Chapter 82: The First s-rank mission
The meeting ended in discord.
Koyuki Kazahana stormed out, leaving everyone staring at one another in awkward silence.
Yet they could sense that, though she still resisted, her heart was no longer as numb and hopeless as it had been at the start.
The emotions forcibly locked in ice seemed to have cracked—if only a hairline—by the mention of her homeland, Sandaifu's loyalty, and the power of the Konoha Ninja.
The convoy pressed on across the snowfield, passing a colossal cavern that looked artificially carved.
Sandaifu pointed into its depths and recounted the place's past.
While the group listened, Naruto suddenly turned toward the rear, brow creased.
His senses told him the girl who should have stayed in the carriage—Koyuki Kazahana—was moving away.
"Koyuki Kazahana's running."
Naruto murmured to Kakashi at his side.
Kakashi sighed in understanding.
After all, she was barely fifteen or sixteen.
When the coup struck ten years ago she had been a five-year-old child.
Watching her father murdered, her home burned, the once-proud princess reduced to a fugitive orphan—those memories had become the heaviest shadow in her heart.
Forced to face this land of pain again and the uncle who usurped the throne, fear and the urge to flee were only natural.
"She's yours. Bring her back, Naruto."
"Mm."
He nodded, unstrapped the weights on his calves and forearms, and set them gently on the wagon.
Then he vanished like a gust of wind.
Kakashi picked up the discarded weights and tested them in his hand.
"No way…"
His usually half-lidded eye snapped wide for an instant.
Their mass far exceeded his estimate.
Judging by density and feel, these were no ordinary training weights.
"They're… this heavy?"
Staring after Naruto, Kakashi's mind reeled; the direction was already empty.
"He's been running, jumping, fighting with these on every day?"
Guy let him train with this much metal?
Even a seasoned Jonin like him was shaken.
And Naruto had fought and killed three Snow Ninja while wearing them.
Clearly the boy's strength had surpassed Kakashi's expectations.
Not just willpower—his body had reached a monstrous level.
Kakashi could almost see the immense strain every punch and leap placed on muscle and bone.
What inhuman effort had he poured in where no one could see?
With that determination, perhaps he really could become Hokage one day.
Meanwhile, deep in a quiet snowy forest far from the convoy,
Koyuki Kazahana trudged one heavy foot after another; the drifts swallowed her steps.
A hidden branch caught her ankle—she pitched forward and crashed into the cold snow.
Powdery flakes dusted her face and hair.
She didn't rise; she lay still, pressing her cheek into the soft, biting whiteness.
The chill stabbed through her skin yet felt strangely painless, unlocking a flood of memories.
Her unfocused gaze blurred; the white world twisted and shifted.
She was no longer a fugitive princess but a carefree little girl held by her father's warm, broad hand.
His deep, doting laughter echoed as he pointed to the dancing flakes, spinning tales of spring, rainbows, and the nation's future.
The warmth of his palm, the safety of that love, surged over her like a tide amid the frozen forest.
Reality and memory mingled; she couldn't tell whether the droplets on her cheek were melted snow or tears, letting longing and sorrow spread silently through the trees.
"Hurt anywhere?"
Naruto reached her side and lifted her up.
She rose stiffly; her once-lively eyes remained glazed, as though veiled by perpetual frost, reflecting no light.
She turned them toward the frowning boy so close beside her.
Even in the dim woods his golden hair should have blazed, yet to her unfocused sight it looked wilted, a sunflower beaten by winter.
"You're fast."
Her voice, soft and hoarse with fatigue and resignation, drifted in the cold—impossible to tell whether praise or sarcasm.
"My mission record is a hundred percent; I'm not letting you drop it to the nineties."
Naruto scooped her into his arms.
She didn't resist or even flinch, simply leaned against him as if his embrace were the only shelter left.
After a quiet moment she voiced the question that had weighed on her, a whisper carrying the last fragile hope:
"Can you… really defeat Kazahana Dotō?"
A tremor ran through her at the name.
"If you post the kill order, the rest is our job.
Didn't Kazahana Dotō seize the throne only because he had the Snow Ninja?
Konoha can be your strength—provided you pay the fee."
Koyuki Kazahana pressed her lips tight.
"Agreed."
A million ryō was a price she could bear; if it meant killing Kazahana Dotō she would find ten million if necessary.
Her tone turned formal, almost ceremonial, as though to banish the last of her fear.
"I, Koyuki Kazahana, daughter of the late daimyō Sōsetsu Kazahana, rightful heir to the Land of Snow, hereby commission Konoha Ninja Naruto to execute the Traitor Kazahana Dotō."
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