Medium Meld (Naruto/Gamer, Male OC)

Chapter Eleven - Dreaming of Sunagakure

When we finally arrived at Sakai, I was well and truly sick of ships, tiny rooms, and single beds.

We ended up spending a lot of time up on the deck because of two of those things, but we couldn't really get away from the ship in any meaningful way. Karenbana was quickly becoming immune to my obvious baiting as well, but I had only just begun to dip into my well of tricks, and it was almost time to bring some of them out.

Even so, when we drifted up to the port city of Sakai and I took that first step off the ship onto the sand? I don't know what to tell you; it was fucking incredible.

Sakai wasn't particularly large or impressive; there was lots of sand, the ocean, and more sand. Just what you would expect of a city on the coastline of the Land of Wind. The buildings were a mixture of stone and wood, but I was almost sure that the deeper into the desert we went, the less wood and more stone there would be.

We were going to need some desert clothes, not that I had any idea what that kind of thing actually was in practice. I just assumed it would be a hooded robe or perhaps a hat of some sort. Karenbana took off choosing the supplies when I started talking about the hats.

She ended up selecting a pair of thin hooded traveling cloaks, cloth wraps, and a bunch of other stuff that I would never have even thought to bring before she disappeared, leaving me to pay for it all. I found a bunch of containers for water and food and stuffed most of them in my inventory while she wasn't there, and eventually, she returned with a pair of traveling packs.

I watched with interest as she spent the next fifteen minutes, packing them neatly with everything we might need before tossing one of them to me.

It wasn't very heavy right now, but I am absolutely sure if I had needed to carry this when I first arrived in this world, I would have died. We didn't set out until the next day, and Karenbana made sure to double-check both bags before we left Sakai behind. I realized very quickly that Sakai had tricked me completely.

I fucking hated the desert.

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We walked for hours every day, rested when we were lucky enough to find shade, usually provided by exceptionally tall sand dunes, and then walked for hours more. I didn't really get tired, just walking, and I didn't need to sleep at all, so even in these conditions, I was okay physically.

I needed to at least be running before it did anything stamina wise.

Karenbana, on the other hand, wasn't running on bullshit game magic, and I had no idea just how long a ninja could walk in these conditions per day, so I made sure to give up as soon as I thought she looked tired.

I was such a gentleman.

We would set up the small tent that Karenbana insisted we buy and then camped there until the next day, sometimes having to dig ourselves out if too much sand ended up at the entrance. I had seen enough movies to expect giant roiling clouds of sand and vicious storms that would strip us down to our bones, but there was none of that, it was just endless walking, heat, and fucking sand.

I always waited an hour or so until I thought it wouldn't be too suspicious and then started doing my physical training for the day in the shade of a dune. I spent most of my training time running, I'd already dumped all of my stat points in Speed, and I really wanted to reach the level of Speed a ninja had.

I would need it soon anyway.

Karenbana did some training of her own, although it was mostly practicing what looked like shadow boxing to me. Then a complicated series of acrobatic maneuvers that I insisted she show me how to do almost an entire week passed before she stopped telling me to fuck off and finally caved.