Return and Greeting

I don't own Naruto or The Gamer

"It's not always possible to do what we want to do, but it's important to believe in something before you actually do it."– Might Guy

Previously on Cloud Gamer

I got into my sleeping bag and promptly fell asleep, training was already tiring alone, not even counting the fighting I was just apart of. Minato would sort out everything while I was asleep, I hoped, so that ended another day for me.

~~~~~~~Part 1 truly begins now…~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 month later

My time on the front lines was finally over. I had done several more missions after recovering and our group had grown quite the reputation around the outpost during our tenure.

Kakashi of the sharingan, battle angel Rin, and me, Shin of the red moon. Kakashi's title was self-explanatory because of his gift from Obito, Rin had trained herself to the ground over the month and was standing on even playing field with any forged chunin. My nickname came as a result of the colour shift in my robes, the originally white moon was exchanged with a light red to my taste after the nurse commented on the bland colouring.

When I finally saw the green gates of Konoha again, I let out a sigh of relief as the comfort of the village entered my being. Minato patted my shoulder and gave me a smile before teleporting all of us into the hokage's office, spooking the man who fell out of his chair while I tried to hold in my breakfast.

"You should really learn to combat the nausea, Shin." Kakashi commented while putting his hands in his pockets and shifting in place. Rin giggled before the hokage coughed into his hand to gain our attention.

"Team Minato, congratulations on your completed assignment. I've heard you have made quite the impact on the eastern front, and thanks to that notoriety and the work of other shinobi, Iwa had agreed to sign a peace treaty with us." He smiled while his eyes washed over us with pride.

"Thank you for your words old man, but I want my reward." I said, moving forward and slamming my hand on the table in front of him. He chuckled at me and threw a dark orange scroll into my face.

"Somebody's a bit mad today, did he forget to take his morning nap?" The hokage remarked while I turned around and headed back into line, Kakashi slapping me over the head for the disrespect. I flipped him off in return while the hokage turned to Minato, dismissing us all.

2 hours later, Namikaze residence

After catching up with the team for a long lunch inside of a restaurant, I made my way into the house I hadn't seen for the past month, hearing a humming Kushina in the kitchen wearing a green apron while cooking something.

"Yo! I'm back Kushina."

"Hmm? Ah! Shin you're back!" She dropped the pot onto the stove and tackled me into a hug, slamming my head into the wall behind me from the force.

"Yeah... I am, is Sho back yet?" I said while rubbing my head and sitting on the couch after releasing myself from her grip. She puted and went back to her cooking at the stove, turning down the gas before turning around to face me.

"They arrived a couple of days ago since they wanted to make sure they could heal you if need be. Natio is out shopping right now while I think Sho is at the hokage monument."

I nodded and swung my robe over the couch before heading out the door and waving goodbye. I put some chakra into my legs and launched up onto the hokage monument, a site over 300m away, in one leap.

I saw Sho laying on his back with an eye mask over his face. I slowly walked towards him and activated my dojutsu, placing a hand on his shoulder and focusing on the tiny chakra point in his bicep. I made my chakra into a needle form and jolted his bicep and watched it spasm as he screeched out and started to run around.

"YOU LITTLE SHIT!" He yelled out after removing his mask, putting me in a headlock roughly. "I missed ya!" He exclaimed while riffling my hair.

"Miss you too old man, do you have the scrolls?'

"Oh, so mean~, not even worried about Natio?"

"Shut it ya sack of bones." He threw several scrolls over to me with a smirk. "She said we could take them all since she didn't care anymore about the clan and wanted no ties."

I unfurled the first one and looked down at the title, the old dude I met said this stuff was good. 'Gravity release?' I read further into the first technique and found information regarding the combination of chakra natures, wind and earth, similar to magnet release used by Suna.

The Juryo clan was apparently a branch of the original sage of six path's family, resulting in part of his power being passed down, but not the dojutsu or body. Maybe it was a distant relative from a branch of sharingan users?

I laid out the rest of the scrolls on the ground and unrolled them all while Sho laid back down to nap. They carried 3 levels of training, 2 introductory techniques and a single high ranking one, this was probably no where near the amount they carried originally, but that old bat must have wanted the bloodline to somewhat live on through his descendants.

I looked at the introductory training scroll, it had diagrams, descriptions in detail and possible usage for the technique. "Hey Sho, are you going to use these at any point?"

"Nope! I looked at them when we grabbed them, I don't have any blood limits so I couldn't use them if I wanted to."

"Alright, well I'm going to make them disappear."

"Okay, have fun." He rolled away from me and looked over towards the other 2 hokage's heads while I remembered all of the information recorded on each and pressed 'Y' on the window in front of me, absorbing all of the scrolls' information and gaining several new skills.

"Several skills gained 'Gravity chakra creation', 'Leaf floating exercise', 'Waterfall stopping exercise', 'Gravity style: Push', 'Gravity style: Compress', 'Gravity style: Area warp', 'Earth chakra creation'

Gravity chakra creation: Using a mixture of wind and earth chakra in the ratio of 3:7, give your chakra a high density that can be moulded to your whim.

Leaf floating exercise: Using gravity chakra, float a leaf off of your palm up to 1 metre up for 1 minute.

Waterfall stopping exercise: Using gravity chakra, create a barrier that wraps around and traps a flowing waterfall to increase your strength, control and reserves.

Gravity style: Push: Make a wall of gravity chakra after completing the hand seals that stops any projectile with physical mass from passing through.

Gravity style: Compress: A combative application of gravity style: push, create a large wall horizontally above your opponents and slowly press down, or alternatively, amplify the gravity in the area by saturating your chakra into the ground.

Gravity style: Area warp: Using your chakra, create two different flows around an area or object to warp its place in space, changing its form or destroying it completely.

Earth chakra creation: Mould your chakra into a more rigid and solid form."

I immediately put my new skills to the test and put some hand seals together and pushing my hands forward. Sho rolled over a couple of times before stopping his body with his hand.

"Huh?" He looked over to me and I smirked, flipping him off and pushing even more, continuing to roll him off as he started to yell and laugh. "STOP YA LITTLE SHIT, HAHAHA!"

I pushed him until he rolled off of the head as he screamed while falling towards the ground before stopping himself on the wall with chakra. Sho walked back up and flipped me off while putting his eye mask in his pocket. "You want a fight kid?"

"Like you could hit me old man." He put his fist up and got into a stance with a smirk of his own while I mirrored with my own. Sho dashed forward and shot a jab towards my head, I dodged to the side and pushed his arm away, launching a retaliatory kick to his midsection that he blocked with his other palm, using his longer reach to sweep my other leg while I was off balance.

While falling towards the floor, I put my hands back and flipped backwards, flinging Sho over my feet and a few meters away. Sho made a few hand signs, blasting forward a current of air from his palm that I dodged my rolling backwards, empowering my body with a coat of swift chakra while I moved.

Sho began to make more hand signs, but I dashed towards him and interrupted the chain, launching a high kick to his head that he blocked before he made a couple of one-handed hand signs while grabbing the leg, smacking my ass with a wind empowered hand and sending me flying. "Bad little kids need to smacked right?"

"Shitty old man, where the hell did you learn to do that?!"

"Just a trick I picked up from my travels." He smiled at me tauntingly and spat out a bullet of water in my direction. I put my hands up and blasted a barrier of gravity chakra in front of me, blocking the water bullet as it blasted from seemingly nothing mid-air.

"What the?" Sho question as I put my hands down, re-enabling my swift chakra coating and making a rasengan in my palm. I vanished from my position and attempted to slam the ball into his torso, but he reeled back an axe kick and slammed it on my elbow, breaking it while blowing up the ground from the rasengan I slammed into it.

Sho fished me out of my crater by my collar, tossing me on the ground and making a few hand signs, a bright green glow emitted from his palms as I held my arm in place to be healed. "I may be retired as a shinobi Shin, but I was still a jonin at one point."

"Whatever, guess I'm still at a chunin level. I'll catch up to you soon though."

"No, I'd say you are closer to a low ranking jonin than chunin level, which is incredibly impressive as a 7-year-old. Don't undersell yourself like that."

"Yeah yeah, lets head back to the house, I'm tired after travelling and fighting all the time."

"If you're so tired, why'd you ask for a fight?"

I turned around and smiled at him "just felt like it". Before vanishing in a burst of chakra, I really needed to learn the body flicker from somebody, this shit was taxing.

Something akin to a scene break

"*Crack*, Oh look another one. The joy." A sardonic female voice said, rubbing her companions chin while staring into the icy lake in front of her. It was starting to be more common as of late, this lake slowly being destroyed.

Though destruction was often bad, in the female's opinion, this could only mean good, very good.

So short!

2 days later

I sat onto the couch while Kushina and Natio sat across from me, something that seemed to happen a bit more often now between us Uzumaki. I would always take up the entire couch while laying down, as the other two talked and I chipped in every once in a while.

Sadly though, all good things must come to an end as I announced my choice to leave the land of fire and continue my exploration of the continent. Kushina was saddened at my choice to leave, but Natio understood, though, she decided to stay back in Konoha with Kushina and Minato.

I accepted her decision and walked up the stairs to explain to Sho, he accepted to follow me, giving Natio a deep kiss and a hug to Kushina as we headed towards the village gate with our gear.

Sho wanted to grab some supplies before we left while I went to go say my goodbyes to everyone. Minato was at the hokage's office, talking the old dude when I hopped through the window and said my goodbyes, giving a handshake to Minato and flipping off Hiruzen, yes, I was still annoyed about his 1-month long scam, how did you know?

Kakashi chucked me a scroll as I left without saying any words while when I went to Rin's place, she hugged me tightly. Expressing her thanks to me for my friendship over the past month and my support to help her improve with training, I waved her off as it was nothing much and left.

"You all done?"

"Yep, just about." I tied my laces around my new combat boots and walked towards the village guards, turning in my temporary license and signing my name off. "Now I am." I turned back to Sho and smiled as he walked ahead of me, "so where to?" he asked, looking backwards as we trotted down the main path heading out of the village.

"Hmmm, not quite sure." I answered, looking around at the trees surrounding the road. Several figures slammed into the ground before us, one of which held a note.

"We have an idea, the land of crescents. Shin Uzumaki, this is from our empress."

"To Shin, now Uzumaki

I understand your apprehension about becoming a vessel but be pleased to know there has been a solution found. Your consciousness can exist alongside Lord Luminos' inside of your body, though only one can take charge at a time.

This is the best we can do for you personally, but be sure to note that if you comply, you will be rewarded handsomely while we prepare the last resources required for the ritual to begin.

From Luna, Queen of the night"

I folded the letter up and stored it in my pocket, looking towards Sho who had an apprehensive look on his face. "It was an invitation, the offer is quite good, though, I'll probably die." I said, watching his face morph into concern instead of apprehension.

"Hey cultists, what if I don't accept your offer?"

"Then, prepare to be taken through more forceful measures."

"Okay, well my answer for now is… A BIG FAT NO!" I threw a thunder spear straight into the middle one's head, him barely dodging it as his cloak was cut by the javelin.

"Ahhh~, I tried so hard to be serious like big sis Mirai said… Welp! Guess I'll just have to kidnap ya!" The newly uncloaked man said, his hair was a snow-white colour, with one of his eyes being golden and the other a dark maroon colour.

"I'm Kako, executive member of the Luminos church, pleased to make your acquaintance!" He wrapped his tattered coat over his hand and threw it to one of the other figures while he started to stretch.

"Mr. Shin, Miss Luna really doesn't want us to fight with you, but if you want to be so stubborn…" He stopped stretching his legs and leaped into the air, slamming his heel into the earth where Sho and I stood. "Guess I'll have to beat some sense into ya!"

I jumped backwards to dodge a follow up kick and threw 3 kunai forward, watching them be easily parried by his arms. As soon as I landed on the ground, he launched another kick to my head which I parried easily, blocking another follow up while Sho thrust his palm straight into Kako's back.

He skated across the ground before rolling into a tree, felling it with the force. "Ow! 2v1 is no fair! Togami, take the old dude would ya!" One of the larger figures ripped off his robe and threw it on the ground before cracking his knuckles menacingly.

Kako laughed a little and stood up while patting dirt off of him. Getting into a very basic and open taijutsu stance, almost like he was just playing around.

I looked over at Sho, who was currently focusing on the other members of the group while I fought Kako. A tap on the shoulder brought my attention back as Kako reared back a fist to slam against my face. "You should really focus on your fights Mr. Shin!" His pale knuckles dug into my nose when he lit rip a haymaker straight into my face, blood spurting out from my nose and coating his fist.

He shook off the supposed pain and blew on his fist a couple of times while I rolled away. I looked up and growled at the cocky piece of shit in front of me, pulling out one of my kunai blades and pushing some swift chakra into my limbs.

I engaged in a quick kenjutsu bout, my sword against his bare firsts. I landed a heavy strike on his shoulder, but I heard a resounding clang instead of flesh tearing. He grinned widely and slammed his metallic fist into my abdomen, making me cough up spit while stumbling away.

"What the fuck is up with your body!?" I yelled out, massaging my abdomen while using my large blade to hold myself up. He ripped off his undershirt with a bright smile, "just a little something I was born with." He knocked his torso, and it sounded like hollow metal.

I stood back up and breathed out deeply, pushing my body to the limit with swift chakra, and yes, it fucking hurt. Pins and needles everywhere in my muscles while I reared back my sword for a slash, "Hya!" I yelled out, slamming my cleaver downward onto his head, his smile lessened a bit while he put his hand up, catching the blade in his palm.

"Isn't it funny? We've been keeping tabs on your for-a while, and almost every fight you're in, you either end up on the brink of death, or saved." He grabbed my sword and pushed it into the ground and slammed a foot on top of it, blocking me from pulling it out.

He started to swing his arm in a circle, like some sort of loony toon while I tried to pull out my sword. "A one, a two, a threeee!" He launched his fist forward, forcing me to duck under it quickly and lash out a kick to the top of his chin, forcing Kako to stumble backwards slightly while I felt my bones creak in response.

Kako's grin only widened as he swung another fist towards me. I parried it with my sword, seeing sparks fly before getting an idea. I put my sword back in my inventory, quickly fanning my hands through several seals and charging them with electricity.

"Took ya a while to figure that out!" He laughed, letting me get close while I poured more chakra into my palms. Kako looked at his wrist, grunting slightly as his arm started to shake with a rattling sound. "Though I got a counter!" His left forearm exploded into some sort of baggy orange goo that stuck to my hands, causing the electrical current to be dispersed.

"What the fuck!?" I desperately tried to tear my hands from the taffy like substance, but to no avail. Kako reared back a punch with his right hand but right before it was about to hit, the goo melted around my hands, and I jumped backwards.

"Awww, that didn't last long at all!" He whined, slicing off his sticky arm at the elbow with a loud scrunch. Kako pointed his half-removed arm at me, allowing me to see straight into his, pipes and wires? "Alright mister! I'm actually going to start trying now!"

"Funny how that is, because I'm also in the same position." I threw up the scroll Kakashi handed to me and mentally accepted my new skill. Kako quirked an eyebrow while the scroll dissipated into the air, he started to giggle a bit before pulling out a small sword from his waist, thin as a rapier and closer to a needle than a traditional weapon.

He put his left arm behind his back and twirled the weapon in his right hand, pointing it towards me while keeping it near his chin, side on. "My trusty little needle, Toki!" He stepped forward and stabbed into the air, I heard a whistle in the air before my side started to hurt extremely badly.

I looked down and saw a hole in my shirt, a small red graze on my skin. I hissed slightly at the burning sensation and looked back up to Kako, he was smiling widely while preparing another stab.

I weaved through hand seals and brought up a mud wall, watching as it started to splinter from several holes being created in the dirt. I clicked my tongue and looked around the wall, surprised to see nobody there.

A sharp pain hits my back, and I swivelled around quickly to pull out my kunai blade, 3 loud clangs and the groan of the metal filled my ears while Kako stood across from me. I activated my dojutsu and stared in awe.

His entire sword was glowing with chakra, but from his limbs, I could see thin lines of blue energy extending back into the tree line. I tried to focus on sensing but had to dodge out of the way for several more wind needles to pepper my position.

I summoned 3 water clones, each of them jumping away into the trees while I substituted myself with one of them. The clone was destroyed by 4 more wind needles, but Kako started to look around frantically when 'I' burst into water. "Oh no! This is very bad!" He screamed out, palming his cheek while looking around.

I focused on my radar and felt a small signature hiding underground, a couple of chakra streams heading towards him like a ribbon. I stayed silent and slowly followed the trail, just when I was about to reach the area where he really was underground, Kako appeared before me with a bit more worry on his face than earlier.

"Not looking so confident now, are we?" I taunted, hoping to stall some time so maybe Sho could come help me if he finishes his fight. "Heehee! No, this just means we can really start fighting now!" I sensed a ribbon of chakra behind me and dodged smoothly out of the way, narrowly escaping the orange glob of taffy that came out earlier.

Kako chuckled a little and swiped his sword downwards, a large gash forming in my shoulder to my hip. 'So quick, I could barely even see that!' I thought while recoiling in pain, the slash causing my skin to look like it had been whipped.

"Huh? Usually that cuts people in half…" I mentally thanked my system before activating iron skin, gaining some damage reduction for 10 seconds while I pumped some swift chakra into my muscles for a short burst of speed.

I grabbed my sword from my inventory and raced forward, attempting a downwards slash that was parried and flung my sword straight into the air. I quickly swept his feet out, hearing a metallic clang as my leg struck his.

Kako fell to the floor with a grunt, and I jumped into the air, grabbing my blade and placing it under my legs, planting one foot on the handle of the cleaver, and the other on the heel before skewering the prone puppet like a kebab on my blade. I used my free hands to perform 4 quick hand seals before doing a handstand on the handle and blasting electricity through the entire construct, short circuiting it by disrupting the chakra holding it together.

I jumped off of my blade as the ground started to rumble, pocketing it back into my inventory before a large wooden centipede burst through the ground and took Kako away in its mouth, a small white-haired child, around my age was riding one of its segments while poking his tongue out at me. "Just so ya know! This wasn't all my toys!"

I groaned and jumped back to the main path to hopefully support Sho, if he needed it. When I arrived back though, Sho was looking confused as all of the figures besides the large one he was just fighting were wisped away by a huge centipede.

"Ah what the fuck!? That brat ditched me!" The brute screeched out while smashing his fist towards Sho, who parried it easily with a palm and kicked in his knee in response before landing a heavy uppercut to his jaw. Togami stomped the ground and spat out some sort of goo that Sho dodged, adding to the mini potholes that were already dotted around the area.

"Shin, he can spit out some sort of acid so watch out. Did you take care of the other one?"

"He retreated."

"Okay, let's just deal with this one and then we can continue our journey."

"Sure, I think I have an idea on where I want to go now though."

"Where to?"

"Tell ya later, let's just fight this guy for now."

Sho smirked down at me before nodding and looking back towards Togami, the large tan barbarian staring down at us with red eyes full of rage. "Something wrong big fella?" I quipped, noticing his jaw start to clench.

"Yeah, my fucking partner just ditched me!" He growled before disappearing completely from vision. Sho grabbed my shirt and pulled me over towards him before I got clotheslined by Togami.

"He's surprisingly quick, so watch out." Sho warned, flicking through some hand signs and blasting a gust of wind to make distance. I nodded and pulled out my blade, racing forwards while Sho peppered the brute with ninja tools.

I easily weaved past the weapons coming from behind me and landed a slash onto his forearm that cut deeply. Togami yelled out in pain while I retrieved my sword, rolling under some more weapons that stuck into his skin.

Togami brought his hand up to block more ninja tools while unhinging jaw and spitting out a large glob of acid towards the ground. I jumped out of the way and threw a thunder spear into his body, mildly shocking it before I landed on the floor.

This fight was proving to be quite easy, but I didn't want to jinx it by saying it out loud. I dodged four more acid bullets before landing another horizontal slash across his stomach, almost disembowelling him.

He cried out in pain while I stuck my hand on his torso, applying some of my chakra. I turned away while placing my blade back in my inventory before clenching my fist, causing all of the chakra infused blood to thicken and turn into branches sprouting from his body, killing him on the spot.

"Fucking hell, couldn't you make it a bit cleaner?" Sho laughed while I shook off some blood onto the ground around me. "I could have, guess it just didn't cross my mind while I was being badass."

"Shut it ya cocky little shit, so where did you want to go?"

"To visit my sister, I haven't sent any letters so I should probably just go visit."

"You want to visit a place where you are recorded as missing?"

"Yep, I think it'll be fun."

"Yeah no, I'm vetoing this one. We would have to go through hot water, frost and most of the land of lightning just to get to the entrance. Plus, we would have to somehow get in without them noticing."

"Do you have another idea?"

"Actually, I do. How about we head to land of crescents?"

"Why the hell would we do that?"

"Well, we can't exactly have them chasing us around all the time, its quite annoying to be honest. Plus, if we can eliminate them quickly, we can stop this eternal night thing, right?"

"True, but we would also be heading straight into enemy territory and handing over their objective, me."

"Right, but couldn't this also allow us to set some sort of trap? You accept the deal after some 'time deciding' and then you can destroy them from the inside."

"I think you're forgetting we just fought one of their executives and I almost killed him."

"Oh yeah, you did do that. Didn't you say you wanted to go to the land of waterfalls though?"

"We can't right now, not right after the war, and especially not after we just left the seal master, we tried so hard to find behind in Konoha."

"I forgot about that. Haha, shit, guess we'll have to collect her when we're ready."

"Yeah, so we're going to Kumo again, right?"

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Give me one god reason we shouldn't."

"I already have, plus I don't want to."

"Hmph, well if we can't go to Kumo, back to Konoha, the land of crescents or anywhere north, where should we go?"

"How about the land of iron? It's a few weeks away, and we'll have to travel through Iwa or by boat around it."

"So instead of north into snowy territory, you want to head north into snowy mountain territory? Real smart."

"Shut it brat, we can get some good weapons there. Plus, we can get bounties on samurai, maybe you'll be able to fight against a blade user."

"Oooh, that does sound nice, my sword always ends up being a game changer or useless in a fight, I want something in between."

"Land of Iron it is?"

"Yep, let's go Sho."

Sho brought out a large map from his backpack and a pencil, scribbling down something in the land of fire before using a compass to choose a direction. "Hmm, okay, so we head this way for about… maybe 12 days?"

"Holy fuck. 12 whole days?!"

"Yep, I'll teach you some cool tricks so don't worry about the time."

"It's still 12 days of travel in a single direction."

"Stop whining, though it suits you."

"Shut it old bastard, lets just move. Actually, I want to do it this way." I weaved a few hand seals and poured a large amount of chakra into the jutsu, spawning a large bat with a made shift saddle.

This was a huge great flying fox, Komai, one of my favourite summons due to his utility. He could fly around far faster than the other bats, but wasn't much of a fighter, though he did like taking me for rides in the air late at night.

Komai loved stargazing and the freedom that came with flying, so he often practiced his speed and that's how he became so fast, even beating Komoru in a race a few times.

"Hey Shin, want to fly somewhere?"

"Yeah Komai, can you take me and Sho to the land of Iron?"

"Woah, been a while since I went there, maybe 400 years?"

"Christ you're old!" Sho exclaimed while Komai rubbed his grey nose while chuckling. "Still nowhere near as old as Komoru, he's a real old bat. Still don't know how he can make kids."

Komai turned around and lowered his back while we stepped on, holding onto the edge of the saddle while getting comfortable. Sho climbed up and laid next to me before Komai blasted into the air quickly, throwing Sho into the air when he stopped about 300m up.

"So, we're we right now?" Komai asked, curling his head to stare at me with beady brown eyes. "Around the middle of the land of fire, head north for a while until we reach wherever the old man stops you." I replied, rolling onto my back and staring at the sky, he would be moving at a comfortable pace now that we were in the air.

Sho recovered from his flop and held out his compass, pointing towards north and patting Komai on the head as thanks. Komai cruised forward at a quick, but not uncomfortable pace through the air.

4 hours later

"Hey Komai, how long can you fly for straight?" I asked, staring up to the evening sky. "Last time I tested that, it was around 19 hours, but I've been training since then, so I don't really know what my limit is."

"Well, you can stop whenever you feel like it. I'm just going to take a nap."

"Have a good rest, Shin."

I closed my eyes with a smile on my face, drifting into unconsciousness silently. I heard Sho start talking to Komai but didn't bother to listen as I rested.

17 hours later

I rolled over to ignore the morning sun while waking up. We were still in the air after I fell asleep again, Sho was right beside me, also asleep while Komai was flying normally with a smile on his face.

"You're awake Shin? I can't believe how long I've been flying! Though I am starting to get tired, can we stop for now so I can have a break?"

"Go for it Komai, thank you for your hard work."

"No problem, plus, it was fun having a long flight around with you."

"The feeling is mutual."

Komai softly landed on the ground before returning to his summoning realm with a smile. I stretched my arms out before hearing Sho hit the ground after our ride suddenly disappeared.

"Huh? Is Komai gone for today?"

"Yeah, he needed some rest after 22 hours of flying."

"Jeez, he went on for a while." Sho brought out his map and scribbled something on it, tapping his chin a few times before putting it away.

"I have absolutely no idea where we are." He proclaimed proudly with a smile. I rolled my eyes before snatching the map from his hands. We really were just somewhere random in the land of waterfalls. Sho said we had crossed the border before he went to sleep for the night.

I activated my dojutsu and sensed a small wisp of chakra in the area. I focused in on it with a squint and walked forward, trailing it like breadcrumbs. Sho walked behind me cautiously while staying silent.

This chakra, it felt different somehow. Like usually a person's chakra had an emotion or general vibe to it, but this was weird, it didn't feel like it had an emotion, it was one. That's now even including how it was a yellowish orange colour instead of the usual blue that other people had.

"Sho, I'm sensing some sort of weird chakra over here."

"Weird? How so?"

"It's hard to explain, it's just weird"

Sho shrugged and I continued to follow the trail, stumbling upon a large waterfall surrounded by vines over a crystal-clear lake. The trail stopped at the shore, and I stood on the sand to scan for any other trace.

"Shin, is this where the trail stops?"

"Yeah, I can't sense anything else around here. Want to take a dip?"

"Fuck it sure, I wanted a bath anyway."

Sho took off his shirt and pants, doing a tuck dive into the middle of the lake. I chucked off my shirt and pants, hopping after him into the cold water.

As soon as I landed in, the same chakra from before was back, but infinitely larger below the surface of the water. I shivered from the presence and resurfaced quickly, not finding Sho anywhere.

"Sho, Sho!?" I panicked, this huge chakra was putting me on edge, and now Sho had disappeared from the lake. I submerged my head to look underwater but still couldn't see him anywhere.

"FUCK!" I heard above the surface, a humongous tidal wave crashing into the forest around the area, carrying a screaming Sho with it. His back was bloody from some sort of spiked weapon.

I swam back to shore and coated Sho's wounds with a blanket of healing flames, he was panting with a horrified look on his face.

"What the hell happened?"

"YOU WOULDN'T FUCKING BELIEVE IT IF I TOLD YOU!"

"I WILL JUST EXPLAIN!"

"A HUGE FUCKING TURTLE JUST SMACKED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!"

"HUH!?"

Another crash was heard behind me, and a rumbling came from the surface of the water. A large yellow eye bore into us from across the lake, the other covered by some sort of shell.

"Humans, why have you come here?"

"WHAT THE FUCK!? ISOBU!?"

Sho stared shocked at me while Isobu's lone eye widened slightly, all three of his tails swaying randomly around the water in a cat like fashion.

"Who are you? How do you know my name?"

I calmed myself and put a hand over my heart while smiling. "Shin Uzumaki, and I got it from Matatabi."

"Anyone want to explain to me what's going on?" Sho vocalised, having retrieved his clothes from the rocks and was currently in the process of getting dressed.

"Guess I should. This is Isobu, the 3 tails. Isobu, this is Shoma Yuiki, my friend."

"Matatabi told you? I thought she didn't trust humans."

"She doesn't, except for her jinchurikii, my sister."

"I see. Well, it was great meeting you, please send my regards to Matatabi."

"Will do, but why are you here? Not in the land of water, I mean."

"A sort of vacation, if you will. I was only revived 2 years ago, so I wanted a break from the land of water."

"Hmm, okay. Well, if ya ever want to be sealed again to not become apart of the 10 tails, come visit me or something."

"The ten tails!?"

"Yep, there's a group trying to revive it by sealing all of your siblings into the gedo statue so watch out for that. Though this information won't matter for another 20 years or so."

"That is… quite troubling. If I meet another of my brethren, I will be sure to pass along the message. Thank you, Shin Uzumaki."

"It's no problem, if you meet Chomei, or his jinchurikii. Can you pass along a message for me?"

"Alright."

"I want those wings."

"That's all?"

"Yes."

"Alright, goodbye Shin, Shoma."

"Cya!"

"Goodbye."

Isobu sank back into the depths, and I sighed out loud while Sho fetched my clothes for me. He chucked them at my head, and they drooped over me before I pulled them over my half-dried body.

"So, what was that about?" Sho asked.

"Well, we don't have a seal master, and I needed to pass along a warning to at least one of them before shit goes down."

"Please elaborate."

"Maybe at some point I will, for now though. Let's find out where the fuck we are."

"You think you're so cool being so mysterious, don't you?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I?"

"Because you're actually just a loser."

"Well fuck you too, old shit."

"Whatever brat. Let's just move."

"I agree."

Sho took out his compass and started walking north. Hopefully we would find a town before we reach the north coast. I hope.

3 days later

I was let down splendidly as we reached the northern beaches of the land of waterfalls. We had not seen civilisation or any sort of outpost for all of the days we were travelling out in the jungle terrain.

Komai was recovering from the extra exertion that was caused from the 22-hour flight, and it would still be another day until he was healed. Though he did answer my summons and gave us a vague direction from what he remembered 400 years ago, though that didn't mean much from the severe weathering that had probably reformed the terrain since then.

So now we were looking over the ocean, skipping rocks into the waves while waiting for evening to come around. Apparently, there was a beautiful sight that could be seen off the coast with these glowing dolphins that had eaten some sort of special chakra fish or whatever.

"When we reach the next bounty outpost, we need to pick up the new bingo book issue." Sho noted off while picking up the next stone from his pile and throwing it into the waves.

"We do, I also want to try out some of the other forms of hunting. Like relics and shit."

"Well, we could tonight, the dolphins fetch a hefty price. Though it's illegal to catch them by country law, we could sell them on a neutral market or something to the highest bidder."

"For some reason I don't feel like doing that. Anything else you know of?"

Sho pulled out his treasure guide and flicked through a few pages before chucking the book over to me. "We could go directly to the source though. 'Chakra fish', a special species of parrot fish that feeds on the natural coral and combines it with a special chemical in their bodies to create a rejuvenating sort of substance. Fetches a high price on the cosmetic market and stuff like that. We just need to take out the special organ in their body that stores the chemical and bang, a free few hundred thousand ryo for like a litre of the stuff."

"Is that also illegal?"

"No, though they are pretty rare and only appear in certain habitats, one of which being the coast we're at. I think. Though other hunters will definitely be gunning for them."

"So how can we find them anyway?"

"Well, we'll have to follow the dolphins probably. They are a migratory species and follow around the schools of chakra fish, so we find the dolphins, follow them until we reach whatever coral reef the fish are at and bam, we snag a few and collect the organ. It'll regenerate in time, so its not like we're chasing after shark fins."

"Sounds like it's going to be annoying, how do you know about all this stuff anyway?"

"I did some research while in the land of tea. Volt company was planning on moving away from weaponry because the war is declining and moving towards cosmetics and pharmaceuticals for the times of peace. So, I studied up a bit after hearing they were going to hire some hunters for this event."

"I guess we're lucky we arrived on time for it then. Are we going to sell the organs back to the Volt company?"

"Nope, highest bidder."

"Here I thought you would pass some along to help out Sun."

"He's a big boy, he can do shit for himself. Though we'll defeat any of their hired hunters so we can secure the fish. Oh fuck, I just realised something."

"What?"

"Ughh, we're going to need to find someone to harvest them. I'm no medic or specialist, so we need an expert to remove the organ perfectly, otherwise, since the skin is very thin, it'll rip and make it lose all value."

"Why would it lose all value if it rips?"

"Well, the skin has some sort of weird property that creates an environment inside of the fish that can hold the chakra in liquid form. Without the skin, it evaporates into thin air, and we're just left with a pretty foul-tasting parrot fish."

"Jeez okay, well I can just place the whole fish in my inventory and once we find someone, I can take them out and they'll dissect it."

"Good idea, well there should only be a few more hours until sundown, I think. Keep watch for a blue glow in the water, that'll be the dolphins."

"Okay."

4 hours later

I was bored out of my mind, watching the waves crash onto the sand. We were doing watch shifts and now was my turn while Sho took a nap. I looked over to his snoozing body and caught something on the glimpse of my eye, a faint cyan glow coming from far out shore.

I slapped Sho upside the head and walked onto the water, spying out for the stream of light under the surface. "What the hell was that for!?"

"I see the light."

"Good. I can finally be rid of you."

"Not what I meant dumbass, look at the water."

Sho hopped up next to me and squinted his eyes before smirking and ruffling my hair. "Good eye kid, lets go catch us a fat paycheck!" He sped off on top of the ocean but stopped when he saw a large group of people chasing the stream on boats.

"Seems we got some company Shin, should we follow the dolphins first?"

"Yeah, we'll deal with them when we get to the reef."

Me and Sho began to skate on top of the ocean, following closely behind the boats and by extension, the glowing dolphins. There were around 12 hunters on the boats in front of us, 6 in each one. They were all holding some sort of weapon like a spear, sword or even a crossbow for one of them.

The hunters didn't sense us at all, even when we got within 30m of the boats, it seemed like they weren't trained in any sort of sensing arts. Sho moved forward even more with a smile on his face saying, "Watch this."

He latched onto the back of their metal boat with his feet, performing a sit up vertically while all of the passengers were none the wiser to his presence. I moved forward and attempted to copy him on the other boat before his smile dropped a bit and pointed upwards. I looked towards the top of the boat I was stuck to and found my nose at the wrong end of a very dangerous crossbow.

"Who're you?"

I held my hands up and leaned backwards, slipping off my feet and rolling backwards onto the water. The lady with the crossbow fired, piercing the side of my foot and releasing some blood over the water.

She had orange hair with a grey turban on her head, she wore a tinted eye glass that looked almost like a scouter over her left eye and had a orange tunic with black pants and several holsters containing knives.

"Oi, Ran! What was that sound?"

"Nothing Kon, just keep an eye on those dolphins."

Ran loaded another arrow into her crossbow, firing it off with a pull of the trigger. I swiped the arrow out of the air and snapped in half, much to her shock. I picked up the pointed end and twirled it around in my fingers, "you should get a refund on this." I taunted, throwing it straight back at her head. She narrowly dodged it by ducking under the railing and I hopped back onto the back of the boat, making a couple of quick hand seals before vaulting over the edge.

Ran watched me fly over her head and I twisted mid-air, slamming my foot into her face and knocking her out on the floor. I put my hand on the ground and summoned Komizu to my position. "Sup Komizu, want to go fish catching?"

"Sure! Anything to get me away from training." She flew up to my shoulder while several other hunters surrounded me, all large men with very not so scary weapons that were definitely compensating for something. "Who the fuck are you!?" One of the shouted out, preparing a spear to throw at me before Sho appeared from the side of the boat and slammed his head into the ground.

"He's, my partner. So, who're you guys supporting in this race?"

"Hired by Volt, so who the hell are you hired by?" One of the larger men behind me snarled, readying his blade with a tight grip.

"Nobody really, just doing this for fun." Sho shrugged, wrestling the spear form his unconscious victim and chucking it at the hunter who responded to him, who blocked the spear but got hit with a kick in the side by me, causing the hunter to tumble into two of his friends.

I dodged a blade on my right before hopping off the boat again and running along the side, darting around several stabs from a sword, a spear, and other pointy weapons that would hurt pretty bad in the morning, if they hit that is.

"Just hold still!" One of the hunters yelled out while attempting to thrust his spear into my neck. I swerved under the pole and grabbed it, pulling the hunter off the boat and throwing him into the water behind me.

"Shit! Han!" Another cried while slashing at my feet. I grabbed the handle of the sword using his hands and crushed them with chakra enhanced strength.

The last hunter attempted to stick a dagger into my hands while I grabbed the edge of the boat, but Sho punted him off with a roundhouse kick to the back of the head. "Thanks old man, you finished with yours?"

"Yeah I'm all done, there's no one steering this boat though."

"Ugh, for fucks sake." I groaned looking over the edge of the boat where the other ironclad caravel was drifting southward to further chase the dolphins.

"Fuck, we should start catching up."

"Yes, we should." I agreed, hopping off the boat and blasting towards the other Volt owned ship. Sho was loosely following behind me while we ran over the water, loosely following the blue trail that was slowly growing dimmer by the hour.

What the? A scene break?

Land of crescents, Dusk headquarters

"So, Miss Luna, I did end up failing the mission. Is there any way you can forgive me?"

Kako, in his true child form, was bowing in front of the leader of Dusk, AKA the luminos cult, Luna. She tapped her fingers against her chin a few times before smiling softly.

"Actually, there is something I need your help with. Is 'Same' ready yet?"

"Yes Miss Luna, he was finished a few days ago."

"Perfect. Use 'Same' and collect the chakra fish off the coast of the land of waterfalls. Do not disappoint me."

"Yes Ma'am."

Kako bowed his head deeply and skittered out of the room, closing the grand wooden doors behind him. Luna dropped her smile and looked into the shadows beside her throne. "Aki, please infuse the recent spoils into the tomb. I need some rest."

"Yes, my queen."

When the soft tapping of shoes was no longer heard, Luna sighed out deeply to herself. "Just 2 more months, then we can be together again. Master Luminos." She said, looking up at a large mural, depicting a young boy giving gifts all over the world, the bright crescent moon in the distance watching over the [population like a hawk. "Just 2 more."

Fuck, my bruises have started to heal and I look like a fucking Simpson right now, at least part of me. Now that this chapter is done, I can safely say that the main act of part 1 has begun. I think my writing has improved somewhat, but I need to be more descriptive and my characters need to be more diverse.

Besides that, act one of part one is finished, now we are entering act 2! Thank you to, NarutoUchiha242567 and Aidan Stone for your reviews regarding my health. I assure you I am recovering just fine as said in the previous paragraph.

Love you all, see you in the next chapter! - tired