After Sailing with the Pirate King, I Returned to Konoha - 235

Chapter 235: At Last They Meet! A Father and Daughter Who Have Never Met

The spear streaked like a missile, roaring straight toward Gaara.

Yet Gaara did not even turn his head.

"As expected, it could only be you. You are different, Uzumaki Naruto."

Kosei did not react much, but Haku and Zabuza heard, for the first time from Gaara’s mouth, the name of the one who had once spared them and even changed their lives; their faces shifted at once.

"Who are you?"

Unfortunately, Gaara ignored Haku’s question.

It was as if, in his eyes, only Kosei and Uzumaki Naruto were qualified to speak with him.

Everything else had no right.

"Using my power against me, is it?"

Murmuring softly, Gaara made no visible move. The spear wrapped in Haki disintegrated at once, dissolving back into the purest natural energy and dispersing.

Then the sand around Gaara slowly twined up his body and "lifted" him into the air, like a god gazing down upon the world.

Sure enough, a moment later, Naruto’s figure appeared before them.

The wind pressure blew the hat off Kosei’s head. Her hair whipped wildly, making the little girl squint; when she pushed it aside, she saw that figure.

Naruto hovered in the air as well. Over two meters tall, yet not bulky at all, his loose robes stirred lazily in the airflow.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves and gilded the man in gold.

Compared to the joyless, affectless Gaara, Naruto looked more like a god at that moment.

Kosei was dumbstruck, and even the gazes of Haku and Zabuza below held disbelief.

Compared to a few months ago, Uzumaki Naruto had changed far too much.

When they first met, he carried a strong presence, yes, but he still looked like a student, a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy at most.

How had he grown into this in under half a year?

Were they mistaken? Or was this Naruto’s older brother or something?

The next moment, Naruto’s words shattered that fantasy.

"Oi! Isn’t that Zabuza and Haku? Long time no see."

Naruto’s eyes went first to familiar faces.

Though their clothing no longer matched the ninja image from before, and Zabuza had even removed his mask, Haku’s gentle, androgynous aura remained far too distinctive.

Naruto recognized them without effort.

—Well, Zabuza might have been harder. If not for seeing that somehow he’d retrieved the Kubikiribōchō again, it would have been tough to pick him out from that very average face.

Then Naruto looked at another face.

The one he had been unable to ignore from the instant he arrived.

She really did look a little like Hancock in her girlhood.

As Naruto looked over, Kosei’s eyes met his.

Two sea-blue gazes locked, unblinking.

Kosei felt her little heart pounding. Her hand slid into her bag and instinctively gripped the turtle-shaped device that had brought her to this world.

Before this moment, she had never stopped clamoring to find her father. Yet now, face-to-face with Naruto, she found she could not say a single word.

Yes—Kosei was certain. She had found her father.

It was the guidance of blood.

A kind of intuition, a kind of instinct.

What should she say?

Hello, I am your daughter?

But Father probably did not know he had a daughter at this point, right?

Should she greet him?

Granny said to be polite.

Dad is really handsome.

His eyes are blue, just like Kosei’s.

"Uzumaki Naruto, at last we meet."

At that moment, the "will of nature" controlling Gaara’s body spoke.

Naruto’s attention shifted.

Ah!! You are so annoying, Dark Circles! No—annoying thing occupying Dark Circles’ body! You really are a bad guy!

While Kosei fretted that she had not left her father a good first impression, Naruto narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at the Gaara who no longer resembled himself at all.

"You are not that Gaara… ah. It is you."

He recognized, in the familiar scent, that disregard for all life.

It was the same thing that had once swayed his own mind. Judging from now, the other had not changed and had found another unlucky host.

"What, back to your old tricks? Since you cannot take me, you go after others now."

With this one, Naruto actually felt rare disgust.

"If possible, I would still rather cooperate with you."

"Gaara" seemed deaf to the sarcasm in Naruto’s tone, answering with a calm face.

"After all, only you are special, Uzumaki Naruto."

"Only you can do it."

"Even my appearance is because of you."

Seeing the other slipping into that same mystical spiel again, Naruto simply invoked the neighbor protagonist’s ability, "Holy Letter D."

"Muttering nonsense—if you want to fight, then bring it on!"

At that moment, the brawler’s mindset took the lead.

"Gaara" had intended to say more, but Naruto cut him off directly.

Brawlers counter all trash talk—no matter how flowery the speech, one "I don’t understand" handles it cleanly.

"It seems that if I do not quiet you down, you will never honestly accept my goodwill."

As Gaara spoke, the trees and flowers around them yellowed visibly.

In counterpoint, a massive tide of natural energy flooded into Gaara’s body.

The swelling power not only suppressed the One-Tail’s awakening instinct, it also extracted the beast’s chakra and fused it with natural energy to form another kind of "sage" chakra.

"Though I do not like this sort of thing, I must admit that your kind are highly creative."

Gaara controlled the sand sculpted from sage chakra, admiring it like a work of art.

A second later, the floating sand congealed into dozens of "sage spears."

"Watch closely, Uzumaki Naruto. This is how to use my power."

The sage chakra spears shot like lasers. At such close range, Haku and Zabuza could only see the scene jump like "dropped frames."

Even Kosei, gifted as she was, could only barely make out streaking afterimages.

Dad is in danger!

Kosei moved instinctively to help.

But Naruto was not in the danger she imagined.

Though the barrage of sage chakra spears had already surpassed the limits of sight, they were still captured precisely by tempered Observation Haki.

He did not even need to spare them a glance. Naruto shifted lightly in the air with small movements, slipping through the gaps as if strolling.

Then he snatched a sage spear as it hissed past his ear and flicked it back casually.

Two meters before Gaara, the spear unfurled back into chakra and dispersed.

Just as he had said, these energies came from him. How could they harm him?