As Naruto continued to walk through the little village he decided to take opportunity while he had it, soon he found himself walking into the village's post office, the walls covered in shelves with bird nests for the messenger pigeons to rest on.
This place like seemingly the rest of the village also stank, only it was not the smell of fish that infested this place, it was instead the acrid smell of bird feces.
Each of the nests had a metal plate with the name of the place they would fly to on the front, along with the price for delivery.
The letter Naruto had in one of the inside pockets of his coat had been burning a hole in it ever since he wrote it before leaving the Leaf, and now that he was about to leave the Land of Fire it was time to send it.
It was a letter to his family, though he had addressed it to Shikamaru to be careful. He didn't want one of the people working at the post office to see the Namikaze name and decided to make a little extra money by telling someone that could intercept it, and he knew that Shikamaru would know to take it to his family.
The only reason he didn't leave it in his room when he left was that he needed all the time he could get to put as many miles between himself and the Leaf as possible, and the time they would have spent searching the village before getting a tracking team involved had bought him even more time.
But now he was far enough away he should send the letter, after all he may not especially like his family at the moment and he may never like them again, but he would always love them.
They were his family after all and despite the lies they had loved and cared for him, which had inspired the unconditional love many children have for their parents and parents have for their children. It didn't mean he wasn't still pissed off and upset as he was, but he owed it to both his family and himself to explain why he left.
Naruto hesitated slightly as his hand moved to the letter, nerves suddenly making his body freeze. Was he really doing the right thing? Maybe this was a mistake?
But then Victor's words rang in his head again, about what he was and what people thought of people like them. He was a Lon- no…he was an Outcast now, a scavenger of the Elemental Nations and the only way for people like him to survive was to be strong and resilient.
Licking his lips Naruto let out a sigh and pulled the letter out and walked over to one of the people working.
"Konoha…no rush."
Without another word Naruto place both his letter and the money on the table and turned to leave, deciding to have a look around the rest of the village before heading back to the dock.
...
' Kushina '
...
Kushina let out a frustrated sigh as she leaned back in her hospital bed, a fierce scowl on her face as she tried not to fidget under the gaze of the several ANBU hidden in the room for her protection. She had been confined to the room and its bed for the last three days, after having fainted in Naruto's room.
At first she had assumed it was just the stress and the shock of realising that Naruto might not have been kidnapped after all, but after she had woken up in the hospital the doctors had a different theory.
Kushina was pregnant, about a month and a half according to the tests they had run on her while she was under their care.
When Minato had told her Kushina had been a mess, as she was filled with a strange mixture of joy and sorrow, the two emotions fighting for dominance in her mind. The fact she was having another son or daughter was great news, no it was absolutely fantastic news and there was no way in hell she would ever think differently, having a child with the man she loved was a blessing, and another additions to her family was a dream come true.
However her joy was dampened by the knowledge that the child growing in her even now may never get to meet their brother, who it seemed had actually run away from home. Meaning that even with the new addition to their family it would never truly be complete until Naruto came home to them.
When she had told Minato her fear her husband had gone very quiet for a moment, a look of horror flashing behind his eyes before he could completely hide it from her. He had then quietly excused himself to go and check for himself, only to return a few hours later and tell her that he came to the same conclusion.
Minato was actually in a Council Meeting at this very moment updating the other Clan Heads, and she knew it would mean they would have to change the search method they had been using. It was a lot harder to find someone that didn't want to be found over someone being forced along by a group of kidnappers, even if they were just an untrained child.
Naruto had already proven himself more resourceful then anyone had given him credit for by not only getting out of the village, but also somehow making it to the border before they could catch up. He had timed it perfectly, and it had them wasting time looking around the village before even getting trackers involved.
This under any other circumstance would have made Kushina swell with pride, had it not been for the fact that this ingenuity of Naruto's behalf was making the process of finding him that much more difficult.
But thinking on it, it still made no logical sense that the frail boy they all knew could cover such a distance in such a short amount of time, especially since he hadn't even unlocked his chakra yet.
Kushina let out a sad sigh as she leaned back in her bed, her eyes slowly wandering to the form of Mito sitting in a nearby chair in the corner of the room reading a book on Seals with an amount of focus that worried her.
Both Mito and Erza had been taking turns to keep her company, but both had thrown themselves into their training to an almost obsessive degree since Naruto disappeared.
They hadn't told them that Naruto might have run away yet, worried as they were about the reaction the news could receive from their two girls. They would tell them soon though; it would only cause more problems later down the road if they didn't, after all wasn't this whole situation caused by lies in the first place?
But for now anyway she needed to keep calm and trust that Minato would be able to find Naruto, even if every instinct in her body was screaming at her that she should be out there searching with the rest of them.
She had a baby she had to care for at the moment and who knows the complications that could be caused by her actively engaging Shinobi work would have on her unborn baby. No she would have to trust in Minato and the others.
He would be found, and everything would be ok…
...
Naruto took in a deep breath of the salty air coming in off of the sea as he leaned over the side of the ship, his eyes closed as he took a moment to just feel as the waves rocked them slightly, the wind blowing gently against his masked face. They had left the port around five hours ago, and so far the weather seemed to be staying calm, the skies were slightly cloudy but there did not look to be any oncoming dark clouds.
Naruto still wasn't sure what the name of the middle aged Captain was, who at the present time was whistling as he steered the boat, though both he and Victor had taken to calling him Captain for lack of anything better. The fact he was still drunk when they set off had worried Naruto slightly, but after the first hour the sea air seemed to have sobered him up.
It would take them at least four days at this pace to reach the Land of Water, probably longer if the weather took a bad turn.
Licking his lips Naruto turned his back to the seemingly endless sea and made his way below deck to the 'room' he was sharing with Victor. It was actually the storage room where Captain kept things that weren't regularly needed, like spare sheets and emergency food that didn't spoil.
They both had their own hammock instead of beds, because apparently they were better for sleeping in on a boat. Apparently it was very easy to fall out of a bed at night when the boat was constantly rocking to and fro.