Naruto: The Teaching System - 283

Chapter 283: You’re Acting So Strange I Don’t Even Know How to React

Night.

Not long after a Kusagakure patrol passed a shabby little hut, the ground beneath it rippled strangely. Sawada rose quietly up from the earth, eyes sweeping the area. Seeing no one nearby, he allowed himself a silent grin.

“Kusagakure really is locked down tight,” he murmured.

He turned his head toward the hut behind him.

“Time to find that little redhead. Let’s just hope her mental state isn’t a complete nightmare to deal with.”

Inside the hut, a red-haired girl sat on the floor with her knees hugged to her chest. When the Grass shinobi patrol had gone by just earlier, she had trembled uncontrollably. Only once their footsteps faded did she manage to breathe again.

A thin layer of dry straw barely padded the ground beneath her. It was already spring, but the chill still seeped up from the earth. Her slight body shivered nonstop.

“Mom…”

Karin Uzumaki whispered again. Every night, she thought of her mother. What hurt more was that the scene of her mother’s gruesome death only grew clearer with time.

Her tiny, almost inaudible sobs never made it past the thin walls. She did not dare cry any louder. If she did, those “companions” of hers from the village would come.

Huh?

She stiffened. Had she heard something?

“Who’s there?” she called, body trembling.

Her tears had fogged up her glasses, making it impossible to see. As the words left her mouth, another thought struck her, and she flinched, slowly extending her right hand.

The skin was covered in neat rows of tooth marks.

Sawada, already inside the hut, let out a quiet sigh at the sight of the girl looking like a terrified rabbit.

Hearing the sigh, Karin’s fear spiked. That voice was nothing like the ones she heard every day in the village.

“W-who are you?” she asked, no longer caring what might happen. Outside, the clouds parted and moonlight spilled in. Her vision steadied, and she finally saw the figure standing before her.

A man?

And this man… was really handsome.

Because of his Yang Release training, Sawada’s hair was completely white now. In Karin’s eyes, he looked like some kind of legendary sage.

“Karin,” Sawada said.

“Eh… that’s me,” she answered reflexively, stunned.

He glanced at the bite-marked hand, then at her face, and finally asked, “So. Want to leave this place with me?”

“Leave?” Karin repeated.

The word tasted unfamiliar. Then all those terrifying memories surged back in vivid detail.

“No. You have to go. They’ll kill you,” she blurted.

Sawada froze. Of all the reactions he had expected, her first instinct, being worried for his safety, was not one of them.

Then he chuckled.

The sound made her flinch even harder.

Seeing her reaction, Sawada wanted to smack himself. She was already jumpy enough, and he had to go and laugh.

“Karin. Come with me. I’ll take you out of here,” he said again, still not moving closer. “Don’t worry. No one will be able to hurt you.”

It was the first time she had ever seen this man, but something in his voice was strangely warm. Still…

“No. You have to go. Their patrol will be here soon,” she insisted.

As one of their favorite “resources,” she knew Kusagakure’s patrol schedule all too well.

Sawada sighed and covered his face with one hand. Wrong time, wrong place. Better to grab her now and talk later. If he kept standing here arguing, something really would happen.

“Karin, it’s fine. It’ll only take a moment,” he said.

His figure blurred. In the next instant, he stood beside her.

A thin black thread of chakra flicked from his fingertip. The terror on Karin’s face froze, and her eyes rolled shut. She slumped bonelessly onto his shoulder.

Sawada rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Why do I feel like some creepy old kidnapper right now…”

He spat mentally, shoved the thought away, and hefted her more securely. Then he sank back into the earth.

When he surfaced again, he was already outside Kusagakure’s perimeter. Karin still slept soundly on his shoulder.

Sawada looked back at the peaceful village, considered for a moment, and his expression cooled. He raised one hand. A suffocating, annihilating aura gathered there.

A Great Rasenshuriken Calamity formed, much smaller than the one he had used to drag the dried-out Eight-Tails through Moonwheel Gorge, light and compact in his grip.

He locked onto his target: the hut where Karin had been kept.

The projectile flew.

He did not bother watching it land. Turning away, he sprinted after Konoha’s already distant column.

A small mushroom cloud bloomed above Kusagakure.

The quiet village erupted at once. Shinobi poured toward the blast site. Halfway there, they froze, bodies shaking at the sight before them.

Half the village had been erased.

Where buildings had stood, there was now only fire, scorched ruin, and one enormous crater.

—

“I swear…”

Fugaku’s brows twitched, a dull throb starting behind his eyes. He looked from Sawada to the figure lying inside the carriage.

“Sawada, what exactly did you go do?”

Early the next morning, he had seen Sawada jogging up the road, someone slung over his shoulder. For a moment, Fugaku had thought Sawada had taken on another mission in the middle of all this.

“Nothing much. Just recovered someone with Uzumaki bloodline,” Sawada said with an easy shrug.
“Oh, an Uzumaki,” Fugaku said, nodding automatically. A beat later, his eyes went wide. He stared at Sawada. “You said what?”

Sawada dug at his ear, unimpressed. “A descendant of the Uzumaki Clan.”

“Seriously?” Fugaku asked, unable to believe it.

When Uzushiogakure had been destroyed, Konoha had specifically dispatched teams to search for survivors. They had found nothing. And now Sawada was telling him he had just brought one back.

“Yeah. Relax. No one will trace it back to us,” Sawada said, sounding almost bored.

“What are you talking about?” Fugaku snapped.

“The Uzumaki are Konoha’s partners. We even wear their clan crest as our symbol,” he said sharply. “Anyone who dares come looking for trouble, I’ll be first in line to flatten them.”

Sawada was silent.

Fugaku, you’re being so unexpectedly righteous right now it’s throwing me off.

He shook his head helplessly. Being a descendant of Uzumaki was no small matter to Konoha. Even a half-baked kid like Naruto was valuable enough to be a Jinchuriki. Karin probably would not be used that way, but…

Some of the sealing techniques Konoha still preserved required pure Uzumaki blood to perform.