We left our camp early the next morning—though not so early that we couldn't have breakfast. It was the most important meal of the day, and doubly so when we would be walking all day.
While I might have enough chakra to handle this amount of exercise easily, Kanna couldn't. Not without plenty of food, at least.
The forest was still damp with dew, mist clinging low to the ground as the sun struggled to pierce the canopy. Karin slept against Kanna's chest, wrapped securely in cloth, her small fingers curled tightly into the fabric.
Walking through a forest wasn't as easy as going down a flat road. I regretted stepping off the path. I was simply too used to jumping through a forest at breakneck speeds, and I'd forgotten that going through a forest with a civilian by my side wasn't nearly as fast.
Still, going through a forest wasn't a bad experience. It was filled with life. Animals ran around us—some fleeing, others having never seen a human, weren't scared.
Wild berries grew all around, and countless animal tracks could be found.
There was a wild beauty to the forest, one you didn't find everywhere.
Not every forest was this wild and untouched; those in the Land of Fire were well-traveled by shinobi, and that left its mark.
Here, there was very little of that—which just went to show how unimportant the Land of Bears was. Poor and out of the way. The only ones that wanted this place were Sunagakure, and for some reason, they never had.
Though I did believe that might have been due to Iwa stopping them from expanding further north.
Geopolitics—always a great topic to spend the morning thinking about.
"Are you sure we aren't lost, Kaguya-hime?" Kanna's exhaustion made her question me again, too tired to be nervous.
"We should be out of the forest before nightfall," I said, "though I can't promise there will be an inn. It could just be a small village, but at least it should connect us back to a road."
I didn't mind her question, because I understood where it came from.
It could indeed be hard to find your way in a forest, and worse still, moving forward was slow—constantly having to avoid trees and roots, bushes and other natural barriers. It was extra tiring to walk through a forest.
Even I could feel it in my legs; all the climbing over roots, rocks, and fallen branches tired one out fast. There was a reason shinobi jumped through the trees rather than run along the ground, if possible.
I had blissfully forgotten the horror of my time in the Land of Rivers back during the start of the last war.
I pushed the memory aside and focused on the present.
The forest slowly began to change as the day wore on.
The trees thinned—not suddenly, but subtly. Their trunks grew straighter, bark rougher, branches sparser. Underbrush gave way to exposed soil and stone.
There were more tracks of human activity now; it didn't take long before we saw stumps where trees had been cut down recently.
By late afternoon, we reached a village.
If one could even call it that.
A handful of wooden houses clustered around a narrow stream, smoke rising from low chimneys. No walls. No guards. And barely any people at all.
With my Byakugan, I could easily see everyone, even if they were inside their homes or out in the forest—and there weren't even a hundred people altogether.
Truly a small place.
But beside me, I could feel Kanna's mood lift from finally being out of the forest.
Children stopped when they saw us, eyes wide but curious rather than fearful. An old man watched from a bench, pipe hanging loosely from his lips.
And who could blame them?
Despite having walked through the forest, I used a mix of ninjutsu and other means to ensure our appearances remained proper. So we looked like two nobles out on a stroll—except we'd stepped out of a forest in the middle of nowhere, no doubt looking more like fairies.
We didn't linger at the edge of the village.
I guided us in at a steady pace, not rushing, not hesitating either. Small places like this noticed hesitation. They noticed confidence, too.
To linger at the edge would make them suspicious—wonder if we were real, or up to no good. Not only did we have to act with confidence, like nothing was wrong; these simple types of folk preferred others to be straightforward.
There was no inn, unsurprisingly, but a woman with tired eyes and a kind voice offered us a room in her home for a small fee. It was little more than a single space divided by a hanging cloth.
It was kind of her, but it also wasn't better than our tent, so I politely declined, and instead paid her to cook for us.
The food was simple, as one might expect from somewhere like this, but that was fine. It was a warm meal after a long day.
As we got into the tent to sleep, Kanna couldn't help but ask. "Kaguya-hime, why didn't you just make a house again? I'm sure the people would have happily accepted it."
I nodded slightly. "A good question," I said, then paused. "And there are two reasons for it."
It was a complex situation, but I was happy to explain it to her.
The role of shinobi was that of combatants. They rarely went beyond that—and even less so since the village system was implemented. The line between shinobi and civilians only grew wider.
It was a mix of politics and pride. Shinobi saw themselves as above doing things not really related to combat, at least beyond their earliest days. As soon as possible, they moved beyond D-rank missions and into more shinobi-like tasks.
Building a house? Normally, they wouldn't do such things. That was civilian work, and politics enforced that.
Certain kinds of work were not permitted to be done by shinobi as a mission, and no shinobi did anything if it wasn't a mission.
This was to protect those trades and keep shinobi from stealing all the jobs. If civilians couldn't get work, how would they have the money to hire shinobi?
"And the other reason?" Kanna asked when I finished explaining the first point.
"Chakra," I said, "and the dangers there can be."
"What dangers?" she asked.
The thing about making a house out of earth with Earth Release was that someone could also bring it down on top of you.
To avoid this, most houses—even stone ones—were often built with a wooden frame to give them strength, to resist someone pulling them down in a collapse.
Furthermore, if someone used chakra to manipulate the earth, that earth—even once hardened into stone—would still be thirsty for chakra, making it easier for someone else to take control of it.
The difference wasn't huge, but it could be the difference between an enemy shinobi being able to pull down one or two houses… and a whole street.
Now, this could be overcome by having the person who built it continue to fill it with chakra; that would, in fact, make it harder for an enemy to take control of the earth.
"But that would only work if it were the person who built it who lived in it," Kanna said, having figured it out on her own.
"Correct," I replied. "Now if a house was built by something other than Earth Release—such as Ice Release—that would be different, since few people can do that. But who would live in a house made of ice?"
And indeed, that was true—which was why Wood Release was great not just for combat, but for its ability to build.
Earth Release could do the same, yes, and I knew a dozen different ninjutsu for it, because Kanna wasn't the first to think about it. But because of the danger, people didn't do it that much anymore.
Wood Release didn't have that weakness, since few people could manipulate wood.
After that conversation, we settled down for some well-deserved rest.
…
We left at dawn.
The villagers waved politely but without attachment. Travelers came and went. Some never returned. That was life here.
But at least we now had a road to follow—a small dirt path, but enough that we didn't have to worry about getting lost.
Not that we ever got lost in the first place.
Travel became easier. Faster. Kanna's steps steadied, and even Karin seemed more at ease, no longer surrounded by the oppressive closeness of trees. The forest still hemmed us in on both sides, but now it felt ordered—cut back, managed.
Civilized.
Eventually, we did run into other people. Not at first; it took a few days. But soon enough, the roads got a bit wider, better maintained, and we weren't the only ones using them.
A few carts passed us going the other way, pulled by thin horses, laden with timber and sacks of grain. Their drivers nodded politely, eyes lingering on us just a moment too long before looking away.
People were curious, but afraid to ask questions.
When we had traveled for almost a week, I saw a new sight—two chakra signatures, far stronger than the rest I had seen so far.
Shinobi.
They weren't strong. Chūnin, by their chakra. However, their chakra was different. Interesting. It was like nothing else.
Most chakra was the same, a pale blue glow. It could be brighter, it could be dimmer, and it could be filled with specific attributes—earth, wind, water—or even kekkei genkai natures such as Ice Release.
But this?
This was different.
A strange purple hue clung to their chakra.
Hoshigakure.
The local shinobi village. I was aware they possessed a strange meteorite that allowed them to cultivate a peculiar type of chakra.
Though they never really left the Land of Bears, so I had never seen them in person.
It made me curious. While it was apparently dangerous—slowly killing them all to train like that—I couldn't help but want to investigate more.
(End of chapter)
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