Chapter 38 - N

"Not close to the cities."

"Okay."

"Possibly near to some lake."

"Okay."

"If you can find any close to where I separated from my friends that would be awesome."

"I'll try, though I'm not good with maps. Do you know where we are?"

"Uh, I think we're close to… here?"

Clementine hums for a bit and it's not until a couple of minutes have passed that she says, "There's one cotton factory that looks big around here. There's a prison here and a farm there. Those are the closest, what do you think?"

"The farm is too open. The cotton factory, I don't know. Its walls don't sound too reliable. The only prison I went was pretty safe and easy to protect. Not to mention there must be cells for the prisoners and we can use them as rooms. There must be a kitchen and infirmary. It's probably better equipped. The downside is that all the people inside must have been turned so it must be pretty infested."

Clementine looks at him, clearly expecting his decision, "So…"

Naruto sighs. "The prison it is."

"So we go around this direction?"

"Yeah, we've to eventually find it. Maybe we can get someone to help us read the map better in the way."

"So east?"

"Well, it looks that way."

-

-

Naruto still tries to contact with the others and train on his chakra control. Clementine always looks at him when he does that, curious about the process and awed at what he does. She hasn't said much of her past but he can see it's affected her deeply. He's never been too good at lying so he doesn't try to hide anything. She seems to take comfort on that because sometimes she imparts him with some lessons his friend Lee gave her. Or some moments she shared with his parents.

She's smart though, sometimes eerily so. Not in a genius kind of way but in the kind of way one gains from experience. It's scary because she's just ten years old. But she's a good kid.

"Did you hear that?" she asks lowly, looking at him from the corner of her eyes before looking at the meat they've been trying to fry. "Walkers?"

Naruto shakes his head and shrugs. He can smell anything but that can be because of the faint smoke. "Maybe they're people attracted by the food?"

She looks at him dubiously, but they both decide to quench the fire off with dirt, until there's no smoke coming from their campfire.

"Hide inside behind that tree."

They've already discussed how things will work in these kind of cases so even if she protested at first, she doesn't at the moment. She hides instead, following his instructions.

The sounds are nearer and Naruto tenses. The familiar scent comes at the same time he sees two zombies walking forward without arms and jaws. They stumble towards them but Naruto's too dumbfounded at the sight and he doesn't think as he lazily throws a kunai into one of their brains.

There's the familiar sound of metal clashing against a skull but instead of the zombie falling down like a puppet with its strings cut, the body is thrown away into Naruto's path. He evades easily and it's thanks to the constant fights he's had with Sasuke that makes him ready for the sword that comes next.

"I don't want to fight," he says at the woman in front of him that reminds him of Karui. She's wearing a hoodie that smells like the zombies but he gets the feeling she's not one of them. There's another behind with a similar hoodie holding the weird weapon Clementine named gun, blonde like him.

"You were the one who killed my walker."

"Hey! You're the one that scared me with the zombies!" Naruto stops his shouts, his kunai is still in front of him as he still tilts his head. "What the zombies are for, anyways?"

The blonde is the one that answers. "They mask our scent."

"Oh, that's smart." Naruto lowers his kunai, but his posture never leaves its readiness even as he scratches the back of his head. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. My name's Naruto."

There are long seconds of silence before the Karui-look alike speaks, not lowering her sword. "Michonne. She's Andrea."

"Uh, well, nice to meet you?" He looks down at the food they were cooking. It's enough for four, he decides before smiling at them. "So! Do you want to eat with us? We've enough for all and the more the merrier, as they say."

Michonne raises an eyebrow. "We?"

"Yeah. You're hungry, right?"

There's another long silence before Andrea lowers her gun and takes a step forward, explaining. "You said 'us' and 'we', I only see you here."

Naruto blinks. He looks towards the tree. "Clem, they don't seem like bad people."

The girl comes out and gives a small, nervous smile. "Hello. My name's Clementine."

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