Chapter 2: Don't Blame Me If Something Weird Happens [Please Vote]
There were only two choices before Toneri!
First, run as far away as possible, find some remote corner to hide in, and make sure no one found him!
Second, find a faction that could offer him protection—preferably a powerful ninja village!
Toneri considered the two options for less than ten seconds before immediately ruling out the first.
Never mind whether he could find such a place. He didn't even know if his little body could survive the journey there in this chaotic era.
The Two-Tails sealed inside him alone was a problem he couldn't handle!
Toneri knew all too well just how much Tailed Beasts hated humans. He'd once viewed the Naruto world from an outsider's perspective and had learned plenty about it!
There was no way he could resist the Two-Tails' influence on his own!
Especially when he was now just a powerless child.
With his status as a Two-Tails Jinchuriki, if he could earn Kumogakure's trust and become a ninja after learning to refine chakra, then his knowledge as a transmigrator might give him a chance to turn his life around.
Unfortunately, the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal had turned that possibility to ash.
Toneri also knew that, as a Jinchuriki, he would become a major target of a fearsome organization at some point in the future. Without a powerful backer, he had no chance of fighting them alone.
That left him with just one path.
Find a ninja village that could protect him!
Actually, he didn't need to search. Because of the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal, there was only one village that might take him in.
At the thought, Toneri really wanted to drag Danzo out, chop him into pieces...and feed him to the dogs!
That sinister, disgusting bastard had targeted an ordinary child who was only a few years old!
Toneri could easily guess what Danzo was after.
He wanted to plant spies in the great nations and their ninja villages.
And Toneri just happened to be one of those spies.
But no matter how much Toneri hated Danzo, if he wanted to survive, he'd really have to rely on him to some extent.
A Two-Tails Jinchuriki who did exactly as he was told—what wasn't there to like?
Having made his decision, Toneri set off for the Land of Fire!
The only thing he could be grateful for was that he already lived near the edge of the Land of Lightning.
The Land of Fire was still a long way off, but it was better than having to cross half the world.
With two thousand Ryo in Money Tickets and a small bag of Military Rations Pills, the scrawny child set out on the road to survival.
He avoided the remote trails and took the largest road instead, the one that showed the most signs of human activity.
The day after Toneri left.
The sky was just beginning to lighten.
Four people appeared. They wore black sleeveless undershirts and gray-white leather garments over them.
Their skin was somewhat dark.
They looked at the place where Toneri had lived, now reduced to ruins.
They shared another trait, too.
Each wore a white mask that hid their features.
"Captain, the trail ends here," one of them said.
The person at the front of the group was their captain.
"Three minutes. Gather every bit of information you can," the captain said calmly.
As soon as he spoke, the three people behind him vanished in a flash.
Three minutes passed quickly.
The four gathered again.
"There's no trace of Tailed Beast Chakra, and no one nearby has become a Jinchuriki!"
"A child around seven or eight used to live in this house, but we couldn't find his body in the burned ruins."
"Someone left here. Judging by the traces, it was probably a child around seven or eight, but the trail disappears on the main road!"
After hearing his subordinates' reports, the captain stood still for a moment, thinking. Then he immediately gave his orders. "You two! Take the body back and inform Lord Raikage that the Two-Tails may be missing!"
Then he turned to the other person. "You! Find the nearest ninja with a dog or another Summoning Beast that can track by scent. Use the trail and scent here to pursue him immediately!"
"Yes!" the three replied. Then they used the Body Flicker Technique and quickly departed.
As for the captain, he stared at the ruins for three seconds, then hurried off in the direction his subordinates had indicated!
A child of seven or eight was highly unlikely to have stolen a Tailed Beast.
But the fact that he had disappeared at such a convenient time meant something was wrong.
Their squad had been tasked with tracking down the Two-Tails Jinchuriki, who had disappeared from the battlefield.
If they found anything, they had to investigate it to the end!
The trail away from the ruins was clear. That meant their target had no countertracking skills and wasn't even trying to evade pursuit.
He wouldn't get away from the captain!
The four specially assigned ninja had arrived without a sound, and they left without a trace.
By then, Toneri had already reached the small town closest to where he'd lived.
Using the Money Tickets he'd taken from the ninja, he found a public bathhouse.
He scrubbed himself clean, getting every bit of grime off his body. He'd even spent a "small fortune" on a highly skilled bath attendant.
A professional!
Wrapped in a bathrobe to cover the seal on his stomach, Toneri looked at himself in the mirror.
"This is the first time I've seen what I look like now.
"Not bad. My complexion isn't very healthy, but you can still make out the sharp lines of a handsome face."
Toneri pinched his cheeks in the mirror and looked at his reddened body, including his face.
Thanks to the bath attendant's strenuous "efforts," it had taken a great deal of work to give Toneri a complete "new lease on life."
He scrunched up his little red nose at his arm and nodded with satisfaction.
"At last, I don't smell like dirt anymore."
He found a little stool and plopped down on it without caring about the water stains.
"The Tailed Beast has gone missing. With the abilities of Kumogakure's Anbu, they've probably found that place by now.
"I deliberately left clear, unaltered footprints on the ground. They'll naturally assume that a child who left such obvious tracks couldn't possibly escape their pursuit. So they'll definitely follow the trail.
"I took the main road, where there are too many footprints and traces to tell which ones are mine right away, even for the Anbu. On top of that, I deliberately wrapped leaves around my feet and walked that way for a while, which should delay them even more.
"I also deliberately made things harder for them by sending them into one of Danzo's hideouts. That should buy me quite a bit of time.
"But there are still Summoning Beasts in the Ninja World that specialize in tracking.
"I don't have chakra, so they can't track me by that. That leaves scent as the likeliest option.
"I spent a small fortune on that bath attendant and nearly had my skin scrubbed off. My scent must be at least ninety percent gone. If I change clothes and buy a fragrant sachet, then even if they pick up a trace, I'll probably have left the Land of Lightning by then."
A child who looked only seven or eight sat on a chair in a public bathhouse, striking the pose of a thinker. He certainly looked the part.
Smack—
Toneri slapped his forehead. "No, I can't judge them based on my own optimistic assumptions. This is the Ninja World, full of all kinds of terrifying people. Their abilities are probably far beyond those of the special forces in my previous life.
"If I underestimate them this badly, I won't even know how I died.
"Buying a sachet would obviously leave a trail, too. Buying clothes is fine, but if a child goes to buy a sachet, anyone would find it strange.
"So..."
Toneri turned toward the other side of the bathhouse, separated from his by a wooden wall...where the silvery sound of laughter drifted over...
His nose.
Sniff—
"I'm still just a kid. They probably won't hit me, right? If I could find a nice fragrant sachet over there, that'd be great..."
Sometimes, when a particularly effective solution came to mind, no other ideas came so easily.
Especially when that solution was tempting enough.
Toneri looked down at little Toneri. Not bad, considering his age...
Ahem, don't go there!
He should think about how to get over there...
Just thinking about it really did...make him a little excited!
This was all for survival!
Please don't blame me if anything weird happens!
It's a new book! Please support it with your recommendation votes!
Before you continue