Pakin’s first week outside his hometown was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He’d wake up around six and spend his morning cleaning and maintaining Gera’s weapons. Then, after breakfast, Gera would inspect his work, point out any mistakes, and teach him a lesson about two of the weapons he’d cleaned. After lunch, they moved to the two flat boulders in a field, and he did conditioning for two hours. After conditioning, came direct instruction from Gera.

  Each day had been a different lesson. She’d taken the first day after his chakra lesson to teach him the basics of taijutsu: how to punch and kick; the various stances and when to use them; how to block and dodge. She’d also taught him how to take a hit, which had left him with several bruises.

  The second day was all about throwing weapons. She showed him how to wield a kunai for parrying, stabbing, cutting, and throwing. Shuriken and senbon received a less diverse set of instructions since, outside of special fighting styles, they were mainly used as thrown distractions. He’d been made to practice with all three until his arms felt like jelly and his fingers struggled to hold his fork at dinner that night.

  On the third day, she combined chakra, taijutsu, and throwing weapon training into the two hours before lecture. It seemed like such little time to cover so much material, but Gera made it work. She would test his progress from their first lessons, then guide him through specific exercises to improve his weak points. This combined lesson became the standard for the rest of the week.

  After training, he and Gera would sit down in their room and Gera would give him a lecture on whatever topic she’d decided on for the day. Every lecture, he was left stumped. Not because they were tough, but because they were easy. She’d taught him about basic ninja culture, geopolitics, and history all five days. Compared to the types of lessons he received from all his neighbors back in the village, though, it was practically elementary. However, he figured Gera was probably just laying the groundwork for future lessons and ensuring he had a proper foundation for coming lectures on more complex subjects.

  After lecture, Pakin tried to reinforce what he’d learned during the day during his self-study. He practiced the taijutsu exercises Gera provided him. He threw senbon, kunai, and shuriken at the trees behind their inn. He practiced his chakra molding and control with a supply of leaves whose source Gear refused to elaborate on.

  His chakra practice hardly felt like training at all, though. It felt exotic and exciting, like he was plunging himself into a world of magic and adventure. He hoped that would never change.

  Now, on the morning of the fifth day, he nervously bounced from foot to foot in anticipation. Pakin and Gera were about to make their second trek towards another village and even though Gera had promised more breaks and a lighter pace, he was still freaking out.

  “Chill out, dude, I promise this time will be way easier.” Gera gave him a playful shove and pointed at his legs. “Whether you realize it or not, your body is already starting to change from the work you’ve put in this week. So, get it together or you might pass out before we even start running.”

  Pakin knew she was right, but such a painful memory wasn’t easily forgotten.

  “This next town is actually closer than Fuwayama is from here. With the pace I’ll set, it should be around mid-afternoon by the time we get there. Hell, we might even have some time to look around after we check in to an inn.” She reached over and tussled his hair. “Let’s go, bud, we’re wasting daylight,” and she started down the road.

  Pakin blew out a long breath and felt for the ringing of his chakra. The sound comforted him and let him release some of the tension in his shoulders. He wasn’t totally relaxed, but that little bit of calm let him pick his feet up, one after the other, and start running after his teacher.

  __

  Gera had been right. The run hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as the first. They’d taken an extra break, Gera kept the pace to a very light jog, and they’d reached the destination about two hours before sunset. The biggest difference, though, was Pakin himself.

  One week of physical training hadn’t turned him into a superhero, but constant conditioning and proper technique had made quite the difference.

  Still sucked though. Pakin thought as he walked in slow circles with his arms raised and hands on his head. His legs still ached, and his lungs still burned, but it beat throwing up right at the entrance of the town they’d be staying at. At their usual lunch place, one of the regulars gave him the stank eye every time they went in. After inquiring with one of the waitresses, he’d learned the man kept the village’s roads clean in his spare time. Pakin respectfully avoided eye contact with the man for the rest of their stay.

  After a few circuits, he’d cooled down and walked over to Gera. She moved from her spot under a thick pine tree and told him, “Alright! Since we got here early, let’s go have a look around. I hardly ever get to enjoy the scenery when I’m on missions, so I’m excited to see what this place has to offer!”

  Pakin couldn’t help but feel excited as well. Their previous stop was nice, but it was clearly a pass through town with little in the way of tourism besides a few bars and the big inn they’d stayed at. So, he was excited to see more of what the world of Naruto had to offer.

  I should probably stop thinking about it like that. This might be the world the show takes place in, but it’s also full of other people with complex lives. Also, if I keep thinking of it like that, I’ll be totally blindsided when something outside the confines of the show’s perspective appears. Pakin’s quick self-recrimination over, he and Gera found an inn close to the main road with a lovely two-bed suite and headed into the village proper.

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  Man, this is a lot more boring than I thought it’d be. Gera had expected to be filled with awe and delight at the chance to experience a piece of her homeland. So far, Kumiguri hadn’t elicited so much as mild interest.

  The whole town was located on the eastern coast of the Land of Lightning, and one of the main roads towards the capital and Kumogakure ran right through it. This meant a lot of travelers passing through, but only three establishments along the main road, two inns and an izakaya, advertised to passersby. The rest of the village seemed content to attend to their clam harvesting and fishing.

  At least it’s scenic. The whole town was sandwiched between a mountain valley to the north-west and a steep seaside cliff to the south-east. A river flowed out of the mountain valley, snaked through the village, and careened off the cliff as a majestic waterfall. The architecture lent itself to the capital’s style of slightly elevated buildings, tiled roofs, and sliding doors. Many buildings were adorned with statues of the God of Thunder and the God of Lightning, likely to ward off the bad weather typical of the eastern coasts.

  The people were respectful, likely because of her Kumo headband, but remained reserved. At least they did with her. Her student, on the other hand…

  “Excuse me, sir, do you mind if I ask what you’re doing with that net?” Pakin had said hello to almost every villager he’d met and asked them about whatever task they were doing. His enthusiasm and childish wonder did most of the work to win over whoever he talked to. They’d talk to him about whatever he’d asked and, if they weren’t terribly busy, stop to chat with him. They’d spare a few words for Gera, but most seemed rather intimidated by her status as a shinobi.

  She pulled out a cigarette and popped it in her mouth as she tuned in to Pakin's conversation with the man repairing nets outside his home.

  “-and then we descend the cliff-face with a complex set of lifts. Used to be, we had to rappel down the cliff with just a rope, a harness, and all the trust you could put into whoever was holding your line.” Pakin stood a short distance away, talking to the older man. Gera thought he looked like the prototypical fisherman, with his sun-tanned, leathery skin, fluffy mustache, and the smattering of small scars lining his arms.

  “Wow! Is it hard getting down there?” Pakin asked him.

  “Oh yeah! The winds buffeting the cliffs are powerful, thankfully, the lifts are built to withstand them. But, when it was just rope and grit keeping us from falling to our deaths, the wind would slam you into the cliff, and those rocks are mighty sharp. It’s how I got all these scars.” He pointed to a few of the nastier scars on his upper arm to illustrate his point.

  “Woah.” Pakin looked at the old man’s scars before contemplating something and asking, “I get why you do it now, with the lifts keeping you safe, but back before those were installed? Why risk so much just to collect a bunch of clams?”

  The old man laughed and slapped Pakin on the arm. “That’s a good question, young man! Well, you see, the clams at the bottom of this cliff are very special. I couldn’t tell you the science behind it, but the way my grandpappy used to explain it is that the clams are blessed by the sea.” The old man stopped fiddling with the net in front of him and reached underneath his worktable. He pulled out a large pearl from some hidden drawer that gleamed with a shining blue lustre.

  Gera was struck by the pearl’s beauty and immediately recognized it. “Oh my God. You harvest Sea God’s Pearls in this village?! I got paid a hundred thousand Ryo one time just to escort a crate full of those from Kumogakure to the capital!”

  “Oh, so the young miss has experience with our most profitable export?” The old man chuckled like he’d made a particularly funny joke. “Yes, this is a Sea God’s Pearl and these are why we risk our lives against the cliff’s wrath.” He held the blue pearl to the boy. “Go ahead, hold it.”

  Pakin reverently took the pearl from the old man and stared at it in his hands. Gera got closer to her student to get a better look, and marveled at the jewel’s beauty. The ones in that crate practically glowed with how blue they were, this one’s still pretty, but it doesn’t really compare to those.

  Pakin looked up from the pearl in his hands and asked, “Why is it so blue? I thought pearls were usually white, or yellow? Is it because of that blessing your grandpappy told you about?”

  The old man smiled warmly at Pakin before he replied, “Aye, the God of the Sea’s power is strong in the currents below the cliff. The clams turn that power into a special kind of energy, and that gives the pearls their special color. You can keep that one if you like, the clam it came from was dying, so the pearl didn’t come out bright enough to be sold.”

  Pakin looked taken aback for a second before he asked, “Is that alright? It seems like it’d still be pretty expensive?”

  The man snorted and pointed at the pearl in Pakin’s hands. “That thing? Nah, it’ll likely rot in a drawer forever if you didn’t take it. Better it find a home with you than languish away in my worktable.”

  Pakin pocketed the pearl and smiled adorably at the older man, who waved him over to his table. The old man whispered something in Pakin’s ear and then shooed him away.

  Pakin returned to Gera’s side, and the two said their goodbyes to the old man before continuing on their walk.

  “What did he say to you?” The old man seemed nice, but you always had to be careful with anyone when you were a ninja. Spies and covert agents would use incredibly convoluted and convincing schemes to get at another village’s ninja. Pakin was a possible target for those kinds of schemes, if only because he was clearly traveling with Gera.

  “He told me that sleeping with the pearl under my pillow at home’ll give me the Sea God’s protection.”

  “Hmm.” She said before encouraging him, “A shinobi can always use more luck on her side, so I’d take that old man at his word and slip that under your pillow once we make it to Kumo.”

  “Kenichi, his name is Horie Kenichi. The old lady at the grocer I talked to earlier told me about him, said his family has been here longer than anyone else’s, and if I wanted to know more about their town, I should ask him.”

  “Huh, well, did you learn anything else while I wasn’t paying attention?” I better not let the information department get a hold of him. They’d have him setting up informants right out of the academy.

  “Yeah, so the lady at the grocer, Ms.Tomo, also told me about what else they fish up here…” Pakin regaled Gera with everything he’d learned on their walk as the sun fell over the horizon.