Tree Walking

Haku woke up after 8 whole hours! The sun was already up as he had arrived at midday. 

He went to the receptionist he met yesterday. The receptionist was a normal-looking 16-year-old girl. Seeing a small and cute kid approach her, she smiled.

"Kid, where are your parents? I gave you a room yesterday hoping they would come later and you had money too. Are they gonna come soon." She crouched a little bit to match the height of haku.

"My parents died in a conflict!" Haku's childish voice announced the grim information. The receptionist's face looked apologetic.

"Is that so…" The receptionist had seen many orphaned kids whose parents were killed by bloodline-wielding ninjas. 

"It must have been hard on you… Would you like to have some food?" The receptionist decided to show the kid some kindness.

"Mhm!" Haku nodded his head.

"Alright then! Sit on that table. I will bring you some soup and bread, the cheapest meal in our inn." The girl pointed to a table and went to the kitchen to bring some food.

Haku on the other hand sat on the table and started thinking about his future plans. He guessed that he probably already had a high genin level of chakra and a decent chakra control. It was an educated guess based on the fact that he killed the mob of people and could use a D-rank elemental jutsu properly.

'I will try the leaf concentration exercise once and if I can get it above 2 hours, then I will drop it. What comes after that is tree walking and learning water walking.' Haku really had a lot on his plate.

He also needed to get to the Yuki Clan Island to get whatever jutsus it had. He guessed that there was a specific area in there that required the blood of a Yuki clan member as his mother drew a drop of blood above the pedestal on the map.

After a while of monologuing, his food arrived. The food was decently delicious for whatever he had in this world. His food till now consisted of dried and hard meat and water. So this warm soup was a nice change.

Finishing the food, Haku walked toward the reception and said.

"How much for the food? Here are the keys to the room, I am going now." Haku plainly said.

The receptionist couldn't help but smile while looking at Haku's face as she said, "Aw… Are you going to your relatives?" 

"Yes." Haku bobbed his head up and down

"Oh yeah! You don't need to pay for the meal. As you only stayed in the room for 8 hours I cut the price of the meal from the 800 ryo you paid!" The receptionist looked at Haku happily.

"Thank you." Haku's businessman persona kicked in.

***

A child was walking on a dirt road, the snowfall raging. Strangely, the child looked unbothered from the heavy snowfall despite his clothes.

After walking for about two hours when the snow had subsided, the boy sat on a dry rock and ate some dried meat.

That boy was of course Haku! He had stopped in this area to rest for a while and to climb the trees. 

He hadn't tried tree climbing in other trees before because most of the stumps of other trees before were either small or bent in unnatural ways.

But the tree in front of him looked sturdy and had a flat enough trunk. Haku concentrated some chakra in his now bare feet.

Haku had tried the leaf concentration exercise while walking in his journey and he could put the leaf up for a whole 3 hours!

Coming back to the tree climbing training, haku concentrated some chakra in the soles of his feet and ran forward, dashing towards the tree.

Surprisingly he managed to stick to the tree for a few slow steps. But just when he thought he got a hang of it and stopped to look at the surroundings, the chakra in his feet became unbalanced as a small 'boom' sound was heard.

Haku fell to the ground on his butt!

'Hmm… What was the problem? I swear I had stuck there for a while and I managed to take slow steps too— Not making use of the inertia while running.' Haku was puzzled. He wanted to try again.

But once again! The result was the same.

Haku was confused, the tree was smooth enough and sturdy enough. He even had enough core strength to hold his body straight while in the tree.

'Wait…Straight! Yeah! That must be the trick. The soles of my feet aren't straight. So I need to apply more chakra in the area which is deeper in and less in the area which is bulged out.' Haku mentally facepalmed.

Haku again tried to climb the tree by using his new theory this time. And expectedly he managed to climb the tree properly this time.

He took one step…two steps..three..four and started running to the top of the tree. The tree was quite tall and he could see a small dash in the horizon a decent distance away.

"So climbing trees barefoot is actually harder than with shoes! But I should learn to do the water walking barefoot too as I don't know when I will end up losing a shoe in Battle." Haku scouted his surroundings as he talked to himself.

Haku got down the tree and tried climbing again with his shoes which he obviously succeeded in.

After resting below the tree, he started moving to the next city! Yes, the next location was going to be a city!

After walking another 4 whole hours Haku finally reached the city. This city was named Ibkasa City which was mainly ruled by the Sakaba family and other few small families fighting for supremacy!

In this very village were four Kids all of them wearing a kiri headband, who were assigned a mission.

"Hey, leader! Where is that guy? He said he would come back in 2 days but it's already been 3 days." One of the loud and rowdy-looking ones asked the kid 

"How would I know? That guy insisted on going and now he has to face the consequences. Assume that he is dead for now." A kid with auburn hair replied.