The next morning after Naruto had woken up and created several hundred clones to work on his jutsu and his elemental training, while he had left with Tazuna to head over to the bridge. When they got there the place was already fairly busy and Naruto was forced over to one of the sides of the large unfinished bridge so that he could watch the 'master bridge builder' work while at the same time not getting in the way of him or the others working on the bridge's construction.
Naruto looked over at all the construction workers who were doing construction on the unfinished, but still impressive, bridge. He had been here for several hours and had to admit he was getting kind of bored really bored if he were honest with himself. Standing around watching an old man and a bunch of people running around working without doing anything himself was really boring.
Naruto sighed as he looked up at the sky, I'm really beginning to regret letting Kakashi-sensei talk me into this. Even staying with Sasuke-teme and Sakura would have been better than this.
"You seem kind of bored standing around here all by yourself," Tazuna commented as he carried a large piece construction metal from one side of the bridge to another.
Naruto turned to look at him with a grin, "Are you kidding. I'd much rather deal with an old drunk like you than a girl who would rather smash my face in than say even one kind word, and a brooding emo teme who only speaks in one syllable grunts."
"Hahaha, you know kid, you're alright!" Tazuna laughed as he set down the construction metal for the other workers to grab and weld to the end of bridge where they were extending the length that would eventually reach the mainland.
"Hey Tazuna!"
Naruto and Tazuna turned to see one of the workers coming over to the old bridge builder. A man wearing an outfit similar to Tazuna's who was bald and looked around the same age as the bridge builder himself was.
"Hn?" Tazuna scratched his ear as he looked over at the man, "What is it Giichi?"
Giichi looked at Tazuna with a small frown, "I've been doing a lot of thinking recently and, I'm thinking about stopping my work on the bridge."
"What!" Tazuna yelled in surprise, "This is so sudden! Why would you do this!"
"Tazuna, we've been close friends for a long time now," Giichi started, and Naruto sensed a 'but' coming. "I want to help you, but if we continue this work Gato will notice us. And if you get killed, then what's the point?"
Naruto walked over to the two of them with a small frown, he did not like this man's cowardice. It seems Tazuna-Ojisan was right; the people here have lost their courage.
"We should quit building this bridge while we're ahead," The man continued on, trying to impress the reasons he wanted to quit upon his friend.
"I can't do that," Tazuna placed a hand on his construction helmet and tilted it down as he looked at the man. "This bridge is our bridge. This is the bridge we started building together believing it would bring resources to our super poor country."
The man looked at Tazuna imploringly, "But if we lose our lives-!"
"It's already noon, let's stop for today," Tazuna interrupted Giichi, turning around and leaving the man before he stopped and spoke without looking back, "Giichi, you don't have to come back tomorrow."
Naruto found himself frowning as he followed Tazuna into the city and took a look around. Said city looked more like a hovel than anything else. The buildings were run down and in a state of total disrepair and looked even more dilapidated now that he could see them up close.
The grocery stores had very little in the way of food, and what they were selling was un-fresh and rotten.
People were looking over their shoulder as they walked, almost as if they expected to be attacked or stabbed in the back by some unknown enemy. Parents were shooing their kids down the streets in an effort to get home faster.
But worst of all were the many people who obviously had nowhere to go and were simply sitting on the street sidewalks and alleyways. Some of them held signs that said they were willing to work for food, some just sat or leaned against buildings looking like they had not eaten in months. Many of these people who were starving appeared to be children.
Looking at this place and seeing how bad the people here had it brought pain to the young blonde's heart. It reminded him a lot of his childhood, the year after he had been kicked out of the orphanage and had been forced to look through the garbage in the hopes of getting a decent meal. Fortunately, he was snapped out of his reverie and growing depression by Tazuna.
"I'm supposed to bring home food for lunch." He started saying as he and Naruto made their way to what looked like it was supposed to be a store, if it weren't for the fact that there was only a small amount of food and it was almost all rotten.
"Here we are," Tazuna said as he entered the store.
Naruto followed in and watched as Tazuna looked around at the meager amount of food they had. There's hardly any food here, the blond thought to himself.
Naruto had known what it was like to starve, having been kicked out of the orphanage when he was five. He had lived on the street for a year and had taken to eating out of the trashcan. In fact, it was because he had gone to try and get something out of the trash can at one Ichiraku's Ramen that Naruto had been able to get an apartment. It had been a stroke of luck that the Sandaime Hokage had been eating there at the time and had spotted Naruto. After getting the story from the blond, Sarutobi had made sure to get the boy his own place to live.