on the road... for the first time

Hello to everyone who reads this, which I'm convinced is no one as there were exactly three answers to the previous chapter's question, to be fair, I did forget to put that question in when I initially uploaded the chapter, and you don't have any obligation to answer my question either way.

But that is not what I want to talk about today, what I want to talk about is that there was no chapter on the 18th. Well, that would be because I realized last minute in chapter ten that having Anno actually pull off the heist would make Konoha, and by extension, all ninja villages, look pathetic, so the whole, 'let's send him to Kiri' was a bit of a twist for me too, so I took an extra week to plan out the new storyline and such, but yeah, I'm pretty satisfied with how that turned out, seems more interesting than just having him go through the standard stuff.

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I was pacing around in Hokage's office as I thought over the mission I had to accept in order to ever see my friends again, before finally stopping to speak with a strained smile "So, while I really do appreciate the opportunity you've given me, you know, getting what I can only assume is, at the very least, an A-rank mission that I have astronomically small odds of actually succeeding in, instead of getting my memories taken away to live the rest of my life as a farmer. I would still like some info on how I'm supposed to infiltrate a village full of shinobi, because, from everything I've learned in the academy, Kiri shinobi sound like a particularly paranoid bunch, even more so than other shinobi, which makes this whole mission into a particularly complicated way to execute me"

"I do apologize for not being more clear, but you aren't going to kirigakure itself, because if you did, you would be hunted down faster than you can imagine, you will be going to the capital of the land of water, the city where the daimyo resides with all his advisers. You see, we think that the problem in kiri is far larger than any before, and as such, while it won't be as clear to see as it would be in kiri itself, you should be able to sniff out whatever is causing kiri to isolate themselves from the rest of the world" the Hokage explained, his voice serious.

"ok, quick question, how exactly do I come into contact with the people who know anything? Because while I do like the idea of not going to the place where half the population is either a shinobi or a retired shinobi, I have to assume that only the upper echelons of society would know anything about whatever is going on, since even the most obvious shinobi conflict is still a shinobi conflict" I asked, still keeping the smile on my face.

The Hokage chuckled before answering "true, and that is why we have made arrangements with a merchant" he grimaced before continuing "he is corrupt, self-serving, flagrantly illegal, and greedy beyond anything I have seen before, he is also, however, the only merchant willing to take part in this mission in any way. You will be posing as his son, there to make business offers to the land of water's elites, understood?" he asked after explaining to me that one of the people who would know my secret would be horribly corrupt

"yes I think so… I fully understand the purpose of my mission," I said seriously "this is, in fact, a particularly complicated way to execute me," I said with as much joviality as I could muster.

And with that, I immediately set off on my mission, with only the clothes on my back, my own determination, and a backpack filled with storage scrolls holding everything I could possibly need, including weapons, fuinjutsu books, and fuinjutsu materials. wandering towards the land of noodles to meet the merchant who would pose as my father, and experiencing the fun and adventure-filled lifestyle of a traveler. With wildly entertaining activities like, sleeping on the cold December ground, having my tent collapse on top of me because of snow, moving down the road for hours on end, with absolutely nothing to do, and disgracing all chefs in existence by using my level eighty-three cooking skill on meal-bags.

there was one thing I did learn from my escapade in the library. I am nowhere near ready to survive this world, like, at all. So, I trained, and I trained harder than I ever did back in Konoha, when I woke up in the morning, I studied fuinjutsu, and as it turns out, fuinjutsu is a lot less like writing a sentence on what you want your seal to do and then your seal does that. And a lot more like programming, where you write three paragraphs of text to get the momentous achievement of getting the square to jump when you poke it, then you remember that you actually want the square to jump forwards, then you write that in and it somehow interferes with everything you've written previously and now you're stuck reworking the whole damn thing. Then after hours of hard work spread over days of effort, and then it finally succeeds and it jumps forwards once… when you wanted it to do so for as long as the chakra allowed, so you write in that It needs to keep jumping and GUESS WHAT! It somehow interferes with everything you wrote before once again, except this time it's harder to fix because it's more complicated… I really need someone to rant to… I wonder if I could try making a rock that hummed in agreement when you ranted at it? Or would I just end up committing suicide from trying something so complicated… I cannot express how much I regret getting sent on a suicide mission for this garbage magic-ritual-rune-programing system, I really should have just stuck with fireballs, they are so much more fun.

On the bright side, the burst of happiness from getting it to actually jump for as long as It had chakra left from what I gave it to activate is a degree of emotion I had never felt before… which was immediately overshadowed by the absolute despair I felt as my jumping cube did its job a little too well and jumped off a cliff, then, just to make it sting that extra little bit, the 'script' got destabilized and the project I poured my heart and soul into exploded before my eyes, getting me back to square one on the 'combat cube' project… god damn fuinjutsu.

This whole thing with… the cube… did allow me to learn why fuinjutsu is called what it's called, as it means 'the sealing arts', even though it is capable of so much more than just sealing things. And that would be because it's a lot easier to restrict someone from doing anything than it is to get something to, for example, jump forwards. Not easy mind you, just easier, because why in the world would anything related to fuinjutsu be easy.

Then, after finally getting fed up with fuinjutsu for the day I started the more physical side of my training, which starts off with interval running for as long as I possibly can, then collapsing when I reach a place to camp, and when I get that tiny sliver of energy back I immediately stand up and do upper body exercises, well, I try to stand up, there was a couple of times where my legs weren't cooperating. And then I sit down and try to make the meal bags as appealing as possible, which is hard even with a high-level cooking skill.

Then comes the fun part, because now, I get to play with sharp objects.

The realization had hit me a couple of days ago, that, if I want to be 'Anno the artificer' I needed to be able to use the amazing weapons I would surely create, you know, if I don't end up going mad and starting a crusade to destroy all fuinjutsu. So, because I don't see myself descending into an empty abyss where the only thing I am capable of hearing is my own madness, I started to train in as many weapons as possible, from the standard shinobi set of kunai, shuriken, and my fists, to senbon, tanto, and, while I don't remember all that much about my old life, I do remember that I always preferred European longswords over katanas, so I also trained with one of those.

After long, long weeks filled with training and learning fuinjutsu, I finally made it to the merchant's office, down by the docks in a town near the edge of the land of noodles, and the closest point from the landmass Konoha is part of, to the archipelago that makes up the land of water. However, when I looked at the name on top of the building, I suddenly realized that I forgot to ask exactly who I was pretending to be the son of, and when I looked at the name on the sign, a sinking feeling of dread took root in me. As, even though I pride myself as an optimist, I don't think there are many ways to interpret 'Gato company' other than as the company owned by Gato.

"great, the person who knows a secret that could easily get me killed is Gato, the guy stupid and greedy enough to betray one of the seven swordsmen of the mist when he was fifty meters away, but I'm sure I'll be fine, after all, I'm a genin in another country, surely that will scare him enough to not sell me out" I mumbled sarcastically to myself as I walked in to meet the biggest bastard in Naruto.

The second I walked in a man walked up to me, looked me up and down, sneered, then turned around clearly expecting me to follow him.

I walked up to the huge ostentatious doors, there were no carvings on them, as Gato clearly valued showing off over having good doors. We entered Gato's office and the first thing that struck me about the room was its size, and to be completely honest, the size of everything inside the office. The room was large, in the clearly unnecessary way unique to rich people who needed everyone around them to know that they had more money than you. The furniture inside the room mirrored the room in that it too was unnecessarily large, except that with the furniture it wasn't just unnecessary, it was also impractical for short people, including dear old dad as he sat on his throne of a chair, looking down on me as I entered. Clearly, the room was designed with the idea of making any guest feel as small as possible when entering.

"So, you're the child posing as my son," he said, voice dripping with what sounded like arrogance initially, but then I realized that It wasn't quite right, he didn't think he was amazing, he just thought I was an absolute nobody, that I was worse than the dirt beneath his feet.

I, of course, answered with a smile "well, I would say yes, but someone recently told me that I should stop making fun of myself so I sadly can't, although, it wouldn't really be making fun of myself, as saying to someone that they were your son can only be understood as the cruelest of insults, not fun in the slightest" His face flushed with rage, before settling into a scowl as I smirked at him.

"I would normally kill you for saying something like that to me, but in this particular case, I feel like it would just be a waste of time. After all, when you go into high society with that kind of quick tongue, well, it will only be a matter of time before you insult the wrong person and get killed for it" he snapped, clear fury in his voice.

He was trying to portray himself as some kind of cool-headed businessman, but it was easy to see the rage in his eyes. It was obvious that the real reason he hadn't killed me was because he knew he couldn't when Konoha would know it was him.

We stood in silence for a while until the vein in his forehead stopped throbbing and he calmed enough to speak "I have a residence in the capital you can use, you will leave there tomorrow, find your own place to sleep until then, now leave" with that, he dismissed me and went back to his work, not even waiting for me to leave.

So, I left, going out into the forest to camp for yet another night.

I was waiting on the docks for the ship that was supposed to carry me on my first voyage across the… however many seas there are, seas. The port was full of activity as ships came and went sailing to and from the town, looked at all the ships as I walked around looking for mine until I finally found it waiting for me. I walked onboard and went directly to the captain as the crew glared darkly at me, the glares only intensified when I boarded the ship for some reason.

"So, you're the son of that bastard, huh? Thought you'd be shorter and slimier" the captain said gruffly as I was just about to greet him.

I decided that the best way to avoid getting killed in my sleep would be with a fuinjutsu warning system, sadly, at my current skill level I would have to sleep before I managed to create that, so I went with good old reliable- no, that doesn't work anymore, good old roguish charm "the proper term would be the bastard's bastard since he only recently discovered my existence and had the great idea to make me his heir, I think it was a horrible plan, personally, but that's more because it involved me meeting and getting involved with that, well, I would say person, but that implies a level of human decency that he doesn't seem to have" ok, maybe less roguish charm and more mocking Gato, but hey, judging by the laughing crew it worked.

Like so we set off, towards the land of water, and to be completely honest I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get attacked by a single sea serpent. Not that it would have mattered since I spent all my time in my cabin working on some kind of weapon that wouldn't be discovered immediately, which may sound easy but really isn't. the problem is that while a storage scroll sounds like an easy solution, it doesn't work because it would create a bulge, and any bodyguard would immediately notice that and take it from me. Well, any shinobi bodyguard, but I have to assume that all high-ranking officials have shinobi bodyguards, and it's high-ranking officials I'm trying to spy on. So even if I could sneak a storage scroll into a meetup of some minor noble's seventh son's birthday, it would be a bit like being the biggest chihuahua, it would still be a chihuahua.

Eventually, I had an idea, it would be hard to make but not impossible, I mean, the intricate metalwork will be harder than anything I have ever made before now, it will actually be incomparable, and the fuinjutsu will break my will to live, but if I succeed it will be such a cool weapon.

And like that, my journey continued, until finally, I arrived, completely ready to tackle the difficulties of high society, I mean sure, have they grown up in a life ruled by social intricacies I know nothing of? Yes. Have they been thought to scheme for their entire life? Yes. But, I can… I… I can make a jumping cube? Huh… maybe I'm not as ready as I thought… eh, how horribly can it possibly go?