In Konoha, Naruto lies down

"If we continue drifting at this rate, there might be hope." Naruto touched his chin and reasoned optimistically, "No matter where we land, as long as we can reach shore, we can return to the Land of Fire."

"That's true." Hongdou agreed.

"However, if it's closer to the Snow Country, then we can go and complete the mission in the Snow Country," Naruto added.

Hongdou didn't respond and looked at the sea speechlessly. He was still thinking about completing the mission at this time.

Late at night, the waves gently hit the raft.

The three of them took turns to keep watch. Naruto supported his chin and stared at the dark sea in a daze.

Suddenly, there was a rustling sound behind him. A pair of hands came from behind and gently hugged him. Naruto's brow trembled slightly, and his face showed an indifferent expression.

Again.

"She didn't wake up, I was the one who woke up." Hei Ying said softly, "Actually, I can pretend to be her. After all, we are the same person, and no one will find out."

"My acting is also very good, even better than Princess Fengyun's. I will disappear sooner or later anyway. I never existed. I am just a temporary person."

"It's like the expiring merchandise on store shelves. Apart from the expiration date, it's actually no different from normal merchandise, right?"

Naruto pushed her hand away, turned around, and stared into her eyes in the extremely dim light.

Sakura's eyes were dark, her expression calm, and she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, I lied to you. How is my acting? Is it good?"

"I just suddenly wanted to try this out to see if it's fun. I'm pretending to be like this. Sasuke-kun won't be coming back. Naruto, we can..."

Naruto ignored her words and reached out to touch her face. In the darkness, his fingers touched large, hot tears.

For the first time, he realized that Hei Ying hadn't lied. Her acting was truly excellent. Her voice didn't tremble even when she cried, and it even sounded like she was laughing.

He couldn't see Hei Ying's face, couldn't see her expression. His vision was stripped away, his hearing was deceived, only the sense of touch was real, burning hot, imprinted in his heart.

Naruto knew that from now on, he might not remember Sakura, but his hands would always remember the Black Sakura who acted very well in the dark.

But now he didn't know what to say. His usually restless mouth had fallen silent. He had no idea what to say about the fact that his secondary personality would eventually disappear.

He hated this silence. He didn't know how to speak up or how to face this endless silence.

Chapter 184: Landing, Whirlpool Country

The waves rolled in and endless darkness enveloped the area.

Most of the time, she was quiet, only occasionally doing something slightly out of the ordinary. Seeing Naruto was silent, Kurosakura stopped talking and turned to look at the silent sea, wondering what she was thinking.

After a long moment, Naruto coughed softly, breaking the silence. His deliberately low voice was like a ghost drifting on the sea at night.

"Compared to Sakura..." Naruto said, "I like you more."

He did think briefly, but he also always spoke the truth. Compared to the old Sakura, he liked the current Sakura more. Obedience was only one aspect of it.

On the other hand, Naruto really liked Black Sakura's personality. Putting aside the fact that they shared a body, he still preferred the current Sakura.

"Really?" Sakura fell over.

"Correct."

Sakura smiled and in the darkness she put her arms around Naruto's neck, hugging him tightly.

It was bright.

Hongdou finished his last night shift yawning. After washing up, he curled up under an umbrella to rest. Fenghua Xiaoxue would watch over him in the morning.

Thanks to Naruto, their food, clothing and other major problems were solved. But now their fate was still tied to the raft under them, drifting around.

Now their only hope is to encounter land or a passing ship, even an isolated island would be great.

In the first few days they were together, Sakura never seemed to avoid Naruto. Whether she was changing clothes or doing other things, even when she met Naruto's eyes, she was unusually calm.

Hongdou and Fenghua Xiaoxue were still a little hesitant in some aspects. After all, there was a yellow-haired man squatting there, which could be considered as the opposite sex.

But after three days of drifting, the two women completely let go. It rained at noon, and they took a bath. Even how long they could survive was unknown, so they were honest.

The conversations between the few of them became less and less, and most of the time they took breaks at staggered times, with one person staring at the sea while the other three rested.

Keren only needs to rest for about a third of the day, and now he rests for three-quarters of the time. Although Fenghua Xiaoxue doesn't need to keep watch at night, it's enough to rest.

On the fourth day of their journey at sea, the group was feeling quite energetic. It rained again that morning, and the group huddled under umbrellas. When the rain stopped, they started fishing again.

Naruto didn't fish, as he had no shortage of food. He dozed off under his umbrella, occasionally opening his eyes to scan the endless sea.

His eyes flicked over to the three women, each sitting in different places with a fishing rod, simply passing the time by fishing. Occasionally, they would catch a fish, always accompanied by a cry of surprise.

"It's hooked!" Fenghua Xiaoxue hurriedly pulled the line, and stood up suddenly in her cool clothes. Naruto was no longer surprised, so he just glanced at her and didn't look at her again.

Hongdou processed the fish, collected the blood and internal organs in a bag, and threw them into the distant sea.

There were iron pots, seasonings, and even several large boxes of fuel in Naruto's sealed space. In this depressing moment, the three women felt a sense of relief.

The fire on the raft lit up, and we watched the fish crackle. Fortunately, it was daytime, so there would be no danger, and the water was still calm.

Naruto tutted his words, glanced at the fish that were already golden on both sides, and said casually.

“Only a few?”

Hongdou frowned, looked at Naruto dissatisfiedly, and said.

"You're amazing, how many can you catch?"

"As for me?" Naruto squatted aside and glanced at the three fishing rods placed beside him. "I can probably catch five fish in less than a minute."

"What?" Hongdou's mouth twitched slightly. "Although we are now at sea and the future is worrying, it's only been a few days. Why are you so crazy?"

"I'm not kidding." Naruto said seriously, "Just ask Sakura."

Hongdou looked at Sakura, who was serving the fish. She didn't say anything when she heard this, but just nodded perfunctorily.

"Impossible!" Hongdou insisted, "If you can catch five fish in a minute, I'll eat them all alive! Not a single one left, I'll eat them all!"

Naruto glanced at Hongdou with complicated eyes, "I didn't expect you have such a hobby?"

After thinking for a moment, Naruto pulled out two new spare fishing rods from the sealed space. These were the fourth generation spare rods of his spare fishing rods.

Hongdou watched Naruto put five fishing rods into the water at the same time. There was no bait on the hook, but three seconds later all five rods responded.

Looking at the five fish jumping around on the raft, Anko's eyes widened, and she could feel her face slapping. Fortunately, Naruto didn't let Anko eat them raw, and calmly threw the fish one by one into the bucket.

"You didn't develop ninjutsu specifically for fishing, did you?" Hongdou couldn't help but ask.

"How is that possible?" Naruto collected the fishing rods one by one. "This is a talent that can't be learned. Ninjutsu is just a hobby, fishing is my main job."

At night, the last fish was eaten.

In the darkness, Hongdou suddenly spoke.

"Wait five more days. If you can't wait any longer, forget it."

"What do you mean by forget it?" Naruto was shocked and quickly got up. "You... you should think twice. You're the leader of the team, damn it! Don't give up so quickly. Can't you just hold on a little longer?"

"I'm not going to give up," Anko said.

Hearing this, Naruto finally breathed a sigh of relief. He had almost been frightened just now. Although he had been drifting on the sea for almost five days, the living environment was not too harsh after all.

I thought that since I had food and drink, I wouldn't have a mental breakdown so soon.

"Then what are you..."

"If there's still no hope after five days, we'll have to try to call for help," Red Bean said. "Even if that guy Orochimaru is alerted, there's no other way to convey the message except summoning techniques."

"Summoning? I can do that too." Naruto said belatedly.

"What...are you communicating with?" Hongdou hesitated for a moment.

"Slug."

Hongdou fell silent. She turned her head to look at the endless darkness of the sea, then suddenly pounced on Naruto. She pinched his neck, not using much force, just shaking him as if to vent her anger, and spoke through gritted teeth.

"You deserve to die! Uzumaki Naruto! Why didn't you tell me earlier that you could summon the psychic slug-sama!"

"You...ahem! You didn't even ask!" Naruto shouted with his neck stiff.

"Who knew you could summon Lord Slug!" Red Bean let go of Naruto, took a long breath, forced herself to calm down and said, "Forget it, you try it first."

"Okay." Naruto agreed, but there was not much emotion on his face.

Sakura and Kazehana Koyuki watched from the side, not knowing what the two were talking about. But they could probably tell that Anko and Naruto seemed to have found a new way out of their predicament.

With a bang, Naruto used a small amount of chakra to summon a part of the slug. A slug the size of a football appeared on the raft, stunned for a moment, and then shouted.

"Naruto-sama."

Naruto and Anko were both stunned. Naruto stared at the slug in disbelief, even though he could only see its outline in the darkness. How did he become an adult? Did this mean he was recognized?

Why is this different from what Tsunade said? He was clearly planning to call him "Slug-sama", but who knew... the reversal came so suddenly.

But now was not the time to dwell on these minor details. Anko poked Naruto, and the slightly dazed Naruto snapped back to his senses. He coughed and asked.

"Can we contact Lady Tsunade?"

Only about half a month had passed since the three of them left the village to carry out their mission. At this rate, it would take some time for Konoha to notice anything unusual about Team Anko's mission.

But the sea is unpredictable, and we were lucky to have avoided any extreme weather or accidents in the past four or five days. If we had delayed any further, we would have perished at sea sooner or later.

In this boundless ocean, even if the three of them were ninjas and could support each other to move forward, even if they relied on Naruto as a supply support, they would still have no direction.

The slug heard the sound of the waves and was suddenly frightened. If it fell into the sea, it would die soon.

"Well... I can't contact Tsunade-sama unilaterally unless Tsunade-sama summons her true form..."

Hearing this, Anko sighed.

But she still told the slug the current situation, giving it the opportunity to convey it to Lady Tsunade, and agreed to summon it once a day in the future.

Seven days passed in a flash, the raft became worn out, and the few people were still drifting on the sea. In the meantime, they experienced several rainstorms and two big waves.

Fenghua Xiaoxue was once separated, and Xiaoying was also swept to the bottom of the sea. It was Naruto and Hongdou who rescued them time and time again, pulling them out of the brink of death time and time again.

Although they had escaped unscathed, the raft had become tattered and battered. Still no news from the slugs, everyone felt somewhat downcast.

On the sixteenth day of wandering at sea, night fell.

At night, they could hardly see anything, and even if land appeared in the distance, they would not be able to detect it. Once night fell, they had no choice but to give up.

The four of them had been through many ups and downs together and were considered friends for life and death. As usual, they sat together and talked in low voices.

Fenghua Xiaoxue told her life story early on without reservation, and the three Konoha people simply called her the princess who escaped again. Fenghua Xiaoxue also let it go, and only hoped that one day she could return to the Snow Country alive to take a look.

Naruto suddenly asked as he thought of that option.

"Can you give me that necklace of yours?"

There was a sound of breaking wind, and the necklace fell steadily into Naruto's arms. Fenghua Xiaoxue's voice came, lazy and casual.

"There's nothing I can't do. If you want me to, I can do it too."

.......

On the 22nd day, the raft was completely scrapped.

Naruto carried Fenghua Koyuki on his back, and Sakura and Red Bean stood on the sea with him, watching the tattered raft slowly sink to the bottom of the sea. No one spoke.

Without the raft, they were not far from death.

On the twenty-third day, the four finally found land and went up to it with great joy. However, they found it was a completely deserted land with no one living there.

Naruto climbed up to a high place and looked into the distance, and saw a large Uzumaki clan logo.

Chapter 185 The Land of Ruins

He stood high on the cliff, and before him was a vast expanse of extremely desolate forest. The trees and vines that blocked out the sun could not hide the traces of the ruins and debris of the village.

The hillside facing away from the sun is dotted with exposed rocks, low shrubs growing recklessly, and the dead trees forming a sharp contrast with the nearby green vegetation, making it look like a Mediterranean.

The sound of waves filled his ears, and beyond his sight lay a pool of stagnant water. Naruto nodded and turned, seeing white smoke rising from the other side of the island, the direction where the three women were staying.

Retracting his gaze, Naruto pulled away. When he reunited with the three women, Anko had already prepared food. Naruto walked over and sat down, eating while talking.

“There are several ruins here, and they should not be inhabited.”

"I really admire you for not getting excited at all when you got ashore." Red Bean glanced at Naruto and sighed, "Sometimes I really doubt whether my career as a Jonin has reached its end."

"Special jonin." He reiterated in a servile manner.

"What's so strange about going ashore?" Naruto said nonchalantly, "We've been drifting on the sea for almost a month without any problems. It's impossible that we haven't encountered any land."