Despite the mystery surrounding the meteorite of Hoshigakure, I decided to avoid the two shinobi for now.
It simply wasn't the time for such distractions. However, I did promise myself that I would return in the future and figure out the secrets of their special chakra and magic rock.
For now, however, I simply adjusted my pace just slightly, ensuring that we wouldn't meet with them—something all too easy as a sensor.
Such was the overwhelming advantage of information: being able to pick and choose any and all encounters.
And with this one denied, we reached the capital without any problems. Given the small and poor nation of the country, the capital didn't compare to that of the Land of Fire at all. But even as a sparsely populated nation, it had its noble class who held all the wealth and power, so the city was still far beyond the small villages we had passed through so far.
Honestly, I was pretty happy with being back in a larger city, a place where one could get a proper bath and meal. Sure, thanks to the magic of storage scrolls, I could carry around a couple of nice beds, but a real inn still just hit different.
So, once again, we found ourselves distracted by everything the city had to offer: the local cuisine and other shopping opportunities. I always did enjoy seeing more of the world. There was so much that wasn't shown—wasn't explained—in the anime. So much that didn't make sense. But now, when one could see everything… well, a lot of things still didn't make much sense.
I blamed my son for that; giving out chakra to everyone was a mistake. His legacy was just rotten to the core.
The Land of Bears mainly seemed to deal with wild furs. As one would expect, given the name, there were a lot of bears, and their furs were being sold everywhere. At the Daimyō's palace, there was even a huge stuffed bear with gems for eyes in the waiting room where we stayed while we waited for them to collect the money for the bounty.
Indeed, the Land of Bears.
Still, after about a week of enjoying every kind of bear meat, we once more got back on the road.
And that was after making a massive discovery—one that still had me equally baffled and embarrassed.
I had planned the route to go from Bears to Wind, and then through Rivers back into the Land of Fire. Yet, in the capital, I looked at some more accurate maps of the area, since I knew well that most maps weren't all that accurate. This wasn't something unique to this world either; it was just a result of the limited technology of this era. Earth, too, had suffered from poor maps until the nineteenth or twentieth century.
My current maps were ones I got from my time in Konoha, and they were relatively good compared to what was available elsewhere—filled with not just civilian roads, but also shinobi trails.
But I wasn't afraid to admit that they weren't perfect in this part of the world. They were centered around Konoha's area of operation. A small and remote place, such as the Land of Bears? They barely had the location of the capital, and Hoshigakure marked.
Still, I never imagined an oversight of this magnitude: an entire country was missing on my map. My map clearly showed Bear reaching down to Wind. Yet now I learned that the Land of Mountain Streams lay between those two, completely altering my plans.
It changed the timescale of everything. It wasn't a big deal; we would just have to walk across yet another country. It was a good thing indeed that we didn't have to get anywhere in particular, or have a deadline.
As we walked on after that discovery, I could feel Kanna's amusement; she was still slightly afraid of me and still wanted to repay me for everything, but she was starting to open up. And the fact that we weren't just lost in a forest, but somehow off by an entire country, seemed to amuse her to no end.
Me making mistakes made me seem more human to her—slowly shattering my all-knowing, all-powerful image.
"So…" she began carefully, eyes forward, lips twitching. "If I understand correctly…"
I exhaled slowly through my nose. "In my defense, the map was incomplete."
"Mhm."
Karin chose that moment to gurgle happily, gnawing on the edge of her blanket, entirely unconcerned with maps, borders, or missing countries.
"Yes," I murmured, watching her. "Laugh it up. One day, the world will be very organized."
Kanna tilted her head. "You're going to fix it, aren't you?"
"Eventually."
She nodded, satisfied. "Well… at least we have time."
"Yes," I agreed, as the land ahead began to change once more. "And one more country to see."
The road sloped gently downward.
The Land of Mountain Streams was small, unimportant, and yet massively important—at least for the Land of Wind. Because while the Land of Bears had plenty of water, and many rivers carrying some of that back down south, none of it reached the great deserts.
Because the mountains here redirected all that water away.
And that was about as much as I knew about the place, which wasn't a big surprise, given I hadn't known about it at all… a very forgettable place for sure. And it did explain why Suna never went after Bear.
There was a whole country standing in the way, and it was little more than some high mountains and wet valleys—also known as rivers—carrying away every drop of water that Wind wanted and needed.
The mountains caught the rain, the valleys the rivers, and we moved with it.
The path turned into wide, worn plazas where carts were forced to slow and merge. Warehouses rose along the riverbanks, their lower levels reinforced against flooding, upper floors crowded with crates, nets, and drying racks.
This was no village.
It was a port town.
The main road from the Land of Bears ended here—not because it couldn't go farther, but because it didn't need to. Everything that passed through this place continued by water: timber bound together into massive rafts, barrels of grain and salt loaded onto barges, passengers waiting in loose clusters beneath awnings and banners marking destinations.
Mountain Streams didn't fight the terrain.
It embraced it.
Kanna slowed as we entered, eyes moving everywhere at once. "There are… a lot of people."
"Yes," I said. "It takes a lot of people to manage something like this," I added, as we watched them go about their work.
And it was indeed a lot of work to unload carts into barges. Beyond food and salt, metals and wood also came down. Shipments all the way from the Land of Valleys changed hands here.
Indeed, this was likely the heart of wealth for this entire region. Not the capital of the nation, but still one of its beating hearts.
The river itself was wide here, split into controlled channels by stone embankments and wooden guides. Ferries moved constantly back and forth—flat-bottomed vessels designed for stability, not speed—loaded with travelers, animals, and cargo alike.
This was how people crossed Mountain Streams.
Not by climbing.
By floating.
I guided us toward the ferry platform, passing merchants shouting prices, porters hauling loads with practiced efficiency, guards in simple uniforms watching more for theft than violence.
Kanna hesitated when she realized where we were headed.
"…That's a boat," she said, not quite a question.
"Yes."
She stared at it.
Unlike the rivercraft farther upstream, this one was large, broad, and crowded. People stood shoulder to shoulder, carts rolled aboard, animals snorted nervously as handlers soothed them.
"It's moving," she said again.
"It will continue to do so."
She swallowed. "With people on it."
"That is the purpose."
She shot me a look that suggested I was being deliberately unhelpful.
Karin, for her part, was delighted. She leaned forward in Kanna's arms, reaching toward the water, making small excited noises.
"No," Kanna said immediately, pulling her back. "Absolutely not."
I paid the fare and stepped aboard without hesitation. The ferry didn't change under the weight of a single person.
Not that it calmed Kanna down.
"Come," I said, offering my hand.
"But Kaguya-hime… I can't swim," she whispered nervously.
"No need to worry. If the boat sinks, I will freeze the river, and we can just walk the entire way." Swimming was indeed not a common skill. Even I couldn't really swim.
But instead, I had chakra. I could walk on water, and I could manipulate myself around in ways far superior to swimming. And if the worst did happen, I could freeze the whole thing.
I sighed softly and kept my hand extended.
"Kanna," I said evenly, "if this boat were prone to sinking, it would not be transporting livestock, cargo, and half the regional economy on a daily basis."
"That doesn't make me feel better," she said faintly.
Karin kicked her feet happily, utterly convinced this was the best idea anyone had ever had.
"The ferry is shallow-drafted," I continued, patient despite myself. "Broad-bottomed. It rides the current rather than fighting it. Even if something were to go wrong—"
"You would freeze the river," she finished.
"Yes."
"…The entire river."
"If necessary."
She stared at me.
Then, very carefully, she stepped onto the ferry, gripping my hand with surprising strength.
The boat shifted slightly under her weight. Not dangerously—just enough to remind her that this was, in fact, water beneath us.
She froze.
I did not.
After a few long seconds, she exhaled shakily and loosened her grip by a fraction. "It's… not moving much."
"It will," I said. "That's the point."
We found space along the side, near a stack of secured crates. Kanna sat stiffly, knees drawn in, one arm protectively around Karin, who was far more interested in the reflections dancing on the water's surface than in her mother's existential terror.
The horn sounded—low and resonant—and the lines were cast off.
The ferry began to drift.
At first, it was almost imperceptible. Then the port slowly slid away, stone embankments giving way to carved terraces and reinforced walls guiding the flow downstream.
Kanna swallowed again. "…We're really moving."
"Yes."
She squeezed her eyes shut for a heartbeat, then opened them again, forcing herself to look.
The river widened ahead, fed by countless streams cascading down from the mountains. Waterfalls glittered in the distance, catching the sunlight as mist rose like breath from the earth itself.
It was beautiful.
After a while, Kanna relaxed just enough to notice.
"…It's quiet," she said softly.
"For a place this busy," I agreed. "Water carries sound away."
She watched the current pull us forward, tension slowly draining from her shoulders. "So this whole country just… lets the rivers do the work?"
"Yes. Roads for what must move against gravity. Water for everything else."
She nodded slowly, absorbing that. "That's… smart."
"Efficiency is its own form of power," I said.
Karin chose that moment to clap her hands, delighted as the ferry rocked gently over a change in current.
Kanna laughed—quietly, surprised by herself.
"I think," she said after a moment, "this might be my favorite mistake so far."
I allowed myself a small smile.
The ferry continued downstream, carrying us deeper into the Land of Mountain Streams, where roads vanished into water, and the mountains watched in silence.
(End of chapter)
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