Chapter 45 - Leaving Konoha again (1/2)
It was finally the day of Minato's departure. He and 31 other genins were to go to the Land of River to bring war resources to a camp of Konoha there. Furthermore, they were led by only a single Chunin, making the trip a bit risky. Unfortunately, Konoha could not spare more manpower to those supply tasks.
Looking at the caravans, Minato's lips couldn't help but twitch. 'I forgot that before Kushina became proficient in Fuuinjutsu, people here were not good at it at all. Mito gave them the way to create those sealing scrolls, but they never bothered to learn it with Uzushio supplying them, so Konoha so-called seal masters are mediocre at best and can't create a lot of them. If they were not so lousy, genins will not have to go to the battlefield to supply food and weapons, they could have brought scrolls full of them, but for now, they are far from enough of them to seal all those things. What an unsightly sight, they can smatch mountains but not create better transportation device'
Thankfully, he put on a backpack like everyone, if he just came with scrolls, he would have been the odd one in the lot. Furthermore, he doesn't want to become a sealing scroll factory for Konoha if people came to know that he was good at that. It's only now that he became aware that if he was not loaded, Jiraya would have been suspicious as to how he acquired such scrolls, because of the high price for normal people to acquire one due to its rarity.
'Hopefully, they will not force anything on Kushina. If not, I will have to clash heads with the higher-ups, even if it blows my perfect Konoha citizen image, there is no way that I will let anything happen to her'
From the ȧduŀt Minato's memories, he gleaned that Kushina was coaxed with beautiful words to teach some Fuuinjutsu to some of Konoha's shinobi. She thought that it was because of the Kyuubi that they gave her this teaching task instead of missions, but she didn't see that all they wanted was her knowledge, not giving her the chance to prove herself and be useful to Konoha.
'I will not let Kushina give them some of her time, those people are too greedy for their own good. Give them an inch and they will take your vɨrġɨnɨtƴ. Well, it's not like she is as naive as before so I doubt she will be tricked this time around'
”Ok! The loading is complete, we're ready to depart!” exclaimed the chunin in charge. The workers put the last box of provisions inside the last cart and closed it. The chunin Chisato then directed four genin to each side of the four different carts. The one behind pushing it, with the two on the side helping the caravan not derail from the road, and the one in the front helping clear the passage and slow it down in case of slope.
They then set off at civilian speed, making it a minimum of a week's journey. During the travel, the genins pushing the caravan were changed every two hours, making Minato aggrieved to have to be reduced to such a state. 'What emperor of the universe, I look more like a slave miner. Hiruzen, hurry up and promote me to Chunin rank'
He passed the day working on his chakra sense, refining it and at the same time looking out for anything out of place, unable to count on the chunin in case of ambush, seeing his guard down just because they were still in the Fire country near Konoha.
'Aaah, Danzo doesn't know how to quit. This unfeeling feeling that I sense with my Hyper Intuition... He has one of his agents to follow me. Well, it doesn't really matter in the end. He wants me alive and not dead, and it's not like the guy that stalks me can kill me if I give my all to escape.' Ignoring his stalker, because it's not like he could do anything about it, he continued to train.
When his chakra was half of his total, he stopped using chakra sensing, unwilling to be defenseless in case of a battle breaking out, and instead work on his odor sensing that he acquired from Tsume, trying to distinguish odors of the surroundings.
After traveling the whole day without break, and seeing that night began to fall, Chisato exclaimed ”Ok, that's all for today, we will camp by the roadside for tonight”
Hearing that, the genins cheered, happy to be finally able to eat a true meal instead of the rations pills that filled their hunger during the day.
In no time, tents were discharged from the caravan and set up, with a campfire going strongly, surrounded by all the travel party, with small rabbits caught in the surrounding vicinity roasting on it.
The young shinobis began to talk excitedly while eating, taking this journey for a field trip. The chunin reprimanded them a bit, but was pretty relaxed too, having never experienced the horror of war. Even if he has learned it in the history books, humans don't trust what they never saw, thinking it was exaggerated.
Looking at them, Minato shook his head in disbelief. Do they not know that they have a great chance to be ambushed by enemies during the travel? Tactic number 23 of war: Cut the enemy supplies lines, weakening their soldiers.