Chapter 33 - Leaving the village (Edited)

The next day, Minato was summoned again to the Hokage office, with the order to be prepared. Knowing that it will be his first mission, and he doubts that it will be a foolish D-rank, he was excited to finally have a chance to leave the village and explore the world by himself and not through memories...Well with a perverted uncle in tow. He attached his new forehead protector on his left arm and prepared some sealing scrolls that he put in a backpack, not willing to let others know that his tattoo is a sealing matrix. He will only use this one if he is in a pinch and must defend himself without the time to take his weapons out of the scrolls.

He first went to Kushina's next door and said goodbye to her, Mikoto and Tsume. The latter two ended up staying the night here, knowing that he will go on a mission tomorrow and not willing to let him go without seeing him off. It was a good feeling to Minato, like having wives sending him off and taking care of the house while he went away.

Arriving at the Hokage office, the Sandaime had Jiraya explain to him the basics of the mission. Jiraya has recently begun a spy network, and he must go to a small settlement in the Land of Stone to receive some news from his informant of the small hidden village of Ishi (Ishigakure no Sato). It would have been better for him to be alone, but the Hokage decided that because it was not super confidential nor dangerous, that it would be a good thing for Minato to see the outside world before the war.

"I see, so we will go by the Land of Rain?"

The Sandaime was surprised that Minato knew of the location of the Stone Country, it was not in the program of the academy. It shows that he went to the public library to learn some information on his own, a good quality for a ninja. But then, he showed a grave face. "Yes, but you must do exactly what Jiraya tells you to, a shinobi even stronger than I live in Amegakure, not even speaking of the fact that Iwa and Suna shinobi began to monitor this country that is between the three of us."

Minato made a thoughtful face and nodded. Jiraya and Hiruzen thought that he was thinking about who could be even stronger than the Hokage, but he was not even bothered about that. After all, he knew Hanzo will not be foolish enough to attack one of the Hokage disciples and start the war ahead of time with Konoha's full revenge focused on his country. 'Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato. It's during this period that they begun to become orphan and form their small group, I wonder how I could infiltrate the Akatsuki before even its formation, I can never be too cautious. Madara and the Rinnegan can't be underestimated'

"Let's get going gaki. We have a week's journey ahead of us." Sensing the doubts of Minato, Jiraya continued "If we were to go at full speed, we will be there in three days. But if we do that, we will be seen by the enemy forces. And I don't want to deal with that during the travel"

Minato made an 'Oh' sound, having forgotten that this Jiraya was not yet the renown Sannin that was unafraid of anything.

Jiraya and Minato set off directly, hoping to reach the border before night falls.

The whole journey to Konoha's border went by without a hitch. They arrived at a Konoha outpost, a preparation for the war to come, with spies of all nations stationed in Amegakure.

"We will stop here tonight, from tomorrow onwards we will travel more stealthily so be sure to be in top form" Jiraya was surprised that Minato seems fine, but he thought that it was just him playing the tough guy like he did small (and even now) to impress Tsunade. He was unaware that Minato was a stamina freak, with blood that possesses a phenomenal resilience inside of him that gave him energy each time he tires.

Minato just nodded and began to explore the surroundings. There was not really anything apart from some tents and stands, with shinobi running to and fro appearing very busy. 'It's the fate of the weak. The higher-ups control everything while sitting comfortably while others must do all the menial work. I don't anticipate the war to come, living here every day with bȧrėly edible food' Just thinking about it made him frown, but it's not like he can go rogue and abandon everything that he constructed in Konoha because of some discomfort. Not willing to spend any more time thinking about that, he went to sleep in a small tent that Jiraya reserved him. At least thanks to Jiraya there is some comfort, the others all sleep together in a cramped space.

The next day, at the first hour of dawn, they set off again. Entering Ame, the weather completely changed, with torrential rain falling from the ever-present clouds.

This time, they didn't jump from tree to tree since vegetation was pretty sparse. The elementals nations are comparable to a barren land because of all the continuous wars for centuries. The only reason the Land of Fire has still so much vegetation is only thanks to Hashirama repopulating the trees with his Mokuton. And the Land of Rain, with all the flood happening daily is pretty much battered, with nothing able to grow with such a harsh rain coming down and striking heavily on the floor. The only thing noteworthy in Ame is their metal houses, they were forced to construct resistant ones, the rain would have eroded and destroyed their homes if they were made of any other thing.

Like that, they passed four days to travel through the Land of Rain even if the distance is smaller than Konoha to the Fire country border, because of all the spies from Iwa and Suna. Jiraya could have taken them down and it would even have saved some shinobi from Konoha that would later be killed by them, but he was completely brainwashed by the toads and dislike killing people.

He even began to preach to Minato that one day, somebody will bring peace to the shinobi world and that maybe it will be him...Peace in the killer world? Please at least say elemental nation instead of shinobi world and it would be more plausible, ȧssassins can't bring peace. And if Shinobi exist in the first place, it is because those toads open their big mouths and manipulated Hagoromo into sealing his mother, even if she did nothing to them. After all, the shinju already absorbed natural energy even before Kaguya took the chakra fruit. Saving humanity? Rubbish, they just did it because they were afraid of her and that fool Hagoromo was a human lover and easy to manipulate.

Thinking of that, Minato couldn't help but hate Hagoromo. His mother loved him but he went against her for the benefits of strangers. Instead of helping her battle her inner demon because of the Shinju chakra corroding her mind, he went against her making her lose completely her rationality. All this time she kept the madness on a tight leash to protect her sons, but she was rewarded by betrayal, it's completely normal that she went berserk after that and controlled Hamura.

Not only that, Hagoromo even killed Hamura without too much hesitation. It's true that he had the resurrection talisman from the sage toad, but willingly killing his brother no matter how short the time of death is, prove that he is not the good guy that he thinks himself to be. And he was incredulous when his brother Indra tried to do the same thing with Asura...

All in all, a mother would never have harmed her son even if she became prone to madness. Unfortunately, Hagoromo was too blinded by his love of humans to see the love from his own mother. And she is now rotting in the moon for thousands of years, festering her madness even more in her loneliness.

It was at this moment that Minato decided to save Kaguya. Even if she was dangerous, he can't help but compared himself to her. A bit more than a hundred year compared to ten thousand years of loneliness can't be compared at all, he doesn't wish such ending even to his worse enemies.

He has a lot of time to prepare for that. If it still is too dangerous, he will forget about it and kill her, but if he can, he will help her.

Finished with his criticizing of Hagoromo, Minato woke up and made a self-deprecating smile 'It's not like I'm any better than them. In the end, I'm far worse than them, I'm one of those scums that does everything for themselves. Compared to them doing things for others... Or at least I was like that. I try to change for the girls but it's truly hard, having someone to care for. I don't want to begin a journey of repentance like Sasuke but I must take extra care of them.'

At last, after a 6-days long journey, Jiraya and Minato arrived in the Land of Stone where Jiraya informant was waiting.