𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗔𝗟𝗙 𝗛𝗬𝗨̄𝗚𝗔

Ep 6 - Where a Hero Onces Lived

'I'm sure he did something to deserve it.' She thought.

"Wow, you really surprised me back there." Tazuna said as we started walking back. "Girls around here don't fight like that."

"They should. Something's seriously wrong here." Sakura said before she felt something touching her again. Pissed she turned around to scream  it was meet with a child with dirty clothes holding their hands out.

Sakura searched her bag and gave the child some candy while Aki on the other hand took out a small bag of bread easy enough to hid underneath the child shirt.

"Don't tell anyone." Aki whispered as the child thanked them and ran away. How she got that bag of bread we'll never know.

"This is how it's been since Gato came here. The children suffer and the adults are afraid to stand up to him. They've lost so hope. That's why we're have to finish the bridge. It'll bring commerce and trade. But much not importantly, that bridge is a symbol of courage." Tazuna said. "We must restore the spirit of our people. When the bridge is finished, people will start to believe again. They'll believe that they can live with dignity"

~~~

After dragging back Naruto and Sasuke from their little training, we could finally start eating.

"Hey, this is fantastic." Tazuna chuckled. "It's been ages since we've had so many guests around our table".

Aki could only sigh as both Naruto and Sasuke competed against each other over food only to throw it all up.

"Don't eat so much if you're gonna puke it up!" Sakura yelled.

"I have to eat."

"And I have to eat more than him." Naruto said. "It's the only possible way I'll get strong enough to beat him."

"That's true, but puking won't help you."

After dinner we all settled down for some tea while come of us settled down while two people decided to make it a competition.

"Excuse me, this picture is torn. Is there some reason for that?" Sakura asked. "Inari, you kept glancing at it all through dinner. It looks like there was someone else in the picture, but they got torn out. It's kind of strange, isn't it?"

"It's my husband."

"They used to call him a hero in this land." Tazuna said as Inari got of his chair and walked away.

"Inari, where are you going?" His mother asked. "Father, you can't talk about him like that in front of Inari, you that. Ugh!"

"Inari's so...I mean, what happened to him?" Sakura asked.

"Hmm, is there a story behind this?"

"He wasn't his real father. He came into our family later and he brought so much happiness. He and Inari were very close." Tazuna said. "I'm those days, Inari used to laugh all the time. But then..."

"Hm?"

"Uh..."

"It all ended. He never laughs or smiles anymore, ever since the day everything changed." Tazuna cried.

"The word courage was stolen from this island. We were left powerless, hopeless, and Inari suffered the most, ever since that day, ever since it happened."

'Omg hurry it up!' Aki wanted yell, because why was he repeating himself.

"Tell us. What happened to Inari?"

Tazuna then explains that the man torn from the picture, named Kaiza, was once a hero in the Land of Waves and Inari's stepfather.

A travelling fisherman, he initially met Inari after saving him from drowning, and Inari came to rely on him heavily to the point where he couldn't stand up for himself.

He became revered as a hero when he single-handedly saved a large portion of the village from a flood.

However, when Gato arrived, he had Kaiza killed in an attempt to destroy the hope of the land, a strategy that sadly succeeded and traumatised Inari.

"Since then, Inari has changed. So did Tsunami and all our people. We lost our will." Tazuna said.

Naruto stood up only to collapse the moment he tried taking a step forward."

"Naruto?"

"What are you doing down there, Naruto?"

"You better take the day off. No more training. You've used too much chakra. If you push any harder, it could kill you." Kakashi warned.

"I'm going to prove it."

"Hm"

"Prove what?"

"Yes, what exactly are you going to prove?" Aki asked with a smile.

Naruto stood up on his shaking legs; "I'll prove that—That it's true. That in this world...there are real heroes."