Camping (Part 1)

(Again two parts because I couldn't get myself to post them before finalizing it as one. Second part comes out in ~8 hours from now.

6k words, so these are the Friday, Saturday and Sunday chapters. No chapter for Monday.

I read a lot of comments about how foolish the MC is acting and I'll be frank, I just don't see it that way. Although I understand the validity of these statements.

Hear me out. As a generic guy from earth, without any special field of expertise, our MC will do what many others would do, namely: mistakes. This entire arc will be a representation of that, that the MC is too ignorant of this new world. In a way he is 'book-smart' and not 'street-smart'.

It's one thing to read about how dangerous a bear is, another thing to actually face it and realise how fucked you are when you meet one in the wild.)

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Janaka did, in fact, not have the time to babysit him, busy as she was managing her brothel, the same brothel that was amassing more and more people, as those same people talked about his miraculous healing prowess.

So he turned towards the only person that might.

Yuya was not amused by his request. Positively glowering as he explained what may be in store for them, namely a S-Class swordsmaster. But if there was one thing he had learned over a week of tartarous training, it was that Yuya could not deny his spineless groveling, not after they have become, what some may call, fast friends. Was he feeling a certain type of way by repeatedly demeaning himself infront of a girl almost a decade younger than him? Definitely.

Actually, at first he had just plead with her to find a trustworthy escort for him. It wasn't long before Yuya got tipped off by his suspicious behavior and interrogated him about his plans in earnest. The rest was history. However, only with the assurance that they would be assisted by two equally strong ninjas and the promise that neither of them would participate in battle, did she allow him to leave, remaining adamant in joining him nonetheless.

Cole was suprised. He had made good friends over the years, some he met at the start of one day and became inseperable at the end of it. He knew chemistry existed in friendships, as it did everywhere else and some of his best pals he was joined at the hip with. Though he never expected to count Yuya among the people that would stand staunchly by his side; and she did seem offended that he hadn't come to ask her first.

He shook his head, packing away at his travel bag. In Naruto friendships just worked differently.

A lot had to be done before they could embark on their adventure. Travelling from Konoha all the way to the Land of Waves was a week-long, tortuous trek; through temperate forests first, then foggy woodlands and lastly humid marshes that opened up into a sprawling delta. They had to pack dozens of rations, multiple bedrolls, fire-starter kits, cooking ware, weapons, change of clothes, it was an endless list. Yuya made sure they had every single item, daring him to try and take a foot outside of Konoha's gates before she was done, he imagined a lot of ass-whopping would follow.

Cole knew she was right, but he couldn't help but feel impatient. His presence had caused the first major ripple and he had to witness its aftermath, only then would it be possible to extrapolate what may happen in this changed future. Anything could happen, and now he would have no warning in advance. It was... suprisingly unsettling, knowing that he was going in blind, although he tried coming to terms that the story he knew would inevitably be re-written. Another thought reared its ugly head, sneaking into his consciousness like a slippery eel: the wish to be present and the fore-knowledge that he would feel responsibile for eventual fatalities. That was... a selfish idiot's heroism speaking, but he couldn't free himself of the thought. In his heart of heart's he knew, if someone were to die, he would hold himself accountable.

It was incredibly awkward, packing little utilities away for their travels, all the while the feeling of doing something wrong and being where he shouldn't was whittling away at him. Leaving to stick close to the ninja that managed to duke it out with a fully-charged, Ten-Tails Jinchuriki Madara assuaged his taut nerves a bit.

"Let's go." Yuya tapped his shoulder, carrying nothing apart from a little satchel filled with sealing scrolls, wherein their tools and amenities had been stored. Her eyes were determined and fully aware of the risks this adventure entailed.

Cole gave himself a few wake-up slaps, their sharp sting being exactly what he needed. He stood up and slung over his very own, lightweight shoulder bag. He couldn't keep sulking, not with someone like Yuya putting her trust in him.

He fell in line beside Yuya and stopped at Konoha's southern gate. That sense of dread grew and settled around his heart for a final goodbye. Yuya rolled her eyes and pulled at his arm, walking through the gate with aplomb.

The first steps, underneath the midday sun on travelled roads, left him a bit on edge. He feared he might keep thinking about the thousand possible worst-case scenarios that might not only ruin him, but everyone else as well.

That had been an hour ago, and the edge had been whittled away into boredom. He watched the trees pass, felt the dirt crunch underneath his boots and listened to the sound of the overgrowth all around him. He was neither a zoologist nor a botanist, so he couldn't really appreciate the alien flora and fauna, and it quickly turned into a constant droning of noise that did a good job of quieting his mind. His eyes wandered, fixing on Yuya, who silently marched along. He looked at her, really looked; at the way she carried herself, at her lively eyes, at the confidence she exuded. The girl was a peculiar sort, tiny but fierce, sometimes talkative, othertimes deathly-quiet and overall quick to anger. Her growth was astounding, not quite at his supernatural level, but incredibly rapid nevertheless. Obviously, working at the brothel was more time-consuming of a job than he assumed. She was much stronger than she gave herself credit for, and was so easy to tease.

Cole quirked his lips.

"Hey Yuya..." She turned towards him. Knowing what was about to happen there was imprecation in her eyes. "Care to explain why you are so damn small?"

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The beast hummed its bedeviling tune, zipping past palm strikes like it was made of water. It had one, single-minded purpose, quenching its thirst for liquid crimson. Its weapon of choice, a needle-like apendage honed in on its opponent's vitals, moving past clumsy defenses and sinking deep into plump flesh. The taste was sinfully sweat and fired up its hunger for more, all the while a shadow loomed above.

Cole swatted the rice-grain-sized mosqiuito away, entirely uninterested at whatever mutant malaria-strain the buzzing hellspawn was carrying. It hadn't been the first blasted creature that tried to sneak a sip of his precious blood, and it certainly won't be the last. The journey towards the Land of Waves was turning out to be a great torment in and of itself. Despite their relative proximity to Konoha, a day and a half away now, the heat had already become sweltering underneath the stiffling trees.

"How can these things get so fucking large, its disgusting. They might get even larger than you, Yu." He draged a hand across his face, coming away with a wet sheen of sweat. He flicked it off. "God I hate this place. It's so fucking humid."

Yuya swiveled around and had violence in her eyes. She looked just as drenched and miserable as he was, her mohawk sticking messily over her brow in slick strands of dirt-blonde hair. "Could you stop grousing like a bitch for 2 seconds? You are what, twenty? And you can't handle a bit of humidity?" She was downright fuming. Cole couldn't stop himself and ran a finger along her stubbly undercut as he walked by.

"What can I say, unlike you, chrome dome, I have this long and luscious and gorgeously curled hair and all this moisture is killing my style." Part of him was giggling, even as a murderous Yuya stomped up at him, another part was cursing himself out as she literally kicked his ass. Cole put a hand up to shield his eyes, acting out a far-away look, glancing over her punching and kicking form. "Huh... What the hell keeps tickling me." He mumbled - until it actually started hurting. "OW! OW! I'm sorry!"

Yuya huffed and gave him a final kick for good measure. "Call me that one more time and I'll beat your ass black and blue."

Cole rubbed his sore behind and gave her his smarmiest smile. He'd take a bit of pain and banter over boredom any day of the week. On second thought though, with her increasing strength he didn't know for how much longer he could endure Yuya's violent ribbing.

By habit he used Insight.

---

Name: Cole Marin

Title:

Sex: Male

Age: 22

Health: 290/290

Vitality: 29

Strength: 22

Agility: 24

Perception: 22

---

Name: Yuya

Title:

Sex: Female

Age: 14

Level: 24

Health: 220/220

Chakra Reserve: 180/180

Vitality: 22

Chakra: 18

Strength: 22

Agility: 27

Perception: 30

Intelligence: 25

Ailments:

Emotions: Excited, Nervous, Exhausted

Lore: Having lost both her parents and sister in the Nine-Tailed Beast's attack, Yuya was destined to succumb to neglect. Through a fortuitous encounter she has fallen under the care of the proprietess of The Dancing Cherry Blossom ever since. Early on she displayed substantial talent in ninjutsu and attempts to fit in as much training as she can in-between her odd-jobs at the brothel. After Cole Marin healed the brothel's workers she has become more engrossed than ever in her training thanks to her freed up schedule.

---

That his Vitality was so far ahead in comparison to his other stats testified for Yuya's... effective, if radical, training measures.

Regretably, Cole hadn't yet come much closer to integrating Aeon into active battle, but regularly maintaining the skill outside of combat for an entire week at least granted him one additional level.

The difference in durability was substantial. Whereas his skin had the consistency of soft leather before, now it was akin to the rough hide of a rhino or suchlike - naturally that was just an assumption on his part, having never handled a rhino after all. In his armored state Cole could comfortably weather half a minute of Yuya's full-powered whaling, although the reveberations left him queasy and moving more than a few steps broke his concentration and dissolved his transformation.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't happy about both of their advancements. It certainly allayed his concerns that he would be falling behind.

Yuya took that moment to place a hand on his shoulder and pulled him closer.

"We are being watched." She whispered gravely. A kunai appeared in one, and three shurikens in the other hand, clenched between her fingers; her eyes surveyed the treeline in suspicion.

A moment later Cole followed suit, whiplashed from the sudden developement. After clumsily unbelting one of his own kunai he scanned the looming woodlands. Hip-high reeds dipped low and rose back up with the drafts, leaves rustled to an incomprehensible tune and the cacophony of wildlife - the wall of green foliage and brown bark stared back at him, unimpressed.

He held his weapon nervously, gripping tight enough that his nails dug into the heel of his hand. Frigid trembles ran across his back even though his body was a furnace. Would he, any moment now, battle his first opponent? To the death?! Was he prepared for the violence, the parting throes of a dying man? Watching someone's life drain from their eyes. His gut tied into a nauseus knot. 'This is what you trained for.' He screamed in his head. 'You knew what would happen going into this.' He couldn't reason with his panic. The shadows within the trees stretched ominously, rotten boughs pointed his way like skeletal fingers. His heart was racing, his eyes flitting left and right.

Yuya checked him with her hip and clicked her tongue. "Relax. We can do this." She had a reckless smile on her face, big enough to dimple her cheeks and show off her teeth. She was as brusque as always, because it had been expected of her by herself. Otherwise she wouldn't have survived the horrors of her childhood. "Right. We can do this." Cole whispered back and a part of him meant it. The grip on his kunai lightened, his bunched shoulders loosened away from his neck and breathing became easier.

Grass crunched softly, a sharp exhale sounded from the far distance and from right beside him. There was the sound of screeching air and a muted thud. Cole winced and that was all it took to miss it. The drum of feather-soft steps was the only warning he got. His subconscious mind sublimated the sensations into a single emotion, a dawning terror, and a presence behind him.

By instinct and through ingrained reflexes he spun around, arm first, leading with the needle-tip of the kunai; murder was the farthest thing from his mind right now, his blood flooded with adrenaline. Lay on Hands was readied within him, familiar golden light welling inside his chest. Then his head came around, snapping towards their assailant. In his periphery he saw Yuya flicker and appear a good ten feet above the ground and behind the sudden presence, shurikens tearing through the air. She flickered once more, following a short distance behind her projectiles and spearing forward with her kunai.

Cole recognized the masked man for who he was and begged his arm to stop. Although his roiling unease abated, the momentum carried his weapon on and the gleaming tip of the kunai came precariously close to Kakashi's face. Awareness dilated his feeling of time and in a moment of unnatural clarity he wondered if that would be Kakashi's end, killed by some idiot with a pointy spade.

Then the moment passed and Kakashi moved like lightning incarnate.

Cole had, fortunately, never seen lightning up close, only the whitewashed effluence of light or the thin and spindly arcs of static in still images, but the comparison felt right.

The man was a blur, a bolt of petrol green and grey. The sound of ringing metal was drowned out by Kakashi's howling steps, rippling like a phantom and twisting inhumanly, throwing dirt into the air and rumbling the ground like an earthquake made human.

Shurikens richochetted this way and that, far away from them. Kakashi spun and snaked towards the airborne Yuya. She yelped as she was led around by Kakashi with one arm and directed face-first into him. Cole's own arm was grappled painfully and an irresistable force pulled him into Yuya's unfortunate flight path. Head on she collided with his gut like a human torpedo and both toppled into a heap of limbs, Cole wheezing for air and Yuya scrambling on top of him. A moment passed where his heart was still beating painfully in his chest and ears, then he let his head slump to the ground and exhaled.

Cole supposed nothing serious had happened and was relieved to see a familiar face. He would have felt pretty dumb about squeezing his eyes shut and begging Kakashi for mercy. The dull, throbbing ache in his gut and wrist had mostly recovered from his first encounter with the aptly coined 'Cylcops'. He was still clinging onto Yuya, who twisted and hissed at Kakashi like an angry cat.

Kakashi leaned over them, his sheer presence pressing the both of them into a packed ball of people, his one eye smiling. "Surprise." He drew the vowels and the thread of tension broke truly. Cole groaned and Yuya cursed under her breath.

After an awkward pause, in which Cole untangled himself from Yuya, they were asked to follow. Cole regarded her, moping and kicking away at pebbles, and pat her on the back, no way in hell could they have beaten Kakashi - he kept the sarcastic paroting of: 'Relax. We can do this.' to himself.

Kakashi beelined from the dirt road and into the underbrush, through the brambles and the swinging stalks. Underneath all the detritus of dead leaves and snagged branches was unmistakingly a hiking trail, an unexpectedly solid ground, and the deeper they went the more the treetops parted.

Cole used the silence to do something he had always been waiting for. 'Insight'. His eyes crackled like embers at the mental order.

---

Name: Kakashi Hatake

Title: Kakashi of the Sharingan, Friend-Killer Kakashi

Sex: Male

Age: 26

Level: 193

Health: 1660/1660

Chakra Reserve: 1930/1930

Vitality: 166

Chakra: 193

Strength: 153

Agility: 187

Perception: 170

Intelligence: 280

Ailments: Sharingan Transplant (Stabilised)

Emotions: Intrigued, Tensed, Astonished

Lore: Kakashi is the son of Sakumo Hatake, Konoha's White Fang, and an impressive ninja in his own right. Through hard-work and talent Kakashi became a Jōnin at age 12 and would thereafter become an Anbu captain. During the Third Shinobi World War Kakashi suffered the loss of Rin Nohara and the presumed death of Obito Uchiha, the latter of which would bestow Kakashi his Sharingan. Having lost his two best friends Kakashi fell into a deep depression, chasing death in every mission. With the assistance of his friend and rival, Might Guy, and his continuous challenges, Kakashi rekindled his will to live, growing as person and as a ninja.