They walked in the rain for the better part of the day.
The distance was far greater than Luna had imagined.
The “woods” Yahiko had spoken of only came into view after they had crossed two small hills.
Along the way, the path was nearly swallowed by wild weeds; Yahiko walked ahead, using a tree branch to part the waist-high brush and forge a path through sheer persistence.
Luna’s shoes had long since been caked in mud beyond recognition, her pant legs were half-soaked, and with every step she took, she could feel the water squishing between her toes in her socks.
Her stamina had improved considerably since refining Chakra, but after all, this was the body of a seven-year-old child.
By the latter half of the journey, her legs were already trembling.
Konan was in a similar state, but she never uttered a single complaint, quietly walking ahead and only turning back occasionally to make sure Luna was still following.
Nagato brought up the rear without a word, though his breathing was noticeably heavier than usual.
Only Yahiko, clearly just as hungry and exhausted as the rest of them, stayed at the very front the entire time, clearing the path while constantly turning back to cheer the three of them on:
“Almost there, almost there! Just over this slope and we’re there!”
He had said that at least five times.
Yet after saying it for the fifth time and cresting the slope, he finally stopped saying “almost there.”
Because they had truly arrived.
Deep in the woods, on a relatively open clearing, a dilapidated shrine stood silently in the rain.
Calling it a shrine was generous; it was more like a small, long-forgotten temple.
Most of the roof tiles were missing, exposing the decaying wooden beams beneath, but the main structure remained intact.
The walls were made of stone and appeared quite sturdy.
The paper sliding doors at the entrance had rotted away long ago, revealing a dark interior.
In front of the shrine was a flight of stone steps overgrown with moss, with clumps of wild grass pushing through the cracks.
A stone lantern stood on either side of the steps; one had already toppled and shattered into pieces, washed clean and gleaming in the rain.
“Well? What do you think?” Yahiko stood at the shrine’s entrance, spreading his arms wide as if showing off a masterpiece.
“Told you, it’s totally livable!”
Luna stood below the steps, looking up to inspect the shrine.
To be honest, the shrine was far better than she had imagined.
Though run-down, its foundation was solid—stone walls and wooden beams made it infinitely better than the leaky, drafty cave they had lived in before.
She followed Yahiko inside and found the interior more spacious than it looked from the outside.
The main hall was about twenty square meters with a wooden floor.
Though some parts had rotted away, most of it could still bear weight.
A pile of tattered cushions and a three-legged altar table lay in a corner, while the walls were blanketed in thick dust and spiderwebs.
Most importantly…
Luna looked up and carefully checked the ceiling.
It didn’t leak.
Across the entire main hall, only the northwest corner had a small patch of water; everywhere else was dry.
“Tonight, we finally don’t have to sleep on the wet ground.” Yahiko plopped down onto a relatively clean section of the wooden floor, letting out a long sigh of relief. This story is hosted at g.com.
“I’m exhausted…”
Konan didn’t sit down right away.
She surveyed the shrine’s interior, put down her luggage, and quietly began tidying up—dragging the rotting cushions from the corner outside, brushing away the spiderwebs on the walls with her hands, and righting the altar table.
Luna joined in as well.
With one sweeping and the other tidying, they quickly cleared out a habitable space in the main hall.
Nagato gathered some dry firewood from outside and lit a campfire in the middle of the room.
The firelight chased away the gloom inside the shrine and brought a long-awaited warmth.
The four of them sat around the campfire, drying their rain-soaked clothes and hair.
“This place is really nice,” Konan said softly, her voice carrying a rare trace of relaxation.
“Much better than the cave.”
“Right?!” Yahiko immediately beamed with pride.
“I found this place a while ago and wanted to move here sooner, but back then I figured the cave wasn’t so bad, so I didn’t bother…”
Luna listened to their idle chatter, but her gaze was inadvertently drawn to the wall.
She noticed faint carvings deep on the far wall of the main hall.
The carvings were very old, covered in a thick layer of dust.
Without looking closely, one would easily mistake them for cracks caused by natural weathering.
But as Luna’s eyes swept over them, a strange sensation suddenly welled up in her heart.
She stood up, walked over to the wall, and reached out to brush away the dust.
Beneath the dust, an intricate pattern of runes was revealed.
The runes were arranged in a spiral, coiling inward ring by ring toward a circular emblem at the very center—resembling both a whirlpool and a sun.
Luna hovered her fingers above the runes without touching them.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She recognized this emblem.
This was…
the emblem of the Uzumaki Clan.
In the lore of Hokage, the Uzumaki Clan crest was a spiral motif symbolizing their clan’s power and Sealing Jutsu.
As for the runes on the wall before her, though she couldn’t decipher their specific meaning, the spiral arrangement and the central spiral emblem matched her memories perfectly.
Was this…
an Uzumaki Clan ruin?
No, not a ruin—just an abandoned shrine.
But for the shrine’s master to have carved Uzumaki Clan runes onto the wall meant that either members of the Uzumaki Clan had lived here before, or this shrine held some connection to them.
She reached out, her fingertips gently touching the runes on the wall.
The moment her fingers made contact with the runes, a faint warmth radiated from the stone surface.
It wasn’t an illusion.
Those runes still held lingering energy.
“Luna? What are you looking at?”
Luna turned around and found Nagato standing behind her, though she hadn’t noticed when he’d walked over.
His gaze drifted past her shoulder and landed on the runes etched into the wall.
Nagato stared at the spiral emblem, his pupils contracting slightly.
Only after a long silence did he ask in a very soft voice:
“What… is this?”
Luna looked at him.
In Nagato’s eyes, there was surprise, confusion, and an incomprehensible glint that looked like anticipation.
Luna paused in silence for a moment before shaking her head:
“I don’t know either. Maybe someone left it here a long time ago.”
She told another lie.
Yet deep down, she had a faint premonition.
This shrine was definitely not just a simple shelter.
That evening, the four of them finished their first meal in their new home.
It was very simple—a pot of thin porridge cooked with the rice Yahiko had stolen, paired with a few wild vegetables picked along the road, completely unseasoned and bland.
Everyone ate in silence.
After finishing his meal, Yahiko was the first to crash onto the bed of dried grass, soon letting out steady snores.
He was genuinely exhausted today after clearing the path alone for most of the day while constantly talking to keep everyone’s spirits up.
Konan was sleepy as well; leaning against the wall, her eyelids began to droop.
Luna, however, felt no sleepiness.
Sitting by the campfire, she pretended to dry her hair while her gaze drifted back toward the rune-carved wall from time to time.
Her fingertips could still recall the warmth she had felt upon touching the runes.
If those were Uzumaki Clan Sealing Jutsu runes…
what was their purpose?
To seal something away?
Or to protect something?
She didn’t know.
Perhaps this shrine harbored many more secrets she had yet to uncover.
Beside her, Nagato wasn’t asleep either.
Sitting on the other side of the campfire, his gaze—just like Luna’s—was fixed on that wall.
The flickering flames illuminated the spiral runes on the wall, as well as Nagato’s contemplative eyes.
He said nothing.
Luna knew that he had sensed something too.
This abandoned shrine felt like a silent resonance.
Resonating with the identical, vivid crimson hair atop both their heads.