Hidden Emperor Of The Naruto World

It was finally the day of Minato's departure. He and 31 other genins were to go to the Land of River to bring war resources to a camp of Konoha there. Furthermore, they were led by only a single Chunin, making the trip a bit risky. Unfortunately, Konoha could not spare more manpower to those supply tasks.

Looking at the caravans, Minato's lips couldn't help but twitch. 'I forgot that before Kushina became proficient in Fuuinjutsu, people here were not good at it at all. Mito gave them the way to create those sealing scrolls, but they never bothered to learn it with Uzushio supplying them, so Konoha so-called seal masters are mediocre at best and can't create a lot of them. If they were not so lousy, genins will not have to go to the battlefield to supply food and weapons, they could have brought scrolls full of them, but for now, they are far from enough of them to seal all those things. What an unsightly sight, they can smatch mountains but not create better transportation device'

Thankfully, he put on a backpack like everyone, if he just came with scrolls, he would have been the odd one in the lot. Furthermore, he doesn't want to become a sealing scroll factory for Konoha if people came to know that he was good at that. It's only now that he became aware that if he was not loaded, Jiraya would have been suspicious as to how he acquired such scrolls, because of the high price for normal people to acquire one due to its rarity.

'Hopefully, they will not force anything on Kushina. If not, I will have to clash heads with the higher-ups, even if it blows my perfect Konoha citizen image, there is no way that I will let anything happen to her'

From the a.d.u.l.t Minato's memories, he gleaned that Kushina was coaxed with beautiful words to teach some Fuuinjutsu to some of Konoha's shinobi. She thought that it was because of the Kyuubi that they gave her this teaching task instead of missions, but she didn't see that all they wanted was her knowledge, not giving her the chance to prove herself and be useful to Konoha.

'I will not let Kushina give them some of her time, those people are too greedy for their own good. Give them an inch and they will take your v.i.r.g.i.n.i.t.y. Well, it's not like she is as naive as before so I doubt she will be tricked this time around'

"Ok! The loading is complete, we're ready to depart!" exclaimed the chunin in charge. The workers put the last box of provisions inside the last cart and closed it. The chunin Chisato then directed four genin to each side of the four different carts. The one behind pushing it, with the two on the side helping the caravan not derail from the road, and the one in the front helping clear the passage and slow it down in case of slope.

They then set off at civilian speed, making it a minimum of a week's journey. During the travel, the genins pushing the caravan were changed every two hours, making Minato aggrieved to have to be reduced to such a state. 'What emperor of the universe, I look more like a slave miner. Hiruzen, hurry up and promote me to Chunin rank'

He passed the day working on his chakra sense, refining it and at the same time looking out for anything out of place, unable to count on the chunin in case of ambush, seeing his guard down just because they were still in the Fire country near Konoha.

'Aaah, Danzo doesn't know how to quit. This unfeeling feeling that I sense with my Hyper Intuition... He has one of his agents to follow me. Well, it doesn't really matter in the end. He wants me alive and not dead, and it's not like the guy that stalks me can kill me if I give my all to escape.' Ignoring his stalker, because it's not like he could do anything about it, he continued to train.

When his chakra was half of his total, he stopped using chakra sensing, unwilling to be defenseless in case of a battle breaking out, and instead work on his odor sensing that he acquired from Tsume, trying to distinguish odors of the surroundings.

After traveling the whole day without break, and seeing that night began to fall, Chisato exclaimed "Ok, that's all for today, we will camp by the roadside for tonight"

Hearing that, the genins cheered, happy to be finally able to eat a true meal instead of the rations pills that filled their hunger during the day.

In no time, tents were discharged from the caravan and set up, with a campfire going strongly, surrounded by all the travel party, with small rabbits caught in the surrounding vicinity roasting on it.

The young shinobis began to talk excitedly while eating, taking this journey for a field trip. The chunin reprimanded them a bit, but was pretty relaxed too, having never experienced the horror of war. Even if he has learned it in the history books, humans don't trust what they never saw, thinking it was exaggerated.

Looking at them, Minato shook his head in disbelief. Do they not know that they have a great chance to be ambushed by enemies during the travel? Tactic number 23 of war: Cut the enemy supplies lines, weakening their soldiers.

'Well, I hope the ambush will not be strong enough to completely wipe us out. If not, the Hokage will become suspicious if I'm the only survivor, thinking that I abandon my comrades. Sigh, it's so complicated to play the good guy, if I could I will just do some hit and run tactics to battle people and better myself, instead of pushing some shitty convoy'

Grumbling, Minato finished his meal and went inside his tent. Having prepared his own, he was not forced to sleep with others.

Seeing Minato leaving, the others began gossiping "Who is this young kid?"

"Didn't you heard of him? He is the genius of the academy that successfully became rookie of the year despite being only a first-year student"

"Wow, he is amazing! But man, why didn't he speak with us at all, passing all the travel reclused?"

"He is only 9 years old, cut him some slack. If I were this young, even I would be afraid to enter a battlefield. Look at how alert he looked even if we were still near Konoha"

"You're right, he is far younger than us, we should protect him as his senpai haha"

"But his sword was pretty cool" Suddenly exclaimed one of them

"You're right, maybe a family heirloom? I don't think a genin have the money to buy such a fine sword"

"But I heard he was orphan..."

"Well, who cares about that? It's not like we can snatch things from a Konoha comrade. Let's just make sure his sword doesn't fall into enemies hands"

"Well said! We will protect him and the sword!"

They began to laugh merrily, not realizing the gravity of war yet, nor the fact that the so-called kid doesn't need their protection.

Entering his tent, Minato didn't go to sleep. Because he passed the whole journey traveling, he didn't get any real training done, so he has no choice but to train the night. Thankfully, he doesn't need to sleep, only doing it because he liked it or when he became mentally exhausted. But if he doesn't train the night from now on, it will be years before he did some training again, so he has no choice but to cut his comfort time.

'I could only train my chakra sense and my odor sensing during the day, far from enough to progress. But even now, I can't really do training that would completely exhaust me. It would be foolish of me to be exhausted during an enemy ambush.'

Thinking that he began to review what could give him an edge for the war without exhausting him. 'I know! I will train in the sword. I have such a good sword but never train with one before, no better chance of learning than now. Unfortunately, I have to do that by myself, the swordsmen of this world are pretty lacking, training only in the form, not the essence of swordsmanship. Even if I use their forms, I have to first understand the sword by myself, for it to truly be useful. And for my clones, hm...'