Chapter 8:

I made it back to the Loft an hour later. I set my clothing bags down on a counter and rested my sword against the wall. I’d done my best to wipe the blood off of it, but I’d have to learn proper Katana maintenance soon.

Shadow was laying on the couch munching on an open box of cereal. Her legs were draped over the side. She glanced up when she heard me come in. “Hey, Satsuki. Welcome ba–What the hell happened to you!?” Her eyes widened in shock when she caught sight of me.

“I had a long morning.” I sighed while taking a seat on the floor. I was covered in blood and didn’t want to stain the couch. Even if it had probably been covered in worse in its long lifespan…

“Jesus, Satsuki! You’re covered in blood! What happened!?” She stood up and ran over to me. She started patting me all over in concern.

“It’s ok.” I told her. “Most of the blood isn’t mine.

“That's even worse! And you only said most! Some of that blood is yours?” Shadow asked, her eyes trailed towards my injured arm.

“A bullet grazed my arm, but Elektra sewed it up for me.” I held up my arm to show her the perfect stitching. Elektra had some pretty good medical skills.

“Who the hell is Elektra? And whose blood is all this then!? You went out to buy clothes! And now you came back hours later covered in blood and carrying a Katana! Where did you get a Katana?” Shadow rambled off her questions.

“It's a long story…”

Shadow sat down next to me and I ended up spilling the entire thing. It was kind of cathartic in a way, telling her everything from my perspective.

Shadow sat and listened to my story quietly. She waited till it was over to start telling me how idiotic my plan was. “So, some brat asks you to rescue his friends from a real armed gang, and you just run off and do it with no plan!?” Shadow asked me in irritation.

“I had a plan…” I mumbled. “I was going to sneak in and subdue everyone quietly. It just went to hell once I got discovered…”

She frowned at my blood soaked clothing. “You could have died! What if the bullet didn't hit you in the arm? What have you got hit in the chest!?”

“What was I supposed to do? Just let those kids get shipped off to who knows where?” I asked her.

“You should have told the police!” She declared as if that was the obvious thing.

For me and her, it unfortunately wasn't. “They wouldn’t have believed me and would have locked me up for being a mutant.” I said.

Shadow grimaced. “You should have come and gotten me. I would have helped…” She mumbled.

“You would have?” I asked her skeptically. Just last night she was telling me that she didn't want to be a hero.

Shadow looked offended. She puffed her cheeks at me. “Yes. I would have helped you! While it's true that I don't trust most adults to do the right thing and not be racist assholes, I still would have gone to save some kids. You could have at least asked me to help. The worst I could have said was no.”

“I might have considered it, but we just met and I didn't want to put you in any danger.” I told her. I didn't feel right asking her to risk her life to help me.

Shadow scoffed and slapped me on my injured arm! “Ow!” I yelped in pain and indignation.

She smirked at me. “I wouldn't have let you stay here with me if I didn't like you! We fought off thugs together and then shared cereal afterwards! We're obviously friends now, you doofus!” Shadow declared as if that was also obvious.

It certainly wasn't to me. Was that how friendship worked now? Was I just doing it wrong in my past life? “...Beating up thugs and eating cereal makes us friends? Pfffft.” I started giggling loudly. I couldn't help. “You're the weirdest goth girl I've ever met, Shadow!” I said while laughing at her.

She puffed her cheeks at me. “Hmph! I'm probably the only goth girl you've ever met! Most of us aren't like those emo kids you see on tv. That's a stereotype! I like dressing this way and I like having black hair.” she proclaimed

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I smirked at her. “…Your hair is dyed?”

She didn't meet my eyes. “So what if it is?”

“What's your natural color? It's not blond is it?” I asked her. She clearly hadn't dyed her hair in the past week and there were a few blond strands sticking out.

Shadow blushed. “Maybe…”

“You have blonde hair, blue eyes and you dress in all black Goth clothes! You could have been every weebs dream girl!” I declared with another giggle. “...Ow!”

Shadow smacked me again…

Also, did she and I just become best friends? I wasn’t sure, but we were definitely on our way. Just sitting here giggling with her was the most fun I'd had since arriving in this world yesterday.

"So this Elektra woman is going to train you to become a ninja?" Shadow asked me skeptically.

“Yeah! She's really good too. She was able to follow me the entire time and I had no idea she was there.”

"That's a bit stalkerish, but okay,” Satsuki trailed off. “As long as she doesn't hate you for being a mutant, I say go for it.”

“She doesn't! You should train with us too.” I suggested. I don’t think Elektra would mind. Shadow was practically a Nara and her powers made her a perfect ninja apprentice candidate.

She scoffed at my invitation. “Thanks, but no thanks. I go jogging every morning. That's good enough for me to keep in shape.”

Shadow decided to change the topic. Her eyes trailed down to the bulge in my jacket pockets. My pockets were packed full.

“What do you got in there?” She asked me while pointing.

I grinned at her. She was going to love this! I reached my hands in my pockets and dumped all the contents on the floor next to us. It was 10 wallets! I went back and collected the wallets of all the gang members…before Elektra disposed of the bodies by setting the entire warehouse on fire.

I doubt the fire will even make the news later considering it took place in gang territory. The news tends to never cover topics like that.

Shadow blanched at all the wallets on the floor. She reached down and picked one of them up. “...Wow. You really scored today. Did you check them yet?” She asked while pulling it open.

I shook my head. “No. I didn’t check any of them yet.”

Shadow opened the first one and started counting the cash. Her eyes slowly grew wider and wider at the amount of money inside. “$100, $200, $300, $400, $500, $600!!!” She exclaimed in shock. “Holy crap, this guy was loaded! Was this the boss?”

“No, Chris's wallet is this one.” I picked it up and handed it to her. She didn't hesitate to rip it open and started quickly counting. “...$800!!” For a brief instance, I thought I saw dollar signs in her eyes as she started ripping open every wallet and counting how much we were getting. “$7,564!” Shadow totaled up the final number after tossing away the final wallet. She was smiling ear to ear.

“Holy crap!” I whistled at the amount. I was completely broke after buying the sword earlier, but now we are swimming in cash.

It seems like those gang members kept all their cash on them. They clearly did not trust Banks at all. I hope all criminals I run into in the future are like that.

Shadow asked me what we should do with all the money. There were a lot of things that she obviously wanted to purchase. We couldn't go spending all of it frivolously though.

I glanced at the half-eaten box of cereal on the table before returning my gaze to her. "First things first, we need to get some real food in this place. No more cereal for all three meals a day!" I declared.

She nodded her head up and down. " I agree. But we don't have anywhere to keep the food." Shadow explained. "We don't have a refrigerator."

"Well then, we'll just buy one. We've got the cash, can't we just get an old fridge on Craigslist or something?" I suggested.

“I guess we can.” Shadow reached into her pocket and pulled out something I wasn't expecting.

"You have an iPhone?" I asked her. "I thought you were basically homeless." It looked to be a first generation iPhone. It was almost an antique from my perspective, but it was only 2009. In a year or two, I'm pretty sure Tony Stark would start coming out with much better phones and computers once he stopped focusing on weapons and moved to technology. My ideal plan was to have enough money by then to buy some decent shares in his company when they dipped to their lowest points.

"My parents got it for me for my birthday right before my powers awakened. Afterwards, they kicked me out and disconnected the service. What, did you think I just stare at the wall every single night in silence? I usually leech off my neighbor's Wi-Fi to watch TV on pirate websites. His internet doesn't have a password because he's always too high to remember it." Shadow explained. She went onto Craigslist and started looking for any used refrigerators nearby. “Ew, this one looks like it was home to a rat's nest.” She showed me a picture of a disgusting fridge someone nearby had posted.

“Gross. Why would someone try and sell that?” It was brown on the inside.

Shadow shrugged. “Who knows. This is Kell's Kitchen. They probably found it on the side of the road and are trying to sell it so they can buy drug money. I’ll keep looking.”

“See if anyone is selling a computer that has wifi also.” I told her. I needed my own access to the internet to figure out this new world I was in and so I could start organizing my new life.

“No prob.” Shadow told me.

I decided to take a shower then a nap while she was doing that. It was still early in the day, but I was almost exhausted already. I needed a couple hours of rest for my Chakra to recover as well.

…

I was well rested and properly bathed a few hours later in the afternoon. I unfortunately had to toss out my blood soaked clothes, but at least I had the money to buy more now.

Shadow found us a decent looking refrigerator for only 100 bucks a few blocks away. We went to check it out. Thankfully, the guy who owned it lived on the first floor so we didn’t have to carry it down stairs with just the two of us. We could both obviously do it, but not without blatantly exposing our superpowers.

He also sold us his utility for $20 so we could transport the fridge back to our Loft building without getting any weird looks from people passing us on the street. Once we were inside, Shadow’s…shadows easily picked up the entire fridge and transported it up the stairs for us.

“One appliance down, a bunch more to go.” I said while looking around the still mostly empty kitchen area. This place certainly wasn't going to be my forever home, but that didn't mean we had to live in squalor while we were here.

“We can buy a microwave cheap at pretty much any department store.” Shadow said. “For now though, we have to go or we’re going to miss the train. I managed to find you a good PC…according to the person who posted it at least. He said that it was used for gaming so it should work well for you, Satsuki.” She explained to me. She wasn't exactly a gamer girl and didn't know much about PCs.

I knew a bit about them… in 2024. Now that I was in a different world and it was 2009 I could admit I didn't know much about them either. The person who was selling it only wanted $200 though, so even if we got scammed it wasn't a huge loss for us. The only caveat was that the seller was in Queens. We had to hop on a train to meet them there.

“At least they have good taste.” Shadow said. “There’s this really great pizza place in Queens that I haven't been to in ages! We’re meeting up there, so we can get some real food before heading back.”

That sounded like a plan to me.

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