Skyrimancy in Naruto (Si/Skyrim Game System) Chapter 1 - Reconnaissance

'Why do I see Skyrim's loading screen' - Askuna mused, certainly quite confused as he can't clearly place what he was doing prior to now.

'And the music is also playing' - he noted, listening to the old nostalgic theme he has heard so many times, which played at the beginning of the game.

Was that a dream? If so, it was certainly quite vivid, he noted while looking at the slowly enlarging Alduin sitting at the word wall. Though it all looked made up of a plastic.

'Was it like that in the game also?' - Askuna couldn’t really remember, but he would have expected something of higher quality in a game. Therefore, it was good point for it being just a resemblance created by his imagination.

But honestly, it was doubtful that he would have remembered the text message hovering near Alduin saying - 'And the Scrolls have foretold, of black wings in the cold, that when brothers wage war come unfurled! Alduin, Bane of Kings, ancient shadow unbound, with a hunger to swallow the world! -- Song of the Dragonborn'.

The text was completely out of his style and of what he could imagine himself writing. Though, the word wall was not having any words inscribed in it, and he supposed that in the game loading screen they would probably be there. The was also big Level 1 bar in the right upper corner.

After waiting for some more seconds, he had enough and thought about it all again -

'Okay. It is getting quite ridiculous. I can't feel my body or do anything, and it is still clearly playing without any interruptions or random flickering which often happen in dreams.'

Then he paused and reached some possible scenarios - 'Either I am dreaming about dreaming, in other worlds an inception, like in this one movie, and I'm having these observations and thoughts.' - he mused it for a second and then continued his train of thoughts - ' Or Either it was caused by some Random Omnipotent Being.'

'Right. Certainly, no other feasible option, like getting brain injury, participating in brain implants in the future while blocking off current memories, or any other likely possibility, just ROB.' - mocked himself Askuna, still waiting.

Honestly, it was getting ridiculous, at moments like this one, while playing on pc, it was above 50% chance that it would end in the crash of the game.

After waiting for some minutes in an utter boredom, the loading screen disappeared, and the blackness came. Yet, as soon as it came, he started to see some blurry colours and image.

After some seconds of disorientation, he found himself being bombarded by a quest journal.

It was a normal in-game menu where one could go into the game, to see one's quests, general stats, and system information. It had a date in the right bottom corner, level bottom middle, and ‘Esc’ to cancel. In the middle there was an additional window explaining what a quest journal is, though there were no quests available. The foremost window had an instruction: 'Tab' to exit.

'Tab' - he thought aloud and it closed.

Askuna decided to switch for general stats. It turned out, that to do so he had to just concentrate on clicking it like with a mouse and it just worked out, pun intended.

General stats section was a pretty confusing name as it just held a track of what player done, how many animals killed, locked pick, spells used etc. Noting everything was displaying 0 or none, he switched to the System tab.

The Quicksave, Save, Load, buttons were not working. Mods was displaying nothing. Settings were locked out on Legendary difficulty, survival mode enabled. He enabled showing of floating markers. For other settings he noted that he can change Audio and Display, so he turned on dialogue and general subtitles, and turned off the music for now.

The Help section was not really helpful, it was just copy paste of the game's one, of some texts about what means what.

Askuna didn't really know if the time was stopped like in the game, or if it was still going. Beyond screens, he was seeing just a wooden wall and a part of a brown carpet. Nothing that could tell him anything about his position in Skyrim, well, aside from that he is probably indoors.

'Maybe I'll have access to map?' - Askuna threw a suggestion to himself and thought 'Tab' again.

He felt he could move his eyes, you know, that tingling feeling in his skins and muscles, that slight tension and release when breathing, which was what he felt right now.

He stayed there for a second feeling it all in, and when he thought about that he is standing, he wavered slightly on his legs, but didn't collapse.

He rotated and found himself standing in a corridor, there were two candles here, positioned on both ends. At one end there was a wooden door, while on second there was a mirror. There were also smaller doors to other rooms from the end of corridors and one free passage under door arche.

'Tab' - he activated.

All sensations disappeared and four choices appeared. Magic, skills, items, and map. Just like in game. He clicked ‘map’ and saw current location as Askuna's house.

'That is reassuring' - he felt a bit relieved, that he at least has some place, which is seemingly safe.

Then he clicked World Map and was instantly floored.

It was no map of Skyrim, and certainly not of Tamriel. He had only one point of reference, the location that was undiscovered, but was showing on map, nonetheless.

It was Konoha.

'Oh' - he thought unintelligently, to be honest his brain lagged for fifteen seconds, processing the ramifications of what he discovered.

'Maybe, it is not so bad, at least there is a chance I won’t have to deal with deadra or ancient entities... well aside from Ōtsutsuki - he revalued his standings in the world.

'God, please don't let it be some kind of Frankenstein crossover of two worlds.' - he shuddered thinking a bit about the monstrosity of the multi-world housing both Tamriel and Elemental Nations in addition to all the deities, afterlives, and other planes of both worlds, like pure lands and oblivion.

Coming out of stupor, he spent some time admiring the cartography of different Lands, then returned to other menus.

‘Items’ showed only his equipped items on himself, which were only clothes. Though he noted that they were distinct from Skyrim's assets, and he even had socks in the list.

There was non-standard, but Survival mode weight limit of 150 kgs and he tested how it all was working.

Removing his shirt through menu, caused it to be unequipped instantly and exposed his bare torso to the world. Otherwise, he could take it off manually and then it would be registered as an object with a prompt saying ‘Askuna's shirt’, and he would then gain a prompt to ‘take it’. Which, after doing so, had it landed in his inventory again.

Putting the shirt on by himself he noted that it is not equipped or in his inventory. When he was taking it off, there was a certain point when it no longer was registered as an equipped item and wasn’t in the inventory.

He also noted that between pauses and real world he had wasted only 1 minute. He knew the exact time, because when looking at a date, he realized that it was not a Skyrim one, but just a year 55, some day of some month and day of week, which he didn't understand meaning of, as it was in Japanese or locally equivalent language; he didn't know. But it showed hours and minutes, which he used for measures.

Therefore, he discovered that time really stops, or at least it is slowed down significantly, to the point that the minutes didn't change in his test, or in unlikely possibility the time measure just doesn't work when he enters menu, and it is disconnected with reality.

The next menu he checked was magic one. He noted with joy, that he had some skills in all section. He had Flames and Healing available.

'Healing is op...' - Askuna thought about in-game possibilities. Could he recover from any damage? Can he even be damaged, or is he like a game character?

'Game avatar can't really lose limbs or head, well... aside from decapitation, but it is only if one dies. Even me breathing is quite strange, though one would typically need special enchantment to breathe underwater in Skyrim.' - Considered Askuna carefully.

‘I will try injuring and healing myself later.’ – decided Askuna before shrugging, well, mentally shrugging as he was still in magic menu window. But those two spells weren't all, as there was a special Active Effect, though.

Chakraborn - Combines Stamina and Magicka into resource called Chakra, it is a total sum of those two values.

'Weird' - was the only though Askuna had reading it. Deciding to move on, he went to the skills and was greeted by the familiar Skyrim constellations.

'No change here' - noted Askuna, though he was satisfied as he checked for sure if the two most important Skyrim perks were here.

'Well, most important for exploiters, like myself' - scoffed Askuna.

They were Necromage for 70 skill points in restoration, and Atronach for 100 skill points in Alteration.

Why they were so important? Well, because those two were bugged in game. If the player was under fortify restoration potion, then those perks would be affected by this potion, which would grant permanent extra boost, that would remain even when the potion itself subsided.

It was honestly a cheat, if he managed to recreate a semblance of fortify restoration glitch loop, then thanks to Atronach he would be able to absorb any abilities, skills, spells, poisons, or anything really coming at him, and he would be able to convert it to magicka. The only downside is, that the bug in game prevented user from using conjuration magic when his perk was active. That is the op'ness of spell absorption in Skyrim.

The second perk? Necromage, to use it one needs to be undead, so possibly Edo Tensei would work, though it seems pretty unrealistic to make it safely in Naruto, so he would have to pass. It essentially boosts all spells effectiveness on undead and also is susceptible to fortify restoration. However, the true magic in this perk is that it works even on the user itself, meaning that all his boosting or support spells applied on himself would be much stronger.

'Atronach is a must have, Necromage? Risky, maybe later.' - decided Askuna.

Truthfully, if he could get his hands on fortify restoration ingredients and enchantment of fortify alchemy, and ideally ingredients for fortify enchantment potion, then he would be able to become god, invulnerable to anything.

'But where would I find those ingredients and enchantments?' - thought Askuna to himself, suddenly horrified at a possible ramifications of it being the different world.

'But then, the shirt I have on is a new item, of this world that System recognizes, maybe there will be some equivalents' - Askuna reassured himself.

Having nothing more to do in the menus he escaped back to reality. Though, he then quickly set himself a favourite bar under ‘q‘ mental command, with healing and flames for 1 and 2 mental keys.

Getting used to turning on and off perception of time, he straddled awkwardly to the mirror. Walking felt quite strange, it was like if he was dragging his feet and whenever he put a next foot on the floor, he felt as if he was stepping on a cold stump of foreign flesh, rather than his own.

In the mirror he could see a young adolescent man, with a thick short black hair, onyx eyes, fairly tall, rather scrawny. Which was a significant difference to his previous robust, smaller, brown hair and blue eyes persona. He didn't really like it, especially his chin and bones of the face, they were not to his taste.

He accessed his healing spell in left hand, noting that he could invoke the swirling orb of energy in it. He decided to activate it with an intention of fixing his face, but no matter how long he kept, nothing seemed to change.

He went down to fifty magicka pretty fast, noting the bar depletion in the left corner. He didn't really feel anything about it, nor did he know how the spell worked, or how he spent his magicka.

It was just like using a remote, or activating it in game, effortlessly pressing and releasing of a button.

Anyway, he was stuck with his visage for the foreseeable future. Though, he noticed that next to the mirror, there was an ornamental letter opener.

He wanted to prickle the top of his hand lightly, but then he had doubts what if he would catch some kind of disease. Furthermore, he had no cure disease or anything like that at the moment, so it could be dangerous.

Therefore, he went and looked through his house first. He quickly found kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, other almost modern appliances. Well, some of them looked like hundred years antiques by his common standards, but they were usable.

He had a gas stove, some semblance of a toilet and shower and a refrigerator.

'No bad' - thought Askuna to himself, at least he doesn’t need to change his standards and conveniences.

He searched for some usable knife in a kitchen, then cleaned it thoroughly, lighted up a stove on the burner, then dipped the knife into flames for some seconds.

He checked it in the inventory and was surprised that knife that was heated had more base damage, by one. Further tests confirmed that storing it in inventory made it stay at that temperature all the time, but when taken out it cooled normally and lost the additional damage.

'Fairly interesting.' - mused Askuna, but really surprised, in contrast to what he has already seen.

He performed couple of simple tests, prickling his skin to blood and then healing, making larger slashes etc. It all healed nicely, and his mana regenerated by game rates too. Sadly, the wound didn’t heal by itself, which is probably due to survival mode enabled.

When he felt bolder, he stabbed himself in a left hand. He noted that when an object was stuck inside, it quickly added his total damage received to twice, thrice, and so on of the HP lost. Healing when stabbed regenerated health points, but the stabbing damage was continuously being received in a second intervals. He yanked the blade when he was at 80 health and noted that with a spell it was fully healable now.

Not a mark left, just a little blood on the counter, which he wiped out with a kitchen cloth. Feeling overconfident he has checked for other types of injuries. He didn't feel pain, just a sensation of knowing something is wrong. It was quite convenient, as he was able to move limbs with no issues, even when they were stabbed. It seemed to follow the same logic as in the game, that one could get speared through by arrow or ice lance and just shrug it off.

Though, the main difference was that when it was stuck in the wound it was still making damage and just healing wouldn't eject it magically out of the body. He also categorized that there is no difference between prickle, stab or cut, it all took the same amount of HP of him.

Soon he received an announcement at the top, proclaiming that one-handed increased to sixteen. Not long after, followed up by the similar notification in Restoration.

'Yeah. It is an effective method of levelling up, and I'll probably will have to do it someday, but maybe let's try other avenues first.' - he noted that even while not feeling pain or anything wrong with this method, he still thought it was quite a morbid and gruesome sight.

'Yeah, it could be suspicious if someone has seen this.' - Askuna remarked to himself, now slightly worried.

Even thoughts about constant vigilance have risen to an upfront of his mind. Understandably, it is a village of ninjas, with plenty of Byakugan users and other nasty surprises.

Therefore, to erase the evidence, he took shower and washed his clothes in the basin. Retrospectively, it took him around an hour to tidy things up and there was still some time to burn till the afternoon, so he decided to prepare himself some meal with the food he had found in the fridge previously.

Initially, he was also worried that it may be possible that ninjas monitor sewage, and they will see some blood coming out and then take samples, locating him as a source somehow, but then... the deed was already done, and risking throwing it off outside when there are dog users would have been even dumber.

Surprisingly, he was approaching all of that with a casual attitude. Yes, as it was a change of scenery for him, and he was not in his body, and moreover preparing meal not in his own kitchen, it could drive some people mad, however, to be honest, it also made him feel a bit of an excitement. He was seeing the whole situation as a satire to laugh at.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

It was a result of him being intermittently connected with his philosophy. That, a person is just a sum of all experiences they have, and normally a person would establish their personality after some time, and then receive selective experiences reinforcing their view of the word. But Askuna would often go out of his way, of the comfort zone to experience more, even more pretentiously he wanted to experience everything!

That was his ideal, to see as many ways as possible, to not fall into a rabbit hole of normalcy and try see other points of view.

Yet, it was undeniable, that he was only a human, and his ideal can’t be realized, moreover, there are some things he would never do, nor he ever wanted to. There are known traps and ambushes in the road of life, and he doesn’t want to bath in faeces once in a while to feel everything.

In some way, it could be understood as some kind of balance, of maintaining basic human decency, but trying to explore new avenues and way of thinking. Though, not all is as lovely as it sounds, it is only his ideal and he often treats it as a guidance, not a hard rule of what he should or shouldn’t do.

Reflecting about the situation in the present, maybe, it was because of a lack of any pain that he confirmed seconds ago, which resulted in him becoming a bit fearless, or maybe it was pure stupidity. He just wanted to confirm how little prickle works in terms of damage, and he already escalated it to full blown self-mutilating training.

‘Though, only temporary damage, so it could be ignored for gains, right?’ – bargained Askuna with himself, trying to convince himself.

Nonetheless, he succeeded in his endeavour and decided to come back to it later, maybe in a little more controlled manner, like in the shower, or above a basin, where he wouldn’t make such a mess, but for now he turned his focus to kitchen and preparing his meals, as even now his hunger bar was filling up, though at reasonable pace.

However, when the moment he put a pot with water on a stove and flickered gas on fire underneath, a magical prompt appeared with the words - 'Press E to use'.

‘No brainer.’ – he scoffed on even possibility of rejecting the ability presented.

He used it, and a crafting menu from game assaulted his vision, though he didn't mind. Seeing no option possible, because lack of necessary items, he closed the window and took all ingredients he had in the kitchen into his inventory. Then he tried the prompt again and saw that some soups and stews were available to cook… or is it craft?

He made all of them, that he could, even crafting vegetable soup five times, and some stews. Regretfully, survival mode introduced several annoying mechanics to Skyrim, well annoying if you have to live through them, as he would much prefer to have free health regen, and not dealing with cold, warmth, hunger, or sleep deprivation instead. Though the worst is probably inability to fast travel through locations.

There are also other bits, like it is easier to get disease, afflictions, and also there is reduced carry weight. Finally, to top it off, one can only level up when sleeping. – “Pure joy.” – said Askuna with malicious smile.

At least he could cook instantly, which is nothing to scoff at

‘Now, regarding the next course of action. Reconnaissance would be useful, to understand where I live. Also, If I have job or not… and how to pay my taxes and where...’ – Askuna analysed in his mind situation, not entirely sure if he felt safe enough to mutter to himself.

Then a sudden, quite important thought hit him like a wrecking ball.

'I can't speak Japanese…' - he suddenly realized with a gnawing ping of despair, but then it receded a little as a idea took root in his mind - 'Okay, let's scourge for some books and see what do I work with' – Askuna tried to regain some control over the situation.

After some searching, he found some books in one of the chests. They were quite worn out. He opened them, and as he thought, an illegible script was there.

However, he took them into his inventory. They seemed to be classified as books, and he had English language set everywhere, so he selected an option to read them.

The book opened like in the game, and lo and behold, it was in English. It was about a history of the warring clans and founding of the village. It wasn't too long, one hundred pages tops.

There was a problem though, even if he analysed it alongside two other books, and somehow remembered all the characters in them, he had no idea how to pronounce them, even if he would be able to discern their meaning.

It was not a romaji writing, but honest to god pictogram language of Kanji. His Japanese knowledge ended at a few words he has learned in Anime, but still, they were known to him only phonetically.

In other words, no matter how much he would spend hidden in his house, he would never be able to speak Japanese. Therefore, he has to get out, and listen to other people speaking.

Now, aside from the fact that learning how to read and write Kanji would probably take him months of constant dedication or maybe years. It may be much better strategy to just play mute or play deaf.

But here lies another problem, in order to read the text, he would have to take it to his inventory, which would be highly suspicious, rude, or impossible if he asked someone to write it.

Theoretically, he could just sneak or walk through Konoha... and read the subtitles, when they are talking! That was genius... well reading subtitles, not sneaking around. This is ninja village, common.

However, is there really no place in Konoha where a male of his age could sneak around?

‘What about an onsen? That is a public bath house! I could both practice sneaking and listen to conversations there.’ – He had a sudden idea, though it quickly shimmered down at the other thought – ‘But even if Anime characters like Jiraiya do it all the time, it doesn’t mean it would be proper nor safe to do so.’ – yet he didn’t need to go around bushes and get shunned as a peeker.

In fact, he had another idea – ‘Can I activate sneaking when sitting in the bath?’ – yet unsure he had more questions than answers – ‘Would that even work? – he was unsure.

To test things out, he decided to activate sneaking. Immediately, he went into lower level, in a pose that is on a slightly bent legs, hunching forward. He decided to find limits of how much he could move from that position.

He slowly started to straighten his back, noticing that it felt a bit unnatural to be in somewhat crouched sit up position. Though, he didn’t feel tired or any burn in legs, which made him question if he would be tired at all, from basic movements.

Deciding to test this immediately, he dropped to the ground and started doing push ups. One, two, three, …., hundred twenty. Nothing, not a burn or anything to his arms, nor was he winded. He was breathing normally, so he tried some strange poses, relearned handstand in new body, done planches, and he even got up and did some jumps.

Nothing was wrong, but there was one more important titbit of information present here. Even standing, he was still in sneaking mode, and he felt completely normal like that. He could walk like that, or even jump, and he still had this horizontal bar in the middle of his vision, indicating he was in a sneak mode.

It was broken. He even tried sprinting, and it didn’t count as a sprinting mechanic, so it didn’t use stamina. Come to think about it, his previous stabs and slashes of his self-mutilations also didn’t take stamina.

He tried to think ‘left-click’, his body immediately contorted back to stealth position, and he performed Skyrim general attack. It took his stamina. He tried the same attack, just by moving his hand, and no stamina taken. He checked also other attacks.

The last of his tests, were running with sprint mode on and without. There was just a slight difference at the start. With sprint mode on, he could accelerate to top speed instantly and continued to run even against the wall in place. Doing it normally, made him do sprint as normal.

He could only think about one test he could do yet, he went to cupboard and tried to lift it with one hand. He couldn’t pick it just like a plate by an edge, in fact he could just barely move it sideways, when he braced his feet on the ground. Though, it was all without effort, but he felt just a certain amount of resistance. He lifted it with two hands without problem.

To measure it, he tried holding the table, and found himself being able to move it around like ragdoll with both arms with what he felt at limit of his resistance, and unable to lift it all with one arm. As a contrast, a chair could be held by a leg or by its back with full grip and moved around with the ease of a knife.

Testing further, he tried to minimalize area by which he was gripping it with one hand. He quickly found that he had to grip it stronger, the smaller the leverage, in other words it followed the normal grip mechanics of an arm, that just so happens to be several times stronger than normal, don’t shake or get tired, and if you could lift something, then you could move it around like a ragdoll.

There didn’t seem to be any difference in how fast he can move objects, that he could lift. He could position them in clearly biomechanics defying ways afterwards. Though, his body certainly followed the preservation of the centre of gravity, and flinging the table around required braces feet and slightly bend legs, in addition of contorting the rest of the body to create counterweight.

But the inertia, or strong forces didn’t seem to damage his arm, or hinder his ability to lift the object by itself. Though, when he pressed the table to the wall, there was certain limit, above which he couldn’t press harder. Anyway, he was done with testing, he burned two-thirds of an hour on it. He tidied up and prepared for leaving.

Having nothing better in mind, rather than snooping around on the streets, he decided to look for some bathrobe, towel, and some cool footwear, oh and some money, of course. Would he be breaching some Japanese Custom by not bringing something or not taking what he should have? Probably yes... well he will just play shy, stupid guy who just shakes his hand most of the time and use some simple words he knows.

‘Or I’ll just wing it on the fly’ – assumed Askuna, while shrugging.

'Konichiwa' for a greeting, repeating 'domo, domo’ or ‘arigatou' when he wants to go around something, or someone asks him about something, and "o genki de" as a farewell phrase.

'What could go wrong' - he stared at a ceiling ready to leave - 'What, indeed.'

He reapplied his stealth mode and retrieved a key hanging on the wall, with which he then closed the door after vacating his residence. He found himself in a small residential complex, with three flats at the first floor and some shop under them.

He casually went to the stairs on the left, keeping all toiletries in the bag he held in hand. He was wearing the normal attire as he thought walking in a bathrobe walking through the city and searching for onsen would be supremely weird.

Astonishingly, Konoha had an alarming variety of levels of elevations between different streets and districts. There were tens and hundreds of various bridges suspended between higher buildings, as well as alleys’ dead ends, where one would meet some small clearing of some trees or would have to climb to the roofs in order to get past.

There were multiple instances of stairs spread throughout, also. It was honestly giving vibes of a mix between a jungle and a city.

As it was, Askuna was going mainly in the opposite direction to the Hokage monument, walking through alleys, which would hopefully lead him to the outskirts, where he was seeing small water currents going through the village's districts. The streets were all on the map, and recently walked through important places were continuously being added.

Additionally, he often consulted the animated map to get a better understanding of the layout. Though, he could have maybe underestimated the distance between him and his destination. But there was no haste, he had time, as it was still before noon. Yet, it was only for so long he could appreciate the maze of quite deserted of populace side-street.

Finally, after some minutes, he did finally get out of the convoluted back alleys and came upon one of the main streets. It was clearly livelier there, with tens of people talking about everything at stalls, at plazas, playgrounds, and all other meeting places.

The sound of shouting man reverberated in his ears, when a prompt of Sneaking reaching level 18 appeared. His level bar was filled. though, due to Survival mode, he will have to wait till sleeping in bed to level-up. He decided, to judge the street in context of potential information gathering.

Inconveniently, it was too many people to listen to any conversations. Therefore, he ventured out to one of the convenience stores, available. He was greeted there, by the personnel at the entrance. Which resulted in him having learned a new greeting word. He just nodded in response and went to the back, looking at ingredients and all sorts of things.

He took some juice in a cartoon and onigiri. He disregarded the option to steal the products, which was presented. He was walking to pay to the checkout, when he spotted an icha icha paradise hidden innocently in the small book selection, that the store also offered for sale.

Calmly, he arrived at the counter and swapped his hand to the bookshelf, taking the copy of the book, and pushed it on the counter toward the store clerk.

The guy was professional - "Hello honoured customer, is that everything?" - he bowed slightly and started counting the total price. Of course, Askuna understood what the worker said, by reading the subtitles. He answered - "Hai."

"All is 84 Ryo, please" – the clerk declared his price

Previously at home, Askuna had found three 500 Ryo notes, five 100 Ryo notes, and some coins, of which he didn't know value of. Therefore, he took out 100 Ryo from his pocket and handed it to the clerk.

It was convenient that the banknotes had for some reason English numerals written on them. From the clerk, he did receive a banknote of 10 Ryo, one bigger silver coin and one golden coin.

"Arigatou" - he answered to the clerk when going out. He also learned how to say, ‘Please come again’, as those were the words he heard for a goodbye, when going out of the store.

He put his knew acquisitions into the bag, though there was not much space left in it. He almost decided to come back visit the shops later. Yet, seeing small crowd in the next convenience store he went there to spend some time there buying another drink and listening to the ongoing conversations.

Women and a child, presumably mother and daughter, were talking about importance of not being late.

"Mom! But why are the lessons starting at 8 am, if we are expected to be there no later than 7:45?" - whined little girl.

"Sweetie, it is in a good manner to always be prior to the appointed time." - the women lectured her daughter patiently - "My mother was always saying that it is a quality of ladies and lords to never be late."

The daughter was not convinced, so she argued- "But mom, the teacher is often coming at 8 am or even some minutes later!"

"Yes sweetie, but he is an adult to you, and you need to respect your elders."- she preached to her daughter, then said - "Those meeting hours are for you, not for him, and most of all” – she took a pause, before continuing - ”remember that what is allowed to the faculty members is not allowed for students."- she lectured her child as if holding all the right answers.

"But shouldn't he also have good manners?" - asked a child, trying to find a hole in her mother’s logic.

"Sunshine, job of a teacher has many responsibilities, as a position it not only deserves certain respect but also is unforgiving in the amount of obligations." - mom continued explaining her daughter, while getting ready to be served next in a checkout, then she said – “Sweetie, have you considered, that maybe some wayward student have interrupted him going to he classroom, or maybe he had to talk to -" "this also" - she grabbed a jelly candy and gave it to the cashier - " - the headmaster or other teacher?"

"No." - the girl looked at a ground, a bit ashamed.

"It will be 18 Ryo" - cashier said to the woman, who fumbled with coins for a second and handed the clerk due money, while saying - "Please."

She was packing what she bought and said to her daughter - "Honey, I'm sure Mr. Tomari is professional in what he is doing, and you should trust him more in that he had good reason for whatever he was late for." - she started moving out of the shop.

In the meantime, Askuna paid for some chocolate sticks. He noted that the cashier used only slightly different words then the previous one, though he took careful note for the numbers of Ryo he had to pay, as numbers above ten were still not something he was intimate with.

Shrugging, he opened the snack and started eating. While moving along the street, he was reading through subtitles of general conversations going around. It seemed that the second shinobi War was ending, and people are hopeful for the future.

Sadly, he didn't really remember any details of the timeline beyond that it was convoluted and often contradicting itself, so he didn't know how long it will be till 3rd shinobi war. Year 55 in the menu told him nothing.

Finally, he arrived at the bridge over a river he was going towards initially. He looked from where the water was flowing and decided to go to the source. He didn't need to wait long, as he found the place, he was looking for rather quickly. Expectedly, the air was a bit more humid, and the water seemed to be heating up surroundings a little.

The atmosphere was also livelier, with more provocative buildings like gambling dens, liquor salons and rowdy food street vendors. It was some kind of mishmash of an entertainment district and holiday resort.

Only now, seeing the contradiction with previous streets he realized the difference in mood of the population. Here, they didn’t worry so much about the war and what is happening. In retrospect, the previously deserted back streets seemed more explainable.

Though, normally in wars there is more people occupying such places, like injured veterans or refugees. But it is the shinobi war, so he didn't really know how that works here. Shrugging, he parted the curtains and went into what he assumed bathhouse’s exterior entrance was, mainly based on the people going in and out of it.

He judged correctly, seeing the sections diversifying entrances for men and women, as well as a person attending to clientele. At the back of the clerk, there was a board with prices hanging. Askuna didn’t understand anything written on it. Besides, he didn't know, how to say that he wanted a single ticket.

Predictably, he decided to wing it.

Thanks to the guy shouting in Fairy Tail, he knew that ‘Otoko’ is a ‘man’ in Japanese. He also knew that ‘Ichi’ is ‘one’. Recently, he learned that ‘ie, kekkodesu’ means ‘no thank you’, and ‘domo arigatou’ was ‘thank you very much’. It made him feel slightly confident and that is what was important, so he boldly proclaimed - "Ichi" - showing single finger, then added - "Otoko." - and placed 10 Ryo on the counter.

The women in charge scrutinized him and asked - "We offer bathroom utilities for rental; would you like any?"

"No, thank you" - he replied, having read what was written in the subtitles in her previous reply. He thought, he learned what word for bathroom is, though he started to regret he doesn't have anything to write all this on.

'Not like I could anyway, it would be weird' - mentally Askuna corrected himself, having second thoughts on the matter.

"Then it is seven Ryo. Pleasant Stay" - the woman took the note and dropped three gold coins, already moving to the next customer.

Askuna, turned and went into the blue coloured entrance, having guessed it is for men, and pink is for women.

What welcomed him, were a few stools to sit on, and a couple of showers mounted on the walls. Despite the fact, that he had taken shower before leaving his house, he took another one there, though without really wiping himself much or using soap the second time. No one seemed to care about him too, so he cleaned stool after himself, then took off his washing towel and after finding some place for it to dry, went into the sentos area.

There were many of them with different signs indicating different temperatures. They weren’t large, and they would fit probably 6 people without them being uncomfortable with each other.

That being said, the middle one had 4 men chilling in it already, the hottest one had one old man sitting there, while the least hot one held no one. He went to the hottest one, as it is, he didn't seem to be perceptible to the higher temperature.

"Saiko." - he said to himself. He didn't really know what that means, but he thinks he has heard it in anime many times and was under the impression that it was a fitting reaction, expressing contentment or something.

"Right? There is nothing better than to stretch the legs once in a while in a hot bath." - said the old man with the grin, before continuing - "Those olds bones of mine feel as if they were young, again, hahaha" - he laughed.

"Old man, you are not so old, you look amazing in your age." - commented guy#1 from the adjacent tub, then turned to guy#2 and mentioned good heartedly- "Your grandpa is still kicking your ass in sparrings, isn't he?"

"Pfft, as if he didn't throw you on your ass too" - he countered and then as if remembering something he added - "And correct me if I'm wrong, but you did put quite the show for Anane, that time. Wait, "

He took a hand to his forehead as if trying to remember, not seeing the embarrassment in the guy#1’s clearly flushed face - "you said, that you would kick my ass no problem, as you are so much better of us two, yet you lost in 15 seconds, licking the dirt." - then he turned, with eyes gleaming sadistically, to him - "Wanna a reminder?"

"Anytime, you bastard." - guy#1 flicked some water in the guy#2's face - "Deny all you want, but two weeks later, it was you who was eating shit." - he covered his chest with arms and looked away - "That there was no witnesses, doesn’t nullify the results."

"Still, you and your imaginary fights, get real Hodachi." – guy#1 mocked Hodachi, while showing with his hands as if there was no cure for an alignment his friend has.

"Piss off, Hikaru." - heaved Hodachi.

"Language boys!" - both of them straightened hearing the old man's voice - "And behave, we are in a public place." - man chided them more.

"Yes!" – both of them shouted back, to which a man started shaking his head in exasperation and muttering curses, while the boys laughed a little at their own antics.

"Can you believe that those two munchkins survived the bloody war?" - he directed his question to Askuna, but not letting him answer, he continued - "I can't believe what a miracle it was that my family was so blessed to return whole." - the man teared up a little and looked at Askuna as if trying to gauge his reaction.

'Pfft, what can I answer, I have literally yes, no, or goodbye... though I have one more word I know, which would be pretty rude.’ – Askuna thought to himself, yet any other answer than rude one could potentially require more words from him, which could be a problem.

"Oyasuminasai" - said Askuna to the man, and then went to rest, ignoring the old man, by staring at the ceiling. The man looked at him surprised, but unknowingly to Askuna, what he said, didn’t mean what he had thought he said.

Askuna had thought that it meant ‘good night’, and that he could have, somehow, excused himself from more dialogue. However, ‘good night’ is ‘oyasumi’, and what he said could be considered ‘good evening!’, in other worlds a formal greeting. Yet, as it is often with Japanese, it has a secondary meaning.

Old man looked at the other man as if his words filled his old-worn soul, then he chuckled before saying - "Yes, I may finally rest, now that they are safe." - the old man relaxed in his bathtub and said - "Thank you young man." and then also looked at the ceiling.

At the same time Hodachi and Hikaru looked at each other, silently communicating, then settled back on Askuna as if deciding something. The other two man that were in their bathtub seemed to be unaffiliated with the rest, but one of them said - "Yes, let's all have good rest and allow our bodies and minds to recuperate."

The only one who was confused as hell, was Askuna, having only one intelligent thought - 'What!?'.

End of Chapter 1.