Amai Sometimes Hides Her Feelings... In English?

Two weeks later.

Rummage, rummage.

You may wonder how I've gotten in this situation or why I'm here at the library, despite clearly not being the type to like studying, if at all.

"Come on, where's the fucking thing? I know it's there somewhere...!" I muttered to myself in English, obviously pretty damn frustrated from all the searching.

What? Don't give me that look, you guys would do it as well if you were the only one around here to know a second language.

By the way...

I nailed it.

It took an entire week of going back and forth, and trying convince Teuchi.

Knowing someone from a series is completely different from actually knowing them, of course. And naturally, to him, I was just some random academy brat. That alone made it a thousand times harder.

To top it off, I suck at talking to people. I always did, even during my senior year—

...which I didn't even manage to finish.

Because of that damn truck.

Goddamn it.

Anyway, life just happens—and I'm already on my second one. Might as well get over it, right?

Rummage, rummage.

"I swear, if I don't find it within the next few minutes, I'm literally going to set this library on fire." I muttered to myself in English, again.

I took a few steps back to make sure I was in the right section. I glanced up, and sure enough, it was the E-Rank section.

Either I really sucked at searching for things, or it was really well hidden. Probably the latter, I hope.

As I was saying, the job was nice. Teuchi was obviously against the idea of a child working, because that's just how he was.

Kind.

If there's anyone who can personify that word, it's him. It's no wonder that despite everything the village has made Naruto go through, he still didn't let that make him give in.

Teuchi-san and Ayame were the kindest duo in this otherwise forsaken world.

I really don't do much yet, other than helping with the trash or washing dishes, and maybe chopping some vegetables here and there—not to brag, but I'm pretty good at it, especially with this agile, mobile and stronger body.

I'm pretty damn humble, huh?

The pay wasn't much, being 40 Ryō an hour—and with 3 working hours, that amounted to 120 Ryō a day. It still beat the monthly stipend though, which really wasn't hard to do.

I also could get free ramen at the end of my shift, which was the biggest plus.

It messed a little with my routine as I had to head there around half an hour after the Academy, but it should be fine. It still left me with around six hours to train myself and plenty of other stuff. It'll be even easier once I learn the Shadow Clone—though I don't see myself getting the chakra needed for it anytime soon during the next months.

Currently, I had 720 Ryō saved up from my part-time shifts—I don't work on sundays—and 660 Ryō from the stipend. That together made a grand total of 1380 Ryō.

I'm fucking rich, baby!

Or at least that's what I tell myself to feel good about my economical situation.

"Found it!"

Finally got this thing, after searching for god knows how long. The Transformation technique!

This thing is singlehandedly one of the most useful jutsus when it comes to basically anything. Need to buy alcohol without an ID? Transform into an adult man with a beard or anything like that. Need to sneak around? Transform!

You just wanna mess around and have fun? Transform into motherfucking Goku.

I decided to learn this the moment I reached the milestone of holding the leaf for 5 minutes straight. Despite not being very draining, it was kind of hard to improve, but it felt like it was getting easier the more I held it every day.

I had initially thought it'd have diminishing returns, but it seems like it wasn't the case.

There's many possibilities with this technique, such as transforming into weapons like that one time Naruto transformed into a Fuuma shuriken to fool Zabuza. Tricky little goblin, he is.

Perhaps changing your smell as well once you reach a certain degree of mastery, or even your chakra signature to trick even sensors?

I brought the scroll to the librarian, a retired Chūnin who looked just about done with life itself and children. He barely looked at me as I handed it over and filled out the rental form—two weeks for 100 Ryo. Not cheap or expensive, but still a fairly high sum.

Safe to say, I left completely satisfied, having in my hands the very first technique I'd ever learn in this world!

By the way, if you're wondering, I came here right after my shift at Ichiraku, which means it should be around 5:40 PM by now. Plenty of time to practice.

Speaking of practice, I've been meeting up with Rei, Takuya and Daichi during the weekends and teaching them how to do basic household stuff, along with other skills such as cooking.

I kept a close eye on them each time they handled fire, because I definitely do not want my apartment to be set ablaze and have to pay for it—or worse, if it spreads to the other buildings.

Definitely not.

I've been to Rei's apartment, and it was... a mess, to say the least. Not that I blame him. The people here make literal children care for themselves, what the hell are we supposed to do? There was instant ramen packages and ration bar packets strewn on the floor, a dirty table—the sink wasn't that bad, at least he washed the dishes.

It was horrific. Where are the child rights activists when you need them?!

Anyway, we've been doing some Taijutsu sparring and physical conditioning, the four of us. For now—and surprisingly—I was the second best at it. Rei was the ace of the four, seeing as not only he was decently strong, he was pretty quick at reacting.

I didn't even know how to fight, for fuck's sake. The only reason I was keeping up was because I had confidence in beating a bunch of kids—the gap would only widen as we grew, and also when we find our own Taijutsu styles.

Man.

The things I have to do for absolute world domination.

I sighed as I entered the apartment after a while of walking and monologuing in my own mind. Not even a month of gaining independence and I'm already losing it, huh?

"Whatever," I muttered, cracking my neck slightly. "Might as well get to work on this thing. After almost three weeks of learning, I should be able to read... I think."

I took off my shoes, and placed them on the ground beside the small couch. Sometimes I forget that you have to take your shoes off before entering in japanese culture. Or was it when you went to visit someone's house?

"Argh, screw it!" I exclaimed, shaking my head in frustration. I'm so damn forgetful!

I took out the scroll, and unrolled it on the table. Thank goodness it's written in Hiragana...! If it was in Katakana, I wouldn't have understood anything. I'm still not very good in it, yet.

"So, Transformation Jutsu... used to disguise oneself as another person, object, plant or animal, I know that, and—oh, you have to familiarize yourself with how that thing you're trying to transform into feels?"

Don't care about that. Where's the cool stuff?

"Aha, there it is. Uh, Dog? Boar, Ram...?"

Fuck.

I should've gotten a guide for hand seals, too.

Luckily—or unluckily—thanks to being a weeb in my past life, I have some experience with these, and thank the lord that there's pictures of each seal!

Without wasting anymore time, I quickly got to it.

Dog. Boar. Ram.

"There!"

...

Awkward silence.

"Why the hell...?"

Again. Dog, Boar, Ram.

The fuck?

I stared blankly at my hands, and then at the white ceiling above me.

Was I doing them wrong?

"No, no. That can't be, because they look almost the same as in the pictures. So then, why is it...?"

Then, it hit me.

Oh.

Right, seals didn't really do the entirety of the jutsu for you. They existed to aid you in properly moulding the chakra needed for a technique, but you had to also move the chakra inside of your pathways to flow through the needed tenketsu and mould it.

I also wasn't really thinking of what to transform into, so that was kind of stupid.

"It really was," I said, my voice deadpan. "I should transform into... Oh, Sasuke as a kid! Then, I'll try some of the other characters. After that, it should be good if I moved on to people with higher height than me, or even less."

Yeah, perfect.

I moved to the small bathroom for the mirror—time to get to work, again.

For real this time!

I focused on making the chakra inside my gut move, and stared at the mirror with the image of Sasuke in mind. The black, high-collar shirt, the grey shorts, the duckbutt hair... Most importantly the duckbutt hair.

For my limited chakra control, this should be possible.

Dog... Boar... Ram.

Puff!

Huh. I always thought the smoke was just there for the looks in the series, but it seems it really does release some when you do the techn—

"What the hell."

What the hell, indeed. I was completely flabbergasted at the sight in the mirror.

"I—I never thought I'd look worse than a baby that came from an incestuous relationship!"

My eyes were heterochromatic, far apart from each other, my nose was on my forehead, the shirt was blue instead of black, and the hair came out curly and purple instead of spiky and black. What the absolute hell is this?!

I immediately undid the technique. I like my white hair and cyan eyes, thank you very much!

I stood still, contemplating my life choices up to this point, before sighing one last time and holding my hands up.

"...Practice makes perfect."