'Waking up from his sleep, is a good thing, it means that you're not dead. But waking up because of a girl crying? That's just awkward. Now let's calm down and find a way to get back to sleep. The sun is not out yet, or it might be because if the rain clouds, but unless I see sunlight, I'm not waking up.' Asahi tried to go back to sleep, but the choked whimper coming from his side made him unable to do so.
Sighing, Asahi turned and hugged Konan and with one hand on her back drawing circles and the other patting her head. Her whimper slowly quieted down, and Konan burrowed into Asahi's chest as she held him tightly.
Turning abound and lying on his back with Konan on top of him, Asahi thought to himself 'We didn't sleep when we escaped from the village and the reality might have hit her now, when she was fully relaxed.' Sighing, he looked at Konan, only to see her blue head resting on his chest.
'Hashirama had the best idea at his time, and it worked to some extended. The problem is that children are still sent into war or children suffer the horrors of war. Well, even the mostly peaceful era of Earth also had child soldiers, war orphans etc..
What can they do? The one's who stir up the hornets nests are sitting in their ivory tower drinking wine and smoking weed. The ones who suffer are the one's without the power.
Power dictates the world. Power is the ditterent force that will stop the opposition. Just like the Nuclear War Heads on Earth, the Tailed Beasts, or figures like Hashirama and Madara, on this planet.
Aghhh.... Stop ranting and try to survive in this world until old age. Alright that's my goal, the power ups will come along the way. If I don't get power ups then I can simply train my body to limits and go beyond it and focus on taijutsu. One of the underrated types of fighting.' With the decision made, Asahi closed his eyes and thought about a training method that can be done by both him and Konan.
After some time, when the first rays of sunlight fell on his eyes, Asahi opened his eyes and looking down he saw Konan resting her chin on his chest and her amber orbs looking at him. Caressing her blue hair, Asahi asked "Nightmare?"
"Umm." Konan nodded her head and continued "I saw my mom getting killed, next door aunt and uncle, the grandpa who sells meat, my friends." As she recounted what she saw in her nightmare, tears started to well up in her eyes.
Sitting up on the ground with Konan on his lap, he kisses on the crown of her head and said "They all died, but you survived. Don't forget them and live your life as you see fit. That will be the greatest gift for your mom."
Nodding her head, she clung to Asahi like a kola, and he felt wetness around his chest through his clothes. He concluded that she was crying, but he didn't say anything. He was there for her in silence.
They sat like that for some time and when she stopped crying, he asked her "Hey Konan. Do you want to stay in the Rain Country?"
She looked up at him, confusion evident on her face as she asked "Where else will we stay?"
Chuckling, he ruffled her hair and said "Who said anything about staying somewhere else? The world is vast, we can travel from land to land, and when we get tired of that we can settle in one of the small country that doesn't have border with more than one Five Great countries."
"We can do that?" Konan asked surprised, because, in her four years of life she haven't even left her village even for once.
"Yep. We can and we will." Then smiling at her, he asked "Are you ready for it?"
Returning his smile, she said "I'll go wherever you go."
"Good. Then it's decided, we will travel through the world. We won't stay in the village's because that will cost us money, which we don't have any." Asahi told her, and even after hearing that she was not budging from her decision to follow Asahi in to the life of a wanderer.
Looking at Asahi, Konan asked him "Can you teach me how to do ninjutsu? I want to help you too."
Pondering for a moment, he said "Well the ninjutsu I do is like bam it's there. So I can't really teach how to do that and we don't know what your elemental nature's are." Seeing her downtrodden look, Asahi continued "But, I can teach you the methods I came up with to have fine control over my chakra."
Hearing that, she perked up and said with determination "As long as I can help you to hunt, I'll train any method."
Seeing her determination, Asahi said, pouring cold water over her dreams "For chakra control, we need to unlock your chakra first. And I have no clue how to do that, and my chakra was unlocked because of pure luck, I didn't do anything."
Her face fell at that, but she didn't back down and asked him "What about weapons?"
Tilting his head, he said "I fight unarmed most of the time and I can throw decently. So, how about this. I'll train you in taijutsu and weapon throwing."
"Yes! Let's do that!" Konan cheered.
"Alright, let's eat breakfast first, training can wait." Asahi told her as he went to prepare their breakfast.
After having breakfast, which were the blood and berry sauce with roasted venison, Asahi told Konan to forage as many herbs she can before lunch and for her protection, he sent Knight with her.
On the other hand, Asahi started to sew the deer hide, that had been passed through the barrier, onto one of Konan's dress. He made sure that the dress he took were in good condition and that the hide didn't have any left over meat on it.
For one and half hour, he was immersed in sewing, and at the same time he was using seismic sense continuously to keep track of Konan. After sewing, he took a sack and filled it with the venison that had been smoked for the past thirteen hours. In another sack, he stored the veniso jerky, leaving behind enough for their lunch.
Before lunch, Konan came back with a sack full of herbs and berries, this time she also had found some fruits. With his exceptional cooking skills from his second life, where he cooked for himself in the one room apartment, he made fruit salad, roasted venison and blood sauce.
After finishing lunch and resting for two more hours, both Konan and Asahi started their wandering life. On their way, Asahi laminated the absence of a map in his hands, but he soldired on and trekked in the northern direction. 'To the North of Land of Rain is Land of Earth. I might be able to snag some earth ninjutsu from there if I play it right.'
They trekked through the forest, hunted down rabbits, deer, foraged herbs, fruits, trained in taijutsu, in which he trained her in Taekwondo, which was one of the martial arts he practiced in his second life. For her body training it was the basic body weight exercises, push ups, sit ups, crunches, plank, pull ups and since they were walking most of the time, he excluded running. Asahi made sure that the number of sets she could do was only at the level a four year old could do. He didn't slack of either, he trained double the amount of training than her, he also started to come up with ninjutsu that could handle his chakra reserve, thanks to his precise control over it.
A week into their travel, they stumbled up on a large tiger, which can carry three adults on its back, under the shade of a tree. Konan tensed a bit upon seeing, and Asahi was cool as a cucumber as he had sensed the tiger from half a kilometer away. 'The reason I still came this way is because the tiger was not moving much and it's breathing was shallow, as if it was dying and I also sensed a second heart beat besides it, meaning it's protecting her cub.'
Patting on Konan's shoulder, he told her "Don't worry, she does not have any strength."
Konan nodded and sighed in relief, and suddenly she saw the cub that peeking at them, from the cover of it's mother. The mother tiger seeing the look on Konan's face, which was pure joy, nudged the cub with her hind legs. Then the mother tiger looked at Konan and then back at its cub, and slowly it closed it's eyes with a content smile, if a tiger could smile that is, and it's breathing stilled.
Seeing thistaking place, Asahi thought 'What is this? A Chinese Cultivation story? The hero and his companion travel for enlightenment and bam! An injured mythical animal with a baby just born! The mythical animal entrust it's baby to the hero and companion! Does this mean that Konan is the hero and I'm her companion?' Pausing rubbed his chin and muttered in low voice "I could live with that as long as the troublesome things that usually find the hero doesn't come knocking on my door."
"Meow! Meow!" The tiger cub tried to wake up its mother and seeing that, Konan looked at him with expectant eyes.
Shaking his head, he told her "If you want to take in the cub, you can. I have no objection. But, you will have to take care of it on your own. As usual I'll hunt, which will cover it's meals, but everything else has to be taken care by you. Can you take that responsibility?"
"Yes." She gave him a resolute answer.
"Alright. Then take the cub and bond with it for some time. I'll handle the mother." Patting her head, Asahi moved towards the cub and picked it up.
*Hiss! Hiss!* The cub hissed at him, but he just found it cute and booped it's nose, which made the tiger cub's face in bewilderment.
Giving the cub to Konan, he showed her away with Knight following her. Then, he turned to the mother tiger. 'Tiger meat is good, since Konan have adopted it's cub I won't take the meat for consumption, but I can sell it? Nah, not worth the trouble. I'm definitely taking the hide and converting it into a makeshift jacket like Hercules did with the Nemean Lion.'
Without any delay, Asahi masterfully skinned the dead tiger and in half an hour, he had tiger skin in his hand. After cleaning it with water that he had collected from before, he folded it and placed it inside his sack. Then, he tapped his feet on the ground and made the carcass of the tiger sink into the ground burying it entirely.
Bowing to the buried tiger, Asahi said "We will take care of your cub as one of our own. And I'll use your hide to give your cub the warmth of it's mother."
Turning around he went in the direction Konan had went and found her near a creak where she was washing the cub. Squatting near her, Asahi said "I have buried its mother."
"Umm." Konan nodded, and gave a sorrowful smile as she thought about her own mother.
Ruffling her hair, he asked her "Have you named her?"
"Yes. She's Ichika." Konan said with a large smile.
"Good name" Asahi nodded and continued "We have to move from here. From the wounds on the mother, it was done by shinobi's."
"Alright." Konan readily agreed and after drying Ichika using one of her spare clothes, they started their trek through the forest again.
After three more weeks of travel, they decided to rest inside a cave that extended into the mountain thry saw. At the first day, they were just sitting near the entrance, and after mapping out the cave system using his seismic sense, Asahi and Konan went deeper into the cave.
After turn after turn they saw a light at one end of the tunnel, and they cautiously moved towards the light. Using his senses, he found that there were three adults and three children at the end of the tunnel. When they neared the six people, they heard a raspy voice "Here comes another two. And this one can use chakra, interesting."
Asahi stilled for a moment, then shrugging he motioned Konan to follow him and they reached where a campfire was lit, with three adults wearing shinobi armour on one side and three children, wearing tattered clothes on the other side.
The three adults were people who he knew well from his second life, the white haired man, Jiraya, the blonde haired woman, Tsunade and the pale man, Orochimaru. On the children's side, he only knew two, the orange head Yahiko and the red head Nagato.
Seeing the five of them, made Asahi's face become one of bewilderment and resignation. He tilted his head upwards and thought 'What a luck.'