The journey back to the city of Uruk had been calmer than the last time, for some strange reason. If he recalled correctly, when he was heading towards that forest where he had slept in the temple, the ground seemed as if the sand only wanted to swallow him to leave nothing of his body behind. But now, the whole way had been calm without any trouble. However, it was not something he hadn't seen before. The best example he could think of to compare these sands was Sunagakure, the Village of the Sand, where his friend and comrade Gaara was the current Fifth Kazekage. He had taken the position at a very young age for being the son of the previous Kazekage and the former jinchuriki of the One-Tail beast, Shukaku.

That had undoubtedly surprised him at the time when he had returned from his three-year training journey with the perverted sage to Konoha. Knowing that his friend of the same age was already the Kazekage of their village, while he, even after the Chunin Exams, remained a Genin, had bothered him for a few days when he had first heard the news. But he had let it go with all the events that had happened after his return.

The kidnapping of his friend by Akatsuki and his subsequent death after they managed to rescue him had been late. Although his death had only lasted for a few minutes when Granny Chiyo decided to give her life to revive Gaara with her strange jutsu, one that he never fully understood, but over time, he had seen other jutsus similar to it.

The second reanimation jutsu he had seen was when he had fought against the supposed leader of Akatsuki, Pain, or by his true name, Nagato, an Uzumaki like himself but who, for some reason he didn't understand at the time, had the eyes of the Sage of the Six Paths, the Rinnegan. But after that, the last reanimation jutsu he had seen was the one with which his father had been brought back, if he recalled correctly. Kakashi had mentioned it once during the war, being called the Edo Tensei.

Strange, yes, but he didn't complain. Thanks to that, they had managed to win the war with the help of the previous Hokages and traitorous ninjas who, in the end, had chosen the path of redemption. The best example of that was his friend Sasuke, who he had fought against too many times, and his last battle in the Valley of the End had still been the first after his betrayal. He found redemption after defeating him at the cost of losing both of his right arms, but nothing permanent that couldn't be recovered.

In the end, his friend had redeemed himself for all the crimes he had committed in the past and would be on a path of penance thanks to Kakashi's help as the Rokudaime Hokage and the one who had asked the other Kages to give him a second chance to pay for his crimes, not on a path of redemption for good.

Although those were things of the past now, he had to go on a mission, which, while not his obligation to fulfill, he couldn't simply reject a request for help because if he did, he couldn't be at peace knowing that he could have helped someone be on a better path than they were on. But now fulfilling his promise to that woman who had asked for his help was becoming complicated, mainly because he didn't know what the person he had to help looked like and didn't know anything about the terrain where they were. He had been there for about three days without any information about the person.

And he couldn't just go down the street asking for the person he was looking for because it would attract attention and be too suspicious. He had to be careful not to interfere in political matters or something similar. He had already intervened when he arrived at the Village/Kingdom, saving some people from those strange creatures that were killing them. So now he had to be much more careful not to attract more attention than he already had.

His journey had finally ended when he saw the high walls of the Village/Kingdom not far from his position. So, celebrating his progress when he saw that he was already too close to avoid making too much noise, he jumped, reaching approximately halfway up the wall, sticking to it with chakra and starting to walk on it until he reached the top, checking that there was no one who saw him enter without permission.

Jumping inside without being seen, he went straight to an alley where there shouldn't be any people nearby, activating again his transformation that he had used to enter without raising suspicion the first time he had arrived at the Village/Kingdom.

With his transformation completed, a seal of the Alley, he headed to a populated area to start mingling with the people and see what their customs were and what he could do and what was forbidden.

Walking around the people, he could see how they helped each other to rebuild the houses destroyed by those strange creatures while others sold their products in homemade stalls along the street. Looking at the people for a while, he realized that whoever governed the whole village/kingdom must have a good governor for all the people to help each other and not have problems.

He wondered if this place had ever suffered from a war in the past, like the village he had come from, although he couldn't be sure. He was sure that due to the people's coexistence, they had gone through at least one or almost no war. But as he didn't know, he preferred not to get involved in those topics. He had just left one about six months ago and would prefer to know in a place like the one he was in if there had been a war or was in one.

But better leave that aside and continue with his mission. Although before continuing to think or see more things where he passed, something strange made him stop in his tracks in the middle of the street, straight in its entirety, making him look to one side in particular where he felt something strange that seemed to be calling him. It was like feeling the energies of nature wanting to enter his body without being in Sage Mode, such a familiar yet unknown sensation, leading him to head towards where the energy was calling him, accelerating his pace to not lose that sensation that was calling him.

He knew he was rushing to whatever it was that was calling him, but whatever it was felt so familiar that he simply couldn't ignore it. He was aware of the mistake he was making now, heading to a place he didn't know where it was, and even stranger, letting himself be carried away by a strange energy that could put him in danger. But it was like an urgent call telling him that whatever it was, it wanted to have his presence in front of it.

Accelerating his pace, almost running, he began to dodge all the people coming his way to get to where the strange energy was calling him with such urgency. The further he advanced towards the direction of the energy calling him, the stronger the sensation of familiarity became, so wanting to get there as soon as possible, he entered the alleys, jumping up on the roofs of the houses and starting to jump on them until he reached his destination.

It didn't take more than two minutes jumping between the roofs until he had finally arrived where he felt the greatest concentration of the energy calling him. He looked around at all the surroundings to find where it emanated from or who was calling him until he found the person from whom that energy was emanating, being the most prominent in the area. It was a woman with golden hair and eyes the color of blood, her attire being traditional Uruk clothing, her hair long down to the bottom of her back, with two violet tattoos with a flower design just below her shoulders.

Seeing the woman from the rooftop where he was, he could feel how the strange energy was urging him to go to that woman for some reason, but his reasonable part clearly told him that it was not a good idea to get involved with a stranger. So, he was conflicted whether to go with that blonde woman who apparently hadn't noticed his presence yet. But before he could make a move, his senses shot up when he felt that presence again that he had encountered in the temple. Acting quickly, he jumped off the rooftop to hide in the alley, watching as the strange woman he had encountered before descended from the sky.

The woman with exhibitionist clothing had descended to the ground, looking around presumably to see if she could locate him, and she was about to see him if it wasn't for the blonde woman who looked in his direction, starting to yell at him for some reason.

?: ISHTAR, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE? I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT TO SEE YOU IN MY KINGDOM!

Ishtar: I'M SORRY, I SWEAR I'M HERE FOR A GOOD REASON!

And that's the end of the chapter.