Alchemy

2,2) UNEXPECTED MEETINGS

HI NONE OF MY VOTES LOADED AND CHAPTERS WEREN'T SAVING IN ORDER SO PLEASE REVOTE FOR CHAPTERS 1,2--> 2,2....

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Sasuke:

After nearly a week's worth of travelling from where I had first set out my entire body was stiff and aching. Slight tendrils of pain predominately feasted on my lower back as I travelled on my black stallion named Kaen. [A/N: Kaen means flame in Japanese]

I endured the pain as well as the distant ache in my legs, that came from not using them, for the sole reason that travelling this way was faster and it saved chakra for whatever dangers I might encounter.

"Trust me Sasuke, it has to be real this time," Kakashi had said.

What were they hiding from me?

It had to be something so important or something so dangerous they I would refuse to go if I knew.

Why send me, why not launch a nationwide search and deploy the shinobi at their command. 

I had come to two possible conclusions...

One- either they risk news of this "confidential intel" getting out by sending shinobi.

Two- Or for some obscene reason they thought that only I could bring him back

Find him and convince him to return. No matter the cost. Use whatever means necessary," he said.

That statement bothered me like a mayfly buzzing in my ear on a hot summer's day. Those words stuck with me; its ring echoing in my head like an alarm.

Over the past few days I had tried –and failed– to identity and decipher the particular turn of phrase he had used.

It defiantly wasn’t a metaphor or a simile.

For a time I had thought them to be ambiguous but there was no clear double meaning. Yet for some reason I felt as if a warning was carefully embedded into those words. No matter the cost. What cost? What means?

Surely if this was Naruto force wouldn’t be necessary but then again why hadn't he returned after all these years.

Alongside the path I had been riding down a twig snapped. I was being watched. I detected a human chakra signature.

After a moment of debating I had decided not to activate my sharingan, for fear of being identified. There was a chance that whoever it was wasn’t after me. Better to settle this with words than that force especially if that was the case. I was drawing close to a small village after all, so the chances of running into someone was significantly higher.  I sprung off my horse.

"Whoever you are show yourself!" I demanded drawing my katana.

______________________________________

Sakura:

A day and a half into I was still going strong. My feet ached in my boots as they were new and I had yet to break them in. I subconsciously found myself missing my ballet flat slippers even although they were a size too small for me and wouldn’t fare well in the rocky terrain of the off-road path I had chosen to avoid bandits and thieves.