Ranmaru's eyes had glowed red for almost half an hour as we set out from Kagero Village, and though I never asked, I was almost certain he wasn't looking ahead of us. I was starting to feel a bit bad about dragging him around the Elemental Nations, leaving him just enough time to make a bond with someone before we invariably left them behind. Sansho and Karashi. Gaara, Temari, Kankuro and Matsuri—and now Genno. I glanced down at him as his dojutsu finally cut out; either the distance was too much for him to see the village, or he'd convinced himself to stop.

"Sora?" Ranmaru said, a bit hesitant. "He's really old—even older than Sansho."

I thought I knew where his thoughts were headed, and I reached over to drop a hand on his head.

"I made sure to Heal him before we left, so I'm pretty sure he'll be around for a while yet, and who knows, maybe you can drop by and see him when we come to kick Moryu's shadowy ass," I said, "Besides, there's nothing stopping you from sending him a message whenever you're feeling down—other than how long it takes you to figure out how to actually summon something."

The scroll itself was sitting safely inside my inventory, freshly signed with Ranmaru's bleeding fingertips, and the initial hump of introductions was overcome as Genno had been kind enough to bring a few of them out to meet him.

"Karenbana?" Ranmaru asked. "Can you teach me tonight?"

"After you're done with your chakra control, I'll show you the handseals," Karenbana agreed, "There's supposed to be a river in our path, maybe a day out from here—Sora?"

"It's not exactly a straight line to the Land of Bears, but we could follow it all the way there," I said, eyeing her for a minute. "I've actually been meaning to deal with something that may end up changing our route a bit, and this is probably as good a time as any—I need to speak with Shiromari."

Karenbana turned her head to look at me for the first time, her brow furrowed.

"I can do that—" Karenbana said, hesitant. "But, it's not going to be something silly, is it?"

"How rude," I said, nonplussed. "I've been completely respectful every time you've summoned him, haven't I?"

"You have," Karenbana said, looking a bit apologetic. "Just—I don't want him to be upset with me, is all."

"Shiromari doesn't seem like the type to rush into things or make snap judgments," I said, shaking my head. "He's not going to turn on you if you're not the picture-perfect little Karenbana."

"I know that," Karenbana mumbled, "When do you want to do that?"

"We're far enough away from the village to avoid causing a scene, so we may as well get it out of the way now," I said, kicking my mind into high gear. "I'm going to need control of the airspace, Karenbana—that means no interrupting, even if you are upset or worried or anything else."

"Now I really don't want to summon him," Karenbana said, staring at me. "What exactly are you going to do?"

"This is a bonding moment for us, Karenbana," I said, coming to a stop at the edge of a clearing that looked relatively big enough to survive Shiromari. "I want you to finally decide whether you're going to place your trust in me or not—you can't keep riding this line forever."

Ranmaru watched us with fascination, but Karenbana seemed entirely unprepared for the burden I'd just dropped onto her shoulders. As unfair as it was, if I hadn't managed to earn her complete trust by now, I wasn't sure what else I could do to manage it. I'd seen her in some of her most vulnerable moments, and she'd seen me in them as well. My life had been in her hands for a while now, and she'd trusted me with her own. She'd trusted my decisions, my leadership, my goals—and I'd trusted her skills, experience and insight on things I didn't have the background to fully contextualise.

"I do trust you," Karenbana said, swallowing. "I'm trusting you now, too."

I smiled at the words and swept an arm out towards the clearing because words were not actions, and actions were trust. Karenbana ran her thumb across her canine, took a step away from us and placed her hand gently down on the ground—Energy Sense reported that she'd only used about seventy percent of her chakra this time, a significant improvement over a relatively short period, and something entirely down to her repeated practice with the technique along with her ability to minimize the chakra loss as a result.

"Karenbana," Shiromari rumbled, "It has been a week—I must admit I had wondered if you'd found yourself in some kind of trouble, considering your usual strict adherence to schedule."

"Lord Shiromari, thank you for coming," Karenbana said, breathing heavily. "I can explain why during our next meeting, but I was hoping you would allow Sora to speak with you."

"Of course, the man who saved me from my long-dreaded obligation—you've kept your silence in my presence quite determinedly," Shiromari said, settling down as best he could. "I'd wondered why that was when you were quite free with your words during our first meeting."

Stating my intentions clearly to the massive castle that had been attempting not to eat me had been a strategic choice to endear him to me, but I could see how it would have looked from his perspective.

"Shiromari," I said, watching him. "Karenbana will be able to fill you in on the details when she summons you next—forgive me, but for now, in the interest of conserving your time here, I'm going to be rather blunt."

I watched his massive eye shift as he turned his head to better see us.

"The world is going to end, and every single person on this planet is going to die; there is no fleeing, there is no hiding, there is no bargaining," I said, "We can only fight, and against the things that are coming, Karenbana is going to get crushed under heel—and they might not even notice she was present."

I kept on going, trying to relay just how serious this was.

"I'm not saying this to disparage her skills, because I've seen her at her best, and she is still far beyond me," I said, "But if you respect the strength of the Tailed-Beasts, Hashirama Senju who subdued them all, or Madara Uchiha who could fight him to a standstill—know that this is beyond even them."

Karenbana was staring at me, mouth slightly open, and clearly trying to figure out what I was building towards. Ranmaru held the same fascination he always seemed to have with things that were new or interesting, or vibrant. Shiromari was implacable, and his alien features too far removed from humanity for me to ever hope to read, but his eye was locked directly on me now, focus no longer dispersed between the three of us.

"There is a technique in which you absorb natural chakra from the environment, imbue it within your body, and through that process attain strength far greater than most shinobi," I said, watching the slight shift in his massive bulk. "I am making a direct request for you to teach it to her—because I don't want her to die under the foot of some uncaring monster; I want her to at least die on her feet."

"For an outsider with no contract of his own to know of such techniques is indeed very surprising, and yet you've not signed your own name, nor have you asked for this boon for yourself," Shiromari rumbled. "I almost can't imagine that someone would seek the secrets of Senjutsu, not for themselves, but for another—your motive is a curiosity that I can only hope Karenbana will alleviate."

"The reason is far less noble than you're probably expecting, but she'll explain it to you next time," I offered, having said my piece. "That request is all I had for you to consider, Shiromari—thanks for hearing me out."

Shiromari rumbled out something that might have been an agreement or simply an acknowledgment that I'd spoken before turning his focus back toward the group at large.

"In three days, you must summon me, Karenbana," Shiromari said, "At that time, you shall return with me to my home, and there I will ensure that any monster whom may come searching will find you a far more challenging opponent than they could have ever known."

"I—I understand, Lord Shiromari," Karenbana managed, "Thank you."

Shiromari's tenuous hold on the world shattered, and with a rush of air, smoke washed over us. By the time it had faded, I'd managed to flip that switch in my mind back on, and a superior smile was fixed firmly in place on my face.

"Sora?" Karenbana asked, looking for some kind of understanding of what she'd just been signed up for. "What is Senjutsu?"

"Senjutsu is two months of fees, you shitty bodyguard," I said, affecting an air of nonchalance. "Try not to be a crybaby in front of Shiromari while you're gone; it makes us all look bad."

#

Karenbana had been correct, we had been on a direct course for a river, and we'd run straight into it. I'd also been correct about its direction; we'd likely to lose about a month if we followed it all the way to the Land of Bears, but Ranmaru could make good use of its proximity, so I didn't really mind.

"You really are a Sakura," I complained, watching him carefully walk across the surface of the water. "Can't you fall in just once, so I've got something to laugh at?"

Ranmaru wobbled a bit at the distraction, but within moments he'd regained his control.

"That's just more motivation not to fall in," Ranmaru managed, "You're always calling me by other people's names—who is Sakura?"

"Kakashi has three students, Naruto Uzumaki, who you've met, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha," I said, watching as he wobbled again. "Sakura is learning to be a medical shinobi and will go on to become one of the strongest people in the world—she's currently training under Tsunade of the Sannin."

"You said that Sasuke was a bad guy," Ranmaru said, slowly turning back around. "Is that still true?"

"Technically, he's not a bad guy; he's just a kid who made a string of bad decisions and ran away from the village because he's under a lot of stress," I said, leaning back on my hands. "I don't think anyone has even listed him as a missing shinobi yet—they probably won't for a long while now."

"Oh," Ranmaru said. "Where is he now?"

"Sasuke is currently training under Orochimaru of the Sannin, which is the main point of contention with Konohagakure right now," I admitted, "Orochimaru is one of those incredibly charismatic bad guys, but he's also an unmistakeable genius that has, and will contribute in equal parts to saving and dooming the world—transforming Sasuke from a powerful genin into a force of nature is only part of that."

Karenbana cracked one eye open from where she was meditating—she'd been doing it since we arrived, which told me that she had finally linked the need for Still™ with the technique Shiromari would be instructing her in very shortly.

"How strong is he?" Karenbana murmured.

Sasuke had probably been training under Orochimaru for a while now, so that put him somewhere between Valley of the End strength and Shippudden. Actually, pinning that down was a harder thing to do than I expected. I had a very hard time seeing any of the chunin in Konohagakure as being capable of putting down Naruto with his one-tailed cloak, but Sasuke had managed it with extreme effort—even if Naruto hadn't really been playing for keeps.

"Eight months ago, you probably would have died fighting him on that beach. Right now, Sasuke would be able to kill all three of us at once with ease—provided I didn't put a hole in his head, which would probably doom the entire world," I said, trying to give her a scale. "Soon, he'll be just about untouchable by anyone who isn't Kakashi level or above—in three years, he'll be one of the strongest people on the planet."

"In so short a time?" Karenbana said, taken aback. "He's only what—fourteen?"

"With people like Kakashi Hatake, and Itachi Uchiha running around, is it really that surprising?" I said, a bit amused. "If you're worried about it, channel all that anxiety into learning how to be still—you're going to need it tomorrow."

Ranmaru scrambled the last few feet back to the shore as his chakra started to get too low, and the exhaustion robbed him of his focus, but he made it back without falling in—the world really was unfair. Dutifully, I planted my hand on his head and dumped all of my mana into a Refresh.

"Sora," Karenbana said after a long while. "If I'm going to the home of the Chameleons—do you know how long this is going to take?"

It had taken Naruto about a week to learn it, but he'd also used Shadow Clones to brute-force it. There were other factors, as well, like inborn talent, his massive chakra reserves or that his control over his chakra was hard-earned and not at all naturally occurring. Karenbana had better natural control, but she also wasn't the chosen one.

"I'd say that if you can't learn it in three months, we might be in some serious trouble," I admitted, "By that point, Ranmaru and I should be somewhere in the vicinity of the Land of Waterfalls."

"Three months?" Karenbana said, startled. "How are you going to—if you get into another fight, and I'm not there—"

Ranmaru watched the two of us with a furrowed brow, his chakra levels slowly rising as I continued my efforts.

"There shouldn't be any kind of fighting for that duration, which is why I mentioned it," I said, interrupting her. "A month and a half to Hoshigakure, and about that again to the Land of Waterfalls—that is where the fighting is going to start."

"You're talking about Kandachi?" Ranmaru said. "Are we still going after him?"

"We are. It's surplus since you've both got one already, but our team is going to grow bigger eventually," I said, "I could probably assassinate him, but if that fails, he's going to wreck our shit—for that, we're going to need Karenbana."

"Don't fight him if I'm not back yet," Karenbana said, jaw clenched. "Just wait—I'll make sure I'm done by then."

"We will wait for you," Ranmaru promised.

I said nothing to the promise because so long as he was the one who made it, I was free to do as I pleased.

"We'll be waiting for you in the Land of Waterfalls—so make sure you don't take any shortcuts with learning it," I said, eyeing her. "It would be really, really inconvenient to have to walk all the way to the home of the Chameleons in order to cure your petrification."

#

I watched the entirely one-sided sparring session between Ranmaru and Karenbana with interest—the months of daily practice had brought Ranmaru pretty far in terms of technique. His ability to mould chakra throughout his body was already developing well, even without having water-walking entirely perfected. I'd said it before, but it felt true, now more than ever; chakra was one hell of a drug. Ranmaru was getting fast—maybe not to Karenbana, who looked like she was barely paying attention—but if I'd been the one fighting him, I was sure some of the attacks would have landed.

His rate of progress exceeded my own by several orders of magnitude, and I was almost certain that my status as the second physically strongest person in our group was going to be usurped within a month or two. Carrying Kubikiribōchō with me everywhere had the rather obvious effect of turning my own growth lopsided towards Strength, and my Speed was falling further behind every day. The amount of running needed to increase it was becoming inconvenient outside of scheduled training time. Spending two hours a day just sprinting around a clearing was enough to keep the growth steadily increasing, at least.

Ranmaru attempted a spinning roundhouse, and Karenbana caught it on the outside of her forearm, brushing it off to the side before she dropped low. Ranmaru managed to drag himself out of the way of her sweep, but his ability to take advantage of her facing away from him was stymied as she spun back to her feet with a second kick arcing around. Ranmaru raised his guard and, using his entire body, weathered the kick before sliding to a stop several feet away as the chakra pooling in his feet gained traction against it.

"Blocking is a last resort; deflect or move out of the way," Karenbana said, eyeing him. "I think that will do for tonight."

"Thank you," Ranmaru managed, breathing heavily. "I learned a lot."

"Suck up," I crowed, "She beat you up for an hour straight—you're allowed to be mad, you know."

"Ignore him," Karenbana said, "Ranmaru, finish with your flexibility routine, and then you can do whatever you want."

Ranmaru dropped down to sit on the ground, already moving into the first of the stretches, his breathing audible even from a distance—talented and a hard worker, Ranmaru was going to be something special if he got the opportunity to actually make it to adulthood. Karenbana watched him for a moment before moving towards where I was sitting and joining me. We sat there for a while, just watching the river in the fading light.

I'd become pretty used to her unspoken body language, but given the way she was chewing on her lip, a stranger might well have figured it out. I reached over and pushed her shoulder, causing her to tip sideways. She broke her hold on her own knees to catch herself before she could fall over entirely, an annoyed look flashing across her face. I just smiled and turned back to my study of the river.

"You should take the Fujaku Hishō Shōken with you as well, so you can get some practice in," I suggested, "I don't want you popping up in three months' time having forgotten how to use a weapon."

"That would never happen," Karenbana said, breathing out of her nose. "Maybe when I get back, you'll have finally figured out how to use one."

"Well, that was a challenge if I've ever heard one," I said, aghast. "When you get back, we're going to fight—and I'm going to kick your ass all the way to Genjutsu Tree Village."

Karenbana just shook her head at the words, but there was a glint of interest in her eyes at the offer.

#

When the smoke finally cleared away, Shiromari had vanished, and Karenbana was gone along with him. I felt a pang of something in my chest at that, knowing that we wouldn't be seeing her for a while.

"She was sad," Ranmaru said, red eyes bleeding away to his normal, duller maroon. "I think she's going to miss us."

"Of course she is," I said, clapping him on the back. "Who wouldn't miss us—it's us."

"Are we particularly missable?" Ranmaru wondered.

"It's a special property we both possess," I said before steering him in the direction of the river. "You're good enough to walk the walk, but can you walk the run? I know you can't run the walk, so don't even try to trick me."

Ranmaru stumbled out onto the water as I gave him a little push—but he'd clearly predicted what I was going to do in advance. He steadied himself after a few more steps and then straightened up, moving to follow me as I started jogging parallel to the river. It seemed to take him a little while to get used to the rapid shifts in chakra required to counteract the force of his feet hitting the water, but within ten minutes, he was just about matching my speed.

"How long can you keep that up?" I called.

Ranmaru almost lost a foot in the water as I distracted him, but he recovered before it could land him in the river. He took a few moments, apparently, to do the calculation required to give a decent answer to my question.

"I'm losing a lot of chakra," Ranmaru said, doing his best to keep his breathing level. "I think I'll last for about fifteen minutes at this speed."

Pretty good, considering that he'd only had a single day of practice. I kept pace with what I'd identified as his top speed on the water, keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't suddenly fall in and drown or something. A dozen minutes passed, and I began to notice the drop in speed; the lower his chakra got, the more exhausted he seemed to become until he was forced to angle back to the shore.

"Pretty good effort," I said, impressed. "I'll keep you topped up—focus on trying to minimise the loss of chakra from each step; I can feel you bleeding it off, which means you're using a bit too much."

Ranmaru just nodded, working to catch his breath as I Refreshed his chakra—the skills level growth was by far the slowest I'd seen out of all of them, but considering how useful it was, I couldn't exactly complain.

"Did Karenbana have you summon anything yet?" I asked.

"She taught me the handseals and showed me where to best cut my thumb," Ranmaru said, managing to straighten up a bit. "But I haven't used it yet."

"Then we'll run for a couple of hours to get a bit of a headstart, and then you can try it out," I said, "Best for you to get started as early as possible because if Karenbana's progress was anything to go by, it's going to take you a few months to get good enough to summon the boss."

"Will I have enough chakra for something like that?" Ranmaru asked.

"You actually have more chakra now than Karenbana did when she first signed the scroll, although she's above you right now," I admitted, "Either you've got naturally large chakra reserves, or your constant use of your dojutsu has helped to develop it—did she show you how to meditate yet?"

"Yes, moulding chakra into a spiral and how I should focus my mind on something in particular, like a problem I've been having difficulty with or a memory," Ranmaru said, nodding. "She also explained how there are two distinct sides to chakra and that meditation helps refine the mental component."

She'd jacked my lesson wholesale, but that was fine by me; she probably understood it better than I ever would. Meditation seemed to have worked out pretty well for Karenbana, so I couldn't imagine it doing any harm to him. Ranmaru was pretty much still a non-combatant at this point, though, with below-genin skills in just about every area—with the singular exception of genjutsu, in which he excelled. Since it was only going to be the two of us for a while, we were going to have to come up with some strategies to actually take advantage of that.

"We need to try and develop your illusions into something more useful for direct combat," I said, something of which he was already aware. "Making them see things that aren't there, confusing them with fake opponents, and all that kind of stuff is okay, but completely blocking their eyesight for a few seconds would be far more useful—especially if they can't break out of it, or use their own dojutsu to see through it."

I'd seen him make trees look like people, create fake enemies with fully functioning chakra networks, and even block his own chakra network from being seen by Neji—all of those were incredibly complicated uses, but there were far easier ways to block someone's vision.

"Block their eyesight?" Ranmaru asked.

"Say you make a fake image directly on top of someone, or more specifically, a pitch-black sphere around their head," I said, "They'll be able to see nothing except the inside until they escape it which will give me plenty of time to put a hole in them—can you do something like that?"

"I think I could do that," Ranmaru said, furrowing his brow. "Could I practice it on you?"

"I won't be able to see it, but don't let that stop you—feel free to practice it on me as much as you want to," I said without issue. "You're back to full reserves; let's keep moving."

I started forward into a jog without waiting for him, and he took off after me a moment later, angling for the river.

#

I watched as Ranmaru carefully performed the handseals, sliced his thumb against his canine tooth, and then placed his hand gently on the ground—a small puff of smoke emerged, about twice the size of his hand, and about a third of his chakra vanished in an instant. Not a good trade as far as summoning went, but considering it was his first time, I wasn't about to rain on his parade. A baby bird, looking not unlike a sort of severe-faced chicken, its rough, ungrown coat of feathers a sort of dirty brown—it appeared to be waking up from some kind of nap.

"I'm sorry for bringing you here when you were sleeping," Ranmaru said, "I'll send you back now—"

Ranmaru didn't seem to have a chance to cut off the technique because it ran out on its own. He watched the spot where the little eagle had been for a long moment before glancing up to catch my eye.

"That was a great first attempt," I said, "Using up a third of your chakra is a bit rough, though. Try starting with a tenth of your overall capacity because you'll be summoning little guys like that for a while, and it will let you figure out where the line is when you need to start putting in more."

"I see," Ranmaru said, nodding. "Should I go again?"

I just nodded, the tip of my sandal making enough contact with his back to keep my Refresh going. Ranmaru passed through the hand seals again, paused when he realised that he had blood already on his palm, and then placed his hand back on the dirt. This time he'd cut down his chakra input massively, a bit higher than I'd suggested, but much better. The baby eagle that emerged from the smoke seemed pretty much the same as the first, although this one was on its feet. Ranmaru winced at the cry of outrage the little thing gave off, and with another apology, he sent it home in another burst of smoke.

"You think there's an Giant Eagle out there watching its children disappear from its nest?" I wondered. "You're going to have to sleep with one dojutsu open from now on, Ranmaru."

The mixture of horror, outrage and concern on his face was enough to send me over the edge—I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle my laughter, but Ranmaru had already struck out, knuckling me right in the shin.

"Ow," I complained, rubbing at the spot. "You can't just resort to violence, you little brat."

"Karenbana says that it's the only thing that works on you," Ranmaru said, holding his fist up in warning. "She also told me it's because you were dropped on your head when you were little—hey."

I got him in a headlock and then knuckled his hair down into his head as he laughed.

"You've been spending too much time around that woman—" I said before crying out as he attempted to bite his way out of the headlock. "I'm not food, Ranmaru—I'm not food."

Ranmaru's reply was muffled and indecipherable, but I translated it roughly to 'I don't care' or maybe 'stop pulling my hair.' I managed to get my arm back before giving him a final good-natured shove.

"I can't believe you've become such a delinquent," I said, rubbing at my arm. "Karenbana is a bad influence on you."

Ranmaru's hair was sticking up all over the place at this point, and his face was red from the effort, but he seemed relatively triumphant nonetheless. I sat back again and watched as he continued his attempts to steal every baby eagle in the world.

"Do you think she's alright?" Ranmaru asked after three more attempts. "Karenbana, I mean."

"I think she's cautious enough, intelligent enough, and talented enough that she'll be able to avoid anything going too badly wrong," I said, "Shiromari is there as well, along with an army of allies that seem to like her—I'd say she's safer then we are right now."

"The training is dangerous, though," Ranmaru hedged. "What if something does go wrong?"

"Then Shiromari will send someone to come find us, and then we'll go cure her petrification," I said, flashing him a smile. "I'm not going to let either of you die like that, Ranmaru—there's simply way too much work to be done."

I messed his hair up again, Ranmaru sent me a sour look to show how unimpressed he was—and everything was right with the world.

#

The Land of Bears wasn't much different from the other forests I'd passed through, with the singular exception of the massive canyon that seemed to ring the most northeastern part of the country. The roads had signs pointing it out well before we'd even come close, and with a name like 'The Valley of Death,' it seemed pretty clear to me that it was a known factor. What wasn't clear to me was how they expected travellers to actually reach the village because the massive rope bridge that stretched across the canyon from the western side was destroyed, with most of it hanging down into the mess of toxicity below. There were so many indicators that a battle had taken place here recently that I was pretty sure a child could have figured out that something was wrong.

"Things are not as they should be," I said, investigating the top of the half-burned post the bridge had once attached to. "Ranmaru—I'm going to need you to do some scouting on the other side."

His eyes were already glowing before I'd finished the sentence.

"Am I looking for something in particular?" Ranmaru asked.

"Hoshigakure is supposed to be over there," I said, "Given how late we are to the show, this should be a relatively boring place—the villain should have been killed and the problem solved before I even woke up in the Land of Moon."

"There was a villain here?" Ranmaru murmured.

"Akahoshi?" I said, unsure of the name. "He assassinated the previous Hoshikage and then took over the village, but Konohagakure should have dealt with this already."

I planted my hand on his head and started Refreshing his chakra to keep him maxed out.

"I've found a massive crater with the burned remains of a building at the bottom," Ranmaru said, tilting his head slightly. "There are many corpses present—almost thirty, and all of them seem to be wearing the same headband."

"Star engraving?" I guessed.

"Yes, and these people have been dead for a long time," Ranmaru admitted, "Several months at least."

The fact that a ten-year-old kid had any kind of experience in figuring out how fresh a corpse was struck me for a moment until I remembered exactly who he'd been travelling with—Raiga 'bury them alive and let the good times roll' Kurosuki. The star-training building in the crater had been destroyed in the source, and the army had been arrayed there at the time. But if Naruto hadn't been there to destroy the meteor in Akahoshi's chest—who would have been able to stop him? Natsuhi was already dead at that point and had become a ghost. Sumaru had been knocked out, and nobody else had been able to match up to the Hoshikage.

"I've located the village; it's been almost completely destroyed, with the exception of one building," Ranmaru said, "There is a very powerful chakra network on the top floor, but the chakra is strange—the man looks dead, and his lifeforce is gone, but his chakra is still flowing."

"Is there an object buried in his chest?" I asked. "A rock, purple, maybe?"

"Yes," Ranmaru admitted.

It was undeniably Akahoshi, which meant that the man had succeeded in his plan and then killed everyone in his madness—not exactly the best outcome. I'd hoped to recruit the village to our cause, either by invoking the fact that Naruto had saved them or by saving them myself if Konohagakure had never come in the first place. Natsuhi would have been an ideal candidate to join our team—if she'd managed to survive. She'd spent ten years away from the village and managed to retain her star-chakra powers throughout it all. I could have kept her healthy, curing the radiation whenever it showed up, and we would have had a strong shinobi with a pretty powerful skillset on our side.

"Damn it," I sighed. "We're going to have to find a way across—because I'm not leaving the meteorite here."

We set off south, following the canyon around in search of either another bridge or a thinner section where we might be able to come up with a solution to cross over to the other side. Ranmaru searched in the opposite direction with his dojutsu, but it became pretty clear that there was only one bridge leading into Hoshigakure, and it was well and truly fucked. In the end, we'd managed to find a place where there was an actual path down into The Valley of Death and then set up camp at the top.

"We've still got a couple of hours before nightfall," I said, eyeing the canyon. "Ranmaru, stay here and finish off your practice early; I'm going to go to investigate the gas—you can check on me with your dojutsu, but don't go anywhere near it."

"I understand," Ranmaru said.

I left him there, heading for the pathway that would lead down into the gas, and then stopped a few meters above it. My body didn't work like most of the people on the planet, but one thing I'd noticed after the 'falling from Shiromari Castle,' 'stabbed in the throat by a kunai and lost a lot of blood' and 'getting thrown into a cliff face so hard that it broke most of the bones in my body' incidents—was that my body didn't seem to really react the right way to injuries. I could seemingly lose ninety-nine percent of the blood in my body, and so long as my Health Points were still good, then I wouldn't slow down, become dizzy, or blackout.

Broken bones did stop me from walking, and a kunai lodged in my throat would stop me from breathing, but those were temporary things that a couple uses of Heal would clear away. The pain associated with those injuries was also excruciatingly present, and that had a very real effect of stopping me from moving around at full capacity. It was all clearly a result of Game Body, and the whole 'user will not falter until their HP reaches zero' thing. Poisons, likewise, seemed to work oddly—Karenbana's reflex-slowing poison absolutely slowed my reflexes, but the nausea, dizziness, and cognitive impairment that everyone else seemed to become afflicted by didn't work. The poison I'd been hit with in the restaurant in the Land of Vegetables hadn't done its job either, but that may have been because of how quickly I'd cleared it away. I eyed the poisonous gas for a long moment before carefully stepping down into it.

You have been poisoned.

"Yes, thanks for that," I said. "I never would have guessed."

I backed up until I was out of the gas and watched my health bar begin to quickly deplete, even against my rather meagre seven points of health regeneration per second. The status effect was incredibly unhelpful, as it only seemed to say Poisoned, which didn't really tell me anything. I came to an estimate of about fifty Health Points of damage every second, and when my health hit about seventy percent, I dropped into Meditate and Healed myself back to full health—at this point, I was exchanging roughly two points of mana for about seventy points of health, so the process took me all of two seconds to manage.

If the rate of damage stayed about the same, I could probably just make my way down into the canyon and then climb back up the other side with Surface Adhesion. I'd have to juggle stopping to use Meditate, using Heal, and Surface Adhesion all at the same time, but I could probably manage it—

Health Recovery has increased by 1.

I stared at it for a moment, my train of thought broken—it was a skill I didn't see many level-ups for, the rarity right alongside Health Core. Mainly because it required me to get injured in order for it to level up, and I greatly disliked that process, so it was something I tended to avoid. This poisonous gas, however, didn't really hurt at all—I mean, it was killing me pretty quickly, but there was no pain associated with it. I waited on the path, Healing myself endlessly as Meditate recovered my mana far faster than I could spend it. I cleared it away with two uses of Status Removal as a test on whether or not I actually could, and it went easily.

"Well," I said, rubbing the back of my head. "It beats stabbing myself in the hand with a kunai."

I stepped back into the gas and then sat down crosslegged, well below the danger line—

You have been poisoned.

I'd need to check whether or not the effect would end up stacking, multiplying or otherwise increasing its rate of damage first—an hour would be long enough to safely figure that out because unless I got lost down in the canyon, I should only be there for about fifteen minutes—

Health Core has increased by 1.

—and if the end result was a bunch of levels for Health Core and a boost to my Health Regeneration, then I certainly wasn't going to complain about it.

#

Takumi Village had been the first true indication that there were events that weren't going to get solved by the main cast because they simply couldn't be everywhere. But Hoshigakure was the first time I'd seen the aftermath of one of those events where I hadn't been present to pick up the slack. It was proof that if nobody got involved, then things could and would end badly. It was also additional proof—alongside Kagero Village and Genno—that while my knowledge of events seemed pretty solid, I couldn't put the same kind of blind faith into when they were going to happen.

The Valley of Death was about as annoying to navigate as I'd expected it to be; between the opaque gas and the fact that the floor of the canyon wasn't flat, I'd been forced to head further north through the mess. The upside of my prolonged exposure to the poison was that my health regeneration was getting to the point where it was starting to mitigate a decent chunk of the incoming damage. The cloud surrounding me might have been a putrid yellow, but it did have a silver lining. Eventually, I made it to the opposite cliff, and I started my upwards climb, using Surface Adhesion to turn the minor gaps in the stone into what amounted to the rungs of a ladder.

I had to pause several times to engage, Meditate, and then Heal through the poison, but it was manageable now. When I crested the top of the cliff and took a breath of clear, unsullied air, it was akin to drinking cool water after a trip through the Land of Wind. I cleared the poison with Status Removal and headed east towards the village. Energy Sense couldn't seem to find anything at all, not even animals, although that might have been because of the canyon. Nothing but birds would have the ability to cross it in the first place, and even they might make the mistake of heading down into the gas.

As far as natural defences went, it was a pretty solid place to put a Hidden Village, although they might well starve if they'd been hemmed in by outside forces. From what Ranmaru had told me, there was no sign of any kind of farm on this side of the canyon, and without the bridge, they were essentially trapped. My knowledge of the place told me that only a small fraction of the shinobi in Hoshigakure was trained in manipulating Star Chakra because of the decade-long ban the previous Hoshikage had set.

That meant the only way to get across the gap would have been scaling it with those rope crossbows they'd used. Not something a civilian trader or a caravan carrying food would have been able to accomplish—I found the crater a moment later, the bad angle I'd come in on causing me to almost slip down the edge of it as the treeline abruptly ended.

"That is a lot of dead bodies," I muttered, eyeing the bottom of the crater. "Shit—what a waste."

I descended into the crater, using Surface Adhesion in combination with my body weight to stay relatively upright throughout. Picking my way through the burned debris, I paused when I caught sight of a dull glint in the mess of charcoal. I used my foot to clear the area around it and found another corpse pinned beneath a beam with her arm outstretched ahead of her. The headband of her village had sunk from her decayed forehead and was now half buried in the muck.

"Natsuhi," I sighed.

I turned away from the body, moving until I'd escaped the outer edge of the destroyed building. Some of the bodies were oddly intact, without injuries, and I could only put that down to Akahoshi consuming their chakra with his beast until they'd expired. There was a smaller group of dead lying away from the larger mass of bodies, each one shorter and visibly much younger than the others—the genin who'd been training with the meteorite throughout that entire arc, Sumaru, Hokuto and Mizura amongst them. I moved on, heading up the crater wall, following the path to the top, and then found myself overlooking the ruined village—Ranmaru's description had been accurate, massive gouges had been cored out of the surrounding buildings, and the only one that seemed relatively intact was the one that had once belonged to the Hoshikage.

I followed the path down to the village, moving slowly and unwilling to rush—I felt the moment Akahoshi appeared within my range, a massively dense energy signature burning more brightly than just about anything I'd felt. A patterned purple energy boiling in the broken chakra network of the man who'd foolishly attempted to assimilate the alien object. The meteorite itself felt like a blank space, more than anything else—because there was no chakra inside of it at all. That wasn't surprising, considering it never had any in the first place—the Star Chakra was simply the radiation carried by the meteorite enhancing the chakra inside of those nearby, empowering it to a phenomenal degree, even while it poisoned the body with radiation.

I moved through the village, eyeing the damage and how almost all of it was facing the balcony of the Hoshikage building—had he begun to destroy his own village in the end? I found Akahoshi on the top floor of the building, sitting crosslegged on a raised section of floor, hands planted firmly on his knees. His entire body was misshapen, sagging and bulging irregularly on either side, and his eyes were entirely gone, sunk beneath the swelling that had taken his face. Akahoshi's mouth, however, was visible, lips stretching almost from ear to ear in a sick grin.

"You thought you were built differently from the rest of them, huh?" I said, standing before him. "Guess we're the same, you and I—I'm just hoping that I don't end up like you in the end."

I crouched down in front of him and placed my hand flat against the meteorite—

You have been poisoned.

—and vanished it into my inventory, leaving a hole in the centre of the man's chest. I opened my Status Screen up and checked the new effect listed; Radiation Poisoning. A look at my mana told me that nothing was happening, even when I spent a bunch of it in a Heal. I hadn't really expected radiation that specifically affected chakra to do anything to my mana, but it was worth a try. A single use of Status Removal was enough to clear it. Akahoshi's skin was starting to flake away—without the meteorite to keep what was left of his chakra bolstered and moving, his unliving body simply couldn't stand up to the level of deterioration.

I turned away, leaving the dead man to his slow decay.

#

"I already checked it earlier, but I can't see anything noteworthy about it," Ranmaru said. "It was responsible for that man's chakra still being active, despite his death?"

I just nodded.

"This thing gives off a specific type of radiation; it has a deleterious effect on the body, which will eventually kill anyone who is exposed to it," I said, trying and failing to spin it on the tip of my finger like a basketball. "But it also permanently empowers the chakra capacity of anyone who deliberately moulds chakra while near it—the more often you do so, the better."

Ranmaru looked at it with a sort of strange fascination before his eyes flashed red again, trying once more to see something within the oddly shaped but otherwise simple rock.

"I already tested it out, and while I can't get any of the benefits out of it, I can clear the negative effects," I said, finally getting it to do a slow wobble on my fingertip for a moment. "So, my question to you—is that knowing that it's an extremely dangerous object, do you want to train with it?"

"It would be a waste not to, wouldn't it?" Ranmaru said, holding out his hand. "Besides, you'll make sure I'm safe."

I felt one of those rare, visceral twinges in my chest at the words; the almost casual level of trust he apparently had in me taking me completely off guard for a moment. Reaching out, I carefully placed it in his hand, watching as the status effect came into existence on his already opened Observe window—Radiation Poisoning.

"How should I practice with it?" Ranmaru asked.

"The meditation exercise will do for now, but once you get more comfortable with it, you could do tree-walking or water-walking while holding it," I said, dropping into a crosslegged position across from him. "Place your hands in your lap, and hold the meteorite between them—tell me if it starts to get painful, and I'll clear the effect."

I watched carefully as he followed my instructions, and when he closed his eyes, I turned my attention to his Status Screen. His health remained at full, and there was no change to the total amount, but I made a note of the total capacity to make sure it didn't start decreasing. I didn't want to interrupt him while he was concentrating, so I turned my attention towards my own training. The cost reduction granted from Mana Mastery had finally dropped Stealth, Energy Sense and Surface Adhesion to reserving a single point of mana each, which had allowed me to keep them on permanently now. Iron Hide was still around fifty mana reserved, but I'd started leaving it on with them. I dropped into Meditate and then started dumping all of my mana into Heal. I was about three points of mana off being able to use Jaunt now, and I intended on getting there before the night was through.

"I can see it now," Ranmaru said, a slight red glow peeking out of his closed eyes. "The chakra closest to the meteorite is changing colour—"

"You can leave your dojutsu on if you want," I said, raising an eyebrow. "But actively investigating your chakra network like that is absolutely not meditating—do that later."

"Sorry," Ranmaru said, cheeks a bit red. "I got distracted."

#

I Jaunted exactly twenty-five centimetres to the side, and when I arrived, I was facing the place I'd just left behind. Two hundred mana wiped out my entire capacity in a single skill, but my natural mana regeneration brought it back up to full in exactly eight seconds. I Jaunted again, returning to my previous place, now facing the pathway that would lead me back out of the Valley of Death. Eight seconds was a long time in combat, especially against shinobi, who could move so fast that I couldn't even visually track them. I pulled Meditate up, Healed myself to counteract the damage of the poison gas, and then Jaunted back a step.

Meditate actually remained unbroken, which I'd kind of assumed would happen, considering I could use it during freefall, so long as I didn't actually move my limbs. Having Meditate active reduced the recovery time to exactly two seconds—I was heavily lopsided towards recovering, but I wasn't sure that would continue forever. Mana Core, Stamina Core, and Health Core levelled up dozens of times faster than the associated recovery skills. Eventually, it would probably lean back the other way, but for now, my low-mana capacity was incredibly annoying. Being able to teleport twenty-five centimetres every two seconds so long as I didn't take any other action wasn't exactly groundbreaking, but it was only a matter of time—

Jaunt has increased by 1.

—until the distance increased to something more useful.

"Fifty centimetres," I said, eyes closed to avoid the stinging gas. "Moving up in the world."

Jaunting upwards worked as well, but my legs braced with the landing, and that was enough to break Meditate. I pulled it back up and then attempted it again, this time locking my knees before I hit the ground—painful, perhaps, but it didn't toggle off the skill. As far as motivation went, this was a pretty good one. Having to turn off every beneficial skill I knew in order to teleport wasn't exactly good for my longevity, either.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Then again, the Land of Bears was oddly good for a training ground—and while it wasn't a room of space and time—it was allowing me to grind out quite a bit of Health Points. But the rate of progress was starting to slow down proportionally, just like the others had, and with it, the time requirement was increasing. As much as I wanted to remain here until I had so much health that even Kaguya would have some trouble burning through it all, the reality was that I didn't have that time to spare. Things needed doing, places needed visiting, and I had a date with Konohagakure.

Far sooner than that, Karenbana, if she stuck to her deadline, would be moving straight to the rendezvous point we'd selected—a tiny little village right in of the Land of Earth whilst also being on the shared border of both the Land of Waterfalls and the Land of Grass. A three-way split that placed part of both countries between Konohagakure and Iwagakure—not the best place to be, for anyone involved, the Land of Rain could attest to that. Genno had known, with far more accuracy than any of us, where Genjutsu Tree Village was located. Inside the Land of Waterfalls, on the southernmost border, part of which pressed through to the Land of Grass.

At first, I'd wondered why Takigakure hadn't done anything to stop it, but after Genno had marked both of them down on our map, it had become clear enough that they probably weren't even aware the small village had been taken over in the first place. Between the terrain working as a natural barrier to keep out anyone except for the villagers who had long since mastered the odd processes involved in living there—namely disrupting the effects of the magnetic fields enveloping the place by copious usage of chilli pepper—and the fact that the little village was on the southernmost point of the Land of Waterfalls left it as an extremely isolated place to live.

It left them incredibly vulnerable to the types of people who might get inside and then decide they didn't want to leave—like Kandachi. It had been one of the first places that Jiraiya had taken Naruto after leaving the village, but the reasoning for them going there had been flimsy at best. Teaching Naruto how to disrupt genjutsu could be done just about anywhere, and neither of them had learned anything from the trip—other than how to make the Rasengan bigger, which had absolutely nothing to do with genjutsu. It was kind of a Hoshigakure situation, in which I highly suspected that they wouldn't have gone there, which meant that nobody had come to exterminate the missing-rain shinobi who had taken it over—were they even technically missing-shinobi if they were the survivors of a coup?

I wasn't sure, but what I did know was that they'd locked a bunch of people up in cages and then attempted to feed them to a giant sea-snail, and that was—

Jaunt has increased by 1.

—pretty impolite behaviour all round.

"Seventy-five centimetres," I said with a bit of unrestrained glee. "I'm catching up, Minato—datteba-fucking-yo."

#

"It looks pretty much the same as before," Ranmaru said, a bit disappointed. "I thought it would be different."

"We're barely half an hour past the border, little guy," I said, rolling my eyes. "What did you expect, massive pillars of dirt sticking out of the ground? To be besieged on all sides by landslides? Earth Dragons frolicking around looking for shinobi to ram into?"

"The Land of Fangs had a canyon on its border," Ranmaru defended, "Plus, the Land of Wind started to change days before we even got close to the border."

"Well, if we travelled a day into the Land of Earth, we'd probably see some environmental changes. We're kind of threading a needle here, you know?" I said, shrugging. "Too close to Iwagakure, and we might get picked off by Onoki's shinobi when they inevitably catch us training; too close to the Land of Keys, and we might end up with mind-reading shinobi who could give you a run for your money. Too close to The Land of Rain, and we run the risk of attracting the attention of Pain—and I'm not fucking doing that."

I opened my arms up in a kind of 'what can you do' gesture before glancing back down at him.

"You'll just have to wait until we get to the border, I guess," I said, "You might be able to use your dojutsu from a high altitude and get a bird's eye view of the area—although we really need to do something about the whole glowing red eyes thing."

Ranmaru reached up to touch his hand against the bridge of his nose at the words.

"Is it a problem?" Ranmaru asked, a bit hesitant.

"Just about anyone who sees it is going to think that you're walking around with a pair of Sharingan, and if weird illusionary shit starts popping up, it's only going to make that association worse," I admitted, "Past that, the first thing they are going to do is target the kid with the glowing eyes—because it speaks of an active technique, and that means they can't just let you run free."

"I saw under Kakashi's headband back in Takumi village," Ranmaru hedged, "Other than the fact that it's red, they look nothing alike."

"That's not going to mean anything to someone who has heard about the Uchiha but never met one," I said, shaking my head. "They'll see a pair of glowing red eyes, and they'll want it for themselves."

"What should I do?" Ranmaru asked.

"Learn to fight with your eyes closed, wear a blindfold or figure out some way to cover your eyes with a genjutsu when they're in use," I said, listing off my immediate thoughts. "I suppose you could also become so strong that no one dares approach you in the first place—that seems to work for a lot of shinobi."

"Am I even a shinobi?" Ranmaru wondered. "I've never even been trained at a Hidden Village."

"Karenbana wasn't trained in a Hidden Village, and she's a shinobi," I pointed out, "But if you want a definition, I'd say that a shinobi is someone who holds within them the potential for great violence, and through that violence, they carry out their will or the will of their employer on the world."

"Are you a shinobi?" Ranmaru pressed.

"Nobody is paying me," I said, wagging my finger at him. "But I'm certainly learning to fight the way a shinobi does—or at least trying to design a skillset that lets me kill them, which seems to be working out pretty well so far."

"I don't think your definition of a shinobi works very well," Ranmaru said, "A mercenary is someone who can be violent, and they get paid as well."

"A monk can use chakra techniques, some of which can be used to fight—but we don't call them shinobi because they avoid violence unless in defence of self or others. A doctor whose study of medical techniques is equal to that of Tsunade of the Sannin might one day exist—but they will die to even the weakest of bandits." I said, shrugging. "A mercenary is someone who completes tasks for money, but they lack the skillset of a shinobi almost entirely."

"Stabbing people?" Ranmaru guessed. "They can do that too."

"Stealth, misdirection, illusions, speed, elemental techniques, clones, throwing weapons, hand-to-hand combat, summoning—a shinobi has at least some basic training in most of those areas; a great shinobi is a master of several," I said, before catching his eye. "I can't wait to tell Karenbana that you think her entire skillset can be boiled down to stabbing people—Matsuri as well?"

"You better not," Ranmaru said, alarmed. "Sora—"

#

Ranmaru seemed to be improving with the Summoning Technique at a rate that I found almost baffling—something I could only put down to his constant use of his dojutsu, allowing him to visually study how his chakra was moving and then make adjustments based on the results. He'd long since quit his attempts to terrorize the newly hatched eagles of the world and had moved on to the adolescents. None of them had been able to speak yet, but teenage angst seemed to be universal because some of these guys had the meanest-looking mugs I'd ever seen.

The patterns covering their feathers were also pretty interesting to look at, but as far as variety went, they didn't seem to deviate too much from browns, beiges, whites and blacks. The newest summon was a jump that I hadn't been expecting, easily as tall as Ranmaru, while his wings were still furled up, with an impressive, shaggy mane of feathers sticking out around its head that I'd never seen on any bird before. There was a startling intelligence in its gaze that almost all of the others had lacked—considering it had cost Ranmaru about half of his chakra, I wasn't too surprised.

"Hello," Ranmaru said, "I'm sorry for bringing you here without warning—I don't suppose you can talk, can you?"

It was much the same question he'd asked all of the others he'd brought in front of us, but this time he actually got a response.

"You may call me Yuitotori," Yuitotori said, voice sharp. "Which answers your question, does it not?"

"It does," Ranmaru said, smiling. "It's nice to meet you, Yuitotori."

"Is it?" Yuitotori asked, "I could turn out to be someone you greatly dislike; perhaps it is too early for you to come to a decision."

"That wouldn't make me change my mind about our meeting being nice," Ranmaru said, "I'd just say that it was nice to meet you, but you turned out to be quite mean, ghastly, or unhinged."

"A decent compromise," Yuitotori agreed. "Is there a reason you have summoned me, or was it to facilitate your learning?"

"I was only practising with the technique, and there isn't really anything else going on," Ranmaru admitted, "It took a lot of tries, but I finally figured out where I was wasting so much chakra."

"You profess to have found a problem and then solved it," Yuitotori said, tilting his beak around as he studied him. "If you can not repeat it, then it was simply a result of converging chance and fleeting opportunity."

"Just wait, Yuitotori," Ranmaru said, closing his eyes. "I'll confirm it right now."

Ranmaru placed his hands together, and Yuitotori vanished into a cloud of smoke. I continued my silent efforts to refill his chakra, and once he was ready, he ran through the handseals before planting his hand back onto the ground. Yuitotori emerged from the fading white mess, entirely unmoved from his previous position.

"A job well done," Yuitotori said, pleased. "You may summon me again when you are in need—I do not like frivolous tasks, and I expect you to keep that in mind."

"Do you consider my practice to be frivolous?" Ranmaru asked.

"Earnest practice is never frivolous," Yuitotori said, "If you seek improvement, and your attention is focused, you will rise."

It held the vocal traces of a phrase often said or maybe just something old—I could almost imagine him repeating the words to the ones who couldn't yet speak and who most certainly couldn't fly.

"Right," Ranmaru said, nodding. "Then I'll keep practising until I can do it perfectly."

Yuitotori lowered his head at the words just a fraction, spread his wings wide, and then burst into smoke—I wondered where he'd been when Ranmaru had first summoned him. In the air, gliding along invisible air currents? Settled on a branch somewhere?

"Sora?" Ranmaru asked. "Did you think that went well?"

"Perfect marks," I said, "He seems like the kind of guy to obsess over the details, though, so you might want to avoid doing anything that will unsettle him too much—spontaneity or doing things without thinking them through first."

Considering how much of a planner Genno was, I couldn't help but imagine the two of them got along pretty well.

"I got that impression as well," Ranmaru said, but he was smiling. "Did you see how big his wingspan was?"

#

Threading the needle, we might have been, but I'd definitely given the Land of Rain much more of a berth than was perhaps warranted. In my defence, I could see storm clouds brewing to our south, and I had no clue how a natural phenomenon like that would interact with Nagato's technique. With my Luck—forty-two now, if you had to know—it would extend his range for no additional chakra cost and reveal our presence completely. The most handsome man in the Land of Earth, swinging around Kubikiribōchō like it weighed nothing and a child with glowing red eyes would probably be enough to draw his attention.

Ranmaru hadn't caught sight of anyone, though, and his dojutsu-enhanced sensory ability far outstripped my own. We'd had three—separate but equally tense—situations during the last two weeks involving what were most definitely teams of chunin-level shinobi. Only one of them had come close enough to see us, but we'd long since tucked away our weapons and kept to our pack-carrying disguises as random travellers. Eventually, they'd left, apparently content that we weren't anybody noteworthy, and allowed us to continue our journey unharassed—I was probably giving them something of a bad wrap here when I didn't have too much to really go on. My distrust came mostly from the fact that they'd been at war with Konohagakure in the past, and considering Onoki the Fencesitter was in charge—both then and now—I kind of had to assume he still had something of a grudge for anyone who aligned themselves with the Land of Fire.

Even if he didn't, the shinobi who worked for him would have had fathers, mothers, and grandparents who would have been killed during that war. Maybe I'd get the chance to sit down with Onoki at some point in the future, but for now, it was better to play it safe. We were pretty much in the clear now that we'd left the land of Rain relatively behind us as we could flee into the Land of Grass if any Iwagakure shinobi came to bully us for real. I mean, what the hell was Kusagakure going to do? Throw umbrellas at us? Laughable. Attack us with sowing supplies? Total cringe. Pretend to be some loser genin when it's actually Orochimaru of the fucking Sannin—Huh. Maybe we should avoid the Land of Grass as well? No, they can't all be Orochimaru in disguise, surely. Besides, he would be way too busy having floppy arms to do something like that—or was that what he wanted me to think?

"Sora, are you okay?" Ranmaru asked, "You've been muttering for a while now."

"Don't interrupt me when I'm being paranoid, Ranmaru," I chastised, "You raised yourself better than that."

"That doesn't sound right," Ranmaru said, bemused. "What are you paranoid about?"

"Snakes," I said, the word dripping with suspicion. "Where do you think they live, Ranmaru?"

"In tall grass?" Ranmaru guessed.

I clicked my fingers together with a loud snap.

"Exactly," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Of all the countries in the world, which one do you think has the most grass?"

"The Land of Grass?" Ranmaru offered.

I had no idea if that was the case—actually, I had no real idea on how any of these countries derived their names. We'd spent a month in the Land of Bears, and I hadn't seen a single one of them. Likewise, If there had been any Red Bean Jam in the Land of Red Bean Jam, then they'd concealed it very well before I'd gotten there. The Land of Fire was all forest and no flame, and while the Land of Wind certainly had a breeze, so did everywhere else.

"Precisely," I said, regardless. "You can see why I'm wary."

"You're afraid of snakes?" Ranmaru tried.

"Of course not—I'd fuck up a snake if it came up at me," I said, baffled. "I'm scared of pale men who wear other people as skinsuits and who also happen to be thematically tied to snakes in just about every way."

"I don't know who we're talking about," Ranmaru admitted.

He'd heard the name before; I'd just never explained anything more than that to him—I cleared my throat.

"If I am to be considered a premier Haku collector—then Orochimaru of the Sannin could be considered the Champion of the Kanto Region," I said, raising a hand to tick them off on my fingers. "He's got a Sasuke—young, but with good EVs—a Jugo, a Suigetsu—ugh, water-types—a Karin, a Guren—she even has a Haku of her own, nested Hakus, Ranmaru, can you even imagine? He's got a Kabuto—revived via fossilisation, of course—he had a Kimmimaro, those are super rare—"

#

Hari town was far less interesting than Kagero Village had been, and it had none of the mottled charm. Still, it had a bunch of Inns, which gave Ranmaru a chance to sleep in an actual bed for the first time in months. Sitting in a room with a bed felt bizarre to me now, considering I didn't sleep anymore, and that was pretty much the sole use for a bedroom—heh, maybe not the sole use.

"I'm so bored," I complained to the empty room. "This is garbage."

Ranmaru—tucked away in his bed two rooms down—hadn't moved in what must have been an hour, and I'd done absolutely nothing except teleport in place while flipping a coin—I wanted out. At least when we were slumming it out in the woods, I could beat the shit out of my environment with Kubikiribōchō. There wasn't even enough room in here to swing the damn Dragonblade without carving a hole in the wall.

Luck has increased by 1.

"Then, by the power of forty-nine luck, I command you to strike down all my enemies," I whined, "Heart attacks, random meteors—trip hazards?"

I couldn't tell if it had worked, but I could only hope Nagato tripped over while climbing out of his spider bot and accidentally broke his coccyx. Maybe I could sneak out while Ranmaru was sleeping and go find Genjutsu Tree Village—it should only be a day or so travel across the border. If I made a beeline for it at full speed, I could probably knock that down to half a day. Sneak out as soon as he fell asleep and be back by morning with Summoning Contract in hand. Then again, he'd made the mistake of promising Karenbana that we'd wait for her in an attempt to soothe her anxiety.

Kind of him as it was, he'd entrapped us in what might end up being another month of sitting around, burning Ryo on a bed I wasn't even using. I Jaunted back up onto the bed, now positioned so my head was hanging off the edge with my uncut hair dangling down beneath me—I'd have to get that dealt with soon. Was there a barber in this little town? I hadn't actually seen one yet, but there must have been someone who did it. My lazy attempt to grab the coin ended with a miss, and it smacked down onto my forehead before sticking there—heads.

Luck has increased by 1.

"By the power of fifty luck," I whined. "Where the hell are my interesting times?"

Couldn't train with Kubikiribōchō, couldn't destroy a bunch of trees with Line Spear, couldn't use Jaunt in public without giving every old man in the village flashbacks to the war—fuck this, exercising at night was pretty weird, but it shouldn't trigger any alarm bells. I let myself out of the room, Stealth vanishing the sounds of my footsteps as I left the building. With Energy Sense active, I could tell that just about everyone was already asleep or at least lying down. I slipped out of the Inn and then took off running, following the main road to the gates, and then went left, aiming to circle around the entire village.

A night of running should give me something in the way of Speed, and the movement alone worked to bleed off all of the tension I'd felt at being crammed inside of the tiny room. If I ever bought a permanent home, I'd need something big and open, or else I'd descend into insanity, most likely. Could I even buy property in a place like Konohagakure? I knew that they'd taken in refugees multiple times. Genno had managed—would have managed—to slip in as a carpenter and then live there long enough to fade into the background. Amachi, from the Land of Sea, as well, should be living there somewhere. If they'd allowed a foreign experiment of Orochimaru's—and one that was combat capable—to live there permanently, then I couldn't imagine them denying me.

Though, I suppose none of this would really matter unless we actually managed to prevent all the disasters, invasions and insanity. Buying something now was probably a bad idea anyway, considering Akatsuki and the shinobi from the Land of Sky wanted to blow the whole place up. Then again, if everything went according to plan, Jiraiya wouldn't ever go to Amegakure, and Pain wouldn't perform his retaliatory strike against Konohagakure before they could disseminate the information about his abilities. Were there houses up on the Hokage Monument? A view like that would be sick.

#

Ranmaru's kick smashed into my thigh with a sound like concrete shattering, but I felt none of the pain I should have—Iron Hide was now strong enough to weather it without letting any bleed through. Still, the fact that he was landing shots on me at all was an outrage; chakra-enhanced speed sucked donkey balls. I managed to catch hold of his ankle before he could disengage again, and I spun, drawing him into a rising arc like some kind of Ranmarukiribōchō—Ranmaru was flung up into the air as I let go of him, but he managed to spin enough to get his legs underneath him.

I caught up to him before he could land, striking out with a straight punch. Ranmaru twisted at the last second, bleeding off some of the momenta of his fall by pushing off my outstretched arm. I moved to follow him, keeping up the pressure as he hit the ground. Ranmaru avoided my attempt to grab him by the shirt by juking to the side, but I planted my foot, using Surface Adhesion to brake, and then lunged forward—my outstretched hand, fingers splayed in another grab, almost managed to connect with his face. Ranmaru, using the same method I'd just used, dropped backwards until he was parallel with the floor, his feet sealed against the ground with chakra.

His kunai cut across the underside of my forearm, and I changed the direction of my attack, aiming down towards him—but he'd already scrambled away.

"Dammit," I complained, "You're already as fast as me, Ranmaru—where is the justice?"

Ranmaru panted for breath, entirely unable to find the air or willpower to form a response, and I was left to plant my hands on my hips. He was a few shades faster than me, but my strength was still better and considering I never really grew tired anymore or stayed injured, he couldn't really defeat me.

"I need to do more running—real running, at full speed, not that jogging around Hari Town crap to avoid making anyone suspicious," I grunted, taking a step forwards. "How about we just camp in these woods? We'll be close enough to notice Karenbana arriving, and I'll actually be able to train."

Ranmaru still wasn't really in a state to answer, and when I took another step towards him, he started moving backwards—damn, he'd figured out my talk until they were distracted, then attack technique.

"We can—" I continued before surging forward at full speed. "Got you—come back here, you little brat—"

Ranmaru's small size actually made it pretty hard to target him when he was moving so quickly, and if my own attacks were off-centre by even a few inches, that tended to guarantee that he could move out of the way in time—what was worse about it, was that I wasn't really fighting him at his full ability either. I'd seen his sparring sessions back when Karenbana was still here, and he'd shown an incredible ability to predict movements while his dojutsu was active—I'd seen him start moving to avoid her attacks almost before she'd even begun them.

At first, I'd thought he was reading her mind, but the reality of it was that he was watching her 'lifeforce' some type of esoteric energy that existed beneath her chakra, and that apparently betrayed the way a person was going to move before they actually did. Now, against me, that advantage had been entirely stripped away because, unlike everyone else on this planet, I apparently didn't have a 'life force' in the same way I didn't have a 'chakra network.' He couldn't read my mind, cast genjutsu, or gain increased insight from watching my life force; he was forced to fight me with his raw ability.

As galling as it was that I was getting matched in a friendly spar by a ten-year-old boy, it was probably better for his growth not to rely on those advantages so much. If he learned how to destroy people in combat without them first, then when he did add them on top, he'd become an unstoppable beast—Ranmaru stumbled and fell to one knee, his exhaustion overtaking his ability to continue.

"You're getting better," I said, checking the line of blood his kunai had left behind across my wrist before it had instantly healed. "I'll heal you up, and then we can try again—you should use Kiba this time, double-sided form, maybe."

I planted my hand on his head and then Healed him—his overworked muscles, split skin from all the strikes he'd managed to get in on me, and the bruise from the one glancing hit I'd landed on his shoulder vanished in an instant. Ranmaru straightened, still panting but rapidly recovering in spite of it—they didn't have a stamina bar the same way I did. Instead, their stamina was decided based on the condition of their body, and that I could fix pretty much instantly.

"Are you going to use Kubikiribōchō?" Ranmaru managed.

"Absolutely," I said, "I don't feel like getting my arms cut off any time today."

"What about my arms?" Ranmaru asked.

"Don't even worry about it, Ranmaru," I said, bringing Kiba out of my inventory. "I'll make sure to aim for your legs."

#

The deadline for Karenbana's return came and passed without either of us directly addressing it. We had returned to Hari Town twice during that period, but from what I could gather, nobody had seen anyone new coming through. We kept on training just inside the border of the Land of Waterfalls, and not once during that time did any of their shinobi come that far south—on patrol, mission, or otherwise. There had been a brief patrol of Kusagakure shinobi, and five whole units from Iwagakure had passed by but hadn't stopped—a worrying increase that spoke of something going on that I really didn't like.

Apparently, the shinobi were content with using the old eyechrometer to make sure Hari Town hadn't up and vanished before moving on. I tried not to imagine Karenbana petrified or turned into a Chameleon in Shiromari's garden, but it was a creeping thought I couldn't quite shake. Ranmaru seemed restless as well, but we'd fallen into something of a balance in which neither of us would bring the subject up because that might break the spell of leaving it unaddressed. I asked around the village about any rumours involving Genjutsu Tree Village and if they'd had any kind of contact from the locals there, but none of them had. Apparently, going three or four years without contact was normal enough, with the occasional traveller passing through the Land of Waterfalls and into the Land of Earth with news to share—rarely the other way, or so they said.

Through it all, I watched my Skill Creation Resistance slowly reduce and came to understand that the higher it went, the longer the period of time between reductions. It had taken almost a month to move from twelve to eleven and a second one from eleven to ten. It was currently sitting at eight and loomed as a constant reminder of how bad the aftermath of the last attempt had been. I'd had plenty of time to shuffle around the order of skills on my list, along with adding new ones to consider. Water-walking had almost fallen off the list entirely, replaced instead by an emulation of the technique that Renga had used back in the Land of Vegetables.

Creating a flat barrier of mana underneath my feet would allow me to stand on top of the water, air, lava, and just about anything else—it would also have a variety of other uses on top of that. It could work as a shield, or a cage, or maybe even a weapon if I could manipulate it. Combined with Surface Adhesion, I might be able to create a foothold in any orientation, in any location—far more useful. The second item on the list was something that would allow me to communicate with my allies at range—something which would have been incredibly useful right now to find out whether or not Karenbana needed me to come bail her out. Shiromari would send someone to tell us if they needed my help, I was sure, but the waiting was killing me.

For the short term, I could probably just bully someone in Konohagakure into giving me a set of the short-range, ear-piece radios they all seemed to use. The third skill I was going to create when I had the chance was something akin to the Chakra String Technique, only using mana as a medium—something I hoped I could use as a conduit to some of my other skills. Having a bunch of mana strings covered in Surface Adhesion would go a long way towards slowing these blisteringly fast shinobi down or at least controlling the zone we were fighting within. Still, all of that was a pipe dream for now as I waited out the clock. When the fourth month passed us by, Ranmaru's promise for us to wait for Karenbana to return was grating against my need to push on, and while I'd never compromise on a promise I'd made, I was sure that Ranmaru would fold with some carefully chosen arguments.

The fact of the matter was that we had a rough timeline we needed to follow, and I'd accounted for three months as a rather high-end estimate. Four was pushing it because travel time wasn't included, and we still needed to pass through the Land of Waterfalls and make the trip to the Land of Hot Water—something which was beginning to look like it would have to be postponed. We didn't have five or six months to spare sitting around waiting, the world was moving on without us, and groups like Akatsuki were already beginning to make their move.

If I was willing to speculate without much information, the Jinchuriki of the Five-Tailed-Beast was probably already dead, and that was most likely the reason for the increased patrols passing through the Land of Earth. If he was dead, then we were getting uncomfortably close to the Suna-Leaf Chunin exams, and that meant that the green-haired girl was going to be getting a visit from Akatsuki—something I had a quest for, and that meant I actually had to be present.

We needed information, we needed Karenbana, and we needed to get fucking moving.

"Ranmaru," I said, clearing my voice. "I know you made a promise to Karenbana, but we're running out of time—"

#

The Land of Waterfalls had a distinct lack of them; in fact, I hadn't seen a single sign of any body of water since we crossed the border completely. The trees, however, were massively dense and made it pretty hard to travel in a straight line. Considering how far south we were, in what was probably the most remote part of the country, I wasn't exactly surprised, but it added even more time to our journey. Ranmaru seemed more reserved than usual, clearly uneasy about leaving about Hari Town before Karenbana had arrived.

"Something's different," Ranmaru said.

When I turned to look down at him, I found that his dojutsu was already active, a faint red glow peeking out from beneath the cloth he'd tied over his eyes to hide it. I double-checked everything inside of the range of my Energy Sense, but there was nothing noteworthy except for the two of us.

"You want to narrow that down a little bit, chief?" I prompted. "You didn't just discover puberty, did you?"

"You're not funny," Ranmaru said, taking a swing at my hip. "I think we're inside the magnetic field. I've been trying to make that black sphere you were talking about, but it suddenly became—easier, I guess."

"No sign of chakra signatures?" I asked.

"I can feel something very faint; it might be a person standing on something tall?" Ranmaru said. "It's that way."

"Northeast," I said, placing a hand on his shoulder and steering him in that direction. "There's a wall around this village, with guards on top of it—tell me when you can feel more of them."

Ranmaru agreed, and we moved on without much more discussion about it. We'd already gone over half a dozen plans on how to deal with everything depending on the situation. Walls meant that Kandachi had already arrived here because they'd been his idea. It was just a matter of finding out if we were early, late, or the only ones who were ever going to come in the first place. Almost fifteen minutes passed before Ranmaru came to a stop, and I knelt down beside him.

"There is a village with a lake to the north of it," Ranmaru said, frowning. "In the centre of the lake are six buildings and a dozen cages, with women and children inside."

"Alive?" I asked, voice quiet.

"Yes, but they don't look very well," Ranmaru admitted, "There are six shinobi spread out on the island with masks and headbands I've never seen before—the symbol is four vertical lines."

"Amegakure," I said, "They're Kandachi's men—can you see one with a large red scar on his face?"

"He's inside one of the buildings on the island with one of the women," Ranmaru managed suddenly sounding far more uneasy. "Sora—"

"Don't focus on him anymore," I said, turning him to face me. "Ranmaru, do you have full coverage of the island from here?"

"I can see all of it," Ranmaru said.

"You know what to do?" I prompted.

"Yes," Ranmaru murmured.

I patted him on the head and then straightened back up, rolling my shoulders as I went. As far as battles went, this was going to be a rough one. I didn't have Karenbana to bail me out if I messed up, but I did have Ranmaru to assist me—and if there was a 'worst place to fight a genjutsu user' in this world, it was here. I watched him for a minute and wondered if I was really any better than Raiga Kurosuki had been.

"Ranmaru," I said, "Don't do anything that will draw attention to your location, or I'll be mad."

I left him there without waiting for a response, cutting through the trees in the direction of the village. The moment I felt a chakra signature enter my one-hundred-and-eighteen-meter range, I turned left and started rotating around away from it. The amount of fog in the area made it just about impossible for me to see the wall until I was almost directly in front of it. There were two dozen energy signatures within my range now, spread out through the village, in houses, sitting on benches, standing by the gates, all weak, and all civilians.

I Jaunted across to the inside of the wall and continued heading to the left, circling around all of them. There was an odd smell in the air, something that tickled at the back of my throat in a way that was annoying, and I could only put it down to the strings of dried-up chilli that hung from every rafter of every house. By the time I'd made it to the north side of the village, I could see the lake and the heavy fog it was causing in the early evening light. I remained in place, Stealth active, and with an odd dusting of red sparks following me that I knew was Ranmaru's contribution to keeping me hidden.

I moved left again, rotating around the shore of the lake until I was well within the trees, my eyes locked on the island. I could barely see it amongst the mess of fog and darkness. A series of torches had already been lit and staked into the ground, specks of flickering orange through the distant trees that didn't do much to illuminate the area for more than a few meters. I came to a stop beside a tree when I caught sight of movement for the first time, a blurry, grey figure passing by one of the torches.

"Ranmaru," I murmured. "I'm going to cross here, so see if you can distract any of them from looking in this direction—nothing big or anything that would make them think an enemy is here."

I waited ten seconds to give him some time to work and then Jaunted twenty-eight meters forward, arriving under the water. I felt three of the seven signatures appear within my Energy Sense and fought not to move around as the cold of the water attempted to strip away my ability to think—each of them had about as much chakra as Karenbana had in the Land of Moon. I Jaunted again, crossing another twenty-eight meters, and felt all seven of the shinobi within my range. Kandachi was above and beyond everyone else in a way that left no room for argument. He had easily as much chakra as Kakashi had the last time I'd seen him—and while that didn't say anything about his combat capabilities, it still made him dangerous. The 'Right hand of Hanzo the Salamander' was a pretty big role to fill.

Meditate dragged my mana back up to full, and then I Jaunted a final time, arriving behind a particularly thick copse of trees I'd seen from the other bank. I pulled all of my water-logged clothing into my inventory on arrival, then the rest of the water clinging to my body, before replacing my clothing with a dry set. None of the signatures made any movement or gave any sign that they had noticed my arrival, so I remained perfectly still and waited. Almost a minute passed before the shinobi that I'd seen from the other side started walking back to where he'd been before.

I carefully drew my hands up into the air in front of me and waited—footsteps, loud in my ears, and without any attempt to conceal them because the owner had grown complacent after what might have been weeks or months of being entirely uncontested. The villagers had no recourse, and they'd long since been trampled underfoot, rendered powerless as their loved ones were locked away as hostages. I held my breath as the signature passed by my position, and then I Jaunted directly behind him. I dragged my hands around in a quick, tightly controlled arc—and then removed Kubikiribōchō from my inventory.

The massive blade passed through his neck almost without resistance, moving too fast, carrying too much weight and being far too sharp to be slowed down. I vanished the blade and reached out, catching the man by the back of his vest—blood erupted from his neck, and I flinched back as his head fell to land on the ground with an audible thump. I stared at it for a long moment, but my focus was locked on the signature that had just turned to look in my direction. To my horror, he actually started moving—apparently, he was the type who would investigate strange thumping sounds in the night.

I vanished the dead man's clothing into my inventory and then did the same with his rebreather. I equipped them from the menu, and a moment later, I was dressed as an Amegakure shinobi, and the dead man's body was safely inside my inventory—which did nothing for the massive pool of blood on the path. I started forward up the pathway, following the man's previous route, and kept my pace steady as the other shinobi came into sight ahead of me. The man's left hand went through a series of casual but blurring fast shapes that I had no chance of tracking—and I realised I was screwed. I carefully drew my hand up out of my pocket as I moved as if to return whatever message the man had just signed at me and then fired off a Line Spear directly at his head.

The two of us stared at one another for a long moment, and then he reached up to touch a hand to his face, blood already running down his forehead and over his rebreather. He collapsed, landing on his back with a much louder thud than before—only this time, there was nobody around to hear it. I continued up the path, heart racing in my chest at almost messing everything up before vanishing his body to join the other one. Two down, five to go—although three of those seemed to be lying down in one of the buildings, not part of whatever patrol they had going. Kandachi was lying down as well, but he wasn't alone, and the person who was with him seemed to be struggling beneath him.

That left the final member of the night patrol to deal with—I moved back the way I'd come, sticking to a walking pace that wouldn't seem out of place for someone on patrol. Just as I was passing by the torch I'd seen earlier, the other guy started moving back towards me. I stepped off the path before he could come into sight and Jaunted further into the trees, cutting the distance between us almost by half. Ten seconds and two more Jaunts put me behind him, well into his previous route. Unwilling to let him move too far back towards the sleeping shinobi or Kandachi and risk alerting anyone else, I acted the moment he turned to look across the lake.

I lifted my hands into position, primed for a stab, and removed the Dragonblade from my inventory—then Jaunted directly behind him. I pressed the weapon through the back of his head before he'd realised I was there and managed to catch him before he hit the ground, getting myself absolutely covered in blood during the process. If not for the rebreather, my face would probably have been covered in it, and I had to tamp down on a reflexive gag at the thought of it getting into my mouth. He joined his comrades in my inventory, and I turned to reassess the situation.

Three sleeping chunin and one wide awake jounin, both groups close enough together that any amount of unexpected noise was going to alert the other group. Stabbing someone wasn't silent, and I couldn't stab all three fast enough to prevent them from waking up during the middle of it all. Fighting Kandachi outright was something I was never going to do under any circumstances, which meant that I had to prioritize killing him first.

"Ranmaru," I murmured, "I'm going after Kandachi first, and it's probably going to be loud—I'll need you to help me with the other three."

I took a deep breath and then set off towards the little pocket of buildings in the middle of the island, the Dragonblade still held tightly in my right hand. Stealth kept my footsteps and breathing silent, and given that the road was surprisingly well-maintained, I had no problems with any erroneous sounds of detritus breaking beneath my feet. Kandachi fell within the range of my technique, and I came to a stop in the middle of the pathway. He was moving around pretty erratically, given what he was doing, and he was entirely too close to the woman for any kind of inaccuracy on my part.

I let out a careful, silent breath and then Jaunted into the building. The tip of the blade hovered centimetres away from the skin of his back before I surged forwards—somehow, despite the proximity, the surprise, and his distraction, he almost got out of the way. The Dragonblade passed through the right side of his ribs, his spine, and out the other side of his body as he threw himself off of his victim. The woman on the bed let out a terrified cry as she was covered in Kandachi's blood. I followed him down and stabbed the blade into the back of his neck as he crashed face-first into the edge of the bed, unwilling to take any chances with him.

The three chunin were already up, now standing back to back in the middle of the room with their arms held up in front of them, fighting something I couldn't hope to see—I turned, raising my hand and started firing a series of Line Spears through the wall of the building. They passed through the bedroom wall, the outer wall of the house, the building across from us, and out the other side without stopping. I hit half a dozen shots on two of the men, but none of them were immediately fatal, the range messing with my accuracy.

Two of them broke out of the building, smashing through the door and leaving their injured comrade to crawl out after them. I Jaunted behind the straggler and stabbed him in the back as he attempted to stand.

"I can't see—" One of the men hissed, "Kaito—what the fuck is happening—"

I hit him in the chest, throat and cheek with a series of Line Spears the moment I had a visual on him, close enough now that I could actually hit where I was aiming. Red dust sparkled in the air around the last man's head, and he spun, a pair of kunai held up in front of him in a tight guard—he was too alert for me to chance to get within arms reach of him. I got off two Line Spears before one of his kunai buried itself in the top of my cheek—I hit the ground in shock, unable to see anything out of my left eye, and the second kunai smashed into my hand as I raised it up in front of my face.

I cried out in anger as I fired an endless stream of Line Spears through the man from my position on the ground. I kept firing long after he'd fallen and then found myself abruptly aware again, lying there on the ground with my hand outstretched. The bright agony taking over my face left it hard to think of anything—and then I vanished both of the intrusive kunai into my inventory.

"Heal," I managed, hand cupped over my cheek. "The fuck do you think you are, asshole? The Tenten of Amegakure—calm the fuck down."

I carefully opened my eye and breathed a sigh of relief that it had been healed along with the rest of me—I wasn't sure why I'd expected any differently, but somehow I'd categorized them mentally as something outside the range of my ability to heal. I collapsed back onto the ground for a moment, relishing the fact that I hadn't died.

"Ranmaru," I said, breathing audibly. "You can come in now—just don't let any of the villagers see you yet; they'll still be following these guys' orders."

I Jaunted back to my feet because I wasn't sure I could force myself to get up otherwise, and then went to collect each of the other bodies. This time, when I approached the main building, I made sure to take off all the Amegakure gear before I knocked on the front door.

"I'm coming in to make sure I really killed that guy," I said, announcing myself. "You better have clothes on this time."

The door slid open before I could do it myself, the faint chakra signature on the other side peeking through the partially open door. I recognized her, somewhat vaguely, as the mother of the kid Naruto had hit with his talk-no-Jutsu—what had her name been again?

"Yura? Yona? Yuni? Yonbi? Yuna?" I tried, rattling them off. "You look a bit like Yuna, actually—you don't have a sister from the Land of Moon, do you?"

"I don't have—Yone," Yone managed. "There was—six of them? Besides Kandachi."

"They're all dead now; you're welcome for that," I said, reaching up to open the door properly. "Coming through—good job on the whole, putting clothes on thing; you nailed it."

Yone stepped back away from the door as I entered, and I ignored the way she was now pointing a kitchen knife at me. I moved past her into the bedroom and found Kandachi exactly where I'd left him—his chakra signature was still fading, but it was clear enough to me that he was dead.

"You didn't happen to see a massive scroll around here anywhere, did you?" I said, stepping on Kandachi's back before using the contact to vanish his corpse into my inventory. "About yay-big, all rolled up, very tubular—no?"

"No," Yone said, staring down at where Kandachi had been. "Where has he gone?"

"Gone forever and very, very dead," I repeated, "My little teammate, Ranmaru, tells me there's a bunch of cages around here—you wouldn't happen to be able to point me towards those, would you? I think it's about time someone let them out."

As if I couldn't feel them all, huddled up together in the cold and the fog—but arriving with a familiar face would do wonders for my credibility here. The kitchen knife finally wavered, dropping to hang by her hip, no longer pointed in my direction.

#

The scroll wasn't anywhere I could reach, and I'd checked all of Kandachi's belongings for anything he might have sealed it away inside, but even that did nothing to solve the mystery. The best I could come up with was that it had been left behind in Amegakure when he'd first fled—which meant we wouldn't be getting our hands on it any time soon. For three months, Kandachi had held this village in his control, and the damage it had done to all of them was more than just physical. Malnourished, starved, some beaten—some, like Yone, worse than that—and at least half a dozen outright dead, either from fighting back or from not being able to weather the repeated exposure.

The physical decline I could heal for the better part, although they'd need to regain the lost muscle on their own—the mental strain and the phycological effect probably wouldn't ever go away. This kind of thing weighed on the mind for your entire life, and considering the state of the mental health profession here—see, non-existent—it was almost assuredly going to be the case here.

"I'd had some information that suggested Jiraiya was going to come through here around this time," I said, leaning against the wall of the front room. "I'm surprised he hasn't shown up yet."

Yone scrubbed at the wood with her rusted brown rag, attempting once again to remove the stain that had been left on the floor of the building.

"Jiraiya came here with a young boy named Naruto Uzumaki almost a year ago," Yona said, sitting back for a moment. "They spent three weeks practising shinobi techniques on this island before they moved on—Sukune and Tanishi spent a lot of time with them."

Yone drew in a shaky breath at her own words, and I didn't need her to say the words for me to know that both of them were no longer around. The more I was exposed to, the more I realised that my timeline sucked—Kandachi hadn't attacked the village at the same time that I'd expected him to. Probably because staying this close to Amegakure directly after the coup would have been suicide when Pain was attempting to wipe out every person who had even so much as looked at Hanzo the Salamander. He'd clearly taken some time to actually work up the courage to get this close—two countries away was an odd measure of close, but when you were dealing with shinobi, it probably skewed distances a bit.

"I'm sorry we weren't able to come here earlier," Ranmaru mumbled, "Maybe if we had—I'm sorry."

Yone covered her face but managed to wave off his comments with a trembling hand.

"No—no," Yone managed, "Ranmaru, that the two of you have come here at all is a miracle—I'm so sorry, but you just look so much like him—can I just—"

Ranmaru looked a bit hesitant at the unspoken request, but I just nodded to him, and when he stepped towards her, Yone pulled him down into a hug that left them both huddled on the floor. Yone shook for a long while, while Ranmaru just looked stricken at it all. I closed my eyes again and let my head rest against the wall. I wondered if this was going to happen again and then sighed when I realised it almost certainly would. Hoshigakure, Genjutsu Tree Village—we were late to both, albeit by different degrees. Playing so loose with the timeline wasn't going to cut it anymore, not when there were people like this suffering because of it.

#

Almost a week had passed us by before Ranmaru paused in the middle of one of our sparring sessions, eyes burning red—my fist hovered three inches away from his head, barely noticing in time that he'd lowered his kunai entirely.

"If you're playing chicken with my reflexes," I said, clearing my throat. "I want you to know that—"

"Karenbana is back," Ranmaru said. "I can feel her in the forest to our west; she's not really heading the right way."

"You better give her some direction then," I said, straightening up. "Wouldn't want her to get lost or start a fight with a tree or something—although, that would be pretty funny."

"She's moving towards the village now," Ranmaru said. "Sora—she's wearing different clothes now, and her hair is almost as long as mine."

"Yeah?" I wondered. "I don't know why you're surprised about that; you're wearing different clothes as well."

He'd gone through about half a dozen sets of clothes, most of which hadn't really fit him for long—he'd been a stick creature at the start, and now he could almost be confused for a normal eleven-year-old if one who was a bit on the shorter side.

"Oh," Ranmaru said, looking down at himself. "It doesn't feel the same."

"It's just a trick of perspective—you see yourself every day, and the clothes aren't really important to your self-image," I offered, "Your most recent memories of Karenbana, however, are all ones in which she's wearing the same outfit."

"I suppose," Ranmaru said, picking at his shirt. "Do you think she'll be mad?"

"Absolutely," I said, "I'm also going to lump all of the blame onto you, so you better prepare yourself—"

I felt her chakra signature enter my range, moving across the rooftops of the buildings—her chakra was far, far larger than when I'd last seen it. A stone's throw away from Kandachi—which put her squarely in the range of Jounin, at least in regards to chakra capacity. Water splashed up into the air as she skidded to a stop on the shore of the lake, less than ten meters away from us—Ranmaru had been right; she had changed her clothing.

Her white overcoat remained, but the rest of it was gone, replaced by a pastel, lime green shirt that clung to her thighs, just above her knees. One of her sleeves went all the way to her wrist, while the other was missing from the shoulder down—the momentum of her abrupt stop caused her shirt to sway up, and I caught sight of a pair of black tights underneath. On top of it all, the most startling change was that her hair was actually long now, hanging in a spiky brown mess that was almost touching her shoulders. Ranmaru seemed to be stuck, unable to find what he wanted to say, so I put my hand on his shoulder in support.

"Did your sleeve fall off, or did you just forget to buy it in the first place?" I said, "That's kind of embarrassing, isn't it? Aren't you supposed to be a professional?"

"Shirokiko made it for me herself," Karenbana said, offended. "It came like this."

"That's so sad," I said, pulling my eyebrows together in concern. "Maybe she thinks you'll regrow it if you try hard enough?"

I pushed Ranmaru forwards as I finished speaking, making the decision for him.

"I'm not a Chameleon, idiot, and neither is the shirt," Karenbana said, flushing. "Ranmaru—"

That was as far as she got before Ranmaru caught her around the waist in a hug, and I think everybody present was surprised to find that he was catching up to her in height—not a particularly impressive feat for most people, but for the chibi-squad, it was positively novel.

"It's a nice shirt," Ranmaru managed. "Karenbana—we both missed you a lot."

Karenbana scratched at her cheek for a moment, visibly embarrassed, before she built up the courage to return the hug.

"I—missed you both as well," Karenbana said, "You've grown quite a bit."

"I suppose it looks like that from your perspective," I said, stepping forward a bit. "I probably should have checked before you left with Shiromari, but you do know how to count, right? I said three months, not five."

"I know how to fucking count," Karenbana said, scrunching her face up. "It took a long time to learn, okay? Why the hell didn't you wait for me at Hari Village—you promised—"

"Ranmaru promised," I corrected, "Besides, we totally handled it—a piece of cake, right Ranmaru?"

"Sora got stabbed in the eye by a kunai and almost died," Ranmaru mumbled into Karenbana's shoulder. "He also got stabbed in the hand, and when we were in the Land of Bears, he kept going down into the Valley of Death to sit in the poison gas because 'real men aren't afraid of smelly air.'"

"You little brat," I said, stunned.

"Then he gave me something called 'radiation poisoning' because it would 'toughen me up,'" Ranmaru continued, "After that, he tried to cut my legs off with Kubikiribōchō, and when I complained, he said 'you spent most of your life without legs, stop being such a Karenbana about it.'"

I opened my mouth to defend myself and then closed it again because I really had done all of those things—Ranmaru detached from her, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"He's making that last part sound really bad, but it was actually super funny," I said, holding up my hands to ward her off. "Hold on—turn back now, tiny demon. I've had months to train, and I am now a deadly weapon capable of untold levels of ass-kicking—"

I raised my hands up in preparation for the inevitable fight, but her slow approach didn't change, and when I took a risk and let her entirely into my personal space—she slipped her hands around my back.

"You're such a fucking idiot," Karenbana said, "You should have waited for me."

"And waste your time with small fries like that? Perish the thought." I said, dropping my hands to return the offered affection. "Five months was a long time, though—please tell me you've come home with a great big weapon that's capable of smiting all my foes."

Karenbana attempted to pull back, but I kept her there, trapped against me.

"I can use it, but it takes way too long to prepare it, and it doesn't last for very long," Karenbana said, "Shiromari says it will get easier the more I practice and the more chakra I have."

That she'd actually managed to learn it at all was far more relieving than I'd ever let show—the problems she'd spoken of weren't unexpected either; the amount of chakra needed was supposed to be prohibitive.

"I knew you'd need to evolve sooner or later, so I made sure to pick up a Moonstone a while ago," I said, fingers curled around the back of her neck. "It does come with a bit of radiation poisoning, like Ranmaru said, but you know how these things go."

I took hold of a clump of her hair and gave it a sharp tug until her head was pulled back enough that I could see her face.

"I still have no idea what you're talking about half the time—" Karenbana said, glaring at me now. "Don't pull my hair."

"Sorry, just making sure it wasn't another wig," I said, clearing my throat. "You're like two inches shorter than I remember, so I had to make sure you weren't an imposter—oh my god, that hurts—it really is you—"

#

I crouched down on the dirt, squinting at her face as she sat perfectly still—for a moment, I couldn't even tell if she was breathing, but eventually, I could see the rise and fall of her chest. Just seeing her at all felt strange after she'd been gone for so long. A splash of dark blue washed into existence around her eyes, becoming more prominent the longer she remained in place. Energy Sense registered the Natural Energy like a bright beacon after it had entered her body but couldn't seem to find it in the environment—something about the amount or density of it. I could feel her chakra growing calmer, the small disturbances that everyone seemed to have evened out into a singular, slowly rotating wash of energy. Karenbana breathed out audibly, and slowly, her eyes opened—her irides were yellow, now, and not the pastel pink I'd grown to expect—and her pupil was about twice as large as it normally was.

"We're out here trying to practice dangerous shinobi techniques, and you want to take a break to put your makeup on first?" I said from about three inches away from her face. "What kind of shinobi—"

I blinked as her hand was suddenly locked around my wrist—I hadn't even noticed the movement. I struggled against her grip until she let me go, and once I'd managed to get to my feet, I surged forward, intending to attack her while she was still in the process of standing up. My kick flashed through the air, missing entirely as she swayed out of the way in a movement that was slow enough that I saw every single part of it, and yet it lacked any kind of urgency—it was the single most condescending thing I'd ever seen.

I used Surface Adhesion as a pivot to burst forward in an arc around her, and once I had some serious momentum, I sent a punch at her back—this time, she ducked under it and came up inside my guard, still moving at that obscenely unhurried pace—and then I was rolling back across the grass as her palm pressed against my chest. I smashed my hand into the ground and used it to activate Surface Adhesion again to slow myself down. Karenbana watched me from the other side of the clearing, the smile growing wider on her face.

"You're not much faster than you were when I left," Karenbana said with a bit of glee. "Were you even training at all?"

"Oh boy—you just had to go and say that, didn't you?" I said, "Now I've got no choice but to kick your ass all over this clearing."

I could see the Natural Energy she had absorbed and how she was balancing it alongside the two components of her chakra—it had taken her almost ten minutes to accumulate as much as she had, and it was already bleeding away. At my best guess, she was only going to be able to keep it active for three minutes at best.

"If you can hit me even once before it runs out," Karenbana said, dripping with smugness. "I'll owe you something—you can pick."

"Karenbana," I said, slamming my fist into my palm. "You may be fast, but I can—"

I Jaunted directly behind her, striking forward through the air towards the back of her head with a war cry of 'teleport'—I felt my knuckles brush against her coat before she blurred. I lost track of her completely, but the world was suddenly sideways, my legs no longer attached to the ground, and my Surface Adhesion shattered like it wasn't even there. The pain in my right leg told me that she'd swept me from that direction, and I caught sight of her for a moment as I was almost entirely upside down, reaching towards my shoulder.

Meditate managed to finally tick upwards, bringing my mana over the threshold, and I Jaunted below her, attempting to steal Rock Lee's thunder. I pushed against the ground with my hand, and my foot crawled upwards, passing by her face as she managed to drag herself backwards before it could connect. I attempted to guard my face with my right arm as I worked to recover from my now-vulnerable position—her hand sealed itself around my ankle, and then the world was moving too fast for me to keep up. I felt her energy signature falling away from me, which was enough information for me to figure out that she'd thrown me upwards into the air.

I Jaunted again, keeping the momentum this time, and came at her from behind, feet first, and at a speed I couldn't even follow, propelled by the force of her throw. I felt my legs shatter under the force of the collision with her shoulder, and I was thrown upwards and over her as she stumbled forward. I smashed into the ground, Iron Hide working hard to keep me alive as I finally came to a stop.

"Sage Mode, more like Lame Mode—fuck." I said, coughing up blood. "That totally counts as a hit, by the way."

"Are you fucking stupid—" Karenbana managed, horrified.

I Healed myself back to full, waited for Meditate to top me off, and then scrambled to my feet. I took off across the ground towards her again. Karenbana blurred forward, and with the distance, I could at least see her coming, although it happened in a span of time I couldn't really comprehend. I leapt forward to meet her, but my attempt at the world's coolest Lariat failed entirely as I misjudged her height—because I refused to believe she'd dodged it—I hit the ground, feet first, and skidded to a stop as I spun to face her.

But she had already cut around behind me, faster than I could turn my head to follow her, and then I was stumbling forward as she booted me in the middle of my back—the fact that she didn't turn me into a smear on one of the distant trees was appreciated, if entirely disrespectful. I swung out with a backhand as I turned, and again she stepped under it like she hadn't even noticed it—being short was like some kind of janky superpower, I swear—my cheek exploded into bright pain as she open hand slapped me like some kind of—some kind of—some kind of—

"Slap me one more time motherfucker—" I cried out in outrage.

I attempted to grab her, and she actually let it happen, at which point I remembered that she was currently in Sage Mode, and my chances of overpowering her were about fucking zero. I Jaunted behind her, arms already wrapped around her in a bear hug, and she actually laughed at me.

"Sora," Karenbana managed, still giggling. "You're not going to be able to hold me—"

"Borrowed Technique," I cried, "Rock Lee Inspired: False Lotus."

I Jaunted us both up into the air, about twenty meters off the ground, and entirely upside down—I twisted in an attempt to get us spinning, but it kind of sent us both into an uncontrolled tumble that was more horizontal than anything else. Karenbana broke free before we'd fallen more than three meters, righted herself, and then kicked me downwards beneath her. I smashed into the ground, flat on my back, entirely winded and then managed to cross my arms as she landed on top of me.

"Your makeup's gone," I wheezed as her body weight settled on my belly. "That means I literally beat the Sage out of you."

"It kind of ran out on its own," Karenbana admitted, "You're actually dangerous now—I thought you failed to learn how to teleport?"

"It cost more energy to use than I had back then, but I have more than enough now," I said, placing my hand on her ankle, which was pretty much the best I could do, seeing as she was still sitting on me. "See if you can pull Sage Mode back up; I want to see if I can regenerate your Natural Energy."

Karenbana watched me for a moment longer before closing her eyes—that same odd stillness came over her, and her face settled into that same implacable configuration I'd seen earlier. I felt the Natural Energy appearing inside of her, and I used Refresh, mentally targetting it instead of her chakra—it brightened considerably as I dumped my mana into the skill. The blue pigmentation around her eyes solidified, and she went from concentrating hard on gathering it to struggling to balance the influx of energy I'd just dumped in her system. I cut Refresh off a moment later, leaving her to get a better handle on it, and once she had it under control, she opened her eyes again.

"That would have taken me minutes to do," Karenbana said, staring down at me. "You make everything so much easier."

"That's by design, obviously, because you kept on being wishy-washy about running off," I said, "I decided I had to make myself so useful to you that you couldn't imagine not sticking around—well, it was that or trick you into falling in love with me."

The hand that had been holding onto the neckline of my top since she'd landed on me tightened a fraction—and she glanced away, unable to meet my gaze.

"If you aren't just making fun of me," Karenbana said after a long moment. "Then maybe you shouldn't be worried about stuff like that anymore."

I wasn't quite sure how to deal with that because there was a pretty big implication she was leaving right out in the open—and despite the torrent of power running through her body right now, she'd deliberately left herself vulnerable by saying it. That part of it, that massive overextension of self, it showed that she trusted me enough to know that I wasn't going to stomp all over her feelings—it was something I appreciated far more than anything else.

"That was absolutely a confession," I said. "You are adorable."

I attempted to struggle upwards, but she moved to stop me, pinning me down with both of her hands, her face entirely flushed. I Jaunted on top of myself, in the exact same position, but with my hands above her thighs—it was enough to make it up into a sitting position before she clamped her thighs around me, and then I was stuck again. But that was fine because she was holding my shoulders and not my arms.

"Stop," Karenbana managed. "You're laughing—"

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into me, fighting against her attempt to push me back—she gave up and let me drag her into a hug because I would have never managed it if she hadn't allowed it.

"It's the amazed kind of laughter," I said, pressing my lips into her neck. "Not the making fun of you kind—okay?"

"Okay," Karenbana mumbled.

#