Chapter 5

A small figure could be seen sitting on a tree stump, calmly cleaning blood of his blade. Around him were the corpses of the bandits with blood pooling around them.

The earth was scorched in multiple places but he seemed to be without any sort of burn or injury for that matter. It had taken him no more than three minutes to deal with them.

'Now is a good time to test it out.'

He opened his inventory to see the image of the first man that he took down. Tapping on the 'discard' button on his image, it disappeared from the inventory.

He waited for a few seconds to see if it would appear out of his inventory. After a full minute he had confirmed that 'discarded' things in his inventory cannot be recovered. He fought down the grin that threatened to show.

'This makes things a lot more convenient.'

Although killing is mostly frowned upon in this world, he is not of the same mindset. Maybe it was the original Sasuke's influence but he wasn't naive enough to leave loose end untied.

Repeating the same process for the rest of the corpses, the only evidence of them being there were the small pools of blood on the ground.

Fortunately for him they didn't harm the ostrich horse or things would get complicated. Traveling on foot wouldn't be effective neither would it be practical.

Mounting the ostrich horse, he set off. He didn't bother looting the bodies because from what he was aware, the currency in the fire nation was different from the ones used in the other nations. It could cause problems if he's seen using fire nation currency especially with the state of the world.

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Night fell as he rode the now tiring ostrich horse. He had made a lot of progress, passing by two small towns during his journey. It has been a week since he left the fire nation and he had been moving forward with no time wasted.

'Aang sure made it look easy, though it is to be expected. Traveling on land is not as fast as air travel.'

Right now he really envied the future team avatar. They had it so easy Appa doing all the work. He had crossed the border of the fire nation two days ago...which was surprisingly easy to pass not counting the mental fatigue on him and the physical one on the ostrich.

Their only brake from traveling was at night when they could barely see only to wake up when the roads were visible. Traveling in the dark would be no problem for Sasuke with his sharingan but the same couldn't be said for the ostrich.

At least one good thing came out of it, he could practice some ninjutsu at night and recover while traveling. That has been the routine he's been following.

Reluctantly, he stopped for the night to give the horse some rest. The rest of the night was filled with sounds of violent chirping.

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Sasuke walked into what seemed to be a small neutral town. He had henged into a somewhat earth kingdom look. Dark brown hair, green eyes slightly tan skin and a very forgettable face.

He was a bit frustrated. Even after giving the ostrich horse some rest, it still seemed unable to travel further thus forcing him to spend another day waiting for it to recuperate.

He had spent the day extensively training and creating some exploding tags, something that would certainly come in handy in times of need. He had exhausted his chakra, creating only 15 tags but that was to be expected when you're not a master of fuinjutsu.

He woke up the next day, hoping to recover from the exhaustion on the road. He had already recovered over half of his strength during his nap. Sasuke's chakra capacity is much higher than the original's due to him starting earlier than last time and with proper knowledge and methods to boot.

He had woken up to resume his travel only to realize that the ostrich horse was dead. It apparently died in its sleep. Two days, wasted!

In frustration he set off forward on foot at comfortable but quick speed. It was afternoon and he had finally reached a town. The people inhabiting the town were somewhat friendly but there was no ignoring the slight tension.

They weren't what you would call a happy village. After asking for directions, he made his way to a blacksmith shop.

"Hello, how can I help you" called out a voice over the banging of iron. The air was very warm and not in the comfortable way. Ignoring it, he picked up a small blade laying on display.

The quality of the blade was decent. Not his ideal kind of quality but it would do for now. He turned to the man who had now stopped his banging to come attend to him.

"Hey kid, those things aren't toys for your amusement." He said, ripping the blade from his hand. "Go find somewhere else to play."

As much as they irritated him, he ignored the blacksmith's words.

"I'm here to place an order." He said calmly. The smith's brow narrowed.

"Kid if this is some sort of game, I'm not playing. Now get out of my store and stop wasting my time." He said dismissively and somewhat annoyed, well that makes tow of them.

"I guess I have no choice..." Sasuke said under his breath with his eyes closed but the man heard it. He looked a bit smug for 'figuring it out' and was about to walk away.

Sharingan!

Sasuke's eyes snapped open and crimson red orbs glowed ominously in the somewhat dark shop. The smith's body froze as he stared into his eyes. A few seconds later, his eyes reverted to their natural black color.

The smith blinked before regaining control of himself. "Sorry about that, I got a little light headed for a second. What was it you wanted to order?" He said politely.

Sasuke took out two sheets of paper out of his pocket. On it was a design for a normal kunai and shuriken while the other was that of a strange sword.

He left the shop after the smith said it would be done in a few days. His sharingan wasn't like Itachi's or Shisui's that could control people but giving them suggestions or a push in another direction was well within his abilities. The shop would be closed until he was done with Sasuke's items.

It may be selfish to do that but he doesn't care. His next goal was to find an inn to lodge for the night. Five minutes of walking and he noticed that he was being followed...by multiple people.

They had been following him since he left the smith shop. He had skimmed through some information from the smith's mind. The only people that could afford comfortably afford weapons could be counted on one hand.

The rest of them had ways of getting it. Either by stealing it or by coercing someone wealthy to get one for you. Seeing a kid no more than eight years old walking in and out of such a shop attracted a few eyes, nothing he can't handle.

He led them into a deep alley masked by the shadow.

"Come out." He said without looking back, his eyes seemingly focused on the bare wall in front of him. Not more than a second later, a voice accompanied with footsteps made itself known.

"Oh it's seems we have ourselves a smart one boys. Hahaha..." A bald man stepped into view with a crooked smile on his face. Behind him four other guys stepped out each of them holding weapons ranging from clubs to, oddly enough, chains.

"So here's how it's going to go down. You drop off everything you have on you and we just might let you live." One of them beside the baldy said with a shit eating grin before adding.

"Or maybe we can let the one of the girls have him. I know they'd love a new pet."

"So what's say you?" The bald one said. They only received silence in return.

"Look, he's so scared he can't even move." Another one said stalking towards him. Suddenly their targets young voice sounded out.

"You guys..." He started, slowly turning around to face them, red eyes coldly stared back at them causing them to have a foreign feeling in their body.

"...are really annoying." He finished as his body scattered into multiple crows. Taken aback by this, they all let out screams as they stumbled backwards, scrambling to escape.

They would have succeeded had they not began to slowly sink into the ground. They screamed as they were pulled deeper into the now muddy earth. No matter how much they screamed or struggled nobody seemed to answer their call.

Tears spilled out of their now red wide eyes as they were now neck deep into the ground. The earth seemed to want them faster as they were suddenly pulled them faster as they were completely swallowed by the earth.

The alley was now deathly silent.

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Sasuke stared in apathy as their screams died out, tears and drool leaking out of their wide eyes and mouths respectively. They laid on the floor with their bodies sprawled carelessly on the cold floor.

"Annoying." He said coldly with his sharingan active. Shutting off his eyes, he walked past them and made his way to a nearby inn.

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On the roof of the building directly in front of the alley, a young man with a shaggy appearance watched the scene with interest and fear.

"Interesting. The boss will surely want to know about this." He made to turn around when-

*PUCHI*

"cough...cough...w-w-what..." He coughed up blood as he looked down in shock at the new attachment through his chest.

"We don't need anyone know about this, do we?" He struggled to strain his neck to get a look at his soon to be killer. Green eyes met red eyes as fear spread through his entire being.

"Sleep." He didn't have a chance to say anything as his body slacked and crumpled to the ground, blood rapidly escaping from his chest wound.

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Sasuke stood at the village port. It had only taken four days for the smith to finish his orders and during that time he had found a ship that was headed to the earth kingdom.

The sword he had ordered was a replica of his kusanagi sword except that it was of far lower but for now it would work.

"All aboard." Called a Middle aged brown haired man as he waited for his passengers to come onto the ship.

"We're ready to I set sail." He said to the captain who nodded, ordering his subordinates to raise the anchor.

Sasuke stood off to the side staring into the far sea with the sword on his back.

'To the earth kingdom it is.'