[Chapter Size: 2900 Words.]
Third Person POV
On the border between Cintra and Sodden.
...
...
It was nearly dawn when the ship finally arrived at the dock of a small port town north of Verden. As the ship had been arranged by King Bran, the sailors who traveled with them in particular were all trusted to remain silent about the passengers; after all, this was a journey hidden from the eyes of others. Not even the sailors knew the group's true destination, but according to the king, they were trustworthy.
The trip was simple: dock at the port, sell the products they had brought in storage to the town, and after selling the goods over the next few days, they would return to Ard Skellige. But regarding those they had brought specifically to that port, they were to remain completely silent.
Port guards approached the ship with lanterns raised in their hands.
"Stop, who are you and what do you want in Merlina?" one of the men asked, announcing the name of the town.
"We're from Skellige, I am Captain Lain. I come to the town occasionally, and I personally know Vidrel." the man answered, appearing at the edge of the deck before placing the plank.
"He knows the commander..." the guard's companion replied.
"Then go call Vidrel. If what he says is true, let the commander confirm it." the other responded, while his companion left the port to call the commander.
Captain Lain looked back while Madara walked up beside him. The guard was surprised, but soon fell into Madara's genjutsu.
"Set the plank, we're leaving before the commander arrives." Madara warned, and the captain nodded, glancing at the guard frozen in his own thoughts.
"You heard him, set the plank!" the captain shouted as his men quickly finished positioning the ship alongside the port.
"All the horses are ready, it's time for us to go." Geralt said, and Madara nodded, joining the others.
They then disembarked before the sailors, mounted on horses, crossing the plank. "Good luck, Lord Madara and Princess Ciri." the captain said privately to the two among the group of six.
"Thank you, we'll never forget your help, captain." Ciri said with a friendly smile.
"Send our regards to Bran." Madara said, and the man nodded.
It was no surprise that the Skelligers would speak to the two of them in particular. Ciri's image was very famous in Skellige, being considered a friend and ally not only by warriors and those known for their strength in battle, proving she could defeat any man in Skellige except her own husband.
And Madara also had the affection of the people of the isles, for helping common folk with work involving monsters and problems without charging a single coin, or even fighting alongside the king against creatures from another world that had invaded the castle.
Skellige had always had deep ties with Cintra, no matter the time, and even those who did not sympathize much with it had to respect it—for she was Calanthe's granddaughter, after all. The same could be said of Madara, who was respected as a warrior even before being recognized as the princess's husband and future king of Cintra.
Everyone knew that, no matter what would happen in the future, there would clearly be a hand-in-hand alliance between Cintra and Skellige, whether for vengeance or justice against Nilfgaard. Many also saw a chance to take revenge on the empire through those two.
In any case, the group bid farewell to the men and trotted through the port on six horses, two of them the steeds Madara and Ciri had used in Toussaint, and there was Eira, transformed into a white, fluffy hunting dog so as not to draw too much attention. The group consisted of Dandelion, Zoltan, Yennefer, Geralt, Madara, and Ciri. Each wore a cloak to hide their appearance as they entered the town.
"Shall we choose an inn?" Dandelion asked.
"Better not. We'll head to the city gate. I'll handle the guards. Afterwards, we'll continue until we find a place to camp sometime during the night," Madara said.
No one disagreed, and the group was soon noticed by the gate guards, who saw six horses carrying suspicious-looking figures. But Madara's Sharingan simply prevented them from asking any questions. They even opened the gate to let them through.
They continued riding through the night until they reached a place good enough to spend the rest of the night, while Madara built three houses in an instant.
"My God, traveling with you prevents any discomfort!" Zoltan muttered, ending with a laugh as he entered one of the houses with Dandelion.
Yennefer and Geralt also shared another house, while Ciri and Madara stayed in the third, along with Eira.
The next day, they continued forward, entering the forest of Brokilon. After crossing into the border of Verden, they took advantage of the fact that there were no spies in the region, as it was not inhabited by humans. Obviously, the dryads later found the group wandering, but before they could do anything, other dryad warriors appeared to stop them.
"Leave them. It's a direct order from the queen!" they said, leaving their companions stunned and confused. However, they did nothing else as the group continued advancing through the forest.
Eithné was in another part of the forest, in the dryads' city—more specifically, in her room—trembling as the smoke from an explosion vanished. Madara had personally sent a clone to inform her that they were passing through the forest again and were not to be disturbed as they traveled eastward.
Thus, the order was carried out by Eithné, who sent her best warriors to notify all the groups scattered through the forest not to interfere with them. She did this without any questioning—even though this woman had once tried to kill Madara, today she felt only fear and terror of him. Not only because of the illusion he had inflicted upon her mind, destroying the entire forest using Planetary Devastation, making her call him a God, but also because her druids had gathered information about the war many years ago, and she had not stopped trembling upon hearing the reports about the boy who was once again walking through that forest...
He had not shown any illusion to the Nilfgaardian soldiers; he had shown them something real. Something as powerful as, or even more powerful than, the power she had seen in the illusion created by the boy—yet in a different form.
Instead of destroying the entire forest, he had summoned a blue giant that cleaved mountains and annihilated an entire human army. How could she remain calm after that? She feared Madara with all her strength, and just seeing him terrified her, even if it was only a clone. She only wanted that monster to leave her forest as quickly as possible, struggling to breathe simply because she knew he was there.
Madara's original group, along with the others, continued to the edge of the forest, finally entering Temeria. They avoided the mountains that formed the border between the forest and Temeria to the north and northwest, so they headed toward the southern limits of the woods. They finally entered Temerian lands after a week inside the forest.
There had been monster and animal attacks as they passed through Brokilon, and at times Madara even had to open a path through the trees for them, but nothing the group couldn't handle.
Two weeks had passed since they arrived on the continent. Their days were spent riding at a calm pace, and they camped at night in the enormous houses Madara usually created. This didn't bother him at all—it required only a fraction of his chakra, which he recovered in minutes.
Every day, Madara left clones in the places they camped to absorb nature chakra, which worked even better in Brokilon in particular. He was focused on developing his Sage Mode without harming himself, which was quite difficult, absorbing chakra little by little until his body truly adapted and could control the dangerous chakra that came even from the chaos of that world. He had already been doing this for over three weeks.
While passing through Temeria, they avoided towns and even villages, and they managed well with Temerian soldiers or hunters, erasing their memories whenever they encountered them, eventually reaching the center of the kingdom. South of Vizima, Temeria's capital, and with Ellander lying farther east.
The group was gathered around the campfire that particular night, with Yennefer accompanying Ciri in knitting, and the girl was making a small baby garment.
Dandelion played a melancholic tune about some lover in particular.
Madara sat at a wooden table and chair, beginning to write on a parchment with a brush. He wasn't writing fūinjutsu this time, but instead used Japanese itself to describe how he was dealing with nature chakra to better adapt as he progressed, giving him certain ideas as he reread his notes.
Geralt and Zoltan were not in the camp but had just arrived, emerging from the treetops. The witcher looked bloodied, and his clothes were soaked in blood as well—though not his own, except for his chest, which dripped blood after a sword had pierced his armor.
Zoltan was also coming right behind him, his axe stained with blood, but with one arm lifted uselessly, unable to make any movement—it was clearly broken.
Madara merely raised an eyebrow, stopping his writing, while Yennefer was already standing with a sharp motion.
"Seriously? You're hurt after telling me you wouldn't get hurt!?" Yennefer said mockingly.
Geralt sighed, his eyes still darkened from the potion he had taken.
"Well, it was fun, even though I broke my arm. Some damned bandit managed to hit me with an axe after three of them surrounded me. If it weren't for Madara's clone, I'd be dead..." Zoltan said, looking at Madara with a tone of gratitude.
The truth was that, while they were traveling, they came across a nearby bandit camp. Since Geralt hadn't had any action in the past weeks—because Madara simply cleared all paths with his clones—he and Zoltan were bored, and as soon as they heard of the camp nearby, Geralt asked Madara to let him deal with the bandits. Zoltan wanted to fight as well.
Madara did not stop them, but he kept his clones watching the battle. Geralt ended up injured, taking a cut that went through his leather armor, while Zoltan broke his arm. In the end, they defeated eight bandits.
That particular cut on the witcher was quite normal—no wonder his body was covered in scars.
"Madara, can you help me here?" Geralt muttered, while Zoltan just looked at him with a silent plea for help.
In fact, the clone Madara had sent could have done it. He could even have healed Geralt before coming back to the camp, but Yennefer herself asked him not to. She said she wanted to see the witcher's injuries in person so she could mock him for being stubborn, since she didn't want him facing unnecessary dangers.
Without making a gesture, Madara simply created a wood clone from the ground, which approached Geralt and placed its palm over the wound, beginning to heal him with Mokuton—while Zoltan used his own pure healing chakra. He had become very skilled in Mokuton healing, already able to scratch the surface of the true regeneration of Hashirama after months of trying to develop it. He wasn't anywhere close to Hashirama's power to the point of using regeneration, but he was becoming very good.
Ciri sat beside him, pulling up a chair, while she watched Yennefer scolding Geralt and Dandelion playing a song next to them just to irritate the sorceress even more—and the one suffering most because of it was Geralt himself, who stared at the bard with a dark expression.
Even Eira, who had been sleeping nearby, grew irritated by the shouting, stood up, and walked off toward the house Madara and Ciri were using, since he was mostly bonded to Ciri.
"They argue too much..." Ciri commented beside him as she placed some small clothes on the table along with a few drawings.
"Look… do you think it will look good on him?" she asked in a timid tone to the father of the child.
Madara glanced toward Yennefer and Geralt arguing, then returned his attention to what Ciri was showing: a drawing of the child she had made herself. She had improved greatly at drawing over the past month after seeing some of Madara's sketches. Particularly enchanted by the idea, and using her vision of the future, she had seen the child in her arms—so it had been easy for her to create a perfect image of their baby, as well as the little clothes she was sewing.
Madara couldn't help but form a small smile. In the middle of the outfit was the Uchiha clan symbol: a fan unleashing flames.
"It will look great on him," he said, particularly touched by it.
"Yes, it will suit him very well." She spoke with an even brighter smile at Madara's approval. She loved when he genuinely smiled, especially when the reason was nothing less than their child.
"But I see you've been peeking into the future again," he said. He didn't sound angry or scolding her, just stating a fact.
"It's not my fault. It came last night in a dream." she replied, shrugging. "So this morning I was drawing his image while we were riding."
"So that's what you were doing, then?" Madara said, remembering how Ciri had been scribbling the entire day atop her steed.
"I'm sure you knew exactly what I was doing. Don't act surprised." she said, and Madara laughed.
"Anyway, I used to hate knitting when my grandma made me go to lessons with other noble girls… But now, I want to make some clothes for him. You're lucky you still carry all sorts of things around. There's so much silk; I hope I can keep a good amount of it when we reach our destination." she said.
And it was true: Madara had all sorts of things stored in his scroll—silk, sewing tools, threads of every color. It wasn't a problem. Yennefer was good at it and helped Ciri make the baby's clothes. It helped that Ciri could see the future and even predict the size the boy would wear.
Ciri soon frowned after her last words. "We're almost there, aren't we, Madara?" she asked cautiously, and Madara nodded in silence.
"Maybe in a few nights—perhaps a week… we'll reach Ellander." he said, leaving Ciri a little unsettled.
"When will we see each other after that? It's going to take months, isn't it?" she asked, sad and disheartened.
"Not necessarily. I can travel across the entire continent in a few days. I can return to Temeria once a month and see how you're doing while I hunt that demon." Madara said, and Ciri nodded, a bit more reassured.
Although they were no longer together the way they had been since they were six years old, Madara needed this time to resolve his own problems, and still, seeing him once a month seemed fair, with Yennefer taking care of her and the baby.
"And if I manage to complete the training for some of the techniques I'm developing, I could teleport in an even faster way than what I use to reach the temple. That would greatly reduce the days between our meetings… but first I need to develop the technique."
"That one about the Flying Thunder God?" Ciri asked, curious, and Madara raised an eyebrow.
"You read my notes?"
"Of course. I was curious about what you were writing."
Ciri had once demanded that Madara teach her Japanese as well, and he had. From time to time, she read his notes about the techniques he was developing, curious to see her husband's work.
"Speaking of that, I saw that you managed to complete the one about the Rasengan!" she said, and Madara nodded.
"It's been over a week." he said, lifting his hand as a spinning sphere began to form, made of chakra and glowing, even stopping Yennefer from complaining at Geralt as everyone stared at the sphere in Madara's hand while he began to dispel it.
He had completed the Rasengan, but still needed to develop Edo Tensei, Hiraishin, and also the forbidden technique of the Reaper Death Seal, something he had been learning on his own since he began developing them two months ago.
The Rasengan hadn't taken him more than a week to learn, already familiar with its forms; he didn't even need to use balloons like the usual training. In fact, he trained lazily, dedicating only a few minutes each day, and still managed to complete it.
In the end, Ciri and Madara talked a little longer and then went to sleep. The others did the same. They were only a few days from their destination and, after those days passed, they finally reached the entrance of the city where the Temple of Melitele was located.
----
Raccoon Here:
Merlina is a city I created, since I didn't have any better one to use.
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