man I can't believe Gatō~sama let that whore get away, he could've used her for profit and pleasure" said a man.

"Yeah, too bad her husband isn't alive anymore. I would've loved to beat on him some more while that little brat cried out" said another man.

Naruto peaked up a bit and saw the two assholes in full view. The man that first spoke was a tall and muscular man in his fifties with gray hair here and there, he wore a white tank top shirt which was covered in dirt with dark greens pants which was also covered in dirt with a brown bell and shoes. One thing Naruto noticed was his bruised and sore hands which meant he hit someone, most likely a whore he bought and killed afterwards.

The second man was a much smaller man about the older man's torso, he had shaggy brown hair and bright green eyes. He wore an oversized white shirt with a black sweater with a white hood, he wore brown pants and black shoes. One thing he wore that made Naruto sure he was of importance was that he wore black sunglasses and he had a red badge on his chest.

Naruto quickly went down and faced Kakashi, he raised two fingers, Kakahsi nodded and raised his hand in a chop motion to the enemies.

Naruto nodded and disappeared from sight, Sasuke sighed and put away his kunai. However, he saw Natsumi look at him with confusion and he sighed knowing what she was confused about.

"Kakashi~sensei gave Naruto the single to engage with the enemy, that chop motion he did is the sign to engage with the enemy in our village. You probably didn't know that since you slept when Iruka~sensei was going over the signs of combat," Sasuke said in a soft and low voice not to alarm any nearby enemies that Naruto didn't spot.

However, they were quickly alerted when they heard blades clashing and blood being spilled from the jugular, but only Kakasho knew that from the sounds alone.

In a flash, Naruto reappeared back on the boat with some blood on his hands but he was relatively the same.

He faced towards Kakahsi and raised a small blue scroll which was in his hand, Kakashi nodded.

"You can row the boat again, sir. I'll keep out any unwelcome guests we may have" Naruto informed the man rowing the boat for them.

The man wiped some sweat from his brow and started to row the boat once again.

— Five Minutes Later —

Naruto sighed in delight, there were no enemies the entire track. Of course he knew that Gatō already knew about their presence since he most likely bought some villagers to keep an eye on him while he stayed in his castle.

They got out of the boat, some more thankful than others like Natsumi who experienced a bad level of sea sickness in the entire three hours of their ride.

Once Tazuna got out, he quickly turned around and pulled three golden pieces which were used to pay the man.

"This is it for me. I wish you all luck on your journey, especially you, Tazuna. Until next time" said the man while rowing away deeper into the village.

"Yeah. Thank you very much, my boy" Tazuna said with a grin, of course he called him his boy since old people seem to do that.

Tazuna and the rest of team seven continued their track, Naruto and Kakashi in front and Sasuke and Natsumi at the back. Tazuna was in the middle, but all of them had their senses ready for any attacker to come.

"So...Naruto, how were those two you killed?" Kakashi asked casually, he didn't need to alert the others about their conversation.

"There was a big guy and a small guy. The big and older enemy was easy to kill, a simple stab with my right hand pierced his heart killing him. But the smaller and younger enemy was different, I could tell the enemy managed to sense me before I killed the other enemy. He pulled from his side which I didn't see when checking them out in the boat, I quickly pulled my sword out and he actually managed to block one of my attacks. By his movement and eye contact, he didn't even know he blocked my attack which means it was purely blind luck, either way, I managed to maneuver out of the way and stab him in the jugular. But I saw his use to get information so I used some of the medical equipment I packed and did a small amount of healing to his neck. Just enough to keep him alive for a few hours, not like he's living pass this day"

Naruto informed Kakashi of the event, of course Kakashi only saw a glimpse of the man and saw what he needed to.

"Look Kakashi~sensei. I have a theory which could bump this B to A-Rank mission to a high S possibly SS-Rank mission" Naruto said casually, Kakashi tried his hardest not to outright shit himself, but he did cough quite a lot.

After all, the last SS-Rank in the village history was completed by Minato Namikaze and it was to destroy Kannabi Bridge and eliminate the Iwagakure Unit putting pressure on the village's forces. While he did help in the mission, he wasn't counted as completion on his record since his comrade had died that day and the Uchiha clan pulled strings to at least not have that mission he counted on his record.

Before that, the only people that completed an SS-Rank mission were Hiruzen Sarutobi, Tsunade Senjū, Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Sakumo Hatake, Tobirama Senjū, and Hashirama Senjū.

Hiruzen Sarutobi completed two SS-Rank missions in his lifetime, the first one was the killing of the Kinkaku brothers and their forces. The second one was the massacre of the Earth and Lightning Alliance which was also how the legendary Sannin got their one and only SS-Rank mission marked.

Sakumo got his mission marked by saving eight hundred of his allies and dealing the final blow to the Third Raikage, A.

Hashirama Senjū got his mark when he was supposed to intervene in a meeting between a possible alliance between Earth, Lightning, Sand, and Water which resulted in his death. By not killing practically everyone there including the First Mizukage, Second Tsuchikage, and First Kazekage which effectively ended the new alliance fulfilling his mission.

Tobirama Senjū got the mission marked when he killed the Second Raikage and completely eliminated the stealth force of Iwagakure and Kirigakure which took twenty-five years to rebuild.

But the point is that SS-Rank mission are associated with complete world changing events which usually involves a massive amount of killing, destruction, and assassination attempts on Daimyos and Kages.

Things could end in death quickly if Naruto's hunch is correct.

"What's your theory?" Kakashi asked seriously, after all, there's a chance that everyone could die if Naruto was right about this.

"The young enemy had a red bandage on his chest, which had the words 'major' on it. My theory is that Gatō is building up his own military power to invade the weaker nations that he started a war with to conquer them. This could start a large effect of conquest which could end as Gatō starting a village that rivals the five great powers which you know as I, that it's completely unacceptable to have another world power" Naruto informed Kakashi.

Kakashi slowly felt his heart sink into his chest, with a new world power a whole new world of possibilities could happen with the most likely one being the complete destruction of Konoha.

Unfortunately, their journey was interrupted when Natsumi pulled out a kunai and threw it into the bushes.

Naruto narrowed his eyes and pulled out his zanpakuto.