stonecrandall Chapter 476 Naruto's Journey
Chapter 476 Naruto's Journey
Chapter 476 Naruto's Journey
Early morning, western border of the Land of Fire.
The morning light seeped out from behind the eastern mountain ridge, carrying a damp layer of mist.
At the edge of the forest stand two ancient trees with lush foliage, their branches intertwining to form a dense canopy.
An orange figure tumbled down from the tree canopy.
Naruto, carrying a dark blue backpack, used the thick tree branches for support and his hands to maintain his balance, and landed steadily on the road at the edge of the forest.
As soon as he steadied himself, he immediately looked up, his bright blue eyes sparkling in the morning light, surveying everything around him from left to right.
"The town ahead is huge!" His booming voice startled a few gray-feathered birds in the treetops.
Sasuke landed silently behind him.
In stark contrast to Naruto's flamboyant entrance, Sasuke landed almost without a sound, the training from the Anbu had been ingrained in his muscle memory.
He was wearing a black turtleneck bodysuit and matching black shorts. His calves and arms were wrapped in bandages, and a ninja sword hung from his waist. His Konoha headband was neatly tied to his forehead.
"Keep your voice down, you idiot," Sasuke said coldly, his dark eyes still sharply scanning the surroundings.
"We haven't even left the Land of Fire yet."
Naruto completely ignored Sasuke's warning; his attention was already drawn to the scene ahead.
After passing through the gap in the Konoha village's protective barrier last night, they traveled through the forest in the dark all night. This was the first time they had reached the main road and the first time they had seen a town outside the village.
But soon, the excitement on his face froze.
On both sides of the road are vast rice paddies.
The field ridges were cracked, and no moist soil could be seen in the cracks, only a layer of grayish-white hard shell.
A few withered yellow rice seedlings were sparsely planted in the field, their ears of rice hanging limply and empty, like a pile of withered grass dried by the sun.
From the sky, the entire field appears as a withered yellow.
Passing through this withered rice field, about three hundred meters further on, there is a drab town.
The city wall was made of rammed earth, with several flags planted on top. A wooden plaque hung crookedly above the city gate, the inscription of which was already blurred.
Several caravans traveled back and forth on the main road.
The horse-drawn cart wheels rolled over the dry, hard dirt road, raising a cloud of dust.
A group of mounted samurai, dressed in black armor and carrying katana, escorted a silk palanquin as they slowly emerged from the city gate.
The roadside vendors, seeing the samurai and the palanquin in the distance, hurriedly moved their stalls to the side of the road, lowered their heads, and dared not look.
But Naruto didn't look at the caravans.
He looked at both sides of the road.
The shoulders of the road on both sides were crowded with people.
Ragged refugees huddled in small groups in the dried-up drainage ditches by the roadside.
An elderly man, hunched over, leaned on a twig he had found; his trousers were torn in several places, revealing his dry, brittle legs.
A woman was holding a child wrapped in a tattered, dirty cloth. The child's face was pressed against her chest, its little mouth moving, but it didn't even have the strength to cry.
Several other children were squatting on the ground, clutching a few blades of grass in their little hands and stuffing them into their mouths, their cheeks twitching slightly, their eyes vacant.
They dared not walk into the middle of the road.
The main road was for caravans, mounted warriors, and nobles in sedan chairs.
The refugees only dared to crowd together by the roadside, using straw mats and rags to build a makeshift shelter that could barely cover their heads.
Occasionally, a caravan would pass by, and the merchants would raise their thin arms, open their mouths, and utter hoarse pleas.
"Please—please give the child something to eat!"
"Please have mercy, sir!"
"Just a little rice, just a little rice—"
The caravan's guards drew their short swords from their waists and struck the wooden railings of the carriage with the back of the blades, producing a dull thud.
The refugees, like startled sparrows, withdrew their arms and retreated back into the roadside ditches.
The warriors on their tall horses did not look down at them, and the curtains of the silk palanquin remained completely still.
Naruto stood by the roadside, his feet seemingly rooted to the spot.
A series of images flashed through his mind.
The country of waves.
That barren island, forever shrouded in mist.
Uncle Tazna.
And then there are the villagers who have been exploited by the thugs of the Kado Group, and are now skin and bones.
Although he later heard that a revolutionary wave had swept through the Land of Waves, Naruto's memories of that trip were not pleasant.
The images of poverty in the Land of Waves left a negative in his mind, blurry, but never faded.
Now, these images have been re-printed.
He turned to look at Sasuke, his azure eyes now devoid of their earlier excitement, replaced only by simple confusion: "Sasuke, why are they crowding the roadside? Why aren't they allowed into town?"
Sasuke did not answer.
He stood half a step behind Naruto, arms crossed, his dark eyes coldly sweeping over everything unfolding on the road.
Caravan guards drove away refugees, mounted warriors kept their eyes straight ahead, and two guards at the town gate used the butt of their spears to poke an old man who was trying to approach the city gate in the chest, like driving away a wild dog.
Before them, a woman was kneeling on the cracked earth, wiping the sand off the child's face with her sleeve. Her knuckles were protruding, and her fingernails were full of mud.
Sasuke's jaw tightened slightly.
Having received ninja training since childhood and living a life of comfort and ease in Konoha, he instinctively felt distressed upon witnessing these scenes.
"I want to know too," Sasuke finally said.
His tone was calm, but Naruto could tell that Sasuke wasn't just giving him the runaround.
Sasuke truly didn't know or understand.
Just as the two were in silence, a sharp shout came from ahead.
"Get out of my way! How dare you block Master Fukuyama's path!"
The middle-aged samurai on horseback wore worn black armor, and his katana was half-drawn from his waist.
In front of his horse was a mother and child. The woman was kneeling on the ground, holding her child tightly, trying to move from the middle of the road to the side, but her legs were too weak to stand up.
The child cried out in terror, his shrill cries echoing through the parched fields.
The middle-aged samurai reined in his horse, the blade of his broken katana reflecting the morning light.
Naruto's eyes narrowed, and he had already taken a step forward.
But Sasuke was faster than him.
A black figure swept past Naruto, and the ninja sword hanging at his waist was drawn with a "whoosh".
Sasuke landed between the middle-aged samurai and the mother and child, his knees slightly bent, his ninja sword held horizontally.
boom!
The blade collided with the samurai sword in mid-air, producing a crisp, piercing metallic clang.
The samurai's horse was startled by the sudden surge and stumbled back two steps, its hooves nearly tripping a nearby merchant.
The middle-aged samurai's arm went numb, and he almost dropped his katana.
He looked down and realized that the one who had blocked his knife was actually a teenager.
The boy was wearing a black bodysuit, and the Konoha headband on his forehead gleamed silver-white in the morning light.
"Ninja—a ninja?!" The samurai's voice rose half a beat, his anger twisting into terror.
Naruto ran up at that moment.
He bent down and helped the mother and child to their feet, brushed the dirt off the woman, then turned to face the mounted warrior, hands on his hips, head tilted back, and shouted, "Hey!! You people! Why are you bullying these women and children! They just want something to eat!!"
The samurai's hand holding the sword was trembling.
He had seen ninjas who killed without hesitation before, but these two were too young.
Moreover, although that last strike was just a test, the black-haired boy easily caught it, and it even shocked him.
The middle-aged samurai gritted his teeth, tightened the reins, and turned back to shout in the direction of the sedan chair: "Lord Fukuyama!"
"They're Konoha ninjas—!"
The curtain of the sedan chair was lifted by a folding fan.
The folding fan was made of white silk, with gold-powdered cranes painted on its surface.
The hand holding the fan was plump and white, with three different colored gemstone rings on its fingers.
After the curtain was fully lifted, a fat, middle-aged man with big ears stepped out of the sedan chair.
He was wearing a loose-fitting blue silk kimono, the belt unable to hold in his protruding belly, and the fat on his face squeezed his eyes into slits.
Fukuyama stood in front of the palanquin, unfolded his folding fan with a "whoosh," fanned the oily sweat off his face, and glanced at Naruto and Sasuke with the look of someone looking at mud on the soles of their feet. He lingered on their headbands for a moment longer, and then let out a disdainful snort.
"Konoha ninjas?" He snapped his folding fan shut, the tip pointing at the refugees huddled together by the roadside.
"They're just a few ninja brats. Get out of my way! These lowly commoners are all from Fukuyama Prefecture. So what if it's a little natural disaster and a poor harvest? They all think they can just run off to the Land of Stars along the mountain path! How laughable!"
He turned and waved at the middle-aged samurai, as if ordering a servant to clean up the trash at the door: "Kimura! Hurry up and send these lowly people back to farming! If my fiefdom loses its population, and the Daimyo Prefecture investigates, can you bear the consequences?"
"Yes, Lord Fukuyama!" Kimura bowed to Fukuyama, the metal plates of his armor clanging together.
Then he straightened up and turned to face Sasuke again.
His fingers unconsciously tightened around the hilt of the katana, his knuckles leaving white marks on the cord wrapped around the hilt.
He swallowed hard, lowered his voice, and tried to make it sound fierce: "You two brats! Lord Fukuyama doesn't want to pursue your offense, so get out of the way! Otherwise, don't blame us for being impolite!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the mounted warriors around him tightened their saddles, the horses snorted heavily, and the scattered formation slowly regrouped.
A dozen or so fully armed adult warriors, mounted on horseback and wielding long swords or spears, gradually formed a semi-circular encirclement around the two boys who were not even as tall as their horses.
Kimura knew that the ninja's power system far surpassed that of the samurai.
But in front of them were just two kids who were twelve or thirteen years old.
At twelve or thirteen years old, even if they are ninjas, how much skill could they possibly have?
With a dozen well-trained, fully armored samurai facing off against two immature ninjas, Kimura felt confident in his ability to win in a head-on confrontation.
But he still used a little more force in his grip on the knife.
The clash from that last strike still left his hand numb.
Sasuke's gaze swept across the encirclement.
He tapped his fingers lightly twice on the hilt of his ninja sword, as if counting something.
I've finished counting.
"Naruto," he whispered.
"Ah!" Naruto responded, grinding his heels on the ground.
The surrounding refugees were so frightened that they scrambled away in all directions.
A barefoot little boy tripped over a stone, hit his forehead on the ground, and cried loudly. An old man next to him scooped him up, tucked him under his arm, and ran desperately towards the edge of the field.
The woman, protected behind Naruto, hugged her child tightly, curled up in a ball, and trembled all over.
Once back in the sedan chair, Fukuyama tapped on the door with his folding fan, the sound muffled in the small space: "Teach these ungrateful brats a lesson!!"
Kimura raised his katana with both hands, holding it high above his head, the morning light illuminating every groove on the blade.
He gritted his teeth, his eyes flashing with malice: "Then don't blame us! Blame yourself for offending Master Fukuyama!!"
The knife falls.
The spear thrust out.
Twelve mounted warriors launched an attack simultaneously from different directions.
They coordinated perfectly, with three spears blocking Sasuke's retreat from above, middle, and below, four katana slashing at Naruto's shoulder and ribs from the side, and the remaining five samurai guarding Fukuyama's palanquin with their spears.
But in Sasuke's eyes, the straight line thrust by the spear, the arc of the samurai sword, and the route of the charging horse were all incredibly slow.
Sasuke twisted his foot.
He gripped the ninja sword in reverse, the blade close to his forearm, and slid almost flat on the ground beneath Kimura's horse.
The dust kicked up by the horse's hooves covered him, but the ninja sword had already drawn an arc.
First cut the stirrup leather strap, then pick out the handguard of the samurai sword.
Kimura felt a numbness in his wrist, and the old wound on his hand was precisely struck in the same spot. His katana flew out of his hand, into the air, and spun before embedding itself in the muddy ground beside him.
Sasuke flipped and leaped into the air, twisting his body in mid-air. He used the end of Kimura's saddle for leverage, and soared into the air, flipping over Kimura's head.
The ninja sword pressed down and struck Kimura's helmet.
With a sharp "clang," the helmet split open in the middle, sending metal fragments flying. Kimura's eyes rolled back, and he fell straight off the horse, a shallow cut appearing on his face.
As Sasuke landed, he flicked his blade, neatly slicing the spear shafts of two samurai charging towards Naruto in two.
The break was smooth and clean, and the two samurai, holding the broken wooden stick, were still unaware of what had happened.
Naruto's approach was even simpler and more direct.
He did not use any weapons at all.
"You bunch of bastards!"
Naruto grabbed the shaft of a spear in each hand, and with a burst of strength from his fingers, he forcefully pulled the two samurai off their saddles.
Two fully armored adult warriors flew through the air in terrifying parabolas, crashing onto the dirt road three zhang away, raising a cloud of dust and leaving two shallow drag marks.
The remaining horses, startled by their owner being suddenly pulled away, reared up and neighed sharply.
Naruto didn't give them time to react.
He grabbed a spear that had fallen to the ground with his left hand and another with his right. The two spears in his hands were like two stirring sticks, which he swept out horizontally.
The spear shaft slammed into the horse's legs, the samurai's breastplate, and the side of his helmet, each blow carrying brute force that required no skill, each accompanied by a scream and the dull thud of armor being dented.
Within ten seconds.
Twelve mounted warriors fell to the ground.
Some people were rolling on the ground clutching their ribs that had been broken by gun barrels, some were lying on the ground covering their foreheads that had been cut by shrapnel from their helmets, and some were howling as one of their legs was pinned down by their own horse.
The horses neighed and scattered in all directions, some dragging empty saddles as they limped into the nearby dry fields.
Sasuke flicked the few drops of blood off his ninja sword, touched the ground with the tip of the blade, and walked step by step toward the palanquin.
His footsteps were very light, making almost no sound as he stepped on the dry, cracked earth.
But with each step he took, the warriors still struggling on the ground instinctively shrank to the side.
He used his ninja sword to lift the curtain of the sedan chair.
Behind the curtain, Fukuyama huddled in the innermost corner of the sedan chair, his fat face devoid of color, and his forehead covered in oily sweat that obscured his eyebrows.
His kimono was soaked from the crotch down to his knees, indicating that he had clearly lost control of his bladder.
"Don't kill me!! Don't kill me—!" Fukuyama raised his folding fan in front of him, like holding up a shield, and the lifelike crane painted on the fan was wrinkled by his fingers.
"I am the lord of Fukuyama Prefecture! I am a daimyo of a royal domain!! If you kill me, your Konoha Village won't get away with it either!!"
Naruto casually tossed the two bent spears aside, clapped his hands, walked over, and peered into the sedan chair.
After smelling the urine, he wrinkled his nose and stepped back, stretching his right arm.
"A daimyo?" Naruto turned his head blankly and asked, "Sasuke, what's that?"
Sasuke still wore that indifferent expression, but his right hand, gripping the ninja sword, didn't loosen its grip.
He had seen the title "vassal" in the intelligence files of the Dark Division and knew that it was related to the administrative divisions of the Land of Fire.
Local lords under the daimyo have fiefdoms of varying sizes and are self-governing with their own armies.
The fact that he was a daimyo meant that this fat, big-eared fellow was related to the daimyo prefecture by blood.
They were not ordinary nobles.
They are in the upper-middle ranks of the ruling hierarchy of the Land of Fire.
Just then, Kimura Samurai, who was lying on the ground, struggled to lift half of his body out of the mud.
His helmet was shattered, and his hair was mixed with blood and dirt, but his eyes, looking at him, were filled with fear.
He was afraid.
It wasn't that he was afraid of being killed by two ninja kids.
They were afraid that Fukuyama would be killed.
"No! Don't do it!" Kimura raised one hand, his five fingers spread, his voice hoarse and almost breaking.
"Lord Fukuyama is the nephew of the Daimyo of the Land of Fire!! If you dare to harm even a single hair on his head—these lowly people! These refugees! Will all die!!"
He was breathing heavily, his voice trembling, but his logic remained intact.
He's using those refugees as a shield.
Naruto paused for a moment upon hearing this, then looked around at the terrified and frightened eyes of the countless refugees who had taken cover.
Sasuke tightened his grip on the ninja sword.
Seeing that the two had stopped fighting, Kimura grew a little bolder. He struggled to his feet, half-kneeling on the ground, looking up at Naruto and Sasuke with a twisted expression: "If anything happens to Lord Fukuyama—the Daimyo's mansion will definitely send people to investigate thoroughly, and then all these lowly people will be buried with him!!"
Naruto reached out and pressed down on Sasuke's wrist as he raised his sword.
Sasuke looked down at Naruto's hand, then at Naruto's eyes.
Naruto didn't say anything, he just shook his head at him.
It's not that we're afraid to kill.
We cannot implicate those displaced people.
Those refugees who have already suffered enough.
Those refugees who had finally managed to escape from the fields.
Sasuke remained silent for two breaths, then sheathed his sword.
The city gate was in a mess.
The overturned palanquin, the scattered samurai swords and broken spears, the samurai still groaning, the frightened horses that had run far away and stopped in the dry field, and a group of refugees huddled in the distance, staring at all this with terrified eyes.
Kimura and a few samurai who could still stand rushed over, stumbling and crawling, and carried the limp Fukuyama, half-dragging and half-carrying him, towards the town.
Fukuyama's expensive gold kimono left a long mud trail on the ground.
But upon reaching the town gate, Fukuyama seemed to suddenly remember that he was the nephew of the daimyo of the Land of Fire and the daimyo of the First Domain. To have been so humiliated by two children, he abruptly broke free of the samurai's support, turned around in the gatehouse, and his voice was as sharp as a pig whose tail had been stepped on: "You two Konoha brats!! Just you wait!!"
Sasuke turned around.
Although the Sharingan wasn't activated, the fleeting killing intent in those black eyes made Fukuyama swallow all the harsh words that followed.
Fukuyama's face turned deathly pale instantly, as if an invisible hand had grabbed his neck. Dragging his still-damp crotch, he scrambled and disappeared into the city gate, surrounded by the samurai.
The guards at the town gate had long since retreated into the gatehouse, not daring to even peek out.
Naruto turned around.
The woman he had just helped up was still kneeling on the spot, holding her child in her arms, frozen in place.
Her thin face was stained with a mixture of dirt and tears, and her lips were chapped with obvious cracks on both sides.
The child in her arms was about three or four years old, dressed in tattered rags covered in patches, with a sallow face and eyes that were fixed on Naruto.
Naruto bent down and smiled at her, revealing a mouthful of white teeth: "It's alright! Don't be afraid!"
The woman stared blankly at Naruto for a long time, then slowly knelt up, her forehead hitting the dry, cracked mud, her hair falling onto her muddy shoulders.
Her throat tightened, and her voice was hoarse: "Thank you—thank you—but you should leave now—"
She raised her head, her eyes glistening with tears, and pleaded, word by word, "Master Fukuyama is a man who holds grudges. Even if you are ninja masters, he will still resent you."
"He'll send people to find out which village you're from, and he'll come looking for trouble. My child and I can still hide in the mountains, but you—you'd better leave before they call more people."
Naruto pushed up his headband and grinned, "Don't worry! We're ninjas! We were just teaching that guy a lesson! If they bully you again, I won't let them get away with it!!"
But the woman became even more worried.
With her head down, she stammered a few words, switched the child in her arms to another, and finally just whispered a thank you before turning around and stumbling quickly toward the distant, yellowish-brown hillside.
Naruto watched her retreating figure, watching the child's head, resting on his mother's shoulder, sway as he walked away.
His smile slowly faded, his lips went from a wide grin to a pursed expression, and an indescribable somberness appeared in his eyes.
The other refugees in the area had mostly dispersed as well.
Some ran into the woods, some hid behind the earthen slopes on the outskirts of the town, and some squatted on the edge of the field, hesitating to move forward.
Several caravan guards who had just run off were regrouping, urging their horses to leave this troublesome place as quickly as possible. The wooden wheels of the carriages crunched and creaked as they rolled over the dry, muddy road, as if they were afraid that looking at the two boys any longer would cause them some trouble they shouldn't be in.
Only the two of them remained on the main road.
The morning light had fully risen, illuminating the withered yellow rice fields and the gray town walls in the distance. The light was bright, but the world seemed not to have woken up yet.
Naruto pulled his backpack strap up and turned to Sasuke: "By the way, Sasuke, what were we doing in this town again?"
Sasuke sheathed his ninja sword back into its scabbard at his waist with a crisp, clean sound.
"Let's go for a stroll in the city," he said, his gaze passing over Naruto and landing on the town's dusty city gate.
"Someone told me that the people who were supposed to meet me were here."
"Backup?" Naruto blinked. "Hey, when did you contact me? Wait, you're going to leave again without waiting for me! Hey!!"
Sasuke had already started walking towards the city gate, ignoring Naruto's shouts behind him.
Naruto slung his backpack over his shoulder and took off after him.
When the two reached the city gate, the guards quickly moved aside, their backs pressed against the earthen wall of the gate, not daring to look directly at each other.
The streets inside the town are a completely different world from the outside.
The shops along the street had worn-out curtains hanging on them, and steaming baskets of breakfast food were emitting heat.
There was puddles on the stone path, and the child was barefoot chasing a skinny yellow dog at the base of the wall.
Several shops lined the main street, selling cloth, secondhand books, and some small shops with signs advertising blacksmithing.
It's far inferior to Konoha.
But at least, it's much better than being a refugee outside.
Naruto walked down the street, looking left and right, his gaze curiously sweeping over every shop and every pedestrian.
Occasionally, there would be vendors selling meatballs by the roadside, the meatballs sizzling in the oil, and Naruto's stomach would rumble.
He swallowed hard, then remembered his business and held back.
Sasuke kept observing the roof height of the surrounding buildings, the direction of the alleyways, and whether there were any abnormal fluctuations in chakra.
Then he stopped.
On the roof of a hotel on the street corner, three figures stood in a triangular formation on different parts of the roof ridge.
Three pairs of eyes rolled back, simultaneously fixing on the two boys walking side by side on the street.
Kaguya Kimimaro stood on the highest roof ridge, her back to the morning light.
He was wearing a loose white kimono, his short white hair swaying slightly in the breeze, and the two red dots on his forehead looked like two spots of undried blood in the morning light.
Hyuga Neji was half-squatting next to the chimney in the right corner of the house, his long hair tied into a low ponytail hanging down his back.
Otsutsuki Toneri stood under the eaves on the far left, his slightly lowered white eyes reflecting the pale morning light.
His physique and demeanor were noticeably different from those of typical ninjas in the ninja world; he stood too straight and too heavy.
"Naruto has arrived." Neji's Byakugan shifted slightly, his pupils reflecting the figure looking around on the street below.
From his perspective, Naruto's chakra was like a ball of orange fire, scorching, bright, and unobstructed.
Sasuke beside him was a dark, cool flame, tightly contained with a clear outline.
Neji's lips twitched slightly, and he said in a calm tone, "As planned, I've finished observing the daily lives of the former nobles of the Land of Fire."
Sheren took a step forward, placing his foot on the outermost tile of the eaves, and gently raised his hand to gather the white hair that had been blown across his forehead by the wind.
His gaze passed over the town's earthen walls and looked towards the edge of the forest in the distance.
At the edge of the Byakugan's clearly defined black and white vision, several clusters of chakra were rapidly approaching the town.
"Those people will be here soon," the servant said softly.
Kimimaro silently moved his neck, and a slight cracking sound came from his cervical vertebrae.
"I will repeat Lord Menma's order one more time: take Konoha's next generation with you as well."
He tilted his head slightly, and his Byakugan also caught sight of those clusters of chakra getting closer and closer.
"I'm leaving the blockade to you, Sheren."
"Please rest assured." The servant nodded.
He took a scroll from his wide sleeve.
With a soft click, the sealing talisman peeled off under the fingertip.
The moment the chakra was injected into the scroll pattern, the sealing array cracked along the pattern, the entire space rippled briefly, and five clouds of smoke exploded simultaneously on the roof ridge behind him.
As the smoke cleared, five humanoid combat puppets, each nearly two meters tall, stood in a row, each draped in a black cloak.
Beneath the cloak and hood, there were no facial features, only a smooth ceramic shell face and two thin, scarlet light-sensitive bands around the eye sockets.
Completely different from the traditional chakra thread puppets of the ninja world, these five puppets have no chakra threads connecting them to the caster. They stand still, with a faint blue light seeping from the gaps in their joints. Their five heads slowly rise at the same time, locking onto the direction of the forest that Toneri's Byakugan is pointing.
The wireless puppet technology of the Otsutsuki clan on the moon has now been fully integrated into the military field of the Star Kingdom.
These puppets abandoned the fragile connections controlled by chakra threads and instead built independent signal links using chakra networks. Each puppet possesses its own independent chakra perception module and autonomous combat logic.
[P.S.: It's almost the end of the month, so if you still have unused monthly tickets, remember to cast them!]
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