"I mean, we're heading west, aren't we?" I whined, "When are we going to hit the coast? All these trees are so fucking boring."

"You wanted to come here," Karenbana said, annoyed.

"I signed up for the Land of Fire, not the Land of Forests," I said, "Why haven't they burned everything down to the ground yet. This entire place has terrible naming conventions—do better."

"I don't know why you're saying that like I'm at fault," Karenbana grunted, "I haven't named anything."

"But you probably inherited your terrible naming sense from your parents," I pointed out, "They really woke up and said—baby, I've got it; Karen—uh—bana."

"Idiot," Karenbana said. "Something like that isn't even inheritable."

"Oh, so you're a scientist now, are you?" I accused. "You know everything about genetics?"

"It's like you want me to hit you," Karenbana wondered.

"I'm just feeling out all the pointy bits you've got surrounding you," I said, folding my hands behind my head. "The more I know about how to piss you off, the easier it will be for me to befriend you."

There was a bit of a pause after that, and I wondered what part of what I'd just said was responsible for it.

"You already told me that everything is transactional and that the faster I learned it, the better off I would be," Karenbana said, "Now you're telling me you want to be my friend? Why would I ever believe you."

"Friendship isn't some magical force that's floating around in the air, Karenbana," I said, rolling my eyes. "It's a relationship between two people—usually with a set of ill-defined boundaries—and always with a mixed list of advantages and disadvantages."

Karenbana said nothing to the words.

"I'm also not some kind of automaton that can't derive pleasure from mundane interactions with people in my proximity," I said, referencing our recent conversation. "I've had friends, I've had enemies, I've had acquaintances, and I've had lovers—sure, almost all of those have self-destructed in rather extraordinary ways, but I've had them all."

"I can't imagine how they ever went wrong," Karenbana offered.

"I think it's become quite clear to both of us that you're lacking imagination," I shot back on reflex, "But yes, usually I am the cause of the self-destruction—I'm not exactly an easy person to get along with."

Rather than let her take another shot with the low-hanging fruit I'd just set up, I kept on talking.

"So, I've made it my mission to brute force discovery of all of your boundaries—ergo, poke the dragon until it sets me on fire," I said, nodding. "I figure that if I can find all your berserk buttons now, I'll know how to avoid hitting them in the future—and you'll get plenty of practice telling me to fuck off early."

"You could have just asked me," Karenbana said, frowning.

"Karenbana, will you please tell me how you're feeling right now? You look upset; tell me, is it because I said you were short?" I said, sticking my bottom lip out at her. "I wouldn't want to make you feel bad—maybe we can sit down, and you can tell me all your vulnerabilities?"

"If you explained what you were doing first, I might have told you something," Karenbana said, crossing her arms. "You could have just asked if there were anything off-limits—"

"Which you would have taken as a trap because stating a series of topics that you aren't willing to talk about is literally listing your weak points—you would have either told me to fuck off, or you would have lied about them," I said, "Then I'd stumble into one of those critical points at a moment when you're actually feeling vulnerable, and then you'd explode, we'd argue—I'd win because I'm actually really good at that, and I can barely control myself at the best of times—and then you'd run away crying, or, if it was really rough, you'd kill me."

Karenbana stared at me for a moment.

"I've literally gone through this cycle a dozen times already," I defended, "I've got the formula down—okay?"

"Is this why you wasted those questions asking about me?" Karenbana said.

"Obviously, and the more I know about you, the less likely I am to ruin everything." I said, "But there's another reason, a secret reason—one which you'll only get out of me if you offer one in exchange."

"Fine," Karenbana said. "What is it?"

"Because I'm interested in you and the things you've done," I said, "Hearing you talk about them is fun—sometimes you even smile, and I like that too."

"Shut up," Karenbana managed, looking away. "That's not a real secret."

"So—we should go to interesting places, you should tell me interesting things about yourself, and together, we can experience it all through the framing of our little Karenbana-Sora collision," I said, clearing my throat. "To summarise it, because you have such a short attention span: I'd like to be your friend."

"If that's what you want," Karenbana mumbled. "I guess that's okay."

"Say it back, or you're fired," I complained.

#

"I'm going to try again," Karenbana said, breathing a bit heavily. "I think I have enough for one last attempt."

Karenbana took a moment to try and get herself back in the mental space required for the technique, and I returned to my squats, knees burning beneath the relentless but entirely mindless task. I watched as her hands blurred through the seals, and she skipped the self-mutilation part because her hand was already red with dried blood—her hand hit the sand, palm first. Black lines spread out beneath it, and then smoke erupted around her.

"Summoning Technique," Karenbana breathed, already sagging from the drain. "That's all—I can do."

"Oh," A voice said, surprised. "This is weird—are you the summoner?"

"Yes," Karenbana managed, "My name is Karenbana, and it's a pleasure to finally meet you."

The smoke was already gone, and sitting on the beach in front of her was a lizard about the entire length of her forearm and about three-quarters as wide.

"I'm Shirokuto," Shirokuto said, "Are we in a fight? I'm not very good yet."

"No, we're not fighting; I'm just practising the Summoning Technique—you're the first Chameleon that's been able to talk," Karenbana said, seemingly lost. "I'm not really sure where to go from here."

I gave up on the squats entirely, dropping down to sit on the sand before clearing my throat to draw the attention of the two of them.

"Shirokuto, she's been steadily getting better at this over the past few weeks, so she's going to be summoning more of your family, likely trending upwards in size and age with each attempt," I said, "The goal is for her to eventually summon Shiromari, and speak with him properly for the first time—It would probably be a good idea if you warned the rest of your family about that process."

"Sure thing," Shirokuto said, "Who are you, anyway?"

"My name is Sora, but I'm not very important," I said, "Is there anything you think Karenbana, as the new summoner, needs to know going forward?"

"I don't really know anything about it," Shirokuto admitted, turning back to face her. "I've never even met a summoner before—the last one was dead before I was born."

Karenbana reached forward, carefully touching the Chameleon on the top of its head, almost like one would try and pet a dog.

"Do you know how long you'll stay around for?" Karenbana asked, "I used a lot of chakra this time."

Shirokuto wriggled around underneath her hand, apparently enjoying the contact.

"I can feel it running out," Shirokuto said. "Maybe a minute or two?"

I leaned back onto my hands, fingers sinking into the sand and removing myself from the conversation entirely to allow them to maximize the time they had together. As far as strange talking animals went, he did seem to be on the younger side, but all journeys started with a single step, and this one had a name—Shirokuto. Exactly as he'd said, after barely a minute had passed, he vanished in the middle of a sentence, leaving nothing but smoke behind. Karenbana seemed oddly happy; the edge to her that usually followed her around wore away, either by the satisfaction of having succeeded or simply the conversation with someone who wasn't me—I wasn't sure.

"That seemed to go well," I said.

"It—did," Karenbana said, reaching up to touch the back of her neck. "That caught me off guard, I think. I wasn't expecting it to work."

"You can tick 'summoned a talking animal' off your bucket list then," I wondered, "Karenbana the Summoner—has a nice ring to it."

"You're being weird," Karenbana said, eyeing me. "You haven't made fun of me once yet."

"I'm just letting you enjoy your hard-earned success," I said, "It's hard to see the everyday change, but you definitely have more chakra than you did a week ago—all that training and meditating is starting to pay off."

Karenbana shifted around a bit, seemingly struggling without my constant jabs to orientate herself. I twisted up back to my feet and fired off a few stretches, getting myself ready to continue where I'd left off. A coastline we had indeed found, but we'd ended up quite a bit south of where I'd expected. The curvature of the coast actually pulled out into the water far enough that I couldn't see very far into the gulf, but there was an easy path forward now, at least. We simply had to follow the beach north around the tip of the gulf and then directly west—we'd run into the bridge eventually.

#

I took a seat on the beach, crossed my legs, and then dropped into meditation—I'd lost track of my Skill Creation Resistance a bit, but when I'd actually looked earlier, I'd found that it had dropped back down to a two. I had something of a crisis of choice, the proximity to the water made me want to go for Water-Walking, but we wouldn't always be near water, and Tree-Walking, unlike its name suggested, could be used on literally everything. Whichever one I didn't pick up, I'd be going for next time, but it was still a difficult choice.

I'd also considered trying to recreate Renga's air-walking technique, although the way he'd done that was through what I could only assume was a panel of clear ice beneath his feet. Haku's mirrors had floated in the air, hadn't they? Maybe there was some kind of elevation locking that Ice Release had built into it. I could probably make a barrier to stand on easily enough—a sheet of mana beneath my feet should work much the same way as it had for him. Something to put on my list of skills to create alongside teleportation and some kind of chakra-regenerating skill that I could toss at Karenbana whenever she was getting low.

"Tree-walking for now," I muttered, "Let's see."

Tree-walking worked by using energy to pull yourself towards something or by adhering to the surface on contact. So I needed surface adhesion on contact, but I also needed to be able to actually move while it was active. Surface adhesion on contact, but responsive to user intent. Reserved mana would be ideal because casting it every time I wanted to take a step would be massively wasteful. I started up my mantra in my mind. Surface adhesion on contact. Any body part. Responsive to user intent. Reserved mana cost. I repeated it over and again, using the swirling mess of Meditate to draw my thoughts, the properties I desired and the pressure in my mind together, connecting them all in a mess of association.

You have unlocked a new skill, Surface Adhesion.

I ground away the veil through the swirling mass of Meditate and then brought up the skill menu to check exactly what I'd managed to create.

Surface Adhesion(Lv1)

Reserve 45.75(100) mana per second to stick to a solid surface with a weight limit of 0.25kg (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

I planted my hand on top of the sand and then toggled the skill on before lifting my arm—a coating of sand came up with it. Shaking my hand around didn't do anything to dislodge it, but I could feel the mana under my skin now. I eyed my hand for a moment before pushing mentally—and the sand coating my fingers fell away, the rest of the mess on my palm entirely untouched.

"Success," I said, nodding. "Now, exactly how many levels do I need before I can even use it?"

"Levels of what?" Karenbana said.

"I just figured out a Tree-Walking equivalent using my own source of energy," I said, not really paying attention to her. "It's going to need a lot of work before it can hold my weight, but I was expecting that."

"You just figured that out on your own?" Karenbana wondered.

I left the skill toggled on but pushed until I was no longer sticking to anything, and then just left it on—I added Energy Sense and Stealth along with it. Leaving them on overnight would get me somewhere by tomorrow.

"Technically, I invented an entirely new technique, but who's really keeping track?" I said before humming. "Maybe I'll spend a week inventing a skill that makes people slightly taller—and then refuse to use it on you."

"Fuck you," Karenbana said.

"I mean, using it on you would mess everything up anyway," I said, shaking my head. "Karenbana isn't really a Karenbana if she isn't fun-sized."

"Fun-sized?" Karenbana demanded, shooting up to her feet. "What the hell does that mean?"

I pulled one of the Smoke Bombs I'd stolen back in the Land of Vegetables from my inventory and then held it up between my fingers, clearly visible.

"You'll never take me alive," I cried, smashing the pellet down onto the sand. "Just try and stop me—"

Thick black smoke erupted upwards, far faster than I'd been expecting, and I ended up inhaling it. I swiped my hand around in an attempt to clear the mess and then sought to escape, coughing the entire way.

"Those are expensive," Karenbana said, storming around the mess to meet me. "Give me the rest of them—now."

I kicked a wave of sand in her direction, stumbling across the beach in the process, and she was forced to jaunt back to the side to avoid the mess.

"Sand Release: Heavenly Scattershot," I wheezed, kicking another load of sand at her. "Stay back, you—Sand Release—Sand—release me at once—"

#

The Land of Waves slipped into sight over the coming days, the early morning fog doing its best to erase the opposite shore from sight. The massive towering bridge ahead of us was barely spared, high enough off the water that the railing just cleared it all. I'd had a few days to grow used to how the thing just seemed to get bigger the closer we came to it, but even still, it was hard to imagine Tazuna building it while Zabuza was running around, debating the nature of where the neck ended and the head began.

"There's a clear distinction," Karenbana said, shaking her head. "The Land of Fire ends on the coast, and the gulf belongs to nobody—the bridge is obviously in the Land of Waves."

"I mean, the Land of Waves ends on the other side, so it's not like they can claim the gulf either," I said, shrugging. "Imagine trying to argue that one; Sir, is it true that you named this bridge after a citizen of Konohagakure—which I will remind you is located within the Land of Fire? Not a great look there, buddy."

"The materials came from the Land of Wave, the contractors came from there, they must have gotten permission to build it in the first place, or the Land of Fire would have had soldiers on the shore," Karenbana argued, "You're being stupid—which I suppose I should be expecting by now."

"Wow, a personal attack? Don't tell me you ran out of actual arguments?" I said, feigning surprise. "Should I take that as you conceding the point, or have you given up entirely?"

Karenbana blew a breath out of her nose before turning her gaze forward and ridding herself of the entire conversation I'd dragged her into.

"We are at the Land of Waves," Karenbana grunted, "Who are we meeting with?"

"Define meeting with," I said, blinking. "Did I say we were meeting someone?"

"You said we were picking up a weapon," Karenbana said, glancing over at me. "I was assuming there was some kind of blacksmith here or a specialty weapons store or something."

"Oh," I said, shaking my head. "No on both accounts—we're literally picking a weapon up, like off the ground."

Karenbana was silent in the face of this information, and I watched as she opened her mouth before closing it again. I continued walking, crossing the road that led north into the heart of the Land of Fire and continuing down the other side. Karenbana kept her silence for almost a minute as we left The Great Naruto Bridge and the Land of Waves behind.

"Sora," Karenbana said, "If we came all this way for a rusty old kunai, I might actually kill you."

"The fact that you think I would travel across two countries to pick up discarded kunai in a forest shows exactly how well you know me," I said, impressed. "But no, we're after something far more important than that—and apparently, it's still got chakra inside of it because it just entered my range."

I turned right, slipping between some trees and climbing up the ridge—it opened up onto something of a private clearing, surrounded by trees and overhanging the ocean. As far as graves went, this one had come with an amazing view of the ocean. I reached down and took hold of the massive slab of metal—and failed to remove it; it was buried too deep for me to pull out by hand. I vanished it into my inventory instead before reaching down and attempting to fill in the hole it had left behind.

"That's not a weapon; it's a slab of metal with a handle," Karenbana said, stepping into the clearing proper. "Who did it belong to?"

"Zabuza Momochi, one of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist," I said, standing back up. "He had a friend called Haku Yuki who followed him around—they actually fought Team Seven here and died trying to kill the man who built that bridge."

"That's Kubikiribōchō?" Karenbana said, taken aback.

"You know the name of it, but not what it looks like?" I wondered. "That's kind of weird."

"Everybody knows the names; I've just never seen any of them before, and half of it was buried in the ground," Karenbana said, shaking her head. "Kakashi killed Zabuza?"

"Kakashi defeated him but didn't kill him," I corrected, "Gato, the guy who hired Zabuza, turned up to betray them at the last minute, and he brought an army of mercenaries with him—Zabuza killed them all, and then died of his injuries."

"To think someone with a history like his would die like that," Karenbana muttered in disgust. "Clients."

"I'm standing right here, you know?" I said, rolling my eyes. "Team Seven buried the two of them here and marked the graves with the sword."

"You're okay with taking it?" Karenbana said, before pausing. "Kakashi told you where it was."

"No, he didn't, and I have it on very good authority that this sword will end up in the hands of the bad guys if it's left here," I said, "I'd rather use it to help the good guys—once we're done, I'll give it back, probably."

"Once we're done doing what?" Karenbana murmured.

"Saving the world," I said.

I turned to look at the ocean, hands planted on my hips, eyes locked onto the horizon—a small breeze rolled through the clearing, taking some of the leaves with it and rustling my hair. The silence quickly grew expectant, but I held my ground until she finally broke down.

"Are you going to tell—" Karenbana asked.

"Shush, Karenbana," I said, keeping my gaze forward. "I'm doing the cool guy thing—just let it hang."

#

"Just you wait until I can swing this thing," I grunted, straining to hold it out parallel to the ground. "You won't be laughing when I paddle your ass with it."

The tip of the sword rose up off the ground under the force of my efforts, my left hand pushing down hard against the base of the handle, my right hand providing the lift. It shook in the air, and I managed a kind of limp twist, the blade rotating in a slow arc before it dropped back down onto the ground.

"You're closer to chopping your own foot off than paddling anything," Karenbana said, "This is actually starting to make me anxious—can you just stop?"

"Finally realised how strong I'm getting, have you?" I grunted, "Our next fight is—shit—I can do this—"

The edge of Kubikiribōchō crashed into the tree with all the force I could muster—roughly about the same amount as an envelope flopping onto the floor. It crashed down onto the ground, edge first, taking a chunk of tree bark with it in the process. Karenbana started forward as if to catch it before it could crash into my leg and then froze with a strangled noise as I got a handle on it.

Strength has increased by 1.

"Look at that damage—Hashirama Senju is trembling in his grave right now," I said, panting. "I'm a one-man-wrecking ball."

"You're a one-man accident waiting to happen," Karenbana managed, "Why don't you just go back to doing pushups for now?"

Like hell I was going to do that when I had a giant fucking sword I could swing around instead.

"What's got you so worked up, little bean?" I said, leaning the slab against my leg. "You beat the shit out of me all the time—you broke my nose back in Princess Dirtbag's palace."

"I know how much force I'm exerting when I hit you," Karenbana said, breathing out of her nose. "You have absolutely no idea what you're doing—see, you almost fucking—"

I vanished the sword into my inventory before it could do more than graze my shin—something that left a massive red line behind that was already filling with blood. I Healed the damage with a double cast and then tried to wipe it clean.

"Okay, that one was your fault," I defended, "I'm out here trying to master the blade, and you're hovering around me like a fretting housewife—now I'm thinking about you in nothing but an apron, which perfectly illustrates how distracting you are being."

"You're not taking this seriously at all," Karenbana accused. "You almost cut your fucking leg off just now—"

"Completely unrelated to what we're talking about," I said, interjecting. "But you don't know where I can buy an apron, do you?"

The sound that came out of her mouth was positively tortured.

#

"How did you know Kubikiribōchō was there or that Zabuza died?" Karenbana said after she'd finished swallowing her rice. "If Kakashi didn't tell you, somebody must have—if you were here when that happened, you would have taken it."

I stuffed a riceball into my mouth for the sole purpose of denying her an answer.

"No, you said that you had it on good authority that someone was going to take it," Karenbana said, narrowing her eyes. "Someone else knew where it was and warned you about it? But they didn't take it for themselves?"

I raised an eyebrow at her conclusion.

"How did they know someone was going to take it at all?" Karenbana frowned. "Was someone watching the gravesite—if you keep pretending to chew—"

"I've been keeping a lot from you, Karenbana," I admitted, licking my fingers clean of rice. "A lot."

"Which you're now going to remedy," Karenbana prompted, her impatience getting the best of her. "Or you wouldn't have said it in the first place."

"Bold of you to assume that I wouldn't do it just to piss you off," I offered before clearing my throat. "But yes, I think it's time I drop a couple of breadcrumbs for you—I'm on a quest, Karenbana."

"A quest?" Karenbana asked. "To do what exactly?"

"You and I, my dear minion, are going to save the world," I said, "How cool is that?"

"Save the world?" Karenbana asked. "Do you mean literally or just as a figure of speech?"

"Literally," I said, thinking about it. "There's kind of a lot of things going wrong right now, and if we don't correct them, then everyone on the planet is either going to die by having their chakra taken away, or they might be trapped in an eternal Genjutsu—or they'll die when the moon smashes into the planet."

"What?" Karenbana said.

"There's also a chance that this unkillable demon comes out of a box and wastes us all or that the Land of Sky gains control over the zero-tailed-beast, regains control over their flying city and then begins blowing up entire Hidden Villages," I said, ticking them off on my fingers. "There's this one guy going around and stealing bloodlines, the reason for which I can only assume is that he wants to conquer the known world."

Karenbana stared at me.

"What else—oh, there's also another immortal demon with an army of clay soldiers who will conquer the world if we don't kill him first," I said, using a second hand. "There is another guy with a mobile fortress who also has an army of automatons who were created using children, and he will either gain unlimited power or blow up the Land of Tea depending on how things go."

"Can you slow down for a moment," Karenbana said, holding up a hand. "You're—"

"—time travelling puppet master who can use thousands of puppets at once, who will either kill the Fourth Hokage before he becomes the Fourth Hokage, retroactively rewriting everything he ever did and massively changing the structure of the world," I said, starting to run out of fingers. "Actually, that one might be the biggest threat I've mentioned because Tobi would be completely uncontested when he went to Konohagakure, and Akatsuki's plans would happen a decade earlier—before I even appeared, which means Kaguya is revived earlier, and everyone gets merc'd."

I was going to have to make that one a priority because time travel was fucky—and waking up on a beach in the Land of Moon with the Infinite Tsukiyomi already active was not at all ideal.

"Sora," Karenbana said, "I can't tell if your fucking with me."

"I'm not," I said, flicking a grain of rice at her face. "All of those things are real, and there's more of them that I didn't even get around to."

"More of them?" Karenbana said.

"Akatsuki is the big one—a group of ten S-rank missing shinobi who are currently preparing to locate every single Jinchuriki in the world and extract the Tailed-Beast inside of them. After that, they'll seal them all into a statue," I said, "From there, it's a matter of which member of the group ends up winning the ensuing power struggle—either Nagato Uzumaki wins, and he starts blowing up countries with the statue, or Obito Uchiha wins, then revives Madara Uchiha, before trapping everyone in the world in an everlasting genjutsu."

"How do you know about all of this?" Karenbana asked.

"The easiest way to explain this is that I can see the future—or at least some of the events of the future," I said, "I don't know exactly when or how they happen, but the general details for all of them are probably correct."

"That's why you came to the Land of Moon," Karenbana said, "You knew we were going to take over the country."

"Wrong," I said, shaking my head. "In the original future, Kakeru Tsuki died in that cave, and Michiru became the king. Ishidate killed Shabadaba before being killed by Naruto. Lee killed Kongo, and Sakura killed you."

"I died?" Karenbana managed.

"You would have died if not for my intervention—you're welcome, by the way," I said, "Moving past all of that, the reason I'm dragging you around the continent is to stop these threats before they all spiral out of control and everyone dies."

Karenbana seemed like she was struggling to come to terms with everything.

"Listen, it's a lot to take in, but there's nothing immediately world-ending coming our way right this minute," I said, "Most of the bad stuff starts happening much later, so this is more like the preparatory phase—go sleep on it, figure out if you want to renegotiate or quit."

"How could I possibly sleep after hearing something like that?" Karenbana mumbled.

"Then meditate on it," I said, "Go on, shoo—I'm going to start swinging the leg cleaver around, and you're clearly not ready to witness my ascension."

#

The last leg of the journey to the edge of the Land of Fire didn't take anywhere near as long as the first half, and before long, we'd passed into the Land of Rivers. Kakeru's map room hadn't had the location of the gold mine listed, but there were a bunch of little towns that would be able to point us in the right direction—Takumi Village had been one of them, the home of the Four Symbols Celestial Men. The Fujaku Hishō Shōkenwould be a perfect match for Karenbana. The question was, were we too late or too early? Too late, and the weapons would be combined into that lame flying harness. Too early, and we'd be forced to kill all four of what were probably Special Jounin-level shinobi—one-trick ponies the entire group may have been; the fact that they'd managed to stomp the Sand Trio in one on one combat without much effort marked them as relatively dangerous.

Gaara had been pretty spotty in those fights, stomping on the chakra thief without effort and then immediately being defeated by taking a bizarre, overly complicated combination Water Dragon Technique to the face. He'd been running on empty and apparently in severe need of a medic after that one—something that seemed odd considering it was fucking Gaara. The chakra-absorbing armour that one guy was wearing sounded pretty useful, though, even if it looked like garbage—honestly, I'd have taken the ones from the Land of Snow any day. Takumi Village was to the far north of the country anyway, so I'd leave it until after we picked up the other pair of weapons I wanted. It was a bit odd that there were two different pairs of elemental swords floating around inside of one country—did the Land of Rivers have something going on there?

"What's so special about this place?" Karenbana said, eyeing the tiny little village with a flat gaze. "There must be something going on."

"There is a princess buying specialty tea here; she betrayed her cousin for power and is now ruling the country from the shadows as the new Daiymo," I said, clearing my throat. "Her first order of business is to get rid of all the rivers—and we need to stop her before it's too late."

Karenbana stared at me for a moment, clearly trying to decide whether or not she was supposed to believe me—she'd been having something of a crisis after everything I'd revealed to her.

"You're no fun today, Karenbana," I sighed, "We're here for directions."

"Directions to where?" Karenbana said.

"A gold mine," I said, "I don't remember the name—but it shouldn't be too hard to figure that part out."

"Why?" Karenbana murrmured.

"A shinobi is only as good as the tools they have at their disposal, and while you do have a Summoning Contract now, you still don't have a good weapon," I said, keeping my eyes on the village. "As hilarious as it would be to see you carrying Kubikiribōchō around, you can't have it—therefore, I'm going to get you something almost as cool and much more Karenbana-sized."

Karenbana gave no reaction to the provocation, and I sighed again.

"That means we need to go to the gold mine because it's the closest landmark I know of to use as a place to start our search," I said, "So we're going to this shitty little town to charm some locals into telling us where it is."

"Almost as cool?" Karenbana wondered.

"Don't be like that," I said, "You should know by now that I give the best gifts, have some faith, will you?"

"It's not really a gift, though, is it?" Karenbana said, "You're only giving it to me in exchange for being your bodyguard and apparently putting my life on the line to save the world."

"I suppose that's a fair summary of the situation," I said, "You're welcome to reject it as payment and then leave the moment your contract runs out—I'll do it on my own if you don't want to be involved."

Rather than relieve some of the burden I knew she was feeling, it only seemed to incense her further.

"You can't do anything on your own," Karenbana said, "You can't even beat a genin in a straight fight without almost dying."

"Well, I won't fight them straight, will I?" I said, "Besides, I killed two different genin, and I killed Renga on my own."

"You didn't fight him; you assassinated him before he realised you were there," Karenbana snapped, "That won't work against everyone, and it's not going to work against groups—the second someone knows your attacking them, you'll die."

"Karenbana," I said, vaguely annoyed. "What are you even arguing for at this point?"

"I'm trying to make you realise how stupid this is," Karenbana snapped, "S-rank shinobi? Jinchuriki? Madara Uchiha?"

"Is this you trying to negotiate for more money, or are you having a meltdown? Because you haven't said anything I haven't already considered, and you've done absolutely nothing to change my mind." I said, without interest. "If you don't want to fight the big scary shinobi, then take the out I just gave you and leave—you know what? Fuck the rest of the contract; you're free to go right now."

Karenbana stopped walking at the words, but I didn't. Instead, I kept on moving forward towards the village, and I didn't look back. This was one of those moments I'd warned her about, and I suppose it was my fault for actually caving into her demands. I'd told her too much at once, and she'd probably come to the very correct realisation that things like what had happened in The Land of Moon, the Land of Necks and the Land of Vegetables were only the start. It was going to get worse, and anybody who put any kind of value on their own life would obviously be upset about being dragged into it. My method of joking about the things that worried me worked to abstract them and make them less real and less dangerous—but that didn't mean that I wasn't taking it seriously. I kept almost all of my reasoning and rationale internal and buried deep, out of sight of others. Karenbana saw me trivialising all these things that would most likely end with my death and had probably come to the conclusion that I was being reckless with my safety or that I was outright suicidal.

"Hello," I said, voice bright. "I've been looking everywhere for this quaint little curry shop, but I can't seem to pin it down—I'm a food critic, you see? I've heard it's nearby some kind of gold mine. You wouldn't happen to be able to point me in the right direction, would you?"

#

Sleeping in an actual bed felt bizarre after our slow walk across the Land of Fire and into the Land of Rivers. The little village only really had one Inn, and I had a feeling that it didn't get much use throughout the year—the obvious clue had been the built-up dust beneath the bed somehow avoiding being swept up in the frantic cleaning pass that the owner had done after I'd first knocked on his door. If the bed was odd, the lack of Karenbana's energy signature was far stranger.

I couldn't really remember being separated from her for more than a few minutes at a time—scouting ahead, the occasional patrol, and of course, toilet breaks. It had been hours since the argument, and given the speed at which she could move, I was left to wonder which border she would have ended up crossing. West was the Land of Wind, East was back to the Land of Fire—North would take her straight into the Land of Rain, but even at shinobi speed, she probably couldn't have reached it that far in just a few hours.

I wondered what Nagato Uzumaki was doing right now—was he sitting around in the tallest tower of Amegakure, plotting out how to best destroy Konohagakure? Status Removal would probably work on his emaciated body—if I could have convinced him to get out of the crab bot to begin with. Maybe I could send a message to him somehow, explaining Obito Uchiha's plan to betray them, along with information about how Kamui worked and an offer to heal him. With knowledge of his enemy's abilities, enough prep time, and a good enough reason, Nagato could probably figure out how to clap the guy—Konan had almost managed it with her inspired plan to throw every single exploding tag in Amegakure at Obito and see if anything stuck.

The downside to that plan was that Nagato would be healed, and he'd probably still attack Konohagakure. I'd have to find a way to counteract that—healing Itachi would probably be a good starting point. Stopping Jiraiya from going on a suicidal stealth mission into Amegakure would do wonders as well. A Sage Mode Naruto, a Faux Sage Jiraiya, and a Fully Healed Itachi Uchiha™ should be enough to give even a full-strength Nagato Uzumaki the willies. As far as theory-crafting went, it was a pretty solid plan, but it would outright sacrifice the element of surprise—right now, nobody really knew I was a player in this game.

Sure, Kakashi had probably told Tsunade all about me, but they had no idea how deep the rabbit hole really went—and they wouldn't until my arrival in Konohagakure. I wanted to remain under the radar at least until the point where I could escape from these kinds of shinobi, if not actually fight them off. The fact that Karenbana had left was actually a pretty substantial blow, and it would mean I'd need to start training much, much harder if I actually wanted to be able to stop anything.

Surface Adhesion has increased by 1.

I attempted to do a sit-up to take a look at where my feet were pressed against the headboard, and the adhesion broke, unable to handle the weight of my body. It was getting better, but the day when I could actually scale anything seemed pretty far away. A familiar energy signature appeared at the far end of my range, skipping between rooftops before coming to a stop two streets away. Karenbana remained crouched on the roof, seemingly scanning the village for something, and I moved to sit up on the bed. Had she simply decided to stay the night in the village before setting out—or had she decided to actually stick around?

There was no real way for me to discern that without speaking to her. I was half tempted to leave her be because of how awkward it would be if I'd misjudged the situation. A minute passed, and her slow, methodical investigation seemed to continue unhindered, and while I couldn't see her without sticking my head out the window, she must have had a good enough vantage point to see most of the village from where she was. I sighed, stuck two fingers into my mouth, and then whistled once—the noise cut through the silence and passed through the barely opened window.

Karenbana turned to look at where it had come from before leaping across the street, crossing over the rooftops and coming to a stop on top of the building I was in. I remained where I was, arms folded beneath my head, feet glued to the headboard, and considered the fact that she might have decided to kill me instead. Kubikiribōchō was pretty good motivation, after all. I lined my finger up at the ceiling and pointed directly at where I could feel her crouching—before letting it drop back down to the mattress.

"Are you going to stay up on the roof all night?" I said, "Or are you actually going to come inside."

I wasn't exactly sure how good these shinobi's natural sense of hearing really was, but she'd managed to detect me through multiple walls before, so I was relatively confident that she could pick up on the words. Karenbana planted a hand on the edge of the roof and did what felt like a handstand before swinging down and sticking onto the side of the building. The window slid upwards a moment later, and she twisted inside before shutting it behind her. I kept my eyes on the ceiling as she tipped backwards to lean against the wall beside the window.

"I expected you to be halfway across the country by now," I said, "What changed your mind?"

"I never made the decision to leave in the first place," Karenbana said.

"Oh," I wondered. "I suppose it's probably better to quit after you get the weapon anyway—leaving now would be kind of stupid, now that I think about it."

"I didn't stay because of that, and I'm not going to leave after a single argument," Karenbana muttered, "Even if you are the biggest idiot I've ever met."

"Well, you're lucky you came back when you did because I was just about to trade you in for a newer model," I said, "I totally had my heart set on a blonde—I could have even called her Karenbana-na."

"You think there are two people on this continent willing to put up with you?" Karenbana said, eyes narrowed. "That's optimistic of you."

"I made a promise to turn you—of all people—into one of the strongest kunoichi in the world," I said, raising an eyebrow. "I might well be the most optimistic man on the planet."

"I thought I'd got it all out of my system," Karenbana said, glaring. "But I guess not because I still want to punch you in the face."

"In the face?" I said, surprised. "Can you even reach that high?"

#

I found the mountain long before the curry shop, but that was to be expected, considering one of those things was nine feet tall, and the other was towering above everything in the immediate area. Even without directions, I would have needed to be blind to have missed the mountainous region known as Katabami. A monumental ring of stone, dirt, and cliffs, broken up only by the rivers that gave the country its name—and right in the centre of it all, running parallel to the river, was the Katabami Gold Mine itself. I could see dozens of little figures making their way around the village, disappearing into houses, buildings, mine shafts and caves alike, some carrying tools, others carrying baskets filled with rock and ore.

"Are we going in to ask for more directions?" Karenbana asked.

I considered the question as I scanned the area from my place at the top of the ridge. I'd picked the east side of the mountain because I'd been almost certain that was where most of the fighting had originally taken place—mainly because the Curry of Life shop had been able to see the lightning storm from the road, and it had been on the east side as well. It had been a long ass time since I'd seen the place in question, but the general terrain did look vaguely familiar.

"No, I don't think so," I wondered. "Karenbana—can you get me up there?"

I pointed out a higher ridge to our northeast, three tiers higher than the slab of rock we were already on. Karenbana glanced up at where I was pointing, ducked under my arm, wrapped her hand around my hip and tripped me. I practically fell on top of her, but she'd clearly planned the maneuver because she caught me over her shoulders and then leapt—the ground fell away from us both, and I felt my heart rise into my throat at the sudden loss of the earth beneath my feet.

I grunted as she landed on the edge of our plateau before leaping clear across the gap. I glanced down and felt another spike of adrenaline as I saw the empty space beneath us, hundreds of meters of open air, a small offshoot of the river that looked softer than the earth but would kill us both on impact from a fall like that. All I could think of was the vanishing Shiromari-Castle and the bright, painful impact with the stone foundation.

The cliff face came towards us at a terrifying speed, and then her foot made contact. It stuck to the wall, and then the force of my weight began to shift downwards as Karenbana sprinted straight up the cliff. Within moments she had crested the top, and then we were in the air again as she made it up to the next tier in turn. When we finally came to a stop on the plateau I'd indicated, most of my fear had gone, and once she turned, giving me a chance to get my feet underneath me, I breathed out.

"Thanks," I said, "This area looks much more familiar—we're going over there."

I attempted to muss up her four inches of hair as I stepped past and actually managed a couple of passes before she smacked my hand away with a grunt. I could see where the battle had taken place, a series of odd trenches cut into the ground, curving around the area—courtesy of Raiga's overwhelming attacks. Did every missing shinobi from Kirigakure have a Haku, or was it just the Seven Swordsman of the Mist—hell, even Kisame had Itachi.

Ranmaru was someone we would be checking in on very soon—because there was no way I was leaving such an easy counter to Kaguya and the rest of the Byakugan-wielding maniacs to live out his life in a curry shop. I came to a stop at the place where all the trenches had clearly begun and then carefully moved to stand on the edge of the cliff. I smiled—far below, a thick river curved past the outer-east-side of Katabami, more or less directly below where I was standing.

"Alright, I'm going to need you to carry me again," I said, scratching my chin. "We're going straight down to that river—if we deviate too far from where I'm standing, it will be annoying."

Karenbana dragged me back across her shoulders and then stepped off the edge, her feet adhering to the cliff face, but only enough to allow us to slide down without her having to actually move her legs.

"Those scars in the rock up there," Karenbana said, "What made them?"

"Lightning Release," I said, watching the river grow larger during our descent. "There was actually one of the Seven Swordsman living at that mine for a while—he went rogue on a mission after finding a sick boy."

"Lightning?" Karenbana murmured. "Raiga Kurosuki?

"Correct—they came here, overthrew the previous leadership, started a gang to run the mine, and then started burying people alive," I said, summarising it all, "Team Three-Plus-Naruto-Minus-Guy came to put a stop to him—which is bizarre, now that I think about it."

"Which part?" Karenbana wondered.

"I'm pretty sure Konohagakure knew Raiga was here, but they only sent four Genin to fight a member of the Seven Swordsman," I wondered, "This kind of thing has Kakashi's name written all over it, so they should have sent him, and maybe Guy along to take him out."

Guy had given Lee a notepad with a bunch of information about the guy and a warning that he might be here in the source, but considering that would have made this an A-rank mission minimum, they wouldn't have sent Genin along to handle it. The fact that Raiga had kind of killed himself in the end, non-withstanding.

"Guy?" Karenbana said.

"Might Guy," I said, "He's the strongest shinobi in Konohagakure—if he ever went all out."

Karenbana kicked off the cliff when we were about a dozen meters above the river and then twisted in the air before landing on top of the water. She moved to the shore, and I got my feet underneath me again. I stood up straight, turning to look up at the cliff high above us.

"I've never heard of him," Karenbana admitted.

I toggled Energy Sense on, and about thirty meters downstream, I felt a few sparks of chakra at the bottom of the river. I turned and started walking along the embankment, eyeing the water in an attempt to figure out how cold it was going to be.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Think Rock Lee, but older," I said.

I came to a stop where I could feel the first of the swords and then vanished all of my clothing in my inventory. Karenbana snapped her head around at the sudden change, having caught it in her peripheral vision.

"What the hell are you doing?" Karenbana managed.

"Going for a swim," I said, clearing my throat. "I'll be right back."

I waded into the water, letting out a cry of anguish at how cold it was, and then dove all the way in before I could lose my nerve. I sank beneath the waterline, kicking my legs until I'd vanished entirely. It took some effort to actually make it to the bottom of the river, but I had a pretty good guide, and after I'd wrapped my hands around the handle of the sword, I vanished it into my inventory. I resurfaced about ten seconds later, panting for breath, before turning and swimming downstream. The other sword was only twenty meters out, and Karenbana walked along the bank, matching my pace without effort.

I stopped when I was directly above the second sword, hovering there while I caught my breath, and then once I was sure I wasn't going to drown, I went under again. I took hold of it the moment I could manage and vanished it into my inventory before heading back up again. I swam for the shore and then stumbled up out of it, sending water everywhere as I went.

"Total success," I said, working on brushing as much water off me as I could. "You should have seen it, Karenbana; it was so cool—guess you had to be there."

Karenbana crossed her arms at the taunt.

"Well, now we're going to go interview the next potential member of Team Sora," I said, scratching my head. "This is probably going to be awkward, especially if he finds out I yoinked his old buddy's weapons."

"The sick boy you mentioned," Karenbana said. "How is he going to help?"

"He possesses a powerful dojutsu that seems to work as a direct counter to other dojutsu," I said, "I figure I heal him up and see if he wants to help me save the world—have you made up your mind about whether you're coming with me yet?"

"I don't know," Karenbana said, glancing away. "Do I have to make a decision now?"

"You've got three or four days left until the contract is finished," I said, shrugging. "You should probably figure it out by then."

#

The Curry of Life shop looked pretty bizarre, given it was the only building anywhere near the area. It just sat by the side of the dirt road, a tiny windmill spinning along in the breeze and not doing much of anything. I stepped through the doors of the building and into the main room, feeling more like I was breaking into someone's home than entering a restaurant. A small, bright signature, with almost as much chakra as Karenbana, was upstairs, lying down on what I could only imagine was a futon, while the other two seemed to be behind the counter in the back room.

"Hello?" I said.

"Karashi. There's someone here; put the stove on, would you?" Sansho said as she slipped out into the space behind the counter. "Welcome, welcome—you must be weary after having travelled all the way out here; what can I get for you two?"

"We'll take two plates of your finest curry and some green tea," I said, smiling at the woman. "I've heard some great things about this place from some friends of ours—Rock Lee and Naruto Uzumaki, specifically."

"Oh—oh, of course, those wonderful boys," Sansho said, startled. "Are you from their village?"

"No, but we intend to visit them after we've finished our little journey around the Elemental Nations," I said, "You must be Sansho, and I heard you speak to Karashi before—there was supposed to be a third person, although I appear to have misplaced the name."

Karashi brushed aside the curtain in the back room and poked his head out.

"Are you talking about Ranmaru?" Karashi asked.

"Karashi, you heard the order; get back in there right now," Sansho cried, swinging her ladle around. "Go—go."

"I'm going, I'm going," Karashi yelped, slipping away before she could whack him. "Geez—why am I the one doing all the work here?"

"Ranmaru," I said, clicking my fingers. "That was the name—I'd like to speak with him, please."

"I'm afraid he's not in good health, and some days he can't quite manage the stairs," Sansho admitted, worrying her hands about the ladle. "He's been sleeping late these past few days; I couldn't bother him now; he needs his rest."

"I'm actually here about that in particular," I said, nodding. "I've heard he's unwell, and I'm something of a healer myself—if he can't manage the stairs, I certainly can."

"Oh, of course, please, I'll take you straight up to see him," Sansho said, startled again. "Karashi will keep your order warm until then—won't you?"

Karashi just sighed. Sansho brought us up the stairs and onto the second floor of the building. I could feel Ranmaru attempting to sit up as we approached his door; he'd clearly noticed our arrival—either by the sound of our voices or that he'd been using his dojutsu to track us at some point before that.

"Ranmaru, you have some visitors," Sansho said, sliding the door open. "Oh—you're already awake."

"Thank you, Miss Sansho," Ranmaru said, watching the three of them. "I overheard why they're here."

"That's perfect," Sansho said, clasping her hands together. "Would you like me to stay?"

"No, Miss Sansho," Ranmaru said, "I can handle things from here."

"Very well then," Sansho said with a nod, "I best get back downstairs and make sure Karashi hasn't run off to join a gang while he's supposed to be stirring the curry."

"That doesn't happen often, I hope," I said, amused.

"You'd be surprised," Sansho said, striking off down the hall with her ladle raised. "Karashi, what are you doing down there?"

There was a small silence as the three of us tracked the sound of Sansho's voice as she cut a war path down the stairs and into the shop front. I took a moment to fire off an Observe and raised an eyebrow when Ranmaru's eyes flashed red.

Name: Ranmaru

Title: None.

Gender: Male.

Age: 10

Level: 68

Health Points: 120/120(1200)

Chakra Points: 3670/3670

Status Effects: Frail Body.

Emotions: Curiosity. Loneliness.

History: Ranmaru was born in the Land of Water and orphaned at a young age. He is a sickly boy whose frail body renders him incapable of doing most things. He subsisted on the generosity of others until those in his village began to fear him. Ranmaru is a distant descendant of the Chinoike clan and possesses a mutated variation of the Ketsuryūgan.

Once she was gone, I stepped inside the room and to the side, waited for a beat for Karenbana to step in, and then slid the door shut.

"I couldn't sense anything from you," Ranmaru said, staring at me, the glow in his eyes already gone. "Why is that?"

"I forgot you could do the mind-reading thing," I said, dropping down to sit crosslegged in front of him. "How much can you get from just looking someone in the eye?"

"It depends on how much I push," Ranmaru said before glancing over at Karenbana. "You spent a long time being sad, but it's not quite as bad anymore."

Karenbana tensed up a bit at the words, but before she could say anything, I cleared my throat.

"That's my fault," I said, "Karenbana used to be naughty all the time, but now that she's fallen deeply in love with me, she's trying to be on her best behaviour—at least for the next three days or so."

Karenbana stared at the side of my head for a long moment, but I kept on talking before she could put a voice to her thoughts.

"Ranmaru, the reason you can't read my thoughts is that I'm the smartest man in the Land of Rivers," I said, "I think so fast you can't even detect it—pretty cool, huh?"

There was a beat of silence in the room before Ranmaru spoke up.

"Is that really true?" Ranmaru asked.

"Of course," I said, clearing my throat. "You, my young friend, are far more special than you might have suspected—and I am here to make you an offer you cannot refuse."

"Is it an offer if I can't refuse?" Ranmaru asked.

"I am on a journey to save the world, along with all of the people in it, and that means I need people who I can put my trust in," I said, nodding. "Karenbana is one of those, and you could be another."

Karenbana shifted at my words, but still, she remained silent.

"I can't even leave this room without assistance," Ranmaru said, "I can't save the world from anything."

"My offer to you is thus," I said, holding up a hand. "I will do my best to heal you of your frailness, and when you can walk out of this room on your own, you use your newfound freedom to help me save the world."

"You can heal me?" Ranmaru wondered.

Despite the suddenness of our arrival or the fact that I was offering him something incredible, he seemed oddly unaffected by it all. I wondered if that was because of how much of a ruin his short life had already been. He had no parents, was avoided by the people in his village, and was witness to however many atrocities Raiga had committed in front of him or ensured he participated in—not exactly the most stable upbringing for a child, but this world didn't exactly have a shining record when it came to things like that.

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure I can heal you," I said, nodding. "The question is, do you want to save the people of this doomed world?"

"Yes," Ranmaru said after a moment. "I think I do."

"Welcome to Team Sora, Ranmaru," I said, giving him a smile. "Karenbana, give him the rundown on what's expected from a member of this elite group."

I scooted forward until I could put my hand on his head and then dumped all of my mana into a Status Removal, and then again once my mana ticked up over the threshold. I dropped into Meditate a moment later before getting comfortable.

"I have literally no idea what you expect," Karenbana muttered. "It seems to change every single day, and people try to kill us all of the time."

"She's totally exaggerating," I said, "Ranmaru, we saved two countries already—the Land of Vegetables and the Land of Moon."

"I've never heard of those places," Ranmaru said, "But they sound big."

"Neither of them is anywhere near as big as The Land of Rivers," I corrected, "But it's not the size of the country, Ranmaru; it's how you use it."

Karenbana scoffed.

"How do you use a country?" Ranmaru wondered.

"You befriend the leader and then make them sign favourable trade deals with Konohagakure," I said, nodding. "They are going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to saving the world, so we need to help them grow up big and strong, you know?"

"I see," Ranmaru said. "Is that what we will be doing now?"

"Right now, we're running all across the Elemental Nations, picking up useful items that will help us fight off the bad guys," I said, jabbing a finger at Karenbana. "I got her a Summoning Contract with the Chameleons in the Land of Neck. Then I yoinked Kubikiribōchō from the Land of Waves—that was the sword that Zabuza Momochi used to use."

"Oh," Ranmaru said, "Raiga didn't like him."

"Technically, Raiga didn't like anyone except for you," I said, "Heads up, little dude, but we went and dragged Kiba out of the river they fell into."

Ranmaru glanced up at me for a moment, still mostly unbothered by everything that was going on around him.

"Are you going to use them?" Ranmaru said.

"I was going to make Karenbana use them until I found her the Dragonblade, but she's still deciding whether or not she wants to help us at all, so that's kind of up in the air at the moment," I said, not looking anywhere near her. "Ranmaru, did Raiga teach you how to do any chakra control exercises?"

"No," Ranmaru said.

"So you need leaf-sticking, tree-walking, water-walking," I said, tilting my head to the side with each one. "We don't know what affinity you are—Karenbana, where do we get chakra paper?"

"I don't know," Karenbana said, eyeing me. "My clan stole some a long time ago, and we've been using that ever since—it got burned up along with everything else."

"Bummer," I said, scratching my chin. "Suppose I'll make Kakashi give me some when we get to Konohagakure."

"What is the Dragonblade?" Karenbana asked.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said. "I've never heard that name in my entire life."

"You just mentioned it," Ranmaru said.

"What is this, some kind of tiny mutiny?" I complained. "You're both fired."

Karenbana leaned back on her hands and glanced away, visibly annoyed at the words. Ranmaru blinked at the exchange but didn't seem overly fussed by his sudden termination—probably because I hadn't paid him anything yet.

"Oh," I said, dumping my mana into another Status Removal. "You also get two-thousand-Moon Dollars a month for being on the team—pretty good for an allowance, huh?"

Even with all of the progress I'd made since I'd dealt with Kakeru's Petrification, it still took the better part of an hour to defeat the status condition. Over the course of that time, I'd started to notice Ranmaru growing less pale, and the slump in his shoulders seemed to evaporate. Halfway through, the boy had actually lifted his hand up from under the blanket to stare at his palm in something approaching fascination.

"That's it," I said, clapping my hands together like I was getting rid of some dust, "All healed."

"Oh," Ranmaru said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said, pushing myself up to my feet. "Now—do you still want to come with us, or was that just a sneaky trick to get me to heal you first?"

"I didn't lie," Ranmaru said, hesitating. "I will come with you."

"Uhuh," I said, giving him the eye. "Well, up you get then—I told you you'd walk out of this room on your own accord; let's see if you can manage it."

I held out a hand to him, and when he took it, I pulled him up to his feet—I wasn't sure if it was my own growing strength or not, but he weighed next to nothing. I'd have to make sure he ate at least three meals a day.

"How come all my Haku's are malnourished?" I whined.

Karenbana rose to her feet and made an aborted motion to catch Ranmaru by the shoulder as he took an unsteady step forward.

"What is a Haku?" Ranmaru wondered.

"You are a Haku, and she is a Haku," I said, nodding my head towards Karenbana. "Following me around like a lost puppy, begging for scraps of attention—it's pretty cute."

Karenbana stared at me with a face that promised swift retaliation the moment we were alone.

"I thought she was a Karenbana," Ranmaru said, turning to look at her. "Oh—you are really mad."

Karenbana twitched at the matter-of-fact words.

"Ranmaru," Karenbana said in warning. "Don't read my mind without permission."

"I have to use my power to do that," Ranmaru said. "I haven't used it at all since you first came inside the room."

I snorted at the words, and Karenbana's stoicism cracked at the sound, her cheeks turning red. Ranmaru carefully slid the door open, paused, and then stepped out into the hall under his own power. I lifted my hands up, impressed, and then gave a few slow claps.

"Perfect," I said, nodding. "Come on then, Karenbana, let's go downstairs and sign the adoption papers."

"Adoption?" Karenbana tried, still off balance. "We're not adopting—we're not together."

I stepped through the door and planted a hand on Ranmaru's shoulder, steering him towards the stairs.

"Ignore your mother, boy," I said breezily. "Sometimes she's so short that her brains get tangled up in the carpet."

Karenbana's strangled noise of protest washed over us.

#

"It's entirely possible that he might need some additional treatment in the future," I said, waving the spoonful of curry around in the air. "So it's probably just best that he come with us because there's no telling how long until I'll be returning to the Land of Rivers again."

"Ranmaru," Sansho said, ladle dangling from her hand. "You wish to go with them?"

"I do, Miss Sansho," Ranmaru admitted. "I'm grateful that you've looked after me these past months, but I cannot stay here forever."

Sansho seemed a bit broken up about that, but she didn't seem ready to argue it out. Considering that she'd only met Ranmaru a little while ago, she didn't exactly have much more of a solid claim for guardianship over him than anyone else—and while he'd probably be much safer here, learning to make curry, it was a monumental waste of his abilities.

"I understand," Sansho said, "You're more than welcome to return whenever you wish—isn't that right, Karashi?"

"Of course," Karashi said, nodding. "It'll be quieter here without you, but you were always saying you wanted to see more of the world."

"Thank you," Ranmaru said, "I will make sure to visit when I have the chance."

I stuck the spoonful of curry into my mouth and almost groaned—it was the best thing I'd eaten since the Land of Moon. Most of the food I had stashed away in my inventory were simple meals or simple rice—but this curry.

"It's so good," I said, "Can we get a big pot of this to go—I can seal it away in a scroll, and then in the future, Ranmaru will be able to remember how lovely your cooking is."

"Of course, you can," Sansho said, brightening. "Karashi—put another pot on."

Karashi fled back to the back room when she pointed her ladle at him and then took off after him a moment later. Karenbana finally tried her own curry, just a tiny amount at first—she'd been wary about eating anything she hadn't prepared herself after what had happened in the Land of Vegetables.

"It is good," Karenbana murrmured.

"Where are we going?" Ranmaru asked.

There was a faint glint of something that might have been excitement in his eyes. After a childhood of being trapped in his room, unable to leave on his own accord, and the taste of freedom he'd experienced with Raiga—he must have been looking forward to starting another journey, and one in which he could traverse by way of his own two feet.

"Takumi Village is our first stop, which is a little ways north of here," I said, brandishing the spoon again. "From there, we'll be heading west into the Land of Wind."

"I've never been to a desert," Ranmaru murmured.

"Are we going to Sunagakure?" Karenbana asked.

I couldn't help but notice the usage of 'we,' which was probably a good sign, considering she'd been trying to decide whether or not she was quitting in three days.

"There are some threats in that desert that we will need to deal with, but we're probably only ready for one of them, and I have no idea when it's going to happen," I said, shaking my head. "We will be dropping by Sunagakure though—I've got a trade deal to negotiate with them for Kakeru, but after that, we're cutting straight across the desert to get to our real destination; the Land of Mountains—Wind isn't the only country we'll have to cross to get there either, although it is the biggest."

"The Land of Claws or the Land of Fangs?" Karenbana said, frowning.

"Yes," I said, "Nothing really of interest in either—at least that I can remember."

"Is there something interesting in the Land of Mountains?" Ranmaru asked.

"There is something incredibly interesting there—Mount Koryū," I insisted, "An entire mountain that drains chakra from everything within a certain radius, inevitably killing everything that approaches."

"Why do you want to go there?" Ranmaru said, blinking.

"Because, my newly adopted charge, that is where the Dragonblade is, and I intend to claim it for our war efforts," I said, nodding once. "I should probably try and do something about the whole chakra-draining thing as well, now that I think about it."

Ranmaru didn't seem to find that particularly strange, and so I didn't bother expanding upon it for him.

"What is this Dragonblade?" Karenbana asked, trying again now that the topic had returned. "It's not one of the Seven Swords—and I'm not sure there are any other legendary weapons anymore."

"That is so incredibly incorrect, my dear Karenbana; there is plenty of legendary weapons floating around," I said, shaking my head. "The Dragonblade, however, is better than all of them."

"Why?" Karenbana asked.

"It's sharp enough to cut through basically anything that isn't another legendary weapon, it absorbs chakra on contact, and it can cut through chakra-based attacks," I said, leaning back on my hands. "It also allows the wielder to use and perform elemental techniques from all five basic Nature Transformations—based on which elemental orb you socket in it."

Karenbana looked stunned by the description.

"Something like that exists, and none of the Hidden Villages has attempted to retrieve it?" Karenbana asked. "Is the chakra-draining effect around Mount Koryū really that powerful?"

"I'm not sure anyone other than us three even knows it exists right now," I said, "But yes, the chakra-draining effect is a good enough measure to warn off anyone who gets close—I mean, how would you get past it, Karenbana?"

"I have no idea," Karenbana said, taken aback. "I can't imagine how anyone with chakra could."

"Raiga once told me that there are mechanical puppets that can move around on their own," Ranmaru said, touching a hand to his chin. "Perhaps they could send one of those in to retrieve it?"

"The puppets he was probably talking about are a speciality chakra technique that Sunagakure favours." I said, "Provided they were advanced enough to work without chakra strings—which would make them machinery if not outright robotics at that point—it could be a possible solution."

That was a pretty interesting suggestion from a kid with no real education to speak of—but that also seemed to be the case here. Too many talent-filled bundles of unfulfilled potential running around, living vanishingly short and remarkably terrible lives. Ranmaru had escaped some of that through Raiga and then again when Team-Three-Minus-Guy-Plus-Naruto had come through like a bolt of lightning to disrupt the status quo. Now I was the third wave, pulling him away from what might have been a pretty peaceful life—maybe not a fulfilling one, considering how much travelling seemed to be in his blood, but peaceful nonetheless. Karenbana started in her seat and then glanced over sharply as if she'd just made some kind of internal connection.

"You were going to give me the Dragonblade?" Karenbana managed.

"I was going to give you the Kiba as well," I said, rolling my eyes. "But considering your elemental affinity is for wind, the Dragonblade is the better weapon—there's a wind orb you can socket into it that would have worked well for you."

Karenbana dropped her gaze to the tabletop, seemingly trying to come to terms with what I was saying. Ranmaru waited a moment, perhaps to see if she would speak again, and then turned back to look at me.

"Raiga had an elemental affinity for lightning," Ranmaru said, "I never asked, but do you need one to use them?"

"No, you don't—Elemental Affinities are simply the element you are naturally inclined towards without any kind of training, but it's possible for anyone to learn to use all of them, given enough time and training," I said, "Hiruzen Sarutobi learned to use all five, after all. I'm not sure what the steps are for the Lightning Nature Transformation, but we can probably ask Kakashi."

"Who are Hiruzen Sarutobi and Kakashi?" Ranmaru wondered.

"Hiruzen Sarutobi was the Third Hokage of Konohagakure. Unfortunately, he passed away sometime around the start of the year," I said, sighing. "Kakashi Hatake, or Kakashi of the Sharingan—ah, you've heard that name, huh?"

"We heard a rumour that Kakashi of the Sharingan had killed Zabazu Momochi," Ranmaru admitted, "Raiga was so happy that he cried."

"Sounds about right," I wondered. "Kakashi is actually Naruto Uzumaki's Jounin teacher."

"Oh," Ranmaru said, genuinely surprised. "I didn't know."

"Well, provided we don't die before we get to Konohagakure, you should get to meet him then," I said, placing my spoon down on the now-empty plate. "Better finish eating; you're going to need the energy with all the walking we're about to be doing, little guy."

Ranmaru seemed a bit startled at the idea, having seemingly forgotten that he now had the ability to move around on his own. Karenbana seemed stuck about halfway through her own meal, clearly lost in thought.

#

"It's probably going to take a while for you to get your walking legs, so to speak," I said, looking down at him. "I fixed the whole frail of body thing you had going on, but I can't magically give you muscles—and yours have atrophied from lack of use, less so with your arms, but it's still pretty noticeable from an outside perspective."

"I see," Ranmaru said, wincing a bit. "My ankles are burning."

"The pain in your legs is caused by your muscles contracting and repeatedly expanding," Karenbana said, "The stress is causing tiny little tears to appear; the more tears, the more pain. The recovery process will repair those tears with new material, causing the muscle to become bigger and stronger than before."

Ranmaru looked fascinated by the information.

"The more exercise you do now, the less your legs will hurt in the future, and the easier you'll find moving around," Karenbana finished, "I'll show you a set of exercises you can do every day to strengthen the rest of your body when we stop for the night."

"Thank you, Karenbana," Ranmaru said, smiling.

Karenbana glanced away from the gratitude, looking like she had no idea what to do with something so genuine. I planted my hand on top of Ranmaru's head while he was distracted and then dumped my mana into a Heal.

"Oh," Ranmaru said, startled. "It stopped."

"Cheat code to speed up the recovery part, little guy," I said, wriggling my eyebrows down at him. "Now, while I know the steps for the leaf-sticking, tree-walking and water-walking—you should probably be the one who teaches him."

"Are you tacking on 'instructor' to my list of duties?" Karenbana said, eyeing me.

"Considering I haven't gotten a single massage out of you yet, I think we can trade that one out," I said without pause. "The real question is, are you sticking around with the two of us, or are you going to try your luck with some other client—we've been dancing around it for long enough, Karenbana."

"What would the next month look like if I stayed?" Karenbana murmured, still not looking at either of us. "Are there any S-rank shinobi where we're headed?"

"Our itinerary for the next month is entirely clear of S-ranks, as far as I can tell," I hedged, "There are four shinobi in Takumi Village that may or may not currently be alive, and they might take a shot at us—or we might need to take a shot at them depending on how the situation develops."

I scratched my chin for a moment, thinking about Kakeru's map room again. I should have insisted on bringing it with me when I left—he could have had another one built, surely.

"I don't think there is a single S-Rank in the Land of Wind, so long as Sasori of the Red Sand is still out of town—Chiyo maybe, but she shouldn't give us any grief," I hummed, "We drop by Sunagakure, do some negotiating on Kakeru's behalf, and then set out for the Land of Claws by the end of the month."

Karenbana looked a bit on edge at the idea of going into Sunagakure at all, but her focus seemed to be on the far more immediate part of our journey.

"What rank are the shinobi in Takumi Village?" Karenbana asked.

"Each one was strong enough to fight three top-tier genin at once and with relative ease—but almost all of their strength seems to come from the weapons they created—one of them has a sword that works like a puppet, with three segmented blades coming out of it," I said, tilting my head to the side. "Another wears armour that can drain the chakra of anything nearby, and it works on techniques as well. The leader guy has a broadsword that can summon the other three weapons and might have something to do with fire."

Karenbana looked nonplussed by the information or by the fact that I'd stopped at only three of them.

"You said there were four?" Ranmaru asked.

"The fourth member is the most interesting one to me," I admitted, "Kujaku has a pair of swords that boosts Wind Release Techniques and makes them cost virtually nothing—it's essentially a reskinned Kiba, but for wind."

Karenbana hesitated at the words in the same way she had after our conversation about the Dragonblade, but this time she seemed to be able to actually put what she was feeling into words.

"You brought us here to give me a weapon that matches my Elemental Affinity," Karenbana murmured, "Is that the only reason we came to the Land of Rivers?"

"More or less," I said, "I mean, I wasn't going to leave Kiba at the bottom of a river, and I actually wasn't sure if Ranmaru here was even still alive—no offence, buddy—but curry can only do so much."

"It's fine," Ranmaru said.

"But if you had an Earth Affinity or Water Affinity, I probably would have skipped Takumi Village entirely," I admitted, pausing. "If it was a Fire Affinity, I might have come to check out the leader's weapon, but I'm still not sure if it actually does anything useful."

"You should have told me," Karenbana managed.

"I'm not sure we should have bothered—everything has probably been dealt with already," I said, shaking my head. "Chances are that all of the weapons have been fused together into this lame abomination and then lost when the zombie guy died."

"Zombie guy?" Ranmaru wondered.

"They tried—or are trying—to revive the leader of their village or something, and they used the One-Tailed-Beast that is inside Gaara to manage it," I said, waving my hand around. "It was a whole debacle, and I'm pretty sure it's already happened, but I thought it would be worth checking while we're here."

I considered everything else I knew about our route to the Land of Mountains before nodding.

"That's pretty much it for this month—if these guys are already dead, we'll probably see no combat at all," I said, "Pretty lame, actually, because I want to test myself against a real enemy—I bet I could take down a Jounin without Line Spear now—"

"There is absolutely no way you could do that," Karenbana said, "You might be approaching genin level now, but I doubt you could really keep up with one if they were half as good as Sakura was."

"You take that back," I said, horrified. "I have a massive sword; I could definitely beat Sakura—I could beat up an entire gang of Sakuras."

"Two Genin at that level with any kind of teamwork would tear you apart without any effort," Karenbana said, chewing on her lip. "Maybe I'll stick around for a while longer—just in case something like that does happen."

I didn't know whether to challenge her to a one-on-one to regain my honour or be happy that she'd finally found an excuse strong enough to mask her desire to keep following me around.

"Nah, fuck that," I said, punching my fist into my hand. "Ranmaru, watch carefully because I'm going to show you why I'm the leader of our little band of misfits—Karenbana; while you've been moping around, I've become far more powerful than you could have ever imagined—"

"You really haven't," Karenbana said, coming to a stop on the road. "You know how this is going to—"

I silently withdrew a handful of sand from my inventory and tossed it in her face without warning.

"Sand Release: Sudden Downfall," I cried, bursting forwards into the shadow of my attack. "Water Release: Thirst Quencher—"

The water bottle I lobbed at her head didn't come out right, instead, it bounced off her left shoulder before ricocheting up into the air—and then she was moving, strafing to the side, and swiping her hands down her face in an attempt to get rid of the sand. I cut right without looking, aiming to block her off, and actually managed it. I crashed into her, shoulder first, right in the centre of the chest and drove her back a step, but her guard held strong. I did my best to weather the immediate and painful kick that smashed into the small of my back as she kept on moving, mostly unbothered by my attack. I twisted, desperately trying to follow her as she circled around me in a blur, but it was clear I'd never make it in time. I withdrew two more handfuls of sand before throwing them outwards, roughly the height of her head and in both directions.

"Sand Release: Vanishing Mirage," I said, jumping backwards a step.

Somehow, despite all odds, I actually managed to avoid her next attack, my retreat putting her standing almost directly in front of me with her foot extended at chest height. Karenbana, eyes still clenched tightly shut, gave a strangled shout of frustration as more of the sand bounced off her face, getting into her hair and clothing. I attempted to kick her standing leg out from under her, but it was like hitting a brick wall—and suddenly, I was trapped, my leg stuck to hers as she used her chakra adhesion to stop me from getting away.

I was already halfway through an attempt to throw myself to the side, and my stuck leg sent me crashing to the ground onto my other knee. Karenbana was on me in under a second, and despite the great strides I'd made with my Strength attribute in the last few weeks, I was still fighting an entirely losing battle against her chakra-driven strength. I managed to smack one of my hands directly onto her face and then used Surface Adhesion to stick it there—she overcame the weight limit, maybe without even realising what I'd attempted to do. Unable to see me with her eyes still shut against the mess I'd thrown in her face, she hit me in the gut hard enough to steal most of my breath away.

"To think you'd make me go this far," I managed, "This is the end, Karenbana—"

"If you even think—" Karenbana tried.

I'd spent weeks on the coast, walking across the beach, and in that time, I'd learned that I could use my inventory through just about any part of my body, so long as I'd maintained contact with the thing I was putting inside. I'd also learned that I could remove objects from just about every part of my body—and in multiple places at once.

"Sand Release: Emergent Desert," I wheezed.

Sand erupted from my body in every direction, and Karenbana attempted to get up as it kept on rising, but I wrapped my arms around her waist, keeping her stuck to me as I buried us both in what must have been half of the sand in the Land of Fire. Ranmaru, who'd been watching us, completely stupefied by the high-level battle going on before his eyes, turned and fled the rising sand with a startled laugh. The sand washed over his legs and knocked him down onto his ass. Karenbana, still on my lap but now entirely in the dark, gave up her attempts to get free and tucked her face into my neck to try and find the space to breathe. I started vanishing the sand directly around us, and then we were left in the middle of a pit with high mounds of sand surrounding us on every side, not enough contact for me to drag the rest of it back into my inventory.

"I'm glad you're coming with me, Karenbana," I said, face pressed against her hair. "I'd have been way too lonely if you'd gone."

"You're such an idiot," Karenbana managed.

#

Takumi Village was completely deserted, which left me in a state of unknowing—had the civilians ever returned to the village in the aftermath? Four of their leaders had started sacrificing them after all, and I'd have kept on going if I'd been in their shoes because returning would only mean death. This could be the direct aftermath of that whole debacle, which meant that we'd come here for just about no reason at all—a small, densely packed signature cut across the edge of my range, and a moment later, a second figure, slightly larger than the first cut back in the opposite direction. Dogs—no, they had way too much chakra for that; they weren't stray dogs; they were Summon Animals. I scanned the area, looking at the trees beyond the village and the rocky ridge of the cliff that towered in the distance.

"Kakashi is here somewhere," I said, alerting the others. "I can sense his aloofness from here."

Karenbana tensed a bit at that, clearly having a large degree of unease around the person who had destroyed her mission and her team in the Land of Moon.

"Ranmaru, see that cliff up there," I asked, "Is there a guy with silver hair there somewhere?"

Ranmaru closed his eyes and then opened them a moment later—the irides in both eyes now glowing a vibrant red.

"There is a man there; he is in a clearing, sitting on a log, reading a small red book," Ranmaru said, "This is Kakashi of the Sharingan?"

"Got it in one," I said, "That genjutsu thing you do—can you put an image of me in the clearing, pointing to our location?"

"I think so," Ranmaru said.

Ranmaru closed his eyes again, and this time I caught a flicker of red in the air, like a scattering of dust, caught in a beam of light before it vanished again. Ranmaru started, opening his eyes again before turning to look back up at the cliff.

"He's very fast," Ranmaru said, "He's no longer in the clearing."

Karenbana was still scanning the area, head tilting around as she left no area unchecked—Kakashi appeared to our east, slipping between the streets at great speed, the dogs that had been scattered around the village converging on his location as he went. Within thirty seconds, he'd circled around behind us, through the forest, and posted up in the branch of a tree some distance down the road, the dogs watching us through the gaps in the trees.

"Kakashi," I said, calling out. "I can totally see you up in that tree."

Kakashi made some sort of hand gesture that I couldn't quite interpret, and the dogs started moving again, heading back towards the village. Karenbana came to stand a step in front of me, her shoulders tense and rigid. Kakashi dropped out of the tree and stepped out onto the road with his book still held in his hand.

"I didn't expect to see you here—no offence, but I can't help but feel that's a bad sign," Kakashi said once he'd reached us. "This isn't one of those threats you were talking about, is it?"

"Not quite as bad as your thinking, but it's still trouble," I said, "Nice to see you again, Kakashi—did Naruto tell you we met up again?"

"The Land of Vegetables," Kakashi said.

"I convinced Haruna Aoki to agree to mission exclusivity with Konohagakure and then bullied her into asking Red Bean Jam and Forests to do it too," I said, "Any luck on that front? I wasn't sure how much pull she really had with them."

"I should have realised that was your doing," Kakashi wondered. "Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't actually reveal that information to people outside of the village."

"Figures," I said, unbothered. "Make sure Tsunade reaches out to those other two countries soon; making friendly contact with them might be enough to tip them over too going through with it."

Kakashi hummed at the advice before turning to look at Karenbana, seemingly completely at ease. He glanced down at Ranmaru a moment later, clearly curious about his addition to the group.

"I'll make a note of it," Kakashi said, bemused. "Someone new?"

"Kakashi, this is Ranmaru," I said, "He's the one who did the genjutsu thing."

"Interesting technique," Kakashi said, "Impressive even, considering how far away you were when you used it."

"Thank you," Ranmaru said, "This is really the only thing I can do."

I planted my hand on his head and messed his hair up—partly in punishment for the self-depreciation, partly because I wanted to see Karenbana twitch as I ruined her earlier efforts to brush the little dude's hair out.

"He's being totally modest," I said, "Kakashi, I know all about this place, but I need to know if Naruto is going to be here or not because it will change things."

"Jiraiya took him from the village after he returned from the Land of Vegetables," Kakashi said, "You know what's going on here?"

"The Four Celestial Symbols Men—really, it's three men and one woman, but still," I said, nodding. "They are having a collective breakdown over being used and abused by Konohagakure, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure for their special weapons."

"I know about the history of this city, but I've never heard the name of that group before," Kakashi frowned, "We've had reports that people have been going missing for weeks, and now the entire village has evacuated into the Land of Fire."

"Their main goal is to revive the founder of Takumi Village, a shinobi and craftsman called Seimei," I said, "They are probably in the process of trying to lure Gaara of the Sand into the Land of Rivers in order to trap him because they want to use the chakra of the One-Tailed-Beast to bring back their leader."

"How do they intend on luring Gaara here?" Kakashi asked.

"Sunagakure is starting up an academy in the same style as the Konohagakure one, and Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro are currently acting as teachers for the new generation," I said, "The four shinobi will kidnap one of the students, and the three siblings will be sent out to retrieve her—the Jounin Council running Sunagakure are hoping Gaara will get killed in the process."

"What?" Karenbana said, speaking up for the first time. "They just lost a war; why would they want to weaken themselves further?"

"Jinchuriki are almost universally treated poorly or even feared by the people who know about them but do not understand the process involved," Kakashi said in answer. "The Council of Sunagakure should know better, but bad blood has a way of colouring your perspective."

"Exactly—now, the Four Symbols Celestial Men have an area set up with the sealing technique to capture Gaara, and they also have the plan to defeat him using a combination technique that uses three converging underground rivers to power it," I said, closing my eyes for a moment. "Somewhere to the northwest of here is a forest with those rivers and a waterfall—my plan is to go find that place, destroy the sealing device, hide the coffin with the founder's body and then lay a trap for when they return."

"That seems like a relatively good plan," Kakashi said, "Tell me about these four shinobi."

#

Ranmaru's weight on my shoulders was entirely ignorable now, although he wasn't exactly a heavy kid, to begin with. The idea was that he could locate one of the underground rivers by sweeping his remote viewing technique back and forth across the forest. Then all we'd need to was follow it back to the converging point. Kakashi and Karenbana had taken the east and west sides of the forest, respectively, and were searching for the sealing area itself. There were also three Dogs and two Chameleons running around as well—it was starting to turn into a bit of a circus, honestly.

"I'm going to need to find you a Summon Contract," I said, "You aren't a real shinobi unless you've got one of those."

"Really?" Ranmaru wondered. "What would I summon?"

"That's the question, little dude—there are a few people running around with contracts that we could steal; it's just a matter of finding them," I said, humming. "It's kind of annoying that Ruiga didn't have his Summoning Contract on him, or I'd have just given you that."

"Ruiga?" Ranmaru repeated.

"A guy we fought back in the Land of Vegetables," I said, "He could summon piranhas and sharks—suppose that's kind of useless unless we're near water, though."

Ranmaru leaned forward until he could see my face directly, clearly interested in the topic.

"There's Genno, I suppose, if he's still alive at this point, that guy summoned a big ass Eagle," I frowned, "Kandachi is probably still alive as well, although fighting Hanzo the Salamander's right-hand man might be a bit much for us right now."

"Does Kandachi summon Salamanders too?" Ranmaru asked, "I wonder if they get along with Chameleons."

"No, he summons this massive Conch that can shoot spikes everywhere," I said, "What do you think, Ranmaru—you want to drop a Giant Conch on your enemy's head?"

"That sounds fine," Ranmaru said, "Though, can I ask what a Conch is?"

"It's a giant sea snail that lives in a shell," I said, sort of waving my arms around as if that would sort it all out for him. "That's kind of a good thematic fit for you—relatively slow-moving, and it can use Genjutsu."

"I am rather slow," Ranmaru agreed. "Maybe I am a Conch."

I snorted at the words.

"I'll put down Genjutsu Tree Village on our list of places to visit—once I figure out where it is, somewhere in the Land of Waterfalls," I decided, "Kagero Village, too, since it's in the Land of Mountains—I doubt Genno is anywhere near the place, but it never hurts to check—we can swing by there when we get around to picking up the Dragonblade."

"Sora," Ranmaru said, "I found one of the rivers—and the waterfall."

I turned to follow the direction he was pointing, angling towards it.

"That's what I like to hear," I said, "Make a note of where they are, then try and find where they converge. After that, we'll go help them look for the sealing area—how are you doing for chakra?"

"I think I'm okay for a little while longer," Ranmaru said, "I'll tell you if I'm getting tired."

"Good man," I said, "I've been thinking about making a skill that regenerates other people's chakra—interactions between my energy and yours seem to work for healing purposes, so I figure I can make it happen."

Ranmaru made a note of interest in the back of his throat.

"Just think, whenever you get low on chakra and stamina, or you injure yourself, I'll just boost you back up to perfect health and energy," I cheered, "You could get in so much practice summoning that they'd have to rename every country we pass through to the Land of Conch."

"That's a lot of snails," Ranmaru said, impressed.

"You bet," I agreed, "You said your eyes felt weird earlier—any change there?"

"It feels less draining now, I think," Ranmaru said, "Everything seems to be working a bit quicker as well."

"Might just be that you had a massive imbalance in your physical and spiritual energy," I offered, "Chakra is made up of those two components, and you had basically zero physical energy—which is proportional to how strong your body is—and probably a fair amount of spiritual energy considering how much use you got out of your dojutsu."

"So I have more physical energy now, so the balance is better?" Ranmaru wondered.

"Right in one," I said, "The stronger your body gets, the more balanced you'll become and presumably, your natural ability to control your dojutsu will improve."

"Sora?" Ranmaru said. "You knew what I could do before we met; why is that? Did I tell you about it in the future?"

"I have something of an eye-ability as well; I can look at a person and see their name," I said, humming. "You come from an almost extinct clan that possesses a rather potent dojutsu called the Ketsuryūgan—your own eyes are a variant of that dojutsu."

"Oh," Ranmaru wondered. "A variant?"

"Only your version can passively read minds, see through objects and remotely view things," I said, "The original can mind control people with hypnosis and control liquids that have a high iron content—blood, mostly—can you do that?"

"I don't think so," Ranmaru said.

"Next time we've got some downtime, we can bully Karenbana into letting you try to mind-control her," I said, "The other difference seems to be your talent for genjutsu—both versions have that—but your illusions can't be seen through by other dojutsu, and you can block the Byakugan from seeing chakra outright, which seems pretty odd."

I wondered if one of his parents had been a Hyuuga and if that had resulted in the eclectic nature of his abilities—maybe Toneri took some time off from the moon and ended up banging a few girls on the coast of the Land of Water.

"You said they were almost extinct," Ranmaru said, "Is that because I'm alive?"

"No, there are at least two others," I said, "There's a guy called En Oyashiro who buys and sells shinobi before making them fight in a coliseum, and his daughter, Chino, who is one of those who fight for him but doesn't even know they're related."

"Where are they now?" Ranmaru hesitated.

"There is an island off the coast of the Land of Lightning somewhere—the east coast, maybe? It's apparently pretty hard to find," I said, "En Oyashiro is there, but I'm not sure about Chino. She might have escaped already, which would put her in the Land of Hot Water—and while she is in trouble, that's not a metaphor."

"Do you think we could meet her?" Ranmaru wondered.

"Risky business that, she kind of goes crazy at one point and starts turning people into exploding human bombs," I said, scratching my chin. "That's not supposed to happen for about eight years, though—I think we can squeeze it in, and I suppose this way, she'll have some actual family to attach herself to."

"Family?" Ranmaru murmured.

"Sure, it will be your job to make sure she doesn't try to kill everyone, so start working out how you're going to put her on the straight and narrow now," I said, flicking him in the back of the leg. "Far as I can remember, her main motivation for attacking Konohagakure was because she couldn't find any of her family, so she tried for revenge on the Uchiha Clan because they were at odds with each other back then."

"The Uchiha Clan?" Ranmaru prompted. "What did they do?"

"Don't get any ideas, bucko," I warned, "That conflict happened a long, long time ago, and there's nobody alive today that had any hand in it—besides, there's some good Uchiha left, and we need them on our side."

"I thought they were killed," Ranmaru said, curious.

"Itachi Uchiha, Sasuke Uchiha, Obito Uchiha—there's a guy called Shin Uchiha running around somewhere with a bunch of child clones, but he's isn't a blood member of the clan; he just took the name," I said, listing them off. "Madara Uchiha will end up getting revived at some point unless the three of us can stop it as well."

"Which ones are the good ones?" Ranmaru asked.

"Okay, so right now, all of them are bad guys," I said, a bit sheepish. "But Sasuke can totally be reformed, and Itachi is just pretending to be a bad guy."

"Itachi Uchiha is pretending to be a bad guy?" Ranmaru wondered, "Isn't that the one who killed the entire clan?"

I opened my mouth and then paused for a moment.

"He's really good at pretending," I defended.

#

I recognized the area where the sealing equipment had been set up on sight—a barren, craggy area that was clear of all obstructions. More than that, I could feel the well of chakra buried beneath the earth, the metal container ready to spring to life the moment the owner triggered it.

"Will they know if we blow it up?" I wondered. "Do shinobi actually have an active mental link to seals they've set up?"

"I very much doubt they can sense it," Kakashi said, shaking his head. "A seal like this will react to the corresponding handseals within a certain proximity, but they won't be linked to it in any way."

I considered the information for a moment, wondering if any of the four shinobi had been sensor types—

"Guruko just dispelled," Kakashi said, biting his thumb before planting his hand against the ground. "Summoning Technique."

A mass of smoke erupted upwards from the ground before washing away within a few seconds, and left behind was a thin dog with tan skin and visible whiskers.

"Oh," Ranmaru said, crouching down. "It's cute."

Guruko perked up a bit before clearing his throat in a way that was far too human.

"Three men and one woman—all of them wore a headband with the Takumi Village symbol," Guruko said without waiting for instruction. "I waited to see if they were being followed, and they were; two boys and a girl, all three from Sunagakure."

The dog's voice was strangely high pitched, but it seemed to fit—the long white snout and thin eyes somehow pulling it all together.

"How far behind were they?" Kakashi asked.

"Five minutes, but gaining, they will likely catch up within the next half hour if nobody stops moving or changes travel speed," Guruko said, "They are heading towards the forest as predicted, in the direction of the three rivers."

"Then we need to destroy this thing and go assist them," I said, scratching my chin. "I've got a personal beef with the chick, so I'm going after her—Karenbana, you follow behind me, but stay stealthed in case I can't beat her."

"Where am I going?" Ranmaru wondered.

"You're going to hide in the forest and assist all of us with Genjutsu—focus on protecting Kankuro; he's the guy with the face paint," I said, "Karenbana, find him a good hiding place and then summon Shirokuto to look after him while we're gone."

"Fine," Karenbana said, glancing down at him for a moment. "Ranmaru—come here."

I waited until she'd picked him up and then vanished into the trees before turning back to Kakashi.

"I'll finish planting the rest of the tags and go after Hoki like we discussed," Kakashi said, "Guruko, I'm sending you all back in case I need you—make sure Pakkun has everything ready."

"Understood," Guruko said.

He exploded into smoke a moment later, returning to wherever the dogs went when they weren't turning Zabuza's into chew toys. I gave a wave to Kakashi before taking off in the direction of the waterfall. Through Energy Sense, I felt Karenbana slip back towards the clearing, realise I was gone, and then turn to catch up—a few moments later, she was tailing me, sticking to the trees, and when I took a glance back at her, I found her entirely invisible. It took about eight minutes of full-speed sprinting—along with half a dozen near crashes due to the uneven ground, exposed roots, and what could only be Hashirama Senju trying to gank me with well-placed trees—to actually make it back to the waterfall.

I got as close to the cliff face as I could manage to avoid Temari wiping us out with her ridiculous wind attacks—one of which I could already hear, followed by a series of trees crashing down to our direct west. I balked as a second gust of wind tore through the forest ahead of us, and then I realised I was far too close. I removed Kubikiribōchō from my inventory and stabbed it tip down into the ground before hiding behind the flat as a visible arc of wind crashed through the tree beside me, passing through my position and dissipating on the blade. I had to push my full weight against it, with three points of contact, each using Surface Adhesion to avoid getting knocked backwards, but I managed it. Karenbana, still above me and further into the forest, aborted her attempt to save me after the sword came out, instead rotating further around using what was left of the trees as cover—I caught sight of the two who were actually fighting a moment later.

Temari looked pretty much exactly how I expected her to look, a teenager with a gigantic folding fan in her hands—although her four ponytails were a bold statement in any world. Kujaku, on the other hand, was an absolute bombshell, and I spent a moment considering if being gorgeous was a requirement for villainy. I was forced to hide behind another tree as a second gust of wind passed over my area, although this one seemed to lack the vicious arcs that had attempted to bisect me only moments before. Temari was already looking worn down; the running battle had gone on for long enough to have forced her into the unenviable position of wasting chakra to combat her opponent's cost-effective attacks.

I considered jumping in now, but honestly, the amount of force being thrown around in the clearing was freaking me out—when Temari was smashed back into a tree, collapsed, and didn't rise again, I came to the realisation that I'd waited too long. I vanished the sword because I doubted I could run with it in my hands without killing myself, and then cut out of the tree line close to the cliff. I circled in behind Kujaku, forced to weave between the stumps and over logs to manage it. My attempts at using Stealth to mask my approach failed when I broke what had to be every single branch in the forest along the way, and Kujaku spun to face me.

"Another one?" Kujaku said, voice like velvet. "You don't look like a shinobi from Sunagakure."

I stepped up onto a stump to match her own position and cleared my throat.

"Kujaku of the Three Celestial Symbol Men and One Celestial Symbol Woman," I said because I was trying to be more progressive. "I come to you with a great offer, one which you should definitely agree to because if you don't, I'll be forced to do battle—and you should wish to avoid that."

"Should I?" Kujaku wondered, pointing one of her swords at me. "What offer do you bring me?"

"You give me your totally awesome swords so I can save the world with them, and I'll let you scurry off back to your village to make some replacements," I said before withdrawing Kubikiribōchō from my inventory. "In return, I won't stab you in the everything with my totally awesome sword."

I managed to get the handle to lean against my shoulder, but the weight of it was enough that I was already regretting the stolen stance. Kujaku looked visibly surprised at the sight of it, and a clear expression of recognition flashed across her face—her sword lowered a few inches, no longer pointed directly at me.

"Kubikiribōchō," Kujaku said, "To think I'd have a chance to test myself against a legendary blade like this—I almost can't believe it."

"You're not doing a whole lot of giving up," I said, wincing at the pain in my shoulder. "This displeases me greatly—your distracting good looks can only stall my wrath for so long, Kujaku."

"I'm afraid I won't be doing any giving up," Kujaku said, tilting her head to one side. "Flattery won't help you either."

"Looks like I'm going with Plan A," I complained, jabbing a finger at her. "Kujaku—are you ready for a sword fight that will put your greatest creation to the test?"

Kujaku raised her swords up and then opened her mouth to respond, a smile already curling around her lips—and I shot her in the left side of her chest with Line Spear. I vanished Kubikiribōchō into my inventory and then threw myself behind a stump. A wave of wind crashed into my hiding place, a cry of inarticulate rage broke the air, and I curled up into a ball to weather the gale-force winds. I scrambled up out of my hiding place as she started to give chase, one hand pressed over the hole in her chest in an attempt to stem the bleeding.

"Imagine thinking your little windy-boys were going to get a crack at Kubikiribōchō," I cried out, "I wouldn't even let you lick the handle, you absolute degenerate—Jesus Christ—"

This time I didn't have the benefit of warning, and the blast of air crashed into my back—despite my rapid switching to Surface Adhesion, I lost contact with the ground, and then I was tumbling through the air. The pain radiating up my spine informed me that she'd royally fucked half of my shit up, and the way the cliff was approaching told me that she was about to get the rest of me as well. I dumped all of the sand I'd re-collected out before I hit, and instead of dying on impact, I only managed to break my left arm, shoulder, leg and ankle before falling out of the air. I dropped into Meditate as I began to fall, and then got off a single Heal before I crashed into the ground. As far as injured went, I was sitting at about one hundred Health Points out of just over a thousand—not exactly a good place to be.

"Is that all you've got?" I wheezed. "I've seen kunai with more grit."

I Healed myself twice more as my mana topped out, Meditate dragging it upwards at a blistering rate. Kujaku's stumbling approach became worse, her skin growing more pale by the second, and then just as she lifted her right arm for another attack, the still-invisible Karenbana crashed into her, a single Kiba tearing through her throat and out the side of her neck. In Kujaku's defence, she actually reacted to the attack with what appeared to be a highly honed reflexive sweep of her sword—it went straight over Karenbana's head at an upward angle, her lack of height coming in strong with the defence.

Kujaku stumbled backwards, holding her sword out in front of her in an attempt to ward off her invisible assailant, but Karenbana was already retreating again, circling wide to avoid any kind of retaliation. I dragged myself back up into a sitting position as I crested four-hundred health, and then re-engaged Meditate after it broke.

"That totally counts as my kill," I managed, watching as Kujaku fell backwards onto the ground, hidden by the stumps between us. "I definitely hit her in the heart with that one—don't even think about claiming it."

Karenbana approached the downed enemy with care before tossing a kunai at her body to make sure—I heard the wet shik it made on contact.

"She's dead," Karenbana said.

"Bring me the swords before the boss guy summons them," I said, unwilling to move from my place against the cliff. "Kakashi has probably already killed him already, but there's a chance he's alive and desperate enough to leave his teammates defenceless to save himself—thanks."

I vanished them into my inventory the moment she handed them to me, relatively sure that he wouldn't be able to summon them from there.

"You almost died," Karenbana said, "Again."

"That's what happens when you get thrown into a cliff," I said, "I'll be fine in a few minutes—are you injured?"

"She didn't hit me," Karenbana muttered, "You shouldn't have gone out when you did—I was almost in position."

"You work better when the opponent is distracted, and I'm an irresistible bait," I said, struggling to get up. "Let's go heal Temari before she develops brain damage or something from being unconscious for so long."

"I think she was out of chakra," Karenbana said, shaking her head. "She probably isn't going to wake up for a while."

"Well, that's annoying," I frowned, "Karenbana—shotgun not carrying her."

#

We followed Ranmaru's little genjutsu arrows—I couldn't actually see them, but Karenbana could—towards the clearing where Kakashi was already standing beside a roughed-up Kankuro, a completely untouched Gaara, a Ranmaru who was looking at everyone with an unrestrained curiosity and a tall brown-haired girl I vaguely remember as the student who'd been kidnapped.

"You're back," Ranmaru said.

"We are, and we come bearing gifts," I said as we approached. "One completely healed but entirely out of chakra Temari and one super unwieldy battle fan—you'd never catch me using a weapon that heavy, that's for sure."

I planted one end of the fan on the ground directly beside Gaara and then tilted it towards him—he unfolded his crossed arms and reached out to take hold of it, a strange look on his face that I could only put down to the proximity.

"Chakra exhaustion?" Kakashi said, looking unbothered by the company. "She'll be awake in a few hours, but she'll need more rest and food than normal for a few days."

"I've got no idea how to treat that right now, but it's on the list of things to figure out," I said. "Karenbana, stop slacking off and give them back their sister."

Karenbana was visibly annoyed that I was slagging her off when she was the one carrying her, but she did what I'd asked, carefully laying her down beside Kankuro.

"You're covered in blood," Gaara said, speaking for the first time. "But you are not injured."

"It's the blood of my enemies," I bragged. "I absolutely destroyed them—"

"It's his own blood," Karenbana corrected immediately. "He got thrown into a cliff and almost died."

"Karenbana," I whined, "I'm trying to be cool in front of the shinobi, and you're ruining it."

"I don't care," Karenbana said.

"You should care, idiot," I huffed before turning away from her. "Gaara, my guy, I'm actually an Emissary from the Land of Moon on behalf of King Kakeru Tsuki, and I need to drop by Sunagakure to hammer out a deal that we've been cooking up—think I can follow you back when you leave?"

Kakashi watched the interaction with notable interest, clearly remembering the exact meeting in which we'd discussed the details of this.

"The Land of Moon?" Kankuro said, glancing up from where he was checking Temari over, "What do they want with us?"

"Trade deal, part shipping route, part caravan, shinobi guards, mission requests and all that good stuff," I said, "The goal of it is to help you guys bounce back from everything that happened earlier this year—Konohagakure is in on it as well; this is a way for everyone to push past the bad shit and develop a decent relationship."

"Is that why you two were out here?" Kankuro asked. "Were you escorting him to Sunagakure?"

"Something like that," Kakashi said, glancing over at me for a moment. "It's probably best if you take him the rest of the way—I don't think I should be approaching Sunagakure unannounced."

"Then we will escort you," Gaara said, "Kakashi, thank you again for your assistance."

"Naruto wouldn't have let me hear the end of it if I didn't," Kakashi said, offering a smile. "If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow Sora for a moment—it won't take long."

#

"I have standing orders to invite you back to Konohagakure to meet with the Hokage as soon as possible," Kakashi admitted, "She knows most of what you told me in the Land of Moon—minus a few things."

The things he'd left out were clear enough to me—advertising that he'd been receiving tips on how to discover his Mangekyou Sharingan from a foreigner probably wasn't the best idea.

"I'm planning on coming to Konohagakure pretty soon," I said, closing my eyes. "There are a few things I want to deal with first, but you should expect me before the year is through."

"That's a fairly long time," Kakashi said.

"It will be fairly worth the wait," I offered, "Did you figure out Kamui yet?"

"When you said it was chakra intensive, you were understating it quite a bit," Kakashi said, in answer, "I put myself in the hospital for three days the first time I got it to work."

"It gets easier," I said, "Did you stick with using it on water like I suggested?"

"I did," Kakashi admitted, "Are you going to tell me why I shouldn't use it on anything else yet?"

"I'm going to tell you why as soon as I get to Konohagakure," I promised, "It's pretty important, so try not to get into any death matches where you need to use it on your enemy to win—the result could be bad for the entire world."

"I'll make a note of it," Kakashi said.

"Unrelated to what we're talking about, do you have any chakra paper on you?" I asked, a bit hopeful. "I want to test Ranmaru to see what his affinity is—I suppose I could just ask in Sunagakure, now that I think about it."

Kakashi hummed for a moment before reaching into a pouch on his hip, removing a tiny, tightly bound scroll no longer or thicker than his index finger.

"Ranmaru," Kakashi said, twirling the tiny scroll between his fingers. "That name is familiar."

"Naruto went on a mission alongside Team Three—most likely right after the invasion," I said, recognizing the implicit exchange being offered. "Ranmaru was the boy that Raiga Kurosuki was dragging around with him."

"I heard a little about that," Kakashi said, tone thoughtful. "He was sickly and left in the care of a woman named Sansho."

"I healed him in exchange for his help in saving the world—obviously, he agreed," I admitted, "He has a variant on a very old bloodline limit that makes him uniquely capable of interfering with other dojutsu, and you'll find out why we need something like that in ten months."

"Itachi Uchiha?" Kakashi guessed.

"He barely makes the list because there are far worse things than Itachi Uchiha crawling around in the shadows of this world—and a lot of them have dojutsu," I said, rubbing at my neck. "It's kind of a running theme, honestly."

"That's daunting," Kakashi said, unravelling the scroll. "Do you know how to use these?"

A strip of unreadable seals lined the inside, and he unsealed a specific one—a small burst of smoke and a stack of five pieces of paper appeared. Kakashi handed them over without further comment, and I took them in hand, studying the relatively normal-looking paper for a moment.

"Channel chakra into it and hope for the best," I guessed, "I'm kind of banking on him having a Wind Affinity because that's the only nature transformation I actually know how to teach."

"Perhaps something can be arranged once you finally get around to coming to Konohagakure," Kakashi said vaguely. "Although training outsiders in village secrets isn't exactly something that happens."

"I'll convince Karenbana and Ranmaru to join Konohagakure," I said, vanishing the stack of papers into my inventory. "If you guys even do that kind of thing."

"Neat trick," Kakashi said, raising an eyebrow. "It's not unheard of, but there's usually a probationary period to weed out infiltrators."

"Then tell Tsunade to put us on probation now," I said, "That way, when we're still working in the interest of Konohagakure at the end of the year, we can skip all the red tape involved."

"I'm not sure she'll go for that," Kakashi said, "Considering she's never met any of you."

"Then turn it into a bet," I suggested, "I'll heal every single person in Konohagakure that she's incapable of fixing—make sure you say incapable because it will really rustle her jimmies—and in return, she teaches my minions how to be proper shinobi."

"You certainly know her well," Kakashi said, voice dry. "No promises, but I'll relay it for you."

"Thanking you," I said, tipping an imaginary cap. "As always, it's been a pleasure."

"Try not to be late," Kakashi suggested, "Tsunade isn't exactly known for her patience."

"Where does Kakashi Hatake get off telling me not to be late?" I said, aghast. "Have you heard of something called self-reflection?"

"I don't think I have," Kakashi wondered. "Is that another one of your strange techniques?"

Motherfucker.

#