27: Wish For Fish

Author note!

Welcome to the Jiraiya mini-arc, where I forget to write any actual combat into the story for like seven chapters straight as I cover the three-year period where Jiraiya trains the Akatsuki orphans... So I guess this counts as slice-of-life? Technically?

Well whatever, this is a pretty long story anyways and we're still in the childhood phase. I'm sure you wonderful readers can survive without your daily dose of bloodshed for that long, right? Heh.

Rest assured, the violence will re-commence properly at around chapters 33 or 34.

Have a nice day, and enjoy the chapter!

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The next day dawned and the group of five were on their way to the reservoir to begin their first fishing lesson.

"Konan, it really isn't that embarrassing." Seija told her gloomy new friend.

"Seija. Shut up." Konan mumbled with a dead look in her eyes.

Konan had - somewhat predictably - completely rolled over the pillows in her sleep and clung on to Seija in the middle of the night.

'In hindsight I really should've seen that coming. She's a kid who just lost her parents not long ago, of course she would cling on to the slightest comforting presence she could get her hands on. We'll have to come up with something to fix that issue later.'

Jiraiya stopped at the water's edge and looked around for a bit before turning to the other four.

"Alright this looks like a good spot. Now, I'm gonna go through this step by step, so pay attention!"

'Here we go. I've never actually been fishing in either of my lives so far. Let's see how this goes.'

- - -

"Yahiko! You're reeling it in too fast!" Jiraiya tried to stop him.

"Can it, Sensei! I know what I'm doing."

"Yahiko... I think Jiraiya-sensei's right..." Nagato also tried to stop him.

"No way! This fish will let me reel it in for the good of Amegakure's future!" He declared.

It turns out that this fishing lesson was quite a bit more intense than Seija had predicted it would be. At least for Yahiko. She was doing just fine over on her side of the waterfront. No fish yet. Which was arguably better than hooking several fish and failing to catch any of them.

'Well then. Since I'm here...'

She finally had time to check an important system message that had popped up in the middle of the night.

[-World Message-]

[-Due to reincarnator #13's awakening, there are now ten reincarnators currently awoken. The Global Chat function is being upgraded.-]

[-The Group Chat function is now online.-]

'Well, it's about damn time. Not that I really plan on using it much.'

[-Global Chat-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "Sheesh... That sure took its time, eh?"-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "I thought I'd never see the day... I was sure that one of us would be cursed to die every time we got close to ten people..."-]

[-Reincarnator #13: "Woah... What did I miss? Is this about that World Message thing?"-]

[-Reincarnator #8: "Welcome, number #13. Yeah we've been waiting for a tenth reincarnator to show up for a while now. Numbers #3, #9, and #10 all died, so we've been waiting for numbers #11, #12 and #13 to show up for a while now."-]

[-Reincarnator #6: "Speaking of number #9, I'll create the memorial now. My system tells me that I can set rules in the Group Chat so that only admins in my chat can post there. Which is good, because knowing the old internet at least one of you would be bound to deface it for kicks. Only now you aren't anywhere near as safe doing so, since any other reincarnator could eventually track you down and kill you for doing so."-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "Uhhh... that's pretty morbid, number #6..."-]

[-Reincarnator #6: "The anonymity of the internet won't protect you from conjured blades of wind, number #4."-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "Ok yeah that's fair. I'm gonna start a Group Chat now. Come check it out later."-]

Seija also decided to check out the Group chats menu in her own system to see what it was like. It turned out that it was less like an actual 'group chat' and more like a customisable online forum. A user could create a post about a topic and then have people comment on it below, or they could simply create one without a main post and just use it as a chat system.

In fact, reincarnator #5 just made one called 'Global Chat 2.0' which was just the Global Chat except there was no restriction on the topic to prevent flooding. Seija could easily see the old Global Chat being used solely for newly awoken reincarnators to get their bearings before moving into this Global Chat 2.0 to actually talk to people. And so did everyone else apparently as they all started moving there immediately.

[-Global Chat 2.0-]

[-Reincarnator #5: "Here we go! Now everyone can chat unrestricted if they want to."-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "First!"-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "Ah shit... Never mind..."-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "You know that failure is getting immortalised in this chat forever if number #5 doesn't delete it, right number #7?"-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "Five! My bestest buddy in the whole wide world! Please delete my failed 'first' pretty please!!!"-]

[-Reincarnator #5: "Nope :)"-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "Oh you are SO getting drowned when I find you IRL. I'm real fuckin' good with Water Style, bitch!"-]

[-Reincarnator #5: "And I use Earth Style. Remember which element beats which?"-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "Pshh, yeah like I can't just overpower the elemental advantage with raw chakra output!"-]

Seija's personal comedy show had to be cut short when her line started twitching.

"Oh! Looks like Seija's got one, guys!" Konan called out.

Seija felt the fish on the other end of the hook struggling to get away with its free worm. She would not give it the chance. She reeled it in slowly, carefully. It was dumb, it would tire out eventually, and that was when she would really give it all her power to reel it in.

After a few minutes of stalemate, the fish finally began to slow down.

'Got you, you little shit!'

She reeled and lifted the rod into the air. A large carp was promptly thrown onto the bank where they were standing. She finished it with a jolt of Lightning Style to the brain, grabbed it by the mouth and looked over to Jiraiya.

"Hey, sensei. I got it."

"Nice going, Seija! See, Yahiko, she took it slowly and now she's bagged a pretty big one. That'll be dinner tonight for a few of us, but we'll need another one if we want to really feast. Back to work everyone!"

Seija spoke up again.

"Sensei, I'd like to test something. I'm going further along the bank a hundred meters or so, so I don't disturb you guys' fishing spots."

"Alright. Be careful not to fall in." He wasn't aware that she could already walk on water.

"Heh. Sure thing, sensei."

- - -

Nagato was the next person to successfully reel one in. It took him three attempted fish to finally get one, and unfortunately it was a bottom-feeder that stored pollutants inside its body, so they had to let it go. It would've been a very nasty meal to try and eat.

Yahiko, finally, was able to exercise some restraint and caught a carp like Seija's. Though it was mostly because his arms were tired from going full power at all the previous times.

As they packed up, Yahiko looked around him.

"Hey, so what exactly is Seija doing?" He asked Jiraiya.

"Hmmm~? I'm not sure. She's just over on that side, past that hill over there. We're going home now anyways, so we should go get her." Jiraiya responded.

As they crested the small hill they were greeted with the sight of...

"Gah! Those wolf things again! What did she call them? Wulgs?" Yahiko exclaimed.

Seija was having her Wulgs practice fishing as well.

Jiraiya spoke up first.

"Seija! It's time to go."

"Hm? Oh, hi guys. Sure, just waiting for the last one to finish his attempt. Turns out Wulgs aren't very good at fishing..." She sighed as she patted the one next to her and had to jump back when the big wet dog tried to rub against her.

"No, you're soaking wet. Go play with the others." She complained even though it was raining and she was wearing a waterproof cloak.

It did exactly as she commanded.

"So... do they just do whatever you say?" Konan inquired.

"Yep. Everything. They're pretty great." Seija happily answered.

"Are those your only summons? I've never seen this species before..." Jiraiya commented.

"They aren't. The summoning realm I contracted is rather unique. There are tons of different species there. But they only let me summon the ones that deem me worthy. So no matter how much chakra I put into the Jutsu, I can't just summon a super powerful one straight away. I have to get stronger first before they'll join me in battle." She explained.

The final Wulg hauled its heavy-furred body out of the water, holding a tiny fish in its mouth.

"Well... at least one of you managed to catch something. You can keep that."

The Wulg happily swallowed the fish in one bite.

"Go on home, boys."

*Poof*

The Wulgs vanished. Seija turned around and walked back to the rest of the group.

Jirayia clapped his hands, "Ok, let's head back and cook up those carp!"

""Right!"" The rest responded to Jirayia's announcement.

- - -

As everyone was winding down from their meal, which Seija added a liberal amount of food pill shavings to to give it some additional nutrients, Seija decided to once more check the Group Chats to see if any interesting discussions had cropped up. She sorted them by popularity and checked the top five.

[-Group Chat List-]

[-1: "Global Chat 2.0" by Reincarnator #5-]

[-2: "Memorial Chat" by Reincarnator #6-]

[-3: "List of reincarnators and theories about their identities and abilities" by Reincarnator #4-]

[-4: "Training tips sharing chat" by Reincarnator #8-]

[-5: "Who the heck even is number #1?" by Reincarnator #7-]

'Huh. There's one about me.' She mused.

[-Who the heck even is number #1?-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "So, we all know about reincarnators, right? We ARE reincarnators after all. But some of us are less known than others. Namely: reincarnator number #1."-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "Reincarnator number #1 has chosen to keep themselves to themselves, and honestly? That's fair. But I still wanna know! The mystery is too much! Please post any info you find about reincarnator #1 in this chat. Any non-info will be deleted. We will unmask our mysterious eldest-sibling eventually! (P.S: If you just want theories, go see number #4's Group Chat with the really long name.)"-]

Fortunately, all of the responses to this post were mere theories and conjecture, and number #7 already had them marked for deletion if they didn't update with genuine information. So, like number #7 said, she went ahead and checked number #4's post.

[-List of reincarnators and theories about their known identities and abilities-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "Howdy y'all. Below is a list, structured like a status menu, that I will regularly update as new info is sent to me. Most of it will simply be theories, but it's best to at least have them written down somewhere where everyone can find it."-]

Below it was a custom graphic with unique pages for every reincarnator currently awoken, including the deceased. Obviously there would be no data on reincarnators #3, #10, #14, or #19. But there was a page for Kaowru.

[-Reincarnator #9, 'Kaowru'-]

[Status: Deceased, impaled by Sakumo Hatake somewhere in the Land of Rain]

[System: Merchant-type]

[Gender: Male]

[Birthplace: Land of Grass]

[Occupation: Merchant, Fuinjutsu User]

[Affiliation: None]

[Appearance: Unknown]

[Abilities: Fuinjutsu, chakra not fully awoken]

[Notes: May be the joint-first reincarnator to interact with another reincarnator. May be the only reincarnator to have interacted with reincarnator #1, as of this post's creation. The first awoken reincarnator to die. The first awoken reincarnator to be killed by a named character.]

'Hmm. Well it's not wrong. Wonder what it says about me?'

[-Reincarnator #1, Name Unknown-]

[Status: Alive]

[System: Unknown type]

[Gender: Unknown, possibly female]

[Birthplace: Unknown, possibly Land of Rain]

[Occupation: Shinobi, Unknown Rank, possibly Genin thanks to Kaowru's description of them.]

[Affiliation: Unknown]

[Appearance: Unknown, likely disguised themself when speaking to Kaowru. Has been shown wearing black gloves in one photo from their own perspective.]

[Abilities: Unknown, possible Transformation Jutsu, possible info-blocking ability]

[Notes: Reincarnator #1 is, obviously, the oldest reincarnator. They seem to have once met with reincarnator #9, though somehow avoided being recognised as a reincarnator by his system, instead only as a shinobi. Purchased a large number of weak explosive tags from reincarnator #9, which they later used to identify Kaowru's name. The only public message they have ever sent was the one in which they revealed Kaowru's name following his death, so it seems like they are not as emotionless and mysterious as they are trying to appear.]

'Ouch. I'm not trying to be mysterious, I'm just keeping my info private!'

There were a number of comments under each page, with Kaowru's being mostly different variations of 'Rest in Peace' and her own mostly being more theories. She read a few of them.

[-Reincarnator #2: "So, this is everything we know about them? Darn, feels awkward being the second-oldest when I was so close to being the first... and we don't even know anything about them!"-]

[-Reincarnator #5: "Can we tell anything from the hand in the photo? Any logos on the gloves or maybe determine their sex by the shape of the hands?"-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "I'm afraid not, number #5. The gloves are totally blank, and I imagine they're wearing them in the first place specifically to hide the shape of their hands. Knowing their sex would cut down their possible identity by at least half of the global population, so of course they were careful."-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "Maaaannnn... I really hope they aren't in the Land of Rain... They'll totally steal Konan first..."-]

[-Reincarnator #6: "The odds are rather slim that they would've met Konan, number #7. They would have had to find the exact location of the Amegakure orphans in the middle of the war. They may be the oldest of us, but that still only puts them at eight years old at most. Some other reincarnators have tried to locate characters from the story, but it has proven to be rather challenging since the world is much, much larger than expected in reality. The only two so far who we know for certain have met named characters are Kaowru, who was killed by one, and number #8, who recently posted a picture of a bowl of Ichiraku Ramen at the establishment in question."-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "Hey I met the Hokage once! He gave me my Konoha headband when I graduated from the accademy!"-]

Seija read through the entirety of number #6's rather lengthy post and noted that now two of the other reincarnators were confirmed to be in Konoha, numbers #2 and #8.

*Sigh*

'...Mom and dad, I wonder if you're still safe...'

She snapped out of her daydreaming when Jiraiya put the lights out and announced that it was time for bed, before drawing the curtain around his side of the room.

'No time to worry about it. I have no way of knowing, so I'll just have to do my best to become stronger... now how am I going to do that without revealing any of my Kekkei Genkai?'

'Hmm...'