At Tazuna's house the team met and informed Tazuna that they had taken out nearly all the opposition that Gato could come up with.
"The Iwa nins are dead. They underestimated Naruto and me greatly. The bridge didn't take any damage, we managed to either take them out quickly or take the fights a short distance away. Sasuke, Sakura, how many did you get in the village?" Kakashi asked.
"I have twenty five, Sakura twelve. Three got away and we didn't pursue them." Sasuke said.
"Good work. How are you holding up?" Kakashi asked.
"I didn't think that it would be this hard. I knew it would be hard but not the extent of the feelings it would cause. I think killing the thugs while they were no challenge for me was what disturbed me the most." Sasuke admitted.
"While we fought I didn't really think about it and only concentrated on the job. But right now it's all coming back and really hard." Sakura said, being pale as a sheet.
Kakashi gave both Sasuke and Sakura the same talk he had given Naruto before .He knew it was too early for a mission like this, but they didn't have a choice.
The part Sasuke and Sakura had done today would normally have been a high class C-rank mission or a low class B-rank, depending on the strength of the thugs. The intention of this mission had been a low class C-rank to get his team used to normal threats.
So far both Sasuke and Sakura had performed admirably, even if Sakura still had her fangirl moments. Perhaps this experience would bring home what ninja life was really like and that being a fangirl had no place there.
"What are we going to do with Gato, Kakashi sensei?" Naruto asked.
"We need to kill him. He can't be allowed to escape and restart his criminal activities somewhere else. But I want to get his money to give the people of Wave back what he stole from them and to fill Konoha's coffers.
We also could take over some of his business and use it for information gathering. I know some people that are specialized in that area." Kakashi said.
Naruto was pretty sure he meant ROOT.
"When do you want to do that? He will try to either get more ninjas here quickly or has some thugs somewhere else waiting for his command. This probably isn't the first country he built his empire in.
Wave Country was just unlucky to be perfectly suited for Gato's plans. It's isolated and not very large, doesn't have its own military and people are mostly fishermen." Naruto commented.
"You're right. Are you up to go back to the base in an hour?" Kakashi asked.
"Yes, sensei." Naruto answered.
"Good, then make sure your equipment is ready, we will take off in one hour. Sasuke, Sakura, keep an eye open, but I want you to stay within the seals where you are safe. In case backup from Konoha comes, inform them about the situation.
I guess I overestimated the problems we would have with the number of thugs. I honestly didn't expect us to get rid of most of them in one night and take out the missing nins like we did. Especially not those known to work with Zabuza." Kakashi said.
The genin nodded and took places around the house to rest up.
...
Taking out Gato and the rest of his thugs wasn't hard for Naruto and Kakashi. Following Kakashi's advice to get some practice with the sword of his great-grandfather, Naruto used it to take out the thugs at the base while Kakashi cut them down with a white chakra sabre.
Once they had got rid of the first wave Naruto looked at Kakashi questioningly.
"I thought that sabre broke years ago." He said.
"I had it repaired years ago, but I didn't really want to use it considering when it broke. I also relied too much on Obito's eye. While it is a great tool, I have more abilities than the sharingan. And it's high time I get all of them back." Kakashi said.
"Sure thing, sensei." Naruto said smiling under his mask.
After taking out the last thugs, Kakashi and Naruto entered Gato's office, seeing the business tycoon shake in his shoes.
"Please spare me; I will give you everything you want. I have money; you can have as much as you want." He begged.
"You have nothing with which you could bribe us to spare you. You sent the Iwa ninjas to kill us, trying to get rid of Tazuna's protection. That backfired. Tomoharu and his team are dead. Iwa will not be happy about that.
Letting you live would be a liability and you are not to be trusted, therefore your verdict is death." Kakashi said.
"You can't do that." Gato yelled.
"Like you couldn't kill Kaiza? Leaving his wife a widow and his stepson without a father? Like you couldn't suppress the people of Wave Country, forcing them to live in poverty?" Naruto asked.
"What?" Gato asked looking in those cold blue eyes. Only once he had ever seen those eyes in his life and they had scared him to the core.
"No, that can't be, he didn't have a son." He exclaimed refusing to believe what he saw.
"He did." Kakashi said and dealt the killing blow to Gato, separating his head from his body in one swift move.
"Seal everything that might be of worth for Konoha. I want all the documents you can find. I will take care of that safe." Kakashi said and went to break the safe.
"Understood sensei. But how did Gato know about Dad? I mean I currently hide my features." Naruto asked.
"Your eyes. While they have the shape of your mother, when you are dead serious you have the same look as your father. Especially as you have exactly the same eye-colour. He could freeze weak people just with a look.
He didn't even need to strengthen it with killing intent.
Those knowing that he was way stronger than them either ran away if they could or gave up before the fight even started. There was a reason for his bingo book entry." Kakashi explained and then got the safe open.
"I never heard about that." Naruto admitted.
"It wasn't that well-known, the other villages didn't want to admit that some of their troops were so weak that they would give up if your Dad only looked at them.
That wasn't good for business. And only those that saw it happen could tell about it." Kakashi explained and started taking out money and documents from the safe.
"Okay, that makes sense." Naruto said.
It took them two hours to seal everything in Gato's suite and office. The guy had been involved in a lot more dirty deals than they had assumed. Konoha's intelligence division would love what they had found.
...
The next day Tazuna suddenly had a lot more helpers to build his bridge than before. The news that the Konoha team had killed all of Gato's thugs and Gato himself spread around like wildfire.
Naruto took to harvesting the fields that Gato had kept under his control and sent clones all over the island to distribute food to the people. The fishermen that couldn't help with the building of the bridge were out on the sea, catching fish for the people.
The children were playing carefree for the first time in years. Naruto also had a group of clones prepare a buck load of seals that would protect the bridge against damage.
In the night before the bridge was officially opened he placed his seals all over the bridge. Wave Country would become a strong ally of Konoha after this mission.
And while the country didn't have any resources like ore or valuable minerals, they now had a well-going farming industry, thanks to the fields Gato had kept for him and his minions, and the fishermen would also soon make profit again.
In two years or so the country would be back to its feet and now was indebted to Konoha, but especially to team seven.
The money Naruto and Kakashi had given back to the country which they had confiscated from Gato would also help a long way.
Kakashi had informed Tazuna that he didn't need to pay Konoha for the increased difficulty of the mission, they had taken it from Gato, which Tazuna thanked Kakashi massively for.
Inari had come out of his depressive mood and was now determined to be as brave as team seven, especially Naruto, and face his problems and not run away anymore.
Seeing how four people, three of them just being twelve years old, had managed to free their country had made a huge impression. Sure, Naruto and Kakashi had killed hundreds of men in their sleep, but those men had been murderers, rapists and torturers.
There was no reason to grant them mercy as they wouldn't have done it either.
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