Note : Hi. I didn't have much time to translate the last two weeks, that's why this chapter took so long to come out. It's a bit shorter than the previous ones because the original chapter is 42k words, and I had to cut it in three parts.

Reviews Guest :

(I wish you would write more who is talking and when)

Sorry, I had chosen at the time to never write the name of the pov (except for some parts), only in the dialogues. My narrator - pov - is not omniscient, he only knows what he/she sees and hears. It's a bit hard now to change everything I wrote. I write in the first person but I use the third. I don't even know how it's called to be honest. A little strange, I guess.

Chapter size : 11000 words

The Hovel that touched the Stars

Part 1

Naruto

June 5 1005, 1 :14pm

Land of Claws

"When do we arrive? One hour? Thirty minutes? No, even better, ten minutes?"

Confronted with the silence of his request, he quickened his pace and passed the man who was walking quietly in the shadow of the forest.

Without stopping, his golden hair, which did not exceed one meter fifteen, turned to face the long white hair. "When do we get there, Jiji?" he repeated in a fluent voice, waving his arms above his head.

Having already passed the age of forty, Jiraiya focused his attention and smile on the electric battery that trotted backwards in front of him. Despite what his lack of attention had made it seem, he had heard him perfectly the first time. But also the previous one as well as the last twenty.

"Why are you in such a hurry? Enjoy the scenery a little." he advised him, dismissing again the one and only question that had been asked.

Observing for a short while the lush, wet, and abundant flora all around them, Naruto continued his tumultuous backtracking and raised his arms to the sky at the hearing of such nonsense.

"But Jiji, there's nothing to see here but tiny insects and tiny trees!" he grumbled, as he began to take short steps backwards, overexcited. "Where are the hovels that touch the stars, where are the towers that light up the valleys? I want to see them! No more boring books and colorless pictures, no more Gamaken stories and Obāchan tales, I'm finally going to..."

To the wish of the former Sannin who listened to the interminable monologue for the hundredth time and was about to express his weariness, his young protégé didn't have the time to finish his sentence.

With a kind of satisfaction etched into his face, the hermit watched as the boy fell onto one of the many planks that littered the path.

Inevitably, a mocking and uncontrollable laughter flooded the area, causing the fauna that had been silently observing them to take flight. Sitting on the ground, looking dazed, Naruto looked at the wood that had caught him off guard, as his master's hilarity grew.

His attention, recovering from the surprise, turned to the piles of pre-cut planks gathered on either side of the road they were traveling. This immediately took away his anger to bring back his excited expression.

"That'll teach you to look where you're going." the 40-year-old exclaims, laughing out loud.

Raising a finger in front of his closed eyelids and his mockery, Jiraiya prepared to instill the very first lesson of Naruto's initiation journey.

" As the old saying goes, always look..."

He stopped short in his tirade as the echo of a frantic race tickled his eardrums.

Opening his eyes again, he watched in amazement as the white shirt moved away from him even faster than the indignation that spread across his face.

"Oi, Naruto!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "You could at least have the decency to listen to me when I'm talking!... Come back here!"

Leaving the forest without paying any attention to the desperate screams behind him, Naruto ran for another hundred meters before slowly coming to a halt near a newly built bridge. The sun, at its peak, rested gently on his azure pupils, filled with wonder, and the anger he had felt vanished in an instant.

Astonishment that turned to curiosity before becoming fascination as he contemplated the structure before him, alien and deformed from anything he had known.

"In answer to your question, we are almost there." Jiraiya said with a happy expression on his face as he came to his side.

Walking with uncertain steps on the slightly curved bridge over the glittering river, Naruto decided, not without fear, to put all his weight on the wooden planks that showed no signs of weakness. Jumping several times on the spot under the structure's impassability that took the shock, he turns to face his master and both of them look at each other with a smile. A thought crossed the forty-year-old mind, doubling the smile on his face as he realized the absurdity of the scene.

It was the first time the boy had ever walked on a bridge.

The few streams and rivers they had encountered during the first two days of his new life had been crossed with a simple leap, as the child had always done since his birth. Not having to do this was all new to Naruto, so he could perfectly understand the doubts he had about the reliability of the structure.

"It's decided, Jiji, next time I go home, I'll build the same one for the Heiwa River, so that Ojiisan won't complain about his backache when we have to cross it." Naruto declared, meticulously observing the smallest details of the structure to make sure he didn't forget anything.

Smiling broadly and accompanied by a proud and amused expression that his white hair encircled, Jiraiya watched as he circled around the boards nailed to each other, until an old man, pulling a cart full of goods and wearing a straw hat as headgear, finally got ahead of them.

With a friendly greeting under the vibrations of the wheels of his carriage, the latter continued on his way, inevitably stopping Naruto's information gathering, who folded his hands and arched his back to the ground under the frivolous air of the merchant who continued his journey.

"Aren't you exaggerating a bit?" the former Sannin's indecisive voice rose, one eyebrow raised in the direction of his young protégé.

Even for the very first traveler they had met, the boy had not shown such respect, so his question was justified.

Naruto lifted his gaze.

"Wasn't he a sage?" he asked, scratching the back of his head in confusion. "He looked as old as Ōjiji-sama, though..." he added with a certain tone as he turned his attention to the back of the old man who was disappearing into the horizon.

"Old age does not make a man a sage, it only contributes to it." Jiraiya explained, ruffling his golden locks. "And, besides, he wasn't as old as you think."

Pushing away the hand that was messing up his hair with amusement, bitter to have been tricked so easily, Naruto let a sulky face take over his emotions before resuming his walk.

The former Sannin followed his steps under a blazing sun and an amused smile. As a cool breeze swept through his golden hair, he closed his eyes for a moment to appreciate... then spoke.

"When do we arrive?"

Naruto

September 26, 1006, 5 :37pm

Land of Fangs

"Ouch! You don't have to hit that hard!"

Rubbing the back of his head with a grimace of pain, he watched the piece of wood fall back against the red hoari and stared at Jiraiya who showed no sign of regret.

"If you think I'm being harsh, you're wrong," the Sannin's voice rose like the harsh truth, pointing the wood once more in the direction of his young expression. "The day it's steel and not wood that hits your skull, you won't be around to express your displeasure, so stop being a wimp and get back on your feet."

With a scowl, he stood up on the empty field before dusting off his pants and resuming his stoic posture in front of the threatening stick.

The anger he felt was not just because of the pain, after all, he had gotten used to it. No, the hatred that erupted in his emotions came from the fact that no matter what he tried to do or plan, he couldn't dodge the damn wood.

He could easily catch in his haste a snake charging its venomous fangs in his direction, but he could not even perceive the movements of the stick. And that annoyed him.

The time passed without him being able to take his eyes off the improvised weapon, waiting for it to make the slightest attempt. But the stick, like a predator watching its prey, seemed to be waiting for the right moment to smash into his skull.

The clouds that filtered the sun let pass for a fraction of a second a dazzling ray that took away his sight. A blinding moment that turned into a sharp pain as the bark fell with force on his head, sending him, once again, to bite the dust with a thud.

"Ouch!"

He heard the Sannin's umpteenth sigh as he tirelessly rubbed his head.

"Never let the appearance of a threat threaten you."

"But Jiji-sensei, you're the one who wants me to dodge this wood, so how can I stop it from threatening me?! This is stupid!" he grumbled as he crossed his arms and looked away in annoyance from the small clearing they were in. "I prefer the exercise where I walk on the lake, it hurts less."

For the second time in a few seconds, Jiraiya sighed in despair.

Had he been so stubborn at that age? He couldn't remember...

"You won't survive your problems by running away on the water, you have to be able to deal with them." the former Sannin reminded him in a calm tone, having grown accustomed to the stubborn temper that he liked to display. "What I meant was that you have to focus on the problem, not the distraction."

Raising his meter twenty and dusting off his pants once more, he scanned the piece of wood before looking curiously at the red ink on his master's face.

"I don't understand."

"It is simple." indicated the latter by raising the stick above his white hair.

Immediately and expecting to feel a sharp pain on his head, he looked at the wood and concentrated mechanically on the smallest muscle of his legs, preparing himself to dodge the blow that was going to follow.

"This weapon is not an entity, it is just an extension of my arm. It is only there to distract you, to make you feel threatened and to make you think that it is something you have to fear. Yet the real threat is always the same."

He turned his attention back to the impassive face of the forty-year-old, who had just finished his latest explanation, which had only served to confuse him more than he already was. He understood absolutely nothing of the gibberish.

As he was about to turn his gaze back to the stick, not wanting to be surprised again, he understood. A slight, almost invisible contraction in his master's black pupils caused the wood to fall in his direction.

Letting his reflexes work for him, he took a step to the side and dodged the attack that whistled a few centimeters away from his right ear before hitting the ground in a cloud of dust that revealed the force of the blow. A blow that would surely have split his skull if he hadn't dodged.

He stared at his master with a stunned expression, wondering if he had really tried to take his life. The smile on the man's face left him in no doubt and caused him to become pale.

It was going to be a long day.

"Well, let's go again."

Very long.

Naruto

May 17, 1007, 10 :47am

Land of Birds

"Jiraiya-sensei..."

Shirtless, his feet paddling in the small creek that ran through the wasteland which served as a training ground, Naruto bit into the green apple that he held in the palm of his hands. "Why 'o I ha'e to be'ome s'on'er?"

Sitting cross-legged next to his pupil, Jiraiya wrote a few words in his notebook before watching him without understanding a word of what he was trying to say.

At the look on the former Sannin's face, Naruto chewed his vitamins and watched the reddening of his forearms and the slight burning of his fingers, having, in large part, endured the new recalcitrant techniques of his training.

"Why do I have to become stronger?"

Closing his notebook with the small red ribbon that wrapped around the leather, Jiraiya simply observed him as he opened his mouth again.

"If I don't want to?"

A deep silence followed his sentence. A little surprised by his words, the author let a look of understanding appear on his face.

"In this case we stop immediately." he replied. "Is that really what you want?"

Tearing a second piece of apple with his teeth, Naruto turned his attention to the mountains dozens of kilometers away from their position and after swallowing the crushed fruit, he sighed with a shrug.

"May I?" he asked in a low voice, as if he feared his question would be taboo. "Would that make Ōjiji-sama a liar? I don't want to make him a liar."

His azure, doubtful irises tinged with surprise as he moved them to Jiraiya's hand that had just rested on his shoulder.

"Don't worry about it, this old hermit would be the happiest of all the toads if you were able to contradict even one of his words."

The slight sigh of relief that escaped his young self was muffled by the flow of the stream.

"Is it true?"

Like a ritual that he disliked in every way, the hand of his master left his shoulder to ruffle his hair.

"Of course."

The former Sannin stopped abusing the golden hair and grabbed the gourd placed on the pebbles to take a sip of the liquid it contained.

"Then I want to be a cook."

A loud choking sound awoke the surrounding fauna as he spat out everything he had just drunk and beat his chest with gusto.

Tasting oxygen again after a long suffocation, his face peony red, Jiraiya finally observed the improvised cook, hoping to see some form of mockery, but there was none. The smile on his student's face, playful at the idea he had just externalized, made it clear that he was more than serious.

"Cook?" he asked skeptically. "Do I need to remind you that the last time you cooked, we were sick for three days?"

"Tsss. You're just like Ojiisan, always complaining."

Grumbling, Naruto threw the apple into the fresh water after long seconds of thinking about the genius of his idea before turning his attention back to the red hoari.

"I may be six, but I'm not stupid, you know, I see it in your eyes every time. I'm a quick learner. And as you often say, skills are acquired through training, so I'm going to learn to cook. Look, I couldn't walk on water, the next day I was running on it. I couldn't dodge your blows, today you can hardly touch me. Yesterday I couldn't create fire, today I set the wooden pillar on fire four times and..."

"Five." he cut him off before realizing his mistake and glaring at him.

The cheeky one who served as his student brought his satisfied attention back to the landscape and swept his hand away from his arrogant smile.

"Oh, stop it, there's no need to say more, I was just trying to be humble..."

With his eyes downcast and desperate, his hands placed on his cross-legged knees, the forty-year-old vowed inwardly to exchange a few words with two old and small batrachians about the education the vermin on his right had received during the first five years of his life.

The aforementioned vermin gave him a very serious look.

"I didn't want to go this far, but I don't think I have a choice anymore..."

He ran his thumb over his left wrist, where a small black dot was tattooed, and released a thick white smoke. Dipping his hand inside, he pulled out a small greenish gourd and placed it in front of the Sannin's pale and stoic face.

He lifted his twenty-five meters up on the pebbles and, as if his vocabulary had been practiced for hours in front of a mirror at the Yasukara Hotel in the Land of the Cascades, on Sagittarius Street, three minutes away from a juicy ramen restaurant whose name he had forgotten, he held up the gourd like a trophy.

"This is my secret weapon. This nectar will make you understand the extent of my talent and my seriousness. You ca..."

"How did you do that?"

Nearly falling backwards as his master's voice cut him off, he let out a small laugh and, scratching the bridge of his nose, turned his satisfied expression on the latter.

"Hehehehe, I knew you'd make that face." he admitted with a quick shake of his head, having replayed the scene over and over in his mind. "This is one of my latest finds, a mixture of blue larvae and red snails from the forest around Lake Fuhen that has been fermenting for over a year. It is a privilege to let you taste it. You should even feel honored."

As he continued to proudly display his mixture in the heights of the plain, Jiraiya sparingly tried to figure out if he was messing with him.

"Besides, you should also thank me for waiting to share it with you, after all, dozens of toads would kill for even a single dro..."

"Who taught you Fūinjutsu?"

Standing with a proud and haughty posture, Naruto blinked several times before lowering his arm with a dejected look and did what he knew best when his master used words like that: incomprehension.

"Fuitsu what? What are you talking about this time?" he asked completely demoralized.

His whole plan had come to an end. He could never become a star chef.

The writer looked at his disciple as if he did not recognize him.

Had he really learned the art of sealing without even knowing the name? Eager to know what this story was about, the Sannin pointed at the gourd he was holding and repeated his question.

"Where did you learn to seal things?"

"Oh, that."

Again, he shrugged his shoulders, as if the topic of conversation did not interest him at all.

"I read an old book in Ōjiji-sama's library."

"A... book...?"

He was willing to recognize the genius in the boy's DNA, but to learn Fūinjutsu only from a book, without even knowing the name... was that even possible?

"And what did that book look like?"

Opening his eyes wide and letting his azure gaze wander over the horizon, Naruto tried to pay some attention to the conversation.

"Old... dirty... with a swirl on the first page."

"Do you remember the author of this book?"

"Uzu something... why are you asking me that?" he wondered, scratching the back of his head.

For only answer, the hermit simply smiled at him.

"Nothing, don't worry."

As he had expected, his young student did not ask him more, being satisfied with the simple fact of being able to return to what he was truly passionate about.

"Do you want some?" he asked, handing him the gourd.

Memories he had sworn to forget came back just as the aroma of the container reached his sensitive sense of smell, causing him to gag several times. He then looked at the small object as if the devil himself was inside.

"Another time, perhaps." he hastened to answer, moving as far away as possible from this most disgusting mixture.

Shrugging his shoulders again, Naruto took a sip of the liquid in front of his disgusted eyes.

"You're really weird, Jiraiya-sensei."

Did he retrieve him too late?

Naruto

December 31 1020, 8 :41pm

Land of Iron, Shinjō

With his back against the trunk of the conifer, he mechanically tossed the twigs into the fire, which illuminated the wooded area where they stood. The flames crackled and charred the new combustible, illuminating the darkness of the forest and the starry night with varying intensities. The hooting of several owls pierced the surrounding silence, causing him to focus his attention on the silk-covered sleep on the other side of the blazing fireplace. With his forearm resting on his curled knee, he watched the sleeping face for long minutes, unable to take his eyes from the deep stillness.

For the first time since he had forced their meeting, she was immersed in a soothing sleep.

A peaceful dream.

A vibration of natural energy emanating from the silk brought a slight smile beneath his golden hair, almost orange due to the flames.

He could not guess what she was dreaming about, but one thing was certain, she was reassured by his presence, allowing her to sleep without worrying about her surroundings. This deduction had no other effect than to elicit a sigh from him that wiped away his cheerful grin. He raised his sullen face to the sky as a familiar white-haired face materialized against the twinkling stars.

"I guess I couldn't make the old hermit lie, sensei." he confessed in a whisper over the crackling of the embers. "I guess everything he predicted finally happened."

The sleepy sound under the silk caught his eye for a moment before he turned it back to the flames.

The peaceful dream was over.

Leaving his sitting position amidst the sudden silence of the fauna, he ventured to the side of the blazing fire and stared at the blinding heat for a long breath, then with a flick of his hand, the flames died out with a thud, leaving only glowing coal behind.

If he listened to the little voice in his head, and not to reason, he would have already returned to Yariba and decapitated all those men who had even touched her. But he could not leave her alone.

He walked around the pile of ashes in the darkness of the conifers and put one knee down before the rolled silk. Gently, he lifted it without waking her.

Even if he managed to reach his goal, he would not come out alive, not this time. And he had been exposed to enough of her emotions over the past month to know that if he abandoned her, regardless of the dangers that would befall her, then there was very little chance that she would survive more than a day of her own thoughts.

It was sad to realize, but she was broken, helpless, and completely lost in a world that had become unknown. He was the one who could connect her to reality. He was pretty much the only protection she had built for herself since he freed her from her chains.

The grips on the legs and back that he carried suddenly became demanding and, pressing forcefully against his chest, she offered him a lukewarm and periodic breath in gratitude.

He detached his glance of the blond hair stuck against his gray jacket and admired the celestial vault one umpteenth time.

Silent, just like him.

I will come back.

I will wait for you.

For the third time in his short life, he had made a promise.

I will protect you.

And this time he hoped he could keep it.

Leaving the bubble of heat that was being distilled by the light cool breeze, the sound of his footsteps on the wilted leaves and pine needles concealed somewhat his advance in the wooded hear, letting the fauna again become master of the place.

The winding, dew-covered paths followed one another for more than an hour, allowing him, in exemplary silence, to cross the dense forest that climbed to more than five hundred meters on the Mount Kanshouchitai, which borders with Oto no Kuni, the Land of Sound.

It was only when the flora, becoming less and less abundant, offered him the opportunity to admire the landscape, that he allowed himself to stop in order to focus his attention on the horizon.

He gazed at the three mountains illuminated by the half-moon several hundred miles from his elevated position. The ones that represented the pride of the Iron Nation.

The Three Wolves.

The second time in his life he could admire them.

Covered in snow and shaped like three open mouths with sharp fangs, the mountains dominated the panorama by their splendor.

The legend of their origin says that they were the result of the confrontation between the two-tailed cat demon, Nibi no Bakeneko, and the four-tailed monkey demon, Yonbi no Saru, six centuries before his time.

The two demons are said to have battled relentlessly for several months, terraforming the vast plains that once belonged to the land of Earth, offering no victor and leaving behind only an apocalyptic landscape.

He was not the type to believe in these kinds of legends, which were usually exaggerated and often similar to fairy tales, but when he looked at the magnificence and pareidolia of these three mountains, he could not help but admit that they could not have formed naturally.

Blowing out his admiration in a cloud of white smoke, he resumed his ascent in a cool breeze.

Once again minutes passed without the thirty-degree slope draining his strength. It was only after another hour of walking that he finally reached the top of the mountain.

Of a disturbing flatness, this one was spread over more than two thousand square meters and was strewn with leafy trees that formed a light and bizarre forest, by the fact that the autumn ended and the winter arrived, half of the vegetation was on the dried ground. The linear landscape that the plateau offered was more than surreal. As if it had been cut in two with precision centuries before his time.

Not lingering more than a few seconds on the familiar landforms, he set his sights on the small path covered with withered leaves, and under the thick clouds that covered the sky, he walked into the stripped forest.

After another minute in which the breathing in his arms coordinated with the sound of his footsteps, he mechanically tightened his grip on the silk before entering the desolate, weed-strewn clearing that permanently erased the rainbow from his memory.

In the middle of the gap, hidden behind several abandoned plantations, was a spruce house, resembling a huge hovel, which seemed to have been tested by time, as the vegetation had spread on both sides of the facade and the roof.

He crossed the twenty meters that separated him from the house without difficulty and climbed the three wooden steps that allowed him to venture under the porch, cracking with surprise at his new one hundred and ten kilos. Arriving at the front door, he lowered himself gently so as not to wake her, turned the handle, and pushed the wood with his foot. It opened with a squeak, leaving free passage for his encumbered meter eighty.

Unlike the outside, the gloomy inside immediately reminded him of his teenage years. Made of the same light brown wood, the damp smell of the spruce reminded him of the smallest nail he had driven, the smallest hammer blow he had given, for days without stopping.

If the outside looked like an abandoned cabin, the inside was well maintained and clean.

Composed of three open rooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom in the shape of a T, the arrangement of the furniture challenged his memory, as if the decoration had been changed several times. But that was not what attracted him most.

Whether it was the armchair and shelves in the living room with hundreds of books, the fruit basket and stove on the rectangular table in the kitchen, or even the sheets on the bed and the wardrobe in the corner of the bedroom, everything looked immaculate.

No dust was visible.

The slight movement on his grips prevented him from thinking about it further.

Crossing the living room and kitchen, which were not separated, he placed his knee on the bed before laying her on the mattress. Gently, he removed the silk cloak that was keeping her warm and pulled on the sheets she was lying on. He then covered her bandaged body with it.

In an umpteenth somniloquy, she turned her head on the pillowcase and exhaled heavily.

A feeling of discomfort and insecurity was felt in the chilled atmosphere of the room, which had no other effect than to bring an amused chuckle to his face as he overlooked the mattress.

Even asleep she was capricious.

It had been three days since they had contemplated the Uchinomi Sea, more commonly known as the Inland Sea, which connected the peninsula to the vast wild lands of the north, and it had been three days since she had been able to walk. However, she insisted on being carried by him, claiming that her muscles ached after only a hundred meters.

He knew she was lying, that she could walk a lot further, but he didn't say anything, even though it bothered him more than he let on.

It wasn't her forty kilos that bothered him, he hardly noticed her. What bothered him was the atrophied muscles she carried around. He feared that it would become irreversible if she continued not to use them. She could already consider herself lucky to be able to stand on her legs after three years without exercising.

She would have to force herself to walk.

On the other hand, what reassured him enough not to lecture her was the fact that she had an unusual appetite and sometimes ate for two. If he compared the first time he'd carried her to now, a month ago, she'd gained almost five kilos and seemed to be keeping up the pace.

The body was well made.

Having had to save itself for years by attacking its own muscles in order to feed its organs to survive, it now stored absolutely everything it ingested for fear of a second crisis. This made it much easier for her to gain weight, even if it was bad fat.

And that was the only good news about the situation she was going through.

He watched her sleepy face for a few moments before he left his sitting position on the bed and turned back to the closet.

This one, handmade, creaked like the entrance as he opened it to observe the effeminate clothes inside. Blue, gray, white and black, the T-shirts and sober pants hanging there made him understand that his first impression was not at all distorted.

Hanging the silk cloak on one of the many hangers inside, he closed the cabinet quietly before moving to the front door. Forcing the handle up slightly to keep it from creaking again, he closed it in its turn without a sound.

Only then, and under the glow of the crescent moon that streamed into the house through the many windows, did his eyebrows furrow as he looked at the shelves in the living room. But he only had time to catch a glimpse of the titles of a dozen books it contained before the movement under the blanket became erratic, making him realize that the noise of his crossing had been enough to wake her.

With a feeling of incomprehension that spread throughout the cabin, he watched her as she took a sitting position on the bed, leaning against its frame. Rubbing her eyes, she watched him for long seconds before turning her attention to the surrounding decor.

Her half-asleep expression rested gently on the huge logs that went up and down the ceiling and, gazing at it with her oceanic irises, she looked at the three rooms, which instantly made fatigue vanish to give way to haunting.

"You have nothing to fear, you are safe here."

She brought her wide-eyed gaze back to his, as if, for the time of an exhalation, she had forgotten his presence, his omniscience.

"What is this place?"

Her soft voice, sounding almost like a whisper, echoed through the house. A smile appeared under his golden hair as he walked towards the bed.

He had almost forgotten her voice, as she was always so engrossed in her thoughts.

"You should rest, I'll explain in the morning."

As he sat down on the mattress for the second time, he watched her arms crossed and her face rejecting the idea, which had no other effect than to draw a second smile on his features that even ended in a slight laugh.

There was no need to say that she was regaining strength, and even a bit of temper.

Lying perfectly still on the bed, she marveled at the whiteness of his teeth. It was the first time she had heard him laugh in over a month, and strangely enough, it fascinated her more than she would have thought.

Eyes glued to his square jaw, she flinched softly when, sitting next to her legs under the blanket, he opened his mouth, making her wondering gaze disappear.

"This is a shelter that I built many years ago."

Following his words and as discreetly as possible, he observed from the corner of his eye the night sky through the room window, before returning his attention towards the bed.

A second feeling of fear was immediately felt under the sheets. It had nothing to do with what he had just explained, but rather with the gesture he had just made.

When did she become so perceptive?

"Do you... have to go somewhere?" she asked as the fear redoubled at the silence of her question, ineluctably moistening her pupils. "Is that why you want me to go back to sleep?"

He opened his mouth to answer her, but finally blocked the tone of his voice in his throat when, without thinking, she began to remove the blanket that covered her naked legs.

"I come with you."

Grabbing her wrist, he stopped the vain attempt.

She looked at him, but this time with a pleading face.

"I won't be long, sleep for a few hours, I'll be back before you wake up."

Fear, incomprehension, and a feeling of anguish manifested themselves in a tornado of emotions.

Releasing her, he did not have time to make any movement that she grabbed his left hand and prevented him from getting up, from running away from his responsibilities.

Head lowered, eyes moist, and leaning in his direction, she externalized the fear of being alone in a jerky breath.

"Stay... please."

He said nothing, did nothing, just looked at her. For the first time in a long time, the emotions she was giving off were not only making him forget his own, he was literally absorbing the vibrations of the natural energy around her.

For the first time in a long time, he felt fear.

Too focused on what she was doing to him, he didn't know how much time passed without him making the slightest movement and without him being able to extrapolate his thoughts, but he was sure of one thing.

One more second would have been enough.

If she hadn't gently released the reluctance of his hand at the idea of staying, which almost turned into hesitation, he would surely have given in and stayed at her side. But as she folded her fingers against her stomach, she lowered her face even more, ashamed of her gesture.

Shame was not what kept her from looking at him. What forced her to lower her apologetic gaze was the anguish she was externalizing.

She was worried that she had upset him.

After all, it was the first time she had openly asked him for a favor. And this request was by no means insignificant, in fact, it reflected many things. Things he unfortunately already knew: she only felt safe when he was around, but on the contrary, he was a man and after all she had gone through, she did not know how to behave in his presence.

"Sorry."

Or rather, she didn't know how to behave at all.

"You didn't do anything wrong."

Following his words, he watched every gesture she made as she pulled back her rebellious curls and sniffed her embarrassment. Letting her oceanic irises meet his azure, she brought her hands down to grasp the blanket that half covered her, giving her the support and courage she needed.

"Could you... leave... a clone?"

The question lost some of its bravery as the words went on until it became an almost inaudible whisper.

"No."

His short answer made him instantly lose contact with the two oceans which fell back on the beige blanket, not really knowing what else to look at.

"I can't afford to let a clone's memory last that long, not this time."

Unfortunately, his vague explanation did nothing to alleviate the sadness and anxiety she was releasing; on the contrary, it increased it tenfold, even though he had only told the truth.

If several hours of clone memories came to him at a time when he was not expecting them and when his concentration had to be at its peak, it could cost him everything. He had played with luck enough to know that he didn't want to let it dictate his life anymore, or he would lose it. What he had been through had made him realize that his life was hanging by a thread and that one small mistake, no matter how insignificant it was, could put an end to it.

His own as well as the one lying in the bed.

History had stopped counting the men who had proclaimed themselves immortal and were now six feet under. He knew he was strong, and realized that most of the people he had faced were no longer around to talk about it, but he did not consider himself untouchable, and certainly not unkillable. One wrong move and it would be his last.

What had happened in Ichidome was different. He had left a clone at the hotel only because he had not expected a simple meeting to turn into a confrontation. He had simply forgotten the inflated ego of certain people, especially men. But most of all, he had forgotten how stupid Sakutarō was.

This time the stakes were quite different. What he was about to do was not going to be a simple discussion on the edge of a hot soup, unless it was going to be lukewarm and scarlet.

"All right."

He did not need to examine her lowered and closed expression to know that she was trying to hide her thoughts from him, but she still did not seem to understand how he managed to read them. The umpteenth frightened feeling that followed her neutral tone left no doubt in his mind that her emotions would overwhelm her as soon as he left.

"Do you remember how to infuse your chakra?"

As a last hope, she brought her wet pupils upward in a lively gesture to stare at him. Nodding awkwardly in silence, she let appear a face more curious than surprised by the impromptu question.

At her affirmation, he turned his gaze towards the wall to his right and, moving his arm enigmatically in the direction of the wood, the ocean's eyes widened in amazement.

Thousands of black and identical pictograms materialized in the void before instantly forming a web a meter in diameter and swallowing his forearm.

A second later, he brought his limb towards him, his fingers firmly attached to a three-pronged object, and made the pictograms disappear without a sound.

Examining the object as if he hadn't seen it in a long time, he held it out to her distraught emotions on the bed, and after a few seconds of hesitation, she grabbed it.

"It's linked to me. It's a beacon. If you activate it by injecting your chakra into it, I will feel it wherever you are and I will appear at your side."

Ino

December 31 1020, 9 :30pm

Land of Iron, Shinjō

She frowned, a bit lost, before resting her palm on the handle of the ingenious kunai. To her astonishment, she injected some of her chakra into it and it was instantly consumed, as if she hadn't infused any.

"Just like that."

She raised her attention to meet the smile beneath his azure irises.

She had just sent him some of her chakra.

Her pale complexion quickly turned peony as a feeling of stupidity took over her every thought. Mechanically, she lowered her eyes to the kunai in embarrassment.

"Sorry."

A slight sigh forced her to suddenly lift back her face and stare at him for a moment.

"Stop apologizing for everything, I won't hurt you, no matter what you do, no matter what you say."

She lowered her face and curled her legs up against her chest to hug it with her forearms, locking herself into her bubble of comfort, of safety.

It was a habit she had to live with for the first year of her captivity. Apologizing for everything had become her daily routine before she ended up not expressing herself at all. So, it was hard for her to let go of that old reflex, that last hope of not seeing another bruise on her body.

"Sor..."

Suddenly closing her mouth and pursing her lips with her teeth, she nodded without looking him in the eye, knowing full well the look of pity that should animate his face.

The curves of the mattress returned to their original position as she looked again at the gray jacket darkened by the gloom. With a final creak of the floor, he stopped in the middle of the hovel.

"If you're hungry, there's fruits on the table, and I also see some dried meat hanging over the counter, so feel free to help yourself. If I remember correctly, there are candles in the kitchen drawers if you want some light, and if you get bored, there are books on the shelves in the living room."

He turned in her direction and pointed to the door behind his back.

"If someone comes in here, don't be afraid, she's a friend, just explain that you're with Naruto, she'll understand."

She watched him, stunned.

Not because she would be able to fill the emptiness in her stomach, no, it wasn't about that. And it wasn't because she would be able to read for the first time in three years, no. One might have thought that the dazed expression on her face was due to the fact that someone might walk in at any moment when she was alone, but again, that wasn't it either. The truth is, she didn't really care about that at the moment. All she cared about was the sound she had just heard.

Naruto.

It had been a month since she had opened her eyes in the hotel room, a month since he had pulled her out of her hell, and she had never bothered to find out what his name was.

Naruto.

Maybe it was because she hadn't thought it would last, that it was only temporary before the illusion came to an end. But even after she had convinced herself that it wasn't, that he had really saved her, she just hadn't thought about it.

Naruto.

Taking a deep breath as she lifted her body from the pillowcase, her next words came to the corner of her playful lips, but she had to swallow them when a second smile materialized under the golden hair in the center of the hovel, surprising her once again.

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

Lost between trying to express herself and the name that played in her mind, she simply nodded, letting her cheerful grin disappear.

Naruto.

A perfectly silent flash illuminated the darkness of the cabin and her irises, blinding her brutally as she forcefully closed her eyelids.

The luminescent line in her darkened field of vision slowly faded until it disappeared, but that didn't stop her from keeping her eyes closed, trying to escape what she was dreading. Trying to convince herself that he was still there, in front of her, and that she had nothing to fear

The silence of the hovel told her otherwise.

She let go of the kunai on the sheet and placed the palms of her hands on her ears, allowing the constant buzzing in her eardrums to put an end to her imagination.

A second passed, then two, then three... even after she decided to stop counting when the three digits were reached, and even after the pain in her arm joints screamed at her to stop, she maintained her stillness.

With half her senses disoriented, she focused on the only thing that could make her think of anything else. The only thing that made her feel something other than pain, other than fear.

Naruto.

After another full minute of repeating the same word to herself, she finally gathered her courage and freed her ears. The soft, soothing humming faded, and one exhalation later, she opened her eyes, which at first revealed only a deep blackness, but then let her plunge back into the gloom of the spruce forest.

Her heart rate went crazy.

He was no longer there.

She gripped the three-pronged kunai firmly with her right hand and pressed it against the thick black sweater covering her stomach, letting the pounding against her chest subside and giving her enough courage not to give in to panic.

To not let her chakra venture onto the paper surrounding the handle.

The light breeze outside, which she assumed was cool based on the temperature inside, made the wood creak slightly and suddenly made her want to cover her eardrums, but she managed to calm that reflex with a deep breath.

Sitting on the mattress, half covered by the sheet, she gently pulled back the fabric to let her unclothed legs fall. A point of adrenaline distilled in her calves as she placed one foot on the cold wood, then the other. The chill sent a shiver down her spine and reminded her that this time he was not there to warm her.

As she rose painfully, supporting herself on the mattress with her right hand, the black sweater she was wearing fell along her bandages to her knees, contrasting with her gaze which rose again to the heights of the hovel.

The moonlight streaming through the window illuminated their progress through the center of the three rooms.

As soon as she turned around, her attention was drawn to the kitchen, more specifically to the rainbow of colors in the fruit basket on the table.

The gurgle of her stomach echoed through the room with her swallow as she closed the distance with the basket to grab the first fruit within reach. Without taking the time to wipe the green apple, she bit into it forcefully. A moan overcame her emotions.

Although she couldn't remember the last time she had eaten one, she could easily say that it was the best she had ever tasted.

Accompanied by her chewing, her gaze wandered over the porch through the kitchen window as she continued her slow progress through the room. With the kunai still glued to her belly, she stopped in front of the furniture, drawers and other compartments and began to open them one by one with the tip of her hand holding the apple.

Cutlery and kitchen utensils paraded before her searching eyes until a smile finally distorted her features as she turned the drawer underneath the hanging and dried meat. With an impatient movement, she tore off a second slice of apple with her teeth and placed the kunai and fruit on the wooden counter, not without leaving them within reach.

Grabbing the small cardboard box in the drawer, she partially opened it to reveal its contents: a match. With a sudden gesture and a sharp noise, she scraped the reddish end against the brown scraper of the box. The kitchen suddenly lit up before the light dimmed, illuminating her focused expression that surrounded her blond hair.

Realizing that she was halfway done, she grabbed the candle inside the drawer and, careful not to burn herself, lit it. Then she blew out the match and put the box back where she found it before proudly taking the candle of her achievement.

The first action she took on her own and it was a great success, what could she feel but pride?

With a smile, she took the kunai with her only free hand, leaving the apple behind, and ventured onto the floor of the house once more. Cracking slightly at every step she took, the wood let her reach the living room, or rather the library.

The twenty or so staggered shelves that lined the three walls of the open room were literally bursting with books. If she had to guess the exact number, she would say… two hundred and thirty-two... or maybe three hundred and fifty-eight books.

In the middle of the living room was an armchair and a bedside table that surely belonged to the bedroom. Perfectly placed to face the window, they seemed to be the only way to survive so much reading.

In the right corner of her field of vision, an incongruous color piqued her curiosity.

White and only about ten centimeters long, a piece of paper stuck to one of the many boards on the wall between the shelves and the front door gave her a feeling of emptiness.

Just like the pictograms on the handle of the kunai, she had the strange impression that she had already seen such signs, seals painted with black ink, but she couldn't say where. As if, once again, she could not reach that memory.

But if she had never seen one in her memory, how did she have the knowledge of its use?

She placed her index finger on the paper and, infusing it with a considerable amount of chakra, that simple act made her slightly dizzy as the sheet began to emit a warm air, allowing her to enjoy the soothing heat for a few moments.

A moment that allowed her to feel something inside.

She injected her chakra again, but this time to the upper right corner of the seal, and a light cloud of smoke dissipated into the air and released another piece of paper that she caught in flight. A rolled paper, a message, a word that she hastened to read.

If the place seems deserted, it means I didn't or couldn't come back. I am in Isanawa, come and get me. I love you.

Impassive, she turned the paper without understanding, yet there was nothing more. Only this sentence.

Watching the flame of the candle swirl in the same way as her rebellious wicks that faced the seal heat, she moved away from the improvised heater to pass in front of the round, red carpet where the armchair stood. Putting the paper down on the nightstand, she examined the strange bookcases for a second time as she lifted the candle into the heights of the room. Something immediately caught her eye, and as her gaze wandered over the titles and the few visible covers, her eyebrows raised until a puzzled expression appeared on her face.

All the books, without exception, converged on a common point. A concept she was familiar with without knowing why. A name that made her feel uncomfortable.

Placing her light source on the wooden nightstand next to the message, her slightly atrophied form embraced the armchair as she folded her legs against her chest to encircle it with her forearms. Then she scanned the rainbow of colors, paper, and leather on the shelves more closely, but found no answer. Once again, a deep emptiness presented itself to her mind.

Every time she thought she knew something, she was faced with this gaping hole, both inexplicable and impassable.

She remembered her name, her first name, her age, her mother's face, and her old house. She remembered certain words, phrases she had been told, confessed, she knew how to speak, read, walk, drink and eat, how objects worked, and she knew how to defend herself, how to use her chakra to survive. She had known throughout her captivity that what she was going through, what she was enduring, was not normal, that she had to find a way to escape, to end it. And this, despite the fact that she had no way to compare it to her past, erased life.

It was as if everything she could remember had been carefully chosen. As if she had kept only the useful, the most important, and left the rest, so that the pain of three years could not make her speak, without losing hope. Hope that she would remain human, hope that she would not become an object. And it was this same hope that had given birth to her worst feelings. Which, in several scarlet attempts, had tried to take her life, her wrists, her tongue.

Ironically, what had kept her consciousness, her humanity, alive, was what had brought her closest to death.

She slowly released her legs and observed her fingers, her bandages, her scars, as if obsessed.

Was it possible to meticulously erase a memory in order to keep only what you wanted?

Sitting up straight in the armchair, her toes resting on the cotton of the carpet, she looked again at the colorful books.

She would give everything she had to have this talent. There were so many things she wanted to forget at this moment, to erase from her memory all those moments, those faces that only reminded her of pain and disgust. What they had done to her and what they had...

The ocean of her eyes widened once again as her thoughts stopped at the book present on the shelf to her left.

At first, she thought she had misread it, but after reading it twice she realized that this was not the case. She was not delirious.

Curious and almost falling over, she stood up and walked the two meters that separated her from the white book. The front cover made her understand the questions she had been asked during her first months bound and gagged, to which she had had no answer and which had only added more suffering. She finally understood why this word, this leaf, present in almost all the titles, seemed so familiar to her and yet so strange.

Konoha, post-war memory, by Yamanaka Isamu.

Her expression slightly disturbed by what she had before her, she took a step back to resume her place in the chair, the autobiography in her hand.

She placed the kunai on the nightstand next to the candle and turned the book to look at the author's color photo. Blond, blue-eyed, smiling, he left her in no doubt regarding their connection.

Was it an ancestor? A relative?

Looking more closely at the back cover, she put her finger on the answer.

999.

This book was published more than twenty-one years ago. That was one year before she was born in... Konoha? So, it was a relative, or at least if one didn't look deeper into the topic, that was the only logical answer. Because the chances of her finding a book written by a relative in an abandoned hovel in the middle of what seemed to be a forest were so small, so ridiculously impossible, that she could only come to one conclusion. Yamanaka was not a family name, but a clan name.

She was a member of the Yamanaka clan.

Taking her eyes off the thirty-something face on the back cover, she opened the autobiography and stopped on the first page.

I dedicate this book to my late son, Inari Yamanaka, who died for his homeland, his village, and to Minato Uzumaki, without whom I would not be here to write it.

It wasn't the sentence itself that caught her eye, no. It was the handmade circle in red marker surrounding the name Minato Uzumaki and the note that accompanied it.

'Southern Front, Cascades, December 997'

If her first desire had been to read the book, now and after seeing this color, a single obsession animated her: to search for the other notes.

Flipping through a few pages, she stopped again when the circle appeared in the first chapter, which was about the author's childhood. Highlighting the same person, this time the context had changed.

'Konohagakure Academy, Fire, July 984.'

The notes continued in this way, always surrounding the same name with the same color, and, adding up and resembling each other, always giving the place, month and year where the scene had taken place, as if to create a chronological marker.

996, 992, 987, 995...

It was only after about twenty minutes of hovering over the book and reading the red ink, that in the last ten pages of the book, counting over two hundred, another color appeared. Blue, it surrounded another name associated with the end of the third Great War.

'Danzō Shimura. Amegakure, Rain, September 999.'

Another name that was unknown to her.

When she reached the last page, she closed the book and did something that had become a habit, something that made sense to her in that moment: she gave a look of incomprehension and, as if she had read only the tip of the iceberg, she looked up at the hundreds of books that filled the living room.

Was it really possible that...?

Placing the autobiography on the bedside table next to the candle, kunai and message, she carefully opened the drawer of the small cabinet. A breath of disbelief escaped her being.

Red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, brown...

On a five-year-old calendar whose days had stopped being scratched, every conceivable marker appeared before her. She immediately turned her attention back to the shelves ready to collapse, and realized that there were more than two names. More than two timelines. More than two lives.

As if seized by an irrepressible urge to understand what the story was all about, she left her sitting position for a second time to go to the shelves on her left and read the titles, one after the other. Picking up one that aroused her curiosity with its ancient grooves, she presented the old, green book to her investigative gaze.

The foundation of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, by Sarutobi Sasuke.

955.

She repeated the same gesture as before and returned to her original position. As she had done with the previous book, she began to search for the notes and their context.

Without her realizing it, the books followed one another as well as her positions in the chair. After changing the candle twice and not even noticing the rain beginning to fall on the cabin, a yawn surprised her as she turned another page. Closing her eyelids, she stretched her aching muscles before mechanically lowering her eyes back to the book.

Her fatigue vanished in an instant.

Surrounded by a score of small piles of books scattered all over the floor, the one in her hands facing her shocked expression abruptly took her breath away.

What in the w...

Quickly returning to the position she had occupied for the past four hours, and placing the two wide open pages under her only source of light, she instinctively took a breath, but did not change her distraught expression.

It was him. She had no doubt about it, his spitting image. Only his hair was longer, but that face, his face, she could not mistake.

It was him.

She looked a little closer to the photo on the right, and studied the swollen belly of the woman he had his arm around, as well as their respective and similar smiles.

None of this made sense. This book was more than sixteen years old, just before the Fourth Great War broke out. So how, how could it still look the same?

Not having seen the red circle at the bottom of the page, she could only express surprise when she read the note that surrounded the small text below the image.

'The fourth Hokage, Minato Uzumaki and his wife, Kushina Uzumaki. Konohagakure, Fire, October 1000.'

She looked at the Namikaze, who had changed his name after marrying his wife, as explained in the book, and stared at him even longer. She looked at his face, then at the woman's face, then at her swollen belly, then at his face, then at the woman's face, then...

Continuing for several seconds, she finally closed the book to reread the title, the one she had not understood at first.

Konoha's Yellow Flash, its life, its coronation, its sacrifice, by Yōko Hirano.

1004.

The Kiiroi Senkō. The Yellow Flash. This technique was... the one he used to move? He was... the son... of the Fourth Kage of Konoha?

She didn't understand.

Had he saved her to bring her back to Konoha? He had never mentioned this village that she was just starting to know.

Hoping to find an answer to her question, she continued to fly over the story and finally stopped on one of the last pages of the book.

'Minato Uzumaki and his wife Kushina Uzumaki sacrificed their lives to stop the onslaught of the fox demon, taking their child with them while it was still in its mother's womb. Posthumously, an anonymous gravestone was erected in the Konoha Cemetery, next to his parents and all the victims. It is not uncommon for flowers to be placed on the empty coffin as a tribute to this soul who did not have the time to know for what he or she was sacrificed.'

Her eyebrows furrowed relentlessly.

He was not dead. He was even more than healthy. So why would anyone spread such lies?

The red circle encircling the Fourth name caught her attention for a moment, but it was the green one, a few paragraphs later and giving the same place and date, that caught her eye.

Two weeks after the photo was taken and one week after the tragedy, without the case being revealed to this day, Jiraiya, the master of the Yondaime and one of the three great Sannin of the Leaf, was declared a deserter of the village and guilty of high treason by the Small Council.

Did this story have any connection with the...

An almost imperceptible creak from the porch alerted her reflexes, causing her to turn so abruptly that she lost her balance in the chair. Releasing the book, she hit the floor with a painful grimace that echoed with a thud. The bounce of the book on the floor only made it more dramatic.

With a steady creak, the door of the hovel opened. Slowly, a hooded figure in a dark green raincoat stepped lightly onto the floor. Time seemed to slow down, to the point of stopping, and with a blink of an eye she thought she had fallen back into an illusion.

Eyes wide open, dehydrated, and without being able to form a thought, she watched the feminine appearance, one hand on the handle and the other clutching a plastic bag containing various vegetables. It was only when the cool breeze outside made the candle flame dance on the nightstand that time resumed its course. The drops of water that trickled down the waterproof fabric inevitably reached the spruce at the figure's feet as this latter seemed to analyze the situation.

Looking at the unmade bed, the apple on the counter, and the stacks of books scattered around the living room, the nylon hood finally came down. The look that came from it chilled her blood. No, it terrorized her and made her feel numb. She couldn't stop herself from gasping when, thinking she saw a ghost, a soft, steady voice came out.

"Who are you?"

Sitting on the cotton carpet with her mouth wide open, she couldn't answer the ghost answer. The door closed as it had opened: with a hostile creak.

"I-I-I. N-Na..."

To her dismay, her explanations got stuck in her throat, constricted by the fear that the immaculate expression standing in front of the entrance made her feel. Another second passed. She wanted to scream at her cowardice, but even that remained trapped in her throat.

Her attention wandered between the dying irises and the weapon on the nightstand, only two meters from her, which was enough to attract the entity's attention on it.

The reason for her incongruous presence in a hovel lost in the middle of a forest suddenly became irrelevant.

Paralyzed, an iron taste crept up her windpipe as the floor creaked again under the figure's progress towards the bedside table. As the woman approached the flame that lit her up sparingly, the fear of facing a supernatural being gradually faded until it disappeared entirely.

Then and finally, she stared at the young woman with long and beautiful obsidian hair and opaline eyes.