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Chapter 129 Beneath the Surface, the Storm Waits
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The afternoon sun filtered through the mist, casting long shadows across the unfinished bridge. The scent of salt and fresh wood filled the air. Naruto sat at the edge of the platform, shirt tossed beside him, skin slick with sweat and dust, chest rising and falling in quiet rhythm. His muscles ached from hauling steel beams, but it was the good kind of ache, the one that came from doing something that mattered.
He poured half a bottle of water over his head, letting the cold run down his back, before taking a long gulp. His eyes scanned the horizon where land met fog. Still no sign of Zabuza. Still no sign of Gato. Just time… precious time.
Hinata approached from behind, holding another bottle of water in her hands.
"You should take a break, Naruto-kun," she said gently. "You've done more than enough for one morning."
Naruto turned, grinning. "What, and don't do any training? Not a chance."
Hinata hesitated. Her eyes flicked toward the water dripping down from his muscular frame before she forced her gaze to the side, cheeks warming slightly.
"It's not that. You've just been working so hard. I thought maybe you'd..."
"Hinata," he interrupted with a lazy smile, "I only feel alive when I'm doing something hard."
She gave a small, breathy laugh, more out of concern than amusement.
"In that case… I had an idea for your training. It's a bit dangerous."
"Perfect," Naruto replied without hesitation.
Hinata's expression turned more serious. She knelt beside him and gently took his right arm. "What if… instead of just cutting off flow to your chakra points, I compressed them? Made the routes tighter, more sensitive. You'd be able to feel the exact moment chakra moves through each point. If we synchronize, I can read the flow and guide you without being overwhelmed."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "There's a catch, huh?"
Hinata nodded. "The more compressed the points, the more internal resistance. When you force chakra through them, it won't flow… it'll damage your internal organs. That's the main point of the Gentle Fist."
Naruto didn't even blink. "Do it."
"Are you always this reckless?"
"Only when it's worth it."
Hinata stared at him for a beat longer before nodding and activating her Byakugan. Her fingertips glowed with focused chakra as she began tapping into his arm.
After a moment, she pulled back. "Ready?"
Naruto nodded, wincing slightly as he felt the pinpoint sting of chakra threading through his system.
Their hands locked together, and in perfect unison, they started weaving through the hand seals. Slowly at first, then faster.
Naruto could feel it immediately: the chakra didn't flow. It fought. Each seal was like dragging steel wire through raw nerves. By the second seal, his lungs screamed. By the third, his vision blurred. By the fourth hand sign, their chakra aligned just enough to complete the jutsu. Unfortunately, it was the Substitution Jutsu. In a blink, the world shifted. They reappeared midair, several meters away from the bridge. And with nothing beneath their feet but empty space, they plummeted straight into the water.
"Wh—?!"
"HA!" Naruto's laugh cracked through the air as Hinata shrieked, and the two of them plummeted straight into the water with a massive splash.
The cold hit like a hammer. Hinata gasped as she broke the surface, sputtering, hair plastered to her face.
Naruto burst up beside her, eyes gleaming, laughter still tumbling from his chest. "Did you see that?! That was amazing!"
Hinata couldn't even reply. She was too busy treading water and trying not to laugh with him.
He jumped up onto the water's surface, chakra steady under his feet, and reached out a hand to her. She took it. They leapt back up to the bridge, soaked and shivering, where Kurenai stood waiting, two towels in her hands.
She raised an eyebrow. "Well… I'll admit I wasn't expecting aerial jutsu as your first success."
Hinata bowed deeply. "Apologies, sensei. We didn't think it would work."
"At least you two found a path toward synchronization. You'll need to refine it until you can perform it without diving into the sea."
Naruto coughed into his fist, flecks of red staining his palm.
"Heh. Worth it."
His voice was strained, a subtle rasp riding the edge of every syllable. He took a step back and pulled the cork off his Estus flask, the golden light already dancing inside the glass like fire held in a bottle. He downed it with a casual swig.
The light spread across his body, mending torn muscles and bruised organs with unnatural speed. His breath evened out. His ribs stopped aching. The cut on his lip sealed. And as the light faded, so too did the blood—leaving behind the glistening frame of someone who looked more statue than boy.
His shirt remained abandoned somewhere on the other side of the bridge.
"Good luck," Kurenai muttered to Hinata as she turned away, her tone neutral but her eyes… not so much.
Hinata didn't answer. She couldn't. She was still staring, unmoving, lips parted just slightly, her eyes locked somewhere around Naruto's abs.
A thin trickle of blood dripped from her nose.
"Hinata? Are you okay?"
She snapped out of it like a kunai had grazed past her cheek. "Y-Yes! Sorry. I just..." She wiped her nose quickly, embarrassed. "I must've… taken a hit."
"Here," Naruto offered her an Estus, shaking it lightly in front of her.
Hinata hesitated. The warmth of the glass. The golden glow within. It felt more alive than it should've. She activated her Byakugan reflexively and immediately regretted it.
The Estus burned in her vision like a miniature sun. Blinding.
Hinata slowly turned the flask in her hands. "Can I… can I keep it?"
Naruto blinked. "Eh, Maybe. I kinda need that thing, Hinata."
She looked down, shoulders drooping, disappointment radiating off her like steam off her skin.
Naruto frowned, confused. "Why? You hurt worse than I thought?"
Hinata shook her head. She hesitated. For a moment she looked like she'd brush it off. Smile politely. Pretend everything was fine. But something in her cracked as she told the boy about her mother and her vegetative state.
Naruto sat back, his smile gone. Replaced with something far quieter. Far heavier.
"Will it work on her?" Hinata asked.
"I don't know," he said honestly.
She turned her face away.
"But," Naruto continued, "it doesn't hurt to try. And if the Estus doesn't work… I've got something even stronger."
She turned back to him, surprised.
"Stronger?" she echoed.
Naruto nodded as his mind went back to the scammer Petrus, as one of the miracles he had was the Heal miracle. Surely, he could use that, since unlike an Estus, he could just increase his faith stat and make the healing stronger.
"Thank you," Hinata murmured.
Naruto offered a casual shrug but gave her a one-armed side hug anyway. "Don't worry about it, Hinata-chan."
She didn't pull away. In fact, she leaned in further, bold in a way only she could be—gently, quietly. Her head came to rest on his shoulder, and he didn't mind.
"Can I say something?" she asked.
Naruto tilted his head, curious. "Sure."
Hinata hesitated, then whispered, "I didn't know how to feel when you told us you'd killed all those people."
"Seems fair." Naruto rubbed at the back of his neck. "If someone else did it, I'd probably be weirded out too."
A soft breath left her. "It's not that I think it was wrong. I just… don't know what that kind of choice means. My mother used to say, 'The world is already so cruel, little moon. So you be soft, even if it hurts. You be the kindness they forget.'"
Hinata's fingers curled against her lap. "But when I see the faces of the workers… their hope, their joy… all because of your violence… I…"
She trailed off, unsure whether to finish or just let the wind carry the rest of her thoughts away.
Naruto looked at her, expression unreadable for a second. Then he asked quietly, "Is that why you let people walk all over you?"
Hinata blinked. "What?"
"In the academy," he said, eyes fixed on the glimmer of water below them, "I remember you always holding back in spars. Even when it was obvious you were more skilled. There was this one time a girl from the other class mocked you, and you didn't say a thing. Just let her."
"You… remember that?" Her voice was barely audible.
"Came back to me just now."
There was no teasing in his tone, no judgment either… just quiet observation.
"At the time, I thought you were just stupid," he admitted. "You were clearly better. And still, you lost. If Ino didn't hate that girl, I think she would've bullied you every day."
Hinata's head lowered. "So… is that what you think of me? Stupid?"
"Back then? Yeah," Naruto said bluntly. "Now? No. I get it." He turned to her, eyes suddenly sharper than before. "I think you're scared."
Hinata's lips parted, stunned. "Scared…?"
"You don't want to lose control. That's it, right?"
His words sank into her like stones dropped into still water—rippling, disturbing the silence she'd so carefully maintained, stirring the memories she'd long buried.
Her mother, bloodied and unresponsive, carried from the compound on a stretcher. Her father killing a man with a single strike. Her cousin, eyes full of blame and bitterness, hating her for reasons she couldn't grasp. Her uncle's body, handed over to the very people who shattered her childhood.
She had shaped her softness into a shield. Lowered her voice until it was too quiet to betray her. Wrapped herself in kindness like gauze over an open wound, pretending it was strength. But it wasn't her mother's ideals she was holding on to. It was the fear. The fear that if she ever broke the stillness, if she ever pushed back, everything around her would fall apart again.
"...Yeah," she breathed. "You're right."
"So fix it," Naruto said, voice gentle but firm.
"How?"
"Learn to heal."
She blinked. "Heal?"
"Start there," he nodded. "You don't need to become a warrior overnight. Just learn to take up space. Fix what's broken. In yourself, in others."
"And if I fail?"
Naruto looked at her like the answer was obvious. "Then fail doing something better than being walked over. Because this world? It's cruelest to the people who just kneel and hope it gets nicer."
He gestured toward the village far across the bay. Then, softly, he added, "What is the value of a soul that kneels and bleeds for survival, but never raises a hand? What worth has a life that endures without ever daring to live?"
Hinata stared at him.
"...I'll try," she whispered.
"That's all anyone can do."
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While the rest of the Wave simmered in euphoria, in one of the more remote hideouts nestled between the cliffside and the sea, the air inside Gato's lair was heavy with antiseptic and salt.
Haku knelt silently beside Zabuza's battered body, a bowl of warm water steaming beside him. The swordsman's chest rose and fell in shallow, erratic rhythms. His body was a canvas of trauma. Acupuncture needles pinned into key pressure points along his torso and neck glinted in the light, holding pain at bay while controlling blood flow with precision.
The aftermath of Kakashi's Water Hydra technique hadn't just shattered bone, it had nearly collapsed Zabuza from the inside out. If Haku hadn't intervened at the exact moment he did, the Demon of the Mist would've died.
The heavy wooden door slammed open behind him.
"ZABUZA!" Gato's shrill voice echoed against stone walls, the sound far too loud, far too arrogant for a man with no blood on his hands.
Haku didn't turn. "Keep your voice down," he said softly. "He's recovering."
Gato stormed into the room, flanked by two of his hired muscle. Greasy hair slicked back, gold rings heavy on his fingers, the stench of wine trailing behind him.
"Recovering?! I paid for results, not a corpse in bed!" he snapped. "My men are dead, my warehouses raided, and someone out there is killing every gang I own! Where the hell is your professionalism?!"
Haku's hand drifted to the pouch at his hip. His fingers closed over a senbon needle. Still kneeling. Still composed.
"You are free to find someone else," Haku said, voice like frost, "if you live long enough to hire them."
The sneer on Gato's face froze. He opened his mouth, perhaps to threaten, perhaps to scream.
Thwip.
The senbon flew so fast it couldn't be seen. Only felt. A whisper through flesh.
Gato reeled back with a screech, clutching his ear as blood trickled between his fingers. "Y-You little!"
His guards reached for their blades, but they didn't even see Haku move. In a blink, he was standing, needles already pressed to their necks. "Don't," he whispered.
They didn't.
The silence was only broken by the ragged breathing of Zabuza, and Gato's whimpering curses.
"Enough." Zabuza's chakra spilled into the room like a flood of oil and steel, thick and suffocating. The temperature dropped as killing intent poured from the battered shinobi like smoke from a furnace.
The guards couldn't move. Gato trembled, his back pressed to the stone wall, eyes darting in wild panic.
"I'm trying to rest," Zabuza growled. "If you've got nothing worth my time, leave."
"Zabuza, perhaps… if you're still recovering," Gato rasped, voice tight with swallowed rage, "your assistant could handle this? Find out who did it. Who killed all my men."
Zabuza blinked slowly, his face unreadable. "Are you going to pay Haku for that?"
"I already paid you."
"You paid me," Zabuza muttered, "to kill a bridge builder. Not play detective. Not clean up your mess."
"But what if the ones protecting the bridge builder were behind it?" Gato pushed, lips curling. "Wouldn't that make it your business again?"
"I doubt a major village would allow their shinobi to go off script like that. Too many political strings." Zabuza turned his face to the wall, dismissive. "Even if they did… the job was the bridge builder. Nothing else. Anything extra will cost."
A beat of silence passed. Gato gritted his teeth.
"How much to make an example of some of the locals?" he asked. "You know. Remind the filth who owns them."
Zabuza snorted, almost amused. "One hundred thousand ryo."
"What?" Gato barked. "It's just a few civilians!"
"Exactly," Zabuza said, voice calm. "And if the shinobi on the bridge catch wind of it, they'll intervene. And you'll want me alive enough to stop them." His eyes slid half open again. "So… hazard pay."
Gato's jaw flexed, fists clenching until the scabs on his ear split anew. But he said nothing. Not under that gaze. Not in this room.
Without another word, he turned and stormed out, his footsteps heavy on the stone. His guards, Zōri and Waraji, scurried after him, careful not to meet Zabuza's eye. Only when the door had slammed behind them did Gato spit, voice trembling with fury.
"One hundred thousand for some worthless peasants?! That bastard... he's milking me dry."
Zōri glanced at his partner, unsure whether to speak. Gato didn't notice. He kept walking, boots crunching over gravel and grass, his shadow dragging long behind him as the sun dipped low.
"They think this Archer of Providence is their savior?" he muttered. "They think some masked little rat can kill a few thugs and suddenly they're free? I built their fear with blood and coin. I own them."
He stopped at the edge of the bluff, the wind pulling at his jacket. Below, the ocean churned, hungry and black.
"They want hope?" he hissed. "Fine. I'll gut their hope and hang it from the mast."
Zōri swallowed. "Sir?"
"Prepare my warship," Gato said, his voice thin and cold as wire. He turned, smile crooked and gleaming with rot. "It's time the people of the Wave remembered who their god really is."
Behind him, the wind howled. And somewhere, far away, the people celebrated a masked shadow who they believed had come to save them. They didn't know that the devil had just decided to come ashore.
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[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 5k-word chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 62, since that's where this chapter lines up with the content there.
To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!