Chapter 123

We moved on late at night, when even the rare animals inhabiting the barren land of Tsuchi no Kuni preferred to sleep in their burrows. Presumably, the same goes for most enemy shinobi, so the risk of detection is significantly reduced. Of course, making our way through rocky terrain in almost complete darkness, with the moon and stars completely hidden by the cloudy sky, is not as great as it might seem from the outside, but providing a substantial amount of chakra to our eyes allows us to see at least a little. The only downside is that my teammates' eyes appear as two bottomless voids in the darkness. Except for Hizashi—his eyes glow in the dark like two faint lanterns due to the excess chakra. It looks pretty cool.

Having managed to reach the marked gorge after a bit more time than calculated (try finding your way when you can only distinguish the contours of the surroundings!), and with some injuries to our feet from unnoticed boulders underfoot, we gratefully stopped for a short rest and to wait for dawn.

Trying to reach the bottom of the gorge in complete darkness would be the act of a suicide or fool, considering the nearly vertical walls. One wrong move and you could easily fall down; the bottom is at least thirty meters below and no one has prepared a soft landing pad.

Indicating for us to follow his lead, Hizashi approached the edge of the gorge and began to descend the sheer wall calmly, clinging to it with his hands and feet, thus using three points of contact at any moment and not even attempting to look cool by trying to walk down as a novice might.

Following his example, I quickly saw the wisdom of this approach—the rock of the gorge was sandy and crumbled quite easily, so it could have detached from the main mass under the weight of a shinobi and sent overly confident individuals down much faster than desired. Damn, it's clear that Hizashi has spent many years fighting in such terrain.

Despite the crawling movement, we reached the bottom quite quickly and then proceeded almost like on a gravel road—the sandstone breaks into pieces upon falling, forming a rather convenient strip of gravel at the bottom of the gorge, allowing us to walk without fear of injuring our feet. The stupid open-toed sandals so popular with shinobi in Konoha are obviously unsuitable for such terrain.

The thin layer of chakra around the feet helps, but not when every drop of chakra needs to be conserved and we have to avoid enemy shinobi. That's why we sometimes had to stop and tend to our teammates' scratched toes. Such scrapes heal quickly even for ordinary people, but we had to be careful about the scent as well, since even some shinobi can smell blood from a considerable distance, not to mention various trained animals or summons.

Rising from my knees and brushing off Rotaro's grateful nod, I promised myself that as soon as I encountered a suitable Iwagakure shinobi with proper boots and the right size—I would definitely change my shoes to avoid further discomfort. The constant presence of sand and pebbles in my shoes is really unpleasant.

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