When Tōma withdrew from that inner space, barely a moment had passed in the real world. Sakura hadn't noticed anything unusual.
As for Naruto's whisker marks… Tōma knew his earlier explanation was mostly guesswork. Whether it was Kushina's chakra influence, the Nine-Tails leaking through, or something the world itself hand-waved away, he didn't really know. Some questions simply didn't have clean answers.
What mattered more was the present.
Naruto and Sasuke quickly fell back into a competitive rhythm, training like rivals locked in a silent duel. Both wanted to prove they were improving faster than the other.
It was hard to judge who was ahead.
Sasuke clearly had superior talent with ninjutsu, but he was tackling something far more difficult. Naruto, on the other hand, relied on shadow clones to brute-force progress, yet his natural aptitude lagged behind. And the technique he was learning wasn't even the standard Gale Palm. It was Tōma's version, which was easily comparable to a B-rank jutsu in difficulty.
By the time Kakashi had mostly recovered, neither of them had made dramatic breakthroughs. That was normal. Chidori wasn't something you picked up in a few days, and Naruto had only just grasped the most basic form of Gale Palm. The refined version was still impossibly far away.
At this pace, Naruto would probably master the basic Gale Palm first. What came after… that was anyone's guess.
But before either of them could truly settle into new techniques, trouble came knocking.
After Zabuza's retreat, Gatō had gathered another batch of hired muscle.
Unfortunately for him, elite missing-nin weren't cheap or common. What he scraped together this time, in Tōma's eyes, barely qualified as shinobi. Quantity over quality.
Seeing this, Tōma made a decision.
He pulled Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura aside.
"This is a good opportunity," he said calmly. "And a necessary one."
Naruto swallowed hard.
"…We're really going to kill them?"
"Yes," Tōma answered without hesitation. "That's how missions like this usually end. And if you don't deal with them, Tazuna's family will."
Naruto went quiet, fingers tightening on his forehead protector.
"…I get it."
Sasuke and Sakura didn't speak, but their expressions were tense.
"If you want to back out," Kakashi added evenly, "you still can. But if you do, I'd recommend reconsidering whether you should be a shinobi at all."
Coming from someone who'd grown up on battlefields, his words carried weight.
None of them stepped back.
The three genin moved out together.
Kakashi and Tōma stayed hidden.
Watching them, Tōma felt certain this was a deviation from the original path. Naruto, especially, had rarely taken lives early on. But Tōma didn't believe that was healthy.
This world wasn't a storybook.
Some people shouldn't be forgiven. Some threats couldn't be talked down.
Naruto didn't need to become cold or heartless. But he did need to learn that mercy had limits.
The outcome was better than Tōma expected.
Sasuke and Sakura, top students from the Academy, had already been taught what the shinobi world demanded. It was only sooner than they'd imagined. Naruto struggled the most, forcing himself forward, but he didn't break.
"That's enough," Kakashi said at last, forming seals. Dozens of shadow clones appeared around him. Against opponents like these, that was more than enough.
"Tōma," Kakashi reminded him, "don't intervene."
"I know," Tōma replied. "I have something else to take care of."
His gaze followed Gatō, who had already turned and fled the moment his hired men began collapsing.
Kakashi frowned. Then his eyes widened.
Tōma was gone.
Not Body Flicker.
Something else.
"White Fang… Yellow Flash…" Kakashi murmured, expression conflicted. In Tōma, he kept seeing traces of both his father and his teacher.
With a sigh, Kakashi moved to regroup with the team. First blood was enough for today.
"Didn't expect to see you again," Tōma said mildly, staring at the two figures ahead. "Zabuza. Haku."
Zabuza snorted. "Why not?"
He relaxed slightly when he realized Kakashi wasn't with Tōma.
"What, feeling brave without him?" Zabuza sneered.
"I can call him over in seconds," Tōma replied. "And you're still injured."
Tōma twirled a marked kunai between his fingers, smiling.
Zabuza fell silent.
"Our target isn't you," Haku said quietly. "It's the same as yours."
"…Gatō?" Tōma raised an eyebrow. "You're killing your employer?"
"So what?" Zabuza shot back.
"Ruins your reputation," Tōma noted.
"It wouldn't, if no one knew," Zabuza growled, glaring at him.
The tension thickened. Both sides measured the other carefully.
A prolonged fight was possible. A clean victory wasn't.
Time was the problem.
Kakashi would return soon. Naruto was unstable after his first real kill. Tōma needed this fast.
"Half and half," Tōma said at last. "Or I call Kakashi."
Zabuza exploded into curses, only to be dragged back by Haku. In the end, they agreed. On one condition: Tōma said nothing about them killing their employer.
"Deal," Tōma said easily. He had no intention of mentioning it anyway.
Zabuza handled the killing. Tōma stayed out of it.
When it was over, Tōma looked at his share and frowned. It was… less than expected.
"That's normal," Zabuza scoffed. "People don't carry their whole fortune around. We checked before acting."
Zabuza and Haku took what they could carry and left quickly, clearly eager to put distance between themselves and Tōma.
After they were gone, Tōma smiled.
Large items. Heavy items.
He unsealed scroll after scroll.
"Fūinjutsu really is cheating," he muttered.
By the time he finished, the haul was far from "wealth rivaling nations"… but it was more than enough. Lifetime security, at the very least.
Satisfied, Tōma vanished in a flash of space-time, reappearing beside Naruto.
A huge win.