The waves crashed rhythmically as the vast darkness enveloped them.
Most of the time, she was quiet, only occasionally doing something slightly out of line. When Naruto fell silent, Dark Sakura stopped speaking as well, turning her gaze toward the quiet sea, lost in her own thoughts.
After a while, Naruto lightly coughed, breaking the silence. His deliberately lowered voice echoed like a ghost drifting on the night sea.
"Compared to Sakura," Naruto said, "I prefer you more."
He had thought about it briefly but spoke truthfully as he always did. He liked this Sakura more than the one from before, and her obedience was part of it.
But more importantly, Naruto liked Dark Sakura's personality. Setting aside the fact that they shared the same body, he genuinely preferred this version of Sakura.
"Really?" Sakura leaned closer.
"Really."
Sakura smiled, and in the darkness, she wrapped her arms around Naruto's neck and hugged him tightly.
Morning arrived.
Anko yawned as she finished the last night watch. After a quick wash, she curled up under the umbrella to rest while Koyuki kept watch in the morning.
Thanks to Naruto, they had no major problems with food and clothing. However, their fate was still tied to the raft beneath them, drifting aimlessly.
Their only hope now was to come across land or a passing ship. Even a deserted island would be good enough.
In the first few days of drifting together, Sakura didn't seem to avoid Naruto at all. Whether changing clothes or doing anything else, even when she met Naruto's gaze, she remained unusually calm.
Anko and Koyuki were more reserved in some respects. After all, with a blonde guy hanging around them, it roughly counted as mixed company.
But after three days of drifting, the two women completely let go. When it rained in the afternoon, they took the chance to bathe. With their survival in question, they found it pointless to be modest.
Conversation among them grew increasingly sparse, with most of their time spent resting in shifts, with one person watching the sea while the other three rested.
Usually, people need only about a third of the day for rest, but in this situation, they were resting three-quarters of the time. Although Koyuki didn't need to keep watch at night, there was still plenty of rest for everyone.
On the fourth day of drifting at sea, their spirits were relatively good. Another rain shower came in the morning, and they huddled under umbrellas. When the rain stopped, they passed the time by fishing.
Naruto didn't bother fishing because they weren't short on food. He dozed under the umbrella, occasionally opening his eyes to scan the vast, endless sea.
His gaze would also occasionally sweep over the three women, each with her own fishing rod, sitting in different spots. It was just a way to kill time, though sometimes their efforts were rewarded, bringing excited shouts.
"It's hooked!" Koyuki exclaimed, fumbling to pull the line in, her light attire revealing much as she jumped up in excitement. Naruto used to this by now, so he just glanced at her briefly and then looked away.
Anko handled the fish, collecting the blood and guts in bags and then tossed them into the distant waters.
Naruto's sealed space contained iron pots, seasonings, and even several boxes of fuel. In such a bleak time, this provided the three women with a small sense of lighthearted enjoyment amid the hardship.
A fire flickered on the raft as fish sizzled and popped in the pan. Fortunately, it was daytime, so there was no real danger of attracting anything unwanted and the water remained calm.
Naruto clicked his tongue, glancing at the few fish already golden on both sides, and casually remarked, "Are these all you caught?"
Anko frowned, looked at Naruto with dissatisfaction, and said, "If you're so great, let's see how many you can catch!"
"Me?" Naruto squatted nearby, glancing at the three fishing rods resting on the side, "I could probably catch five fish in less than a minute."
"What?" Anko's mouth twitched slightly, "Although we are now at sea and the future is worrying, it's only been a few days. How can you already go crazy?"
"I'm not joking." Naruto said seriously, "Just ask Sakura, she'll tell you."
Anko turned to Sakura, who was just putting the fish away. She didn't say anything when she heard this, but just nodded perfunctorily.
"Impossible!" Anko insisted, "If you you can catch five fish in one minute, I'll eat them raw! Every single one of them!"
Naruto glanced at Anko with complicated gaze, "I didn't expect you had such a taste."
After thinking for a moment, Naruto pulled out two new backup fishing rods from his seal space. This was the fourth generation version of his backup's backup rods.
Anko watched as Naruto lowered five fishing rods into the water simultaneously without even baiting the hooks. Within three seconds, all five rods had a bite.
Watching the five fish flop wildly on the raft, Anko's eyes widened in disbelief, feeling as though her own face had been slapped. Fortunately, Naruto didn't force Anko to eat them raw, and calmly tossed each fish into the bucket instead.
"You didn't develop any Ninjutsu specifically for fishing, did you?" Anko couldn't help but ask.
"No way!" Naruto reeled in each fishing rod, "This is an innate talent that can't be taught. Ninjutsu is just a hobby, fishing is my main job."
Night fell, and they finished eating the last fish.
In the darkness, Anko suddenly spoke.
"Let's wait five more days. If nothing changes, then we'll call it quits."
"What do you mean, call it quits?" Naruto was shocked and quickly got up. " Think it over! You're the leader of this team! Damn it! Don't give up so easily, can't you hold on a little longer?"
"I'm not planning to give up." Anko said.
Hearing this, Naruto let out a sigh of relief. He was almost shocked out of his wits just now. Although they had been drifting at sea for nearly five days, their survival conditions weren't that dire.
With food and water, it shouldn't be enough to break down so quickly.
"So, what are you talking about then?"
"If we don't see any hope in five days, we'll have to try calling for help." Anko said, "Even if it risks alerting that bastard Orochimaru, using a Summoning Technique might be our only way to send a message."
"Summoning Technique? I can do that too." Naruto said, belatedly realizing.
"What can you summon?" Anko hesitated for a moment.
"Slug."
Anko fell silent. She turned her head and looked at the endless darkness on the sea, then suddenly pounced on Naruto. Grabbing him by the neck, she didn't squeeze hard but shook him as if to vent her anger, and spoke through gritted teeth, "You're a real piece of work, Uzumaki Naruto! If you can summon Katsuyu-sama, why didn't you say so earlier?!"
"Cough! You didn't even ask!" Naruto coughed and shouted defiantly.
"How was I supposed to know you could summon Katsuyu-sama?!" Anko released Naruto, taking a deep breath to calm herself, and then said, "Forget it, give it a try now."
"Okay." Naruto agreed, but there was not much emotion on his face.
Sakura and Koyuki watched from the side. They didn't know what the two were talking about, but they could tell that Anko and Naruto seemed to have found a new way to escape their predicament.
With a bang, Naruto summoned a small portion of Katsuyu using a minimal amount of Chakra. A Katsuyu the size of a soccer ball appeared on the raft, initially looking a bit dazed before addressing Naruto.
"Naruto-sama."
Naruto and Anko were both stunned when they heard this. Naruto stared at Katsuyu in disbelief, even though he could only see an outline in the darkness, 'Since when did I become 'sama'? Did this mean I was recognized?'
'Why is this different from what Tsunade said?'
Naruto had been ready to address Katsuyu with 'sama', but the reversal took him by surprise.
However, now is not the time to dwell on these small details. Anko nudged Naruto, and the slightly dazed Naruto suddenly came back to his senses. He coughed and asked.
"Can we contact Tsunade-sama?"
It had only been about half a month since the three had left the village on their mission. At this rate, it would still take some time for Konoha to realize Anko's team was in trouble.
However, the sea was unpredictable, and it was a miracle that they hadn't encountered any extreme weather or accidents in the past four to five days. If they dragged this out further, they might end up lost to the sea forever.
In the boundless sea, even though the three of them are Shinobi and they could support each other to keep going, and even with Naruto's supplies to sustain them, having no direction was still a major issue.
Katsuyu heard the sound of the waves and immediately became a little panicked, as she would quickly die if she fell into the seawater.
"Well… I can't contact Tsunade-sama on my own, unless she summons my main body herself."
Upon hearing this, Anko sighed.
But she still explained their current situation to Katsuyu, hoping it could pass the message to Tsunade. They agreed to summon her once every day for updates.
Time flew by, and seven days passed. The raft had become worn out, and the group continued drifting on the sea. During this period, they went through several rainstorms and two large waves.
Koyuki was nearly washed away once, and Sakura was pulled underwater once as well. It was Naruto and Anko who rescued them, pulling them back from the brink of death.
Although they escaped danger, the raft had become tattered. There was still no news from Katsuyu, and the group's spirits were getting low.
On the sixteenth day of drifting, the night was pitch black.
At night, they could barely see anything, so even if land appeared in the distance, they wouldn't be able to notice it. Forced by the situation, they could only muddle through.
Having endured many storms together, the four had become close, like comrades bonded through life and death. Following their usual routine, they sat together and chatted quietly.
Koyuki told her life story before becoming an actress without any reservation, so the three from Konoha started calling her the 'runaway princess'. Koyuki had also come to terms with her past and just hoped she could someday return to the Land of Snow and take a look.
Naruto thought of something and suddenly asked, "Could you give me that necklace of yours?"
A gust of wind whistled by, and the necklace landed steadily in Naruto's hands. Koyuki's voice came through, lazy and nonchalant.
"There's nothing I can't give you. If you want it, you can have me too."
On the twenty-second day, the raft completely broke down.
Naruto carried Koyuki on his back while Sakura and Anko stood with him on the surface of the sea, watching the tattered raft slowly sink into the sea. No one said a word.
Without the raft, they were not far from death.
On the twenty-third day, they finally spotted land and eagerly went ashore, only to find it was completely deserted, with no one living there.
Naruto climbed to a high vantage point and saw a large symbol of the Uzumaki Clan.
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