Chapter 47 - The Unfinished Bridge

We reached the coast in less than half a day from our last stop. Miraculous, really. All it took was a half-assed, and quite odd, bandit ambush and a little steel in the merchant’s pants to finally get him moving like he actually wanted to live.

I had stored the kusarigama in sealing scroll. I had not real use to it, rather it only use was to goad them to fight. Pity they didn’t bite.

Still, I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. Dropped a clone into the trees the moment our backs were turned. Let it tail the creeps and see who they belonged to. Bandits usually travel in packs. These ones acted more like dogs that remembered they used to be owned by someone meaner.

And I hadn’t forgotten the fine print of the mission. Escort on paper. Investigation under the table.

Then we hit the bridge.

Kaiza Bridge. Part monument, part abandoned project. Two-thirds were good stone, solid, and properly reinforced. The last third was wood. Half-assed scaffolding and mismatched planks that creaked like they hated each other. It looked like someone gave up halfway — like they either ran out of money, out of materials, or out of time.

A crowd of men loitered around the bridge’s mouth. Thugs, clearly. Either mercs hired to look intimidating or petty criminals who figured this half-built monument made for a decent source of income.

Fantastic. I sighed. Loudly. Another crowd of economically frustrated entrepreneurs with superiority complexes and bad hygiene.

As a jounin at some point, you get used to bandits and riffraffs, but the frequency of them was getting annoying.

Naruto, of course, bounced like someone had fed him half a bottle of sugar water and a threat. He hadn’t gotten to throw a punch at the last batch of would-be muggers—he was riled up with nowhere to put it.

“Oi! If they’re here with bad intentions, I’ll show ‘em what a shinobi from Konoha can do!” he barked, thumb pointed to his chest like he was announcing a damn product line. “Dattebayo —this time, I’m not sittin’ out!”

Inari, the little stick of a kid, flinched at the burst of energy beside him. He tugged at Naruto’s sleeve, eyes wide. "Gendo-san can handle this," he murmured quietly, “It’s... okay.”

That earned the kid a blank look from Naruto, halfway to a frown, but he didn’t get a word out before Sai spoke.

“It’s unlikely that a civilian merchant can handle eleven armed men in combat,” Sai said, as if reporting rainfall. “Would you like me to demonstrate the flaw in that logic with an ink clone and some blunt-force trauma?”

Inari paled. Naruto blinked. Then he let out an awkward little laugh and scratched his cheek. “Right. Yeah. Good point, creepy guy. Guess it’s better if we handle it. This kinda stuff is our job, after all.” Then his head swung over to the side. “Right, Sakura-chan?”

When she heard her name, Sakura’s head turned up, looking around, half-hum escaped her lips. Then she looked down again. She had been dead quiet the whole walk. Quick glances at her feet, at her fingers, but she barely made a sound.

And our resident oblivious-san had started noticing.

He frowned, confused, but I stopped it there. My cue. Couldn’t let him start tugging at that thread. The blonde may be oblivious most part, but he was not stupid. And even a clueless puppy knows when the air smells wrong.

Sai hadn’t spared the conflicted girl a single glance since the first attack. He probably wrote her off after her awful performance.

“So, uh, Inari,” I said, voice light and casual. “What’s with the plank-slap structure? This bridge runs out of stone, or just funds?”

Inari blinked up at me like I’d spoken some forbidden word. He opened his mouth, hesitated. Then, eventually, he started talking. Info dumping, really. But it was a good change of subject.

"The Land of Waves... it’s not in a good place," he said. “My grandfather wanted to change things. That’s why he started this bridge. Said if we could connect to the mainland, people could trade, work, live again.” His hands were clenched now, voice going fast like a dam was cracking.

I mentally froze.

Oh. I knew he felt familiar. He was the grandson of the bridge builder.

“Gendo used to be worse, before. My grandfather went to Konoha for protection, and Gendo... stopped bothering us after. People thought—maybe things could be okay. But... the bridge wasn't done yet.”

Gendo died. I had read the report of the squad that took that mission three years ago.

Inari looked down.

“And then... my grandfather died. Accident while working. Fell. No one else had his skill. Or his” his voice cracked a little, “stubbornness. So nobody finished it. Some people tried to keep it usable. They added the wood part. But even that—guys come at night and tear it apart.”

I pointed toward the men at the base. “So those guarding it now?”

Another bunch of protectors?

He nodded. “Locals. Not real fighters. But they protect the wood part in exchange for... toll money. Sometimes they scare off the vandals. Other times, they look the other way.”

Naruto muttered something about punks who take advantage of pain.

I didn’t say anything. Just kept my hands in my pockets, and my eyes on the two-thirds bridge that had broken a country’s backbone.

The bridge builder was supposed to live, was the thing. Even after the war.

Be it a real accident or assassination, it mattered not. Life’s cheap, here.

After Inari finished speaking quiet hung between them.

Naruto broke it with that sharp, frustrated bark he could never seem to swallow. "Damn it!" he snapped, fist clenched, face wrinkled up like he’d bitten into lemon and didn’t know how to spit it out. “What’s the point of being strong if all we can do is watch?! I could knock those guys ten feet back without breaking a sweat!”

He probably would, even without clones; they were all civilians.

He didn’t get to.

We hit the bridge’s mouth—two carts, creaky wheels, bags of god-knows-what behind the sweaty, silk-swaddled form of Gendo, who more often looked like a sack of coin than a person. The crowd of men shifted, rearranged into a loose, confident formation of local seriousness.

One of them stepped forward, palm casually resting on a battered club. “Toll,” he said flatly. “A thousand ryo a cart. You want to cross this, you pay.”

Gendo-san’s nose wrinkled as if that very idea offended his coin-pursed dignity. Predictably, his gaze slid toward me, like I was a guard dog he suddenly remembered he’d hired.

I ignored him, leaving him to deal with it. I can be a petty bastard sometimes.

Naruto shifted beside me, body ticking, tense, that chakra wild old boar just beneath his skin. I laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.”

He froze a moment, then turned to look at me, big blue eyes flashing. “Why not?! We’re right here. You want me to just watch this, Eishin? Again?”

“Yeah,” I said flatly. “Again.”

Gendo was still huffing over there, trying to haggle with the man. Every few seconds, his eyes flitted back to me like I was going to move. I didn't.

I kept my gaze locked on Naruto.

“Listen,” I said, calm, quiet, the way you talk to bomb fuses and feral dogs, “if those men weren’t here protecting that bridge, someone would already have torn it down. You punch them? No ‘bridge’ tomorrow.”

Inari looked between us and nodded to the blonde.

Naruto’s face scrunched. “Tch.”

“They need money for that protection. Just like we need payment to protect our client.”

The logic held. At least on the surface. And I meant every syllable, even if none of it mattered.

This whole thing stank. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the guys on this side of the bridge were the same ones tearing planks off at night just to ensure business stayed good. Seen that trick before. Create the problem, offer the solution. Make yourself essential.

Nothing unusual.

But Naruto wouldn’t get that. Or didn’t want to.

And sure enough, a second later he growled low and said, “That’s just dumb—if we beat up the bad guys, nobody would try to destroy the bridge!”

I rolled my eyes so hard it probably reset a headache. Yeah, great, stop crime forever by punching this one set of thugs. Real airtight plan.

His whole attitude was so far into textbook shounen protagonist it gave me a hernia. Justice fist solves structural poverty. Canon solution: punch poverty out of the country.

But fine. Logic wasn’t going to work. Time to throw sand in his eyes instead.

“You wanna help?” I tilted my head, smirking now. “Use Sexy Jutsu. Distract them. Flash some titty. Let 'em forget the toll. That’s what you're good at, right?”

Normally, he’d take the bait. Call me a pervert, puff up his cheeks, maybe even yell something stupid like “Watch me!” with that grin of his. But not this time.

He didn’t grin.

He turned his whole body toward me, stiff-shouldered. Eyes narrowed—not in playful challenge, but stung resentment wrapped in impulse control.

And he said, in that too-loud whisper. “Not funny, bastard!”

I sighed—loud, theatrical, the someone please bring me tea and better company kind.

“Damn... I miss Naruko-chan,” I said with a wistful air, eyes half-lidded. “She was so cute and unlike some, she called me sensei...”

Naruto's brow twitched. Jaw clenched.

“Tch—bastard!” he snapped, but too quickly, voice cracking between anger and embarrassment. “She’s not even real, you damn creep!” His face was already turning warm at the ears. “You really wanna see her that bad, huh?”

I didn’t like the glint in his eyes.

But I shrugged like it didn’t matter, kept my voice light. “If you do it again...” I said, waving a dismissive hand, “At least make her look less fake next time. Had all the charm of a wood carving with tits.”

His eyes narrowed. Huffed through his nose. “What’re you talking about? You were drooling, sensei,” he shot back, gleeful in that weirdly smug Naruto way. “Your mouth was practically on the floor!”

“I was not,” I snapped, too fast and way too sharp.

His grin spread ear to ear, sharp and sun-bright. “Hah! Busted! Don’t lie—you were lookin’ like a pervy old man in a bathhouse!”

I scoffed—loud, dismissive, but it cracked halfway through.

“Takes one to know one.“ I said, “Besides, I was just—analyzing the jutsu. You know, from a technical standpoint. Chakra control. Totally academic.”

Why am I justifying myself?

“Pfft—‘technical’ my ass! You sound just like Ero-sennin! Next, you’ll say you were studying her spine alignment!”

Then he leaned in, cheeky as hell. He was really good at getting under someone’s skin.

“Go on—admit it—Naruko-chan got you~”

I sighed inwardly, dragging a hand through my hair. I should’ve known better than to spar words with the one goddamn kid in the world proficient in Talk no Jutsu.

Somehow, somehow, I was losing this ridiculous conversation.

And I knew where it was going if I let him keep that smug little grin on much longer: him getting even more ideas. Ideas that involved Sexy Jutsu popping at every inopportune moment when I was least prepared.

I couldn’t have that. I like women.

At least the distraction had worked. The merchant, had, at some point, paid the toll without explicit argument. The squeaky cart wheels creaked into motion, slowly rolling through the checkpoint. Objective secured. Mission half-accomplished.

So I did what I should've done from the beginning. A lazy flick of my hand, a scoff like I barely remembered what we were even talking about.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Weird form. Weak ankles. Zero intimidation factor. Don’t quit your day job.”

I didn’t look at him. That was key. The best way to kill Naruto’s interest in something? Pretend it bored you to tears.

“This ain’t the end, y’know!” he called, “Next time—“

I didn’t hear what he said. The sudden flux of memory jammed into my brain zoned me out.

The clone I had sent after the fake road protectors had been dismissed.

It was not a voluntary dismissal.