"I see you're up sleepy head!"
Ayaka was slipping on her chunin vest and shoes on top of one of the more chipper smiles before she walked over to the table and threw a bag that was on it at me. "Here's your lunch Shou-chan! Grab something to eat and then head off. Try not to be late for school, okay?"
"Thanks." I snatched it out of the air and slogged my way over to the kitchen, still not fully awake. My mother was rushing back and forth, gathering things that I was sure she didn't need for whatever she was doing that day. She kept everything prepacked and sorted for different tasks, in lines and rows of identical satchels. "Why did you let me sleep in? I thought we were going to work on fake accents this morning," I set the kettle on the stove to boil some water. "What's the rush?"
"Mommy needs to start going on longer mission again Shou-chan, the jobs around the village don't pay as much as the ones outside. So I've gone back on the away roster part-time." She stopped in front of the mirror by the door, and started combing her hair with a thick brush. "And I have just been called to the missions office. Don't worry, it will only be every so often. But I'll be gone for three or so days, and Ichiko-san has agreed to let you have dinner at their place when this happens, so go home with Josuke after school."
"Are we having money problems?" I asked a bit startled. I didn't notice anything that would point to it, but I did not have any real access to the finances as a kid so it was possible that I'd missed something. "I don't need an allowance then, I mostly use it on street food anyway."
"Oh, Shou-chan," her voice changed as she said that, lightening and becoming wistful like there was nothing else in the world to care about, and then she paused, tilted her head, and gave me smile No. 6, variant 3; lips closed, eyebrows up, eyes replicating fond amusement. I remembered this one. Ayaka had said that it was 'mostly for placating someone who really didn't understand why you had to leave after one night.'
"We have plenty of money in the bank. And the Village gives income support to families with very young children or in training. We can easily live off it if we are careful." She walked over and patted me on my head, No. 6 unwavering except for a slight but designed wateriness. "But I don't want to be careful, I want one of those red-silk dresses old lady Sato has for sale and to drink fancy sake when I feel like it," and with that remark she walks back to the door and opens it, turning back to give me a little shrug of the shoulders. She wiped off No. 6 and replaced it with her original chipper and cheerful No. 8. "So sadly I will have to keep working," she gives me a little wave and a wink, "Take care and try not to burn the house down." And with a small slam of the door, she was gone.
The abruptness of the departure was a little too much for my sleep addled brain, so I just ended up staring at the door for a moment or two as I processed, a little upset, but not sure why. Eventually, I shuffled over to the now whistling kettle, made myself a cup of tea and then shuffled back over to the table with it and set it down. Then I made my way back over to the kitchen while the tea was cooling and looked in the fridge for something to make breakfast. If I was in the mood I would once again wonder: how Taki had running electricity, rationed and only at certain times in a day but still present; how things functioned on such carefully controlled amounts of energy. But I wasn't in the mood for that, so I wouldn't.
Not feeling up to making something fancy, I ended up just frying some rice and then mixing in peas, butter and a pinch of salt. Sitting back down at the table, I pick up my tea and took a sip. Instantly feeling ten times more awake, I gave out a little sigh of bliss.
Human once more, I quickly ate up my breakfast and packed my lunch and books into my bag before I put on my shoes and headed out the door. I paused to look around.
Our apartment was all the way on the fifth floor of the complex, the door opening out to an exterior hallway looking out towards the lake if only there was not another apartment complex in the way. There was a railing to keep people from tripping off and falling all the way to the ground, not that that mattered to some of the population.
Usually at this point I would have walked over to the spiral staircase that was at the left of the building to get down. But lately, I'd been using a different option.
An excited and unstructured grin pulled at my lips as I flooded my legs with chakra and vaulted over the railing to plummet to the ground, the wind rushing past my body as I twisted mid-air so my feet were facing down.
As I got nearer the ground I started pooling most of the chakra into my thighs, ankles and feet. When I hit the ground I could feel the force being absorbed as I landed with barely a sound instead of breaking all my bones.
Then without pause I, for lack of a better word, 'threw' my chakra forward and up in my body as I leapt into the air, flying up as far as the third floor of the next complex, level with one of the hanging balconies.
I then moved most of that Charka to my arms, and grabbed onto the side of the balcony and moved into a handstand that I pushed out of and back into the air, passing the top of the complex and onto the roof, spinning and twisting to get myself the right way up before I landed, and then leaping to the roof of the next building.
And so I went, over houses and shops, under walkways and power lines, and even though one set of windows, stopping to say hi and check up on old man Ranmaru-san in his living room like every other morning. As I went, I twisted, turned and flipped partly for the fun of it, and partly because I hadn't quite mastered controlling my body's placement in the air yet.
I still got a surge of joy every time I ran around like this. The others thought that I was a bit weird for just how much I still got excited when we trained this skill. To them, maybe it was the equivalent of learning to drive a car. Enjoyable for most, but something that was just a part of the ninja world.
But for me, it was an impossibility made real. A reminder that this really is a world of amazing and terrifying things. But at least there are some good things.
After five minutes of jumping I landed in front of the training building and walked into the classrooms to my favourite seat in the middle with time to spare before class, plopping down on the bench. Still holding that same delighted smile on my face.
"So, if there is a 'Tsu' here, and my guess that they're using a Lightning military code is right, then… this one?" I stared down at the problem on the worksheet as I flipped through a codebook with both hands and referenced the dictionary lying on my part of the table. It was a free period in class and while some were using the time to talk and mess around, some students were taking the chance to make progress on some of our built-up workloads.
Codes were fast becoming one of my least liked subjects very quickly. They're not that hard per say, since if you had the cypher, it was more math than language, but it can take a long time to get through them. If that was all, then I would have been fine.
No, the real problem was the jargon. We had to learn how to use codes and understand them, and the language used in them. They used real examples, all of which were official and/or military in nature, and it was at a much higher reading capability then everything else we were learning at the time. Every new message that I had to decipher seemed to have had at least thirty new symbols that I had never seen before. All the dictionaries were constantly in use.
"I can finally hit the bullseye every time!" said someone from behind me, brimming with pride.
"So? I'm still kicking your ass in taijutsu, you can't brag until you're as good as me!" was the smug reply from his friend.
"Pff, as good as you? I'd rather go for being as good as those three Oni." The first replied the quickly, which leads to the second guy getting offence and starting up an argument.
"Ok, I think I got it," I looked down at what I had worked out some far, nodding to myself, "It's definitely based on that basic Lightning code. Now I just have to take each stroke and put it through the cypher and write down the new stroke on a page. It's just busy work for the next bit…"
"Nu uh, it could totally work! You just need to get the right spin as you jump," Josuke argued next to me, waving his arm at the piece of paper he was writing an amazingly detailed hand-drawn diagram onto.
"I didn't say it couldn't work. I said it's fucking stupid, that's not the same thing.", Saori responded with a sour face, "Why the fuck would you try spinning like a top as you slash when you can just cut the fucking guy like normal?"
"Language", I muttered next to them as I worked on my copying, more out of reflex by now than paying attention. Ever since she heard her older brother use that word, she'd been peppering her sentences with it whenever she thought she could get away with it without an adult hearing. I was confident she didn't even know what 'fuck' meant.
"Whatever, Shou." I'd been dismissed once again, how cruel. "Why don't you tell him I'm right? Jumping at someone while spinning wouldn't make your attack stronger, it would just leave you more open. It's bad taijutsu."
"You're just not seeing it," Josuke was quick to retort. "If you're spinning fast enough it will create force, which will make your attacks stronger." He turned to me. "Right Shou? Tell 'er I'm right."
I glanced up and wondered if I should have pointed out that the Inuzuka clan did have a move like that, but decided against it as I had no way to explain why I would know that. Instead, I just went with, "It would work, but with the power you need for it, it's probably more ninjutsu territory than taijutsu." There, a nice safe answer where everyone wins.
"Boo," they replied as one, both giving me a deadpan, unimpressed stare, before going back to arguing as if I was not there. Predictable. Whatever.
"Okay. Now all I need to do is figure out what this all means." One of the trickiest things about written Japanese is using dictionaries. As what something means is contextual, you not only needed to find the symbol but figure out which meaning of that symbol was the one you wanted.
"Dance, my minions, DANCE! Mwahahah…" There was some manic cackling from the other side of the room. The individual it was coming from bounced a little in his seat as almost everyone around him tried to pretend to ignore him.
"A-ah, T-Tetsuo-kun? They're just rubbers with straws in them for limbs," Rokuro said with a nervous smile, readjusting his glasses as he looked at the other boy, "P-plus I'm the one making them move, so they're, ah, sort of my minions, not yours?" He said the last bit as he looked at the hand he was holding out above the moving rubbermen as they did their coordinated jig, his fingers twitching madly.
Tetsuo just signed in response and gave the other boy a pleading gaze. "Look, man," he replied, "that's not the point. If you have an opportunity to say something like 'X, my minions, X!' then you take it, details be darned. You understand?"
"…yes?"
"Yes! Got it, this one stands for 'barracks' and this one for 'shifts', so they must be talking about watch-rotations, now even if I can't read some of the words, I should be able to 'deduce' what they are from the words around them." This was the most satisfying part of my process, when enough of the pieces are found that the rest of them start to fall into place.
"…and then I would have kept him from dying like that!" Taura, who is sitting in front of me tells her friend.
"And with that," I think to myself as I sit back in my chair, "I should just about be…wait, what?" I stare at the two girls in front of me with shock as I realised what I just overheard, and started giving them the attention that I was not quite giving the rest of the room before. I was straining to hear so I could figure out what exactly they were on about, because it sure as hell sounded interesting.
"I mean, the trap was so obvious," she began, the redhead putting a finger up in the air as if lecturing. "It's just that Masakazu-san was too honourable to turn down the duel. If I was there, I would have told him how to avoid it, or put down some exploding tags the night before if he still was going to go through with it."
"Ya," her friend continued. "And if he survived then he could have joined Tsukuyaku, Shishimaru and Princess F?n for the final fight with Lord Hirohito, and they would have won soo much easier!"
Oh, I think as I relaxed in my seat. They were talking about the first (only, at the moment) Princess F?n movie. That had been playing in that house that had been turned into a little theatre. Not an actual murder. Still, there was a part of what they were saying that was still holding my attention, an easy to guess part at that.
"But it would be scary won't it?" the friend continued, putting her finger to her lip as she thought. "Getting involved in all of that. If I suddenly found myself there, knowing all about the dangerous bits, I might just hide somewhere safe."
"No way," Taura shook her head, "Masakazu-san was my favourite character and just a really good guy. If I was in a place to help him, there is no way I wouldn't, no matter how scary. I'm not that selfish." She nods her head and her own reasoning, arms crossed in front of her. Case closed.
"But wouldn't that be even more selfish?" I feel the words leave my mouth before I could even really think about it, their head turning in surprise at my interruption. "To risk everything for someone that might not even appreciate your meddling if they knew what you were risking?"
"…what?" was the reply from both girls.
"How do I put it?" I said this as I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table with my hands cupping my chin to mull over my words. "The Adventure of Princess F?n had a happy ending. Not a perfect one, as a few people die, some important like Masakazu, and some not, but overall things ended about as well as can be expected given all the circumstances. If anything, it should have ended with far more deaths and pain then there were."
I sat up a little and looked down at my hands, now balled up as I thought hard. "But, if say, someone came along and told Masakazu that they know a future where if they did not get involved, Lord Hirohito would definitely be defeated, while Masakazu would definitely die, but they chose to save them..."
"And so because Masakazu was saved, Lord Hirohito might not be defeated." My hands were just a little white now, and a muscle in my jaw was going to work, "Ya, Masakazu can now be at the fight, that is easy to predict and that seems like a change for the good, but what about the reaction? Will Lord Hirohito still do the same thing and arrogantly meet them on the battlefield? Maybe. But he might not let his guard down the same way as he did in the original timeline, or he might bring more allies this time, or even decide not to fight at all with such a skilled fighter present, and run away. Too many possibilities. If Masakazu knows that his survival put so much in the air do you think he would be happy? ...I don't think so. I think he would be furious."
I sighed as I closed my eyes and slumped a little in my chair. Somehow just saying that out loud made me tired like I'd lost some vital energy, and in turn, some of the tension that had built up. "I mean, if it had a tragic end, or even a proper bitter-sweet one; a classical tragedy of mistakes and misunderstanding leading to the worst result, then it would be entirely different. It would be wrong to not get involved, to not change things…. But again, it was not a tragic end, but a good one."
"No," I said firmly, as determination fills me, "risking the happy ending, when so much is at stake if things go wrong, for the sake of preventing a personal tragedy or three is not just wrong, it's selfish to the point of wickedness: the act of a villain."
Settled on my decision, I open my eyes to see that the whole room was still, turned towards me and staring, and I realised that not only was that rant said aloud, but also loudly.
"A-ahaha…." I laughed softly as I looked around at everyone, scratched the back of my head, and gave a nervous grin. "I uh, really like the movie…" was the only reply I could give as I sank under my desk, face slowly going a bit red.
Luckily the attention span of seven and eight-year-olds meant that it was not long before everyone went back to their distractions, to be forgotten in a day or two.
That did not save me from the teasing from those sitting next to me for the rest of the class, or having to explain what I'd meant by 'classical tragedy' to those who came up to me and asked.
"Tiger, Boar, Ox, Dog…" Chakra flowed as I carefully worked my fingers through the basic clone jutsu. I started by gathering my chakra into my hands as I made a seal, to create a pattern in it, and then pushing that 'patterned' chakra back into my body. Then I repeated the process with each seal to layer the patterns on top of each other to make a matrix, and that turned the raw energy into a new, usable form, to be released with the last seal.
Well, that was the idea. What actually happened was that I sort of felt a knotty feeling in my stomach and left arm. Then that pattern just kind of collapsed in on itself and the jutsu fizzled out before anything actually happened.
"G-Good try, you h-have the order right, and your chakra is f-flowing well," Hiraoka-sensei said. He studied me, with his glasses glinting softly as they slipped down his nose. "It's just p-practice now, don't get discouraged. T-these things take time. Getting a jutsu down on the first day is a rarity." His piece said, Hiraoka-sensei moved on to a different spot on the field. Over there I saw Rokuro and Saori working on the technique. Rokuro was, like most things with chakra, having a bit more luck than the rest of us, in that he was making a whiteish blob with hair rather than nothing. Saori was poking that blob with a stick and grinning as she chattered away at the boy, half congratulating, half teasing.
Josuke was probably around somewhere near the trees, but for once I was happier to stay on my own for this class. I really didn't feel like watching him figure out the jutsu in less than one hour when it'd probably take most people weeks. Even if he will be happy to use what he figured out to help me with my technique.
That shit got depressing sometimes.
Still, nothing changes unless you do something about it. So, I sat down on the grass cross-legged, and worked through the sequence of hand seals, again and again. I only stopped for a few minutes whenever I started to feel a bit light headed, not having that much chakra to throw around yet. But I didn't get much in the way of results.
"You're not being sharp enough in your moulding," came a gravelly, bored voice from behind me.
I jumped before I leaned around and looked up towards the sound to see a man in his early thirties with sleepy eyes. His hitai-ate hung from his neck and he dressed in the standard Jounin uniform, though it was a bit more faded and frayed than usual; the only things that really gave him a bit of uniqueness were the 5 o'clock shadow and shaggy black hair in a half-ponytail, and the only thing about the man that was in perfect condition, a long katana whose hilt poked up from over his shoulder.
Overall, he gave the impression of a stereotypical bachelor too lazy to look after himself right, but at least avoided looking homeless.
His name was Kono Keiki, and he was the latest 'volunteer' teacher for the class. Not really having anything to say to his comment outside of a stupid 'huh?' or 'what?', I instead just gave him a questioning look to convey an interest. A real one.
He gave a little 'hmmm' and scratched his chin, making a show of musing on how to explain it in a way that a 'kid' would understand. "When you do the seals, your timing is wrong. You fill your hands then do the seals, or you do'em, then fill your hands with chakra. You need to do both at once."
Here he stops to nod to himself a little at his own advice.
"Stamping a pile of papers, yeah. Don't rock the stamp on the paper or leave it there or drag the stamp along to the next page. You hit it down and then lift it up before going to the next one," he bent down a little and grabbed my collar, lifting me up onto my feet like I weighed nothing. "Seals are the same, fill your hands with the chakra and clamp it with the seal at the same time. Fast, one movement. Got it?" Then he gave me a little 'hurry it up' motion with the same bored look he had at the start; as if I was the one who walked up to him and started pestering him.
But, even if some people would be annoyed, I still ended up bracing myself and go through the seals one more time. This time I 'stamped' the chakra like he said. At first, there didn't feel like there was any difference—just the same knotty feeling in my stomach and left side—but instead of collapsing like some of my past attempts, the pattern kind of caught on to something and pulled itself out of my side.
A sudden rush of tiredness came over me.
Looking towards the spot where the chakra went I saw…a pathetically small blob with something that sort of, might of, maybe looked like my nose in the centre. Still, a smile wormed its way onto my face as I looked at it. As pathetic as it was, that was the most progress I've seen the whole day. Craning my head back to look at Kono-sensei (why are Jounin so tall? Granted, most adults are taller than 7-year-olds, but Jounin always feel taller than most.), "That works way better! Thank you, Kono-sensei," I said to the man with my best bright smile.
"No problem kid," was his simple reply. I watched him turn around and slouch off to one of the treelines around the field, muttering, "There, I helped one of them. Now he can't complain if I take a little nap, right?" before he disappeared in a body flicker.
For the rest of the lesson, I and most of the class did not make much more progress on the jutsu, and it ended up being a boring time. The only interesting bits were when Hiraoka-sensei dragged me off to the side to confirm that, yes, Kono-sensei did, in fact, help me, and no, he did not spend the whole class napping in a tree. (If I made it seem like he spent more than the minute or two that he did in helping me, well, it's always good to have a Jounins goodwill.)
There was also the time when a slightly transparent Josuke with arms for legs and legs for arms ran through the middle of the field, mouth open in a silent scream as it flew passed before abruptly disappearing. It was not long after that unsettling scene that Hiraoka-sensei called it quits, and sent us back to the classroom to clean up, and then set our homework.
It was as we were finishing up and people had started to leave that I noticed that Kono-sensei was still at the front desk, working through a large pile of worksheets with a frown and an air of annoyance. I stopped where I was and contemplated on whether it was worth an attempt. On one hand, it hadn't worked for anyone else I've tried, and with what I've seen today Kono Keiki was not a motivated individual. On the other hand, he showed that for what little bit of teaching he felt like doing, he was pretty good at it.
Well, at the end of the day, the worst that could happen if I tried asking him for a mentorship or some lessons would be that he'd say no. Might as well try.
I went up to his desk and waited for him to acknowledge me. I took a quick peek at what was on the sheets. I think it was some type of day review form. Not even ninja could escape the clutches of bureaucracy.
After a bit, he paused in his work to look up at me, a slightly annoyed frown tugging at his lips, "Yeah, kid?"
I started off keeping a certain amount of bright energy in my voice. "I just wanted to thank you again for the help earlier today." People are more engaged if they think that yourself are engaged with what you're saying, though you can't overdo it. "The way you explained it really made it make sense to me."
"Like I said, it was no problem, I was happy it helped," he said. He didn't look any happier at all. If anything, his frown was a twitch bigger as his eyes give me a quick, considering scan. He must already be guessing where I was trying to lead this conversation. "If that's all you wanted I need to get back to my work." Better cut to the chase.
"Ah, well, I was wondering if it might be possible to get you to help me a little more after classes?" I rushed to say the rest before he shut me down. "Just a few lessons maybe, just an hour or two a week or something, I can pay you for the time or work out someth—" I stopped when he held his hand up and he let a slightly pinched expression cross his face. After a moment he just lets out a sigh.
"Look, kid, what's your name?"
"Fujimori Shou sir". I don't bother with the energy of before. I wasn't really interested anymore now that it was obvious that he was going to say no. Can't even feel upset about it. You should always expect long shots to miss.
"Ok Shou-Kun, look," he must be trying to be gentle with his tone, "While I'm flattered, I haven't even decided whether I'll be teaching again after my last bunch, let alone looked at any of your classes files. Most Jounin don't even start scouting at this stage, I'm sure next year someone..." He stopped there, as if he just reconsidered something, and squinted at me.
"Wait, you said Fujimori right?", he asked, and I nodded in reply, "You related to Fujimori Ayaka?"
"Yeah, that's my mom," I said. I was a little surprised at him bringing Ayaka up in the conversation, and at his obvious renewed interest.
He hummed to himself a little bit as he sat there with a hand on his chin. "Well..." Then he gave a giant put-upon sigh while developing an even more pained expression that instantly made me suspicious. (If someone starts looking more exploited after they changed their mind from when they were going to say no, you can bet they're up to something.) "How about this? I've gotten unfortunately busy lately with duties inside and outside the village, so I don't have a lot of free time. But if you do some of my chores for me, like food shopping or laundry or whatever, I'll have some more time."
He gave me a little wink.
"And if I use a little of that time, say, two to three hours a week, to teach you a thing or two, as long as I'm in the village, we both win, right?" He held out his hand to me and gave a little tired smile, "How about it, sound fair?"
I hesitated. On the one hand, that was way too quick of a one-eighty and I don't know what it is he is really trying to get out of this. Blind deals were always iffy even if I was confident that it at least wasn't anything malicious. On the other hand, this was the only deal I'd even come close to getting, and it's not like I can't just back out. No one would be surprised if a seven-year-old quit what is essentially a paperboy-esque job.
It all came back to the fact that it was me who came up to him.
I took his hand and shook.
On the way home from training there was this little walled garden-park hidden away between a bunch of busy administration buildings, whose surrounding thick bushes and small trees somehow blocked both the view and all sounds in and out, creating the illusion of being out in nature right in the middle of the concrete village.
A small place, the inside consisted of two greens split with a winding path for people to walk through. On the left near one end was a little flower patch, not well looked after—in an overgrown way rather than a dead one. It burst with not just decorative flowers, but also an assortment of weeds and tall grasses. A good gardener would have probably had a fit looking at it, but I kind of liked its wild liveliness. On the other end, with two long benches and a small round stone table, was a nice place to sit and spend your time relaxing.
On the whole right side, there was a flat, open space with a single lonely hitting post in the middle, pockmarked from old kunai and shuriken wounds. The spot was only big enough for self-practise, going over taijutsu forms or something, not sparring. I thought it was probably put there for the office-ninja around the area to keep in shape, but just like the park itself, it was half-forgotten.
At the very back of the hidden garden was the reason this place was probably made, and why it was kept at all.
A giant snaking root sprouted from the ground, one of the roots of the Great Tree, which showed that no matter how big it was above ground, its true mass was under us. The coil arched twenty feet in the air at one point, then bent and dug itself back into the soil, shaded by the overhanging branches of some of the smaller trees.
Overall a perfect little getaway. And because it was tucked away in a place everyone was too busy to use, I could pretty much use it how I wanted.
I usually did use the training spot to work on my taijutsu or throwing, or on dry days used the table to do homework, but I also liked to take a rest every so often. If I had just headed straight home, first I would have had to train with Ayaka or do chores or something before I could sit down. This place was for a little me time, and I think I deserved it today.
I walked up to the root, sat down and stretched out, leaning with my back up against the base of the root and placing my hands behind my head as I closed my eyes and relaxed.
Not only did I make a lot of progress on my first jutsu, but I had gotten myself a few lessons from a Jounin on top of my own family training, if I could convince Kono-sensei that I'm worth the effort. As long as whatever it was he was trying to get wasn't problematic, I might just have secured myself a path right up to my genin exam.
Though, past that? We'd see… where I would end up would depend on what type of team a Jounin wanted. No matter where I placed in the academy, first or dead-last, with my family background and training I was going to slot into the support role in a team, or as a member of a support team. Maybe Information gathering or tracking.
Not that I minded, those seemed like they would be comfy gigs for a ninja.
There I will hopefully stay until I'm trained up enough for Chunin and sent off to a specialist department. Intelligence maybe?... I hope not infiltration and/or assassination.
Or the Jounin decided that I was going to be a forever Genin and gave up, but let's be optimistic and ignore that outcome.
Infiltration was supposed to be as dangerous as a frontline fighter and ten times as stressful, and the second… I was a lot more comfortable with the idea of killing these days, but still... Conditioning tended to work, even if you're aware of it, but there was still a difference between 'killing because you had to', and 'what you had to do was killing'. I would like to avoid that level of… I would like to avoid it.
I huffed out a breath, before breathing in more of the floral woodsy smell of the tree.
I sighed and wriggled in my spot a bit, trying to make myself a bit more comfortable. I sank down, half laying on the grass by that point.
"Maybe if I show that I'm pretty ok in a fight on top of everything else I can work as a retainer?"
Retainers were the ninja who were sent out by the village to guard people of interest or who were wealthy enough that they could afford to pay the Village long term for the manpower. Ranging from the daimy? and his family to well-off merchants, retainers had to not only be decent at the combat aspect of the ninja life, but it was even more important that they have some idea of politics and etiquette so they did not end up embarrassing the client or the Village, so they were recruited from the support ranks and less important members of the big clans rather then the combat ranks most of the time.
"Ya, that doesn't sound so bad…" I muttered to myself. A safe, comfortable job looking after some minor lord, keeping them away from bandits and such before retiring with loads of money was about as good a life plan as anything else. It's not like I care enough about that story to get involved. And it's not like it affects me in any way.
"If I was in a place to help him, there is no way I wouldn't, no matter how scary. I'm not that selfish." She nods her head at her own reasoning, arms crossed in front of her. In a memory there are all kinds of details you didn't realise you saw, like how as she pulls her head back up from the bounce, the tendons in her neck tense and twitched...
Okay, so the whole end of the world by evil space god thing would, in fact, affect me, but I already made my point about that, with something so big at risk, and with how close everything was at the end, causing any ripples is more likely to do damage than make things better. The smart thing would be to let things play out like they should.
"How do you know you did not change things already? Is it not just as arrogant to think everything will be the same?" The question bubbled up to the front of my mind unwanted. I frowned at it a little but otherwise did not react.
Prophecy, fate, reincarnation. The narrative of Naruto was filled with things that sort of implied the presence of some type of destiny or overarching divine plan. There were (are?) things that are meant to happen, things that could be changed with active effort, but not things that just existing would challenge.
Or alternately, if just existing changes things, then by the time I would have been able to do anything, everything would have changed to the point that it would not matter what I know.
Maybe I'm just making excuses, but it was all so… abstract and far away. Yes, it could affect me, but only in the way a nuclear crisis or another world war would have affected me in that past life. It would have scared me, but I would not have jumped to join the army if I was not forced to. I would have trusted that other people would have been working on it and get on with my life, like I'm doing here. I just didn't have a personal reason to get involved.
...risking the happy ending, when so much is at stake if things go wrong, for the sake of preventing a personal tragedy or three is not just wrong, it's selfish to the point of wickedness: the act of a villain."
I simply didn't have a reason to be selfish. Takigakure was not part of that end-game, so no one I did or might care about would be personally involved. There was no tragedy I wanted to stop enough to risk myself or the world.
I heard a loud cracking, snapping sound followed by a quieter brushing.
I was about to look up, but before I was even done registering the sounds I was already hit. A heavy weight crashed into my stomach.
the air was flow out of me from my mouth and left me winded as the weight pressed me into the ground. I was left gasping for air and more stunned then in pain.
Then the shock ended and the pain came, not a sharp, quick pain, but a dull, lasting one. Like something was reaching inside of you and squeezing. A throbbing that stuck to you.
I blindly pushed the thing off and rolled away, 'It' gave a little 'eep' as I did so. The feeling of the hardwood of the root was replaced with the soft sensation of the grass then the open air as I got up onto my hands and knees, now facing were I once was and looked up, taking the chance to stop and take a good look at what exactly 'it' was.
'It' had the shape of a girl, a bit younger than myself. She was a small thing, and thin. Not from malnourishment, just as someone who was meant to be built that way. As she picked herself off the floor and onto her hands and knees as well she looked back at me and stared in concentration. I found myself staring at her eyes: they were her most distinctive feature, wide and orange and pupil-less, color-matched to a hair clip and framed by mint hair.
Her mouth made an 'oh' shaped expression, before morphing into the widest, most stupidly open grin I had ever seen.
I stared incredulously at the idiot who literally fall out of a tree and gave her an angry glare. I was still gulping in air greedily, but figured I could spare some air. If I were a civilian or didn't train much...
"What the hell are you doing!" I yelled, pointing dramatically at her chest to get my point across, "we could have been really hurt!"
She stared at me for a few more moments before pointing dramatically at my chest and chirping an answer.
"Hi, I'm Fu! Who the hell are you?"