Medium Meld (Naruto/Gamer, Male OC)

Chapter Seven - Dreaming of Levels

"Is there a ninja village on this island somewhere?" I asked curiously.

Kakeru shook his head.

"No," Kakeru said simply, "Although many ninjas do pass through here, I have received several in my castle over the years, acting as ambassadors to the daimyo's on the main continent, but there is no hidden village within the Land of the Moon."

Interesting.

"So these naughty ninjas are pretty much only here because they are getting paid, they don't have a secret grudge against you or something?" I wondered. "Chafing under Kakeru's stone fist?"

"No," Kakeru said amused, "I don't have any connection to these ninjas at all, and no grudge exists to the best of my knowledge."

I nodded thoughtfully, thinking about how that could be used to my advantage. If they were just doing it for the money, we could try to assassinate Shabadaba, and then they would have no reason to continue the mission. Wait didn't one of the ninjas accidentally kill the client near the end of the mission anyway?

We could probably offer to pay them off, I might even be able to get a bodyguard out of this somehow, which would be useful, at least until I was strong enough to make a difference anyway. I might be able to get Kakeru to pay for one of them.

I couldn't remember much about these ninjas, other than there was three of them and one of them could turn things to stone. I don't remember them being particularly evil, but they had certainly killed people during their mission, namely the King.

Then again I'm fairly sure each of the Konoha Genin ended up killing someone during this mission, so neither of the ninja teams could claim to have the moral high ground there. Were the bad ninja close to each other or were they just working together for this mission? I vaguely remembered that they all wore similar wigs, which showed some kind of uniformity between them.

I suppose it didn't matter they would probably all end up dying anyway.

---

The trip down the mountain to the beach was a slow one, as we were doing our best not to make much noise. It took maybe an hour all up until we reached the point where we would have to ditch the wagon and I felt the wagon slow to a stop, as it was unable to be pulled through the thick grouping of trees in our way, let alone the sand.

Kakeru was looking much better now, Status Removal had even leveled up twice more, and I had managed to get the petrification all the way down to both shins, the boosted effectiveness of the spell coming in strong.

Kakeru was even sitting up on the seat now, I was so proud of him.

I was still sitting cross-legged on the floor of the wagon, and my ass was starting to hurt when the door opened to reveal Korega and Michiru, who had been both riding on the front of the wagon while it was in transit.

"Father," Michiru said astonished, "You are looking so much better now!"

Korega seemed to agree given how high his thick eyebrows had risen to his hairline.

"This is as far as we can go with the wagon," Korega said seriously after he had recovered. "It is only a small walk to the shoreline from here, and we should find the boats nearby, I am sorry Kakeru-sama, but we will have to carry you from now."

Kakeru waved the comment off easily and the three of us helped him out of the wagon, with Korega taking most of the man's weight.

"You need to lay off the sweets, Kakeru." I said dryly, "When was the last time you got some exercise anyway?"