Naruto : The System Files

Chapter no.130 Fox Hole

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It did not take long for Naruto to spot what Dog was following. A few days ago, a rather large group of people had gone through the same trail they were now following. The majority of the traces were that of untrained civilians, many injured, yet the blond could see the proofs of the passage of grown men, armed. Some were more worrying because they were subtler, which pointed towards ninjas.

It was on guard and eyes wide open that Naruto entered in a foreign country for the second time in his life and still illegally. The Land of Rice was very different from Fire Country. Most of the Land of Fire was a plain, covered with a dense, dark forest made up of towering colossal trees, while multiple rivers cut through the vegetal maze, flowing from the north to the south, down in the Sea of Tea or spilling over in the Land of Rivers.

Rice paddies were massively concentrated in the south of the country whereas the rest of the land lived off of the exploitation of the forest, cutting down and processing all kind of exotic wood for carpentry, naval construction, pieces of furniture, fuel, matches, and so on, or on the contrary growing semi-wild orchards to collect all kind of fruits.

As such, it was a surprise for Naruto to see that the landscape of Rice Country was the opposite of what he was used to. Konoha did have rice paddies along the Naka river, of course, mainly overseen by the Akimichi. But still, it was not the village hidden in the leaves for nothing and the woods were an essential part of Konoha.

In the Land of Rice, the landscape seemingly consisted of paddies and there was nothing that could remotely be called a forest, in the blond's opinion. There were plenty enough of trees that the eight ghosts were never spotted by the rare peasants still working in the fields but the boy felt naked nonetheless.

The trees were so small, they looked so frail, and it was definitely impossible to use them to travel. The two ANBU teams were forced to progress on the ground and Naruto did not like that situation one bit. It was somewhat reassuring to stand at the top of a massive tree, like having the high ground or something like that.

Tiger pushed his men for four more hours before he allowed them to stop; the light of the sun had ceased to shine upon the world, replaced by the reflection of an incomplete moon. Once again, Naruto fought against the urge to buckle and fall and stretched to cool down. He felt disgusting; like he was bathing in his own sweat but he knew, after his first mission, that all ninja clothes were made in a fibre that easily dried.

Four hours stop. Maru, Hawk, last guard. Crane, Cat, third. Snake and I, second. Dog, Lizard, first. Eat, drink now.

Naruto gratefully allowed himself to sit on the ground with a stifled grunt of exhaustion. Not bothering to mask himself with a partial transformation given the darkness of the night, the blond wolfed down a dreadfully tasteless ration bar and took a greedy swig of water of out his canteen before he curled inside his cloak and allowed sleep to take him.

Fourteen hours ago, he had been in Konoha, receiving the second mission of his career, and the first one where he was sure to see combat and kill for the first time. He had no time to contemplate further as his exhaustion was too great to allow him to dwell on unnecessary thoughts.

Naruto awoke with a start a second before he felt Cat touch his shoulder in order to wake him up. The blond stifled a string of expletives and displaced his mask slightly to rub his sleep-addled eyes before he splashed his face with some water from his canteen. Shaking himself like a startled dog, the boy eventually replaced all his equipment as it should be and flared his chakra gently to open his tenketsus that sleep had closed off.