Chapitre 26: CH_26
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
The bustling streets of the Leaf village suited one of a metropolitan in its busy residents traversing them in hordes every day to get to the next task of their fast lives. No one paid attention to the unassuming young child that sat on the roadside bench with a creaky exercise gripper in hand.
Takuma watched the two shops in front of him. One was a mom-and-pop diner, and the other was a branch of the Leaf Postal Services. The sun was at its peak height, with the shade of the building above him as his only shelter. The clock had entered the lunchtime zone.
Meaning rush crunchtime for both businesses. People rushed into the post office in the urgency to have their work done before the tellers placed lunch break signs in front of their counters and disappeared for three-quarters of an hour official break. But Takuma knew for a fact that the employees in the district six branch of Leaf Postal Service took breaks beyond an hour, something against policy. No one punished them; the lazy branch manager never ever arrived before lunch.
As any eatery would, the small diner was busy in the lunchtime zone. It wasn't a place for families or friends to dine out together. The diner's main clientele was the working men and women who wanted an affordable lunch every day without burning a hole in their pockets. Takuma's eyes were drawn to the man who walked into the diner; he recognized the man and knew he would come walking out in a few minutes. As he knew, the man wearing a factory worker's garb walked out of the diner with a packed lunch in his hand. The diner was famous for its takeaway lunch box service and sold many around lunchtime.
Takuma counted. He counted the people who went into the shop. He counted when they entered, how long they stayed, when they left. He watched the post office to see how many people dropped off packages and how many picked something up. For the diner, he measured their lunchbox sales, their dine-in numbers, and how long it took people to eat their food.
And he noted down the points of interest he saw. He didn't know shorthand or any coded language to record information yet, but knowing what to take down and how to do it was important in note taking was a skill in itself that needed polishing (or so Kibe had said in class).
His eyes were drawn to the post office as a group of people exited the building. All of them wore matching baby blue uniforms, the staple color for postal service employees. The group of men and women entered the diner.
Takuma looked toward the storefront beside him at the wall clock and noted the time. It was precisely one o'clock. Now, he had to wait. Takuma took out a packed lunch of his own— it was lunchtime, after all.
The minute hand on the wall clock made its way across the clock face until it reached the end of the post office lunchtime. The employees didn't exit the diner, but the people in need of the service had already started to line up in the store.
Based on his past observations, Takuma knew the post office tellers wouldn't leave the diner before it was at least one hour because if they entered the post office, they would've to work under customer pressure. Takuma cleaned up any mess he had made while eating and waited five more minutes to see if the tellers would return to their job.
He rubbed his knees as he looked between the post office and the diner.
"Alright, let's do this," Takuma said to himself.
He got up and walked into a nearby dark alley. He put his lunch bag to the side and pulled up both of his sleeves to reveal a row of 1-ryu coins each stuck on his arm from his wrists to shoulders. On a closer look, each coin was actually a stack of two coins taped together. A high-risk exercise developed by Takuma to force himself to improve his chakra control. Every ryu was essential to his monthly budget before he got his next allowance, and misplacing money without getting to spend it made his life hell on earth— he would rather spend money on unneeded commodities than unknowingly drop it somewhere. Thus came the risk— to maintain concentration on precise chakra control or lose precious money with the threat of going hungry on the last few days of the month.
The results were worth the constant fear of losing money. He had gone from feather-like leaves to heavy coins. If asked, Takuma would take Maruboshi's sprinting torture over his mental brand of punishment— physical exhaustion was temporary, but money loss was permanent— alas, that was the point.
He pulled up his shorts and pulled off the slanted band of coins circling his thigh, and put his hand up his shirt to get a couple coins off his front and back. More coins, larger risk.
Takuma placed upon his heart and felt its elevated pulse. He breathed in and out to calm his nerves and stared at the post office to reaffirm his conviction. He had to do it. It was the test before the test— a harder one to make the easy one a breeze.
Dog — Boar — Ram
Poof!
Smoke covered Takuma, and when it blew away, a tall man with a gaunt face and oily hair slicked to the side, closely sticking his inverse egg-shaped head, stood in his place. Takuma took out a small mirror from his person to check his new appearance. He was much taller and lean as a skeleton; his faded violet shirt and black shorts were replaced by a baby blue post office uniform.
Maruboshi's two seal combination exercise had paid off. After a long month of intense practice, his chakra no longer ran out of his control while performing the Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu), which was only three hand seals.
Muramoto Teruo. The branch manager of the district six branch. A lazy, incompetent buffoon who had somehow been able to keep his job as a manager, who had allowed those under him to spiral out of discipline. Takuma didn't know if no one in the postal service had noticed the condition of the branch or if they knew and were ignoring it. Whatever it was, he didn't have that information.
But it did make Muramoto Terou a great guilt-free target of imitation.
Takuma touched his new face. He recalled the real Terou's face and judged his replication to be passable. He had seen the man plenty of times to pull off an unsuspicious imitation. As long as no one touched him, they wouldn't outright know he wasn't Muramoto Terou— or at least, that was what he hoped to be true.
Ready to proceed, Takuma flexed all the muscles in his body for a few seconds before loosening up. He then slouched his back and shifted his neck forward a little to give himself a text neck to emulate the real Terou's body posture. He had practiced it in the mirror every night for today.
He took out a white handkerchief and placed it on his mouth before exiting the alleyway and walking towards the post office across the street. He didn't care if people thought the post office manager coming out of a dingy alleyway was strange because no one was going to do anything about it.
The inside of the post office was familiar territory to Takuma. It was scary how easy it was to scout an understaffed place of business during rush hour when the employees had no time to pay attention to a wandering person when they had a horde of customers to take care of. There was no special reason for him to choose the post office. The grocer he shopped for his vegetables had once complained about it when he was shopping, and things had shaped from there.
The moment Takuma entered the post office, the guard on duty hastily stood up. The guard stayed inside the building so he wouldn't need to stay in the hot outside, and he faced inside the building so that he was facing the ceiling fan. If Takuma wanted to knock him out, it would take one swift surprise attack, and the civilian guard would be out cold. The branch had no shinobi presence because of its small size and limited service, thus an ideal testing ground for Takuma.
"M-Manager!" the guard stood up, sputtering.
Takuma gave him a displeased look and then loudly coughed into his handkerchief. He said nothing and moved further in.
The building's customer-facing front was relatively small compared to the similarly-sized building on the street; Takuma assumed the rest of the building was devoted to storage and sorting facilities for mail.
Takuma's postal service uniform was naturally noticed by the customers, and some approached him to complain. Takuma loudly coughed into his handkerchief, making it look as nasty as he could. It had its intended effects, and they backed off.
He cast his eyes towards the teller counters, and they were empty. He frowned angrily and turned to the guard. "Where is everyone," he asked, his voice hoarse and breaking.
Takuma had only heard the Terou's voice once, but even if he wanted to mimic the manager's voice— voice modulation didn't exist in Takuma's skillset. He could only pretend that he had a nasty cough and cold.
"O-Out for lunch," said the guard, gulping. "Miss Tahashi is inside."
"Get her out," Takuma ordered, and the guard scurried into the back. Takuma turned to the customers and said, "I apologize on behalf of my staff. I implore all of you to be patient for a little longer while I get everything into place."
The guard pulled in a plump middle-aged woman with red-rimmed glasses and the most outrageously puffed-up hairstyle he had seen on a woman. The first time he had seen the woman had been an experience.
Takuma didn't give the woman a chance to speak. "Why isn't," he coughed twice, "everyone back already." The woman tried to reply, but Takuma didn't let her speak. "Why aren't you already at the counter?" He bore down at her with a menacing gaze.
The woman shriveled under his gaze. She tried to eek out, "M-Manager, I-I..."
"Can't you see, you're wasting these people's time?" he said loud enough so that everyone could hear. "Why are you still standing here? Go! Go! Do your job, or do you want me to do it for you?"
The terrified woman rushed her chubby legs to her counter and immediately opened it for business.
"I swear, not one of them does their job properly," Takuma grunted. He turned to the guard and scolded him, "What are you doing, standing there like a buffoon? Don't you see all these people waiting? Go and bring everyone back."
The guard rushed out of the building.
Takuma had scolded two of the post office employees while pretending to be their boss. Talked to an entire crowd while pretending to be someone else. As fun as he felt it was— it was now time to leave.
He immediately walked out of the building and saw the guard entering the diner. He dropped the handkerchief over his face and walked back into the alley.
Poof! Takuma went back to his original form. He picked up his lunch bag and exited the alleyway. He watched from beside the roadside bench as the uniformed employees rushed out of the diner and ran into the post office.
Takuma grinned. That was mission accomplished.
'From Lupin to Kaido Kid, screw everyone. I will be the best impersonator, the grandmaster of disguise, north of fantasy,' Takuma thought.
After enjoying the fruit of his labor for a moment, Takuma ducked back into the street. He put the coins back on his body. The day would be perfect if he got home with all the money still on his body.
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 27: CH_27
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
Takuma stared at the result of his graduation examination's second attempt with his lips pressed into a white line. The red FAIL stamped on the paper glared at him— a sign of his ineptitude. Despite putting his life into training for the second attempt, he had yet again gained a second FAIL mark.
Takuma brought his hands to rub his eyes which had dark bags developing under them. He straightened his back and flexed his muscles, hoping it would relieve some of the stiffness, but all he got was pain. These days the only time he was comfortable was in his bed at night; even letting the back of chairs take his weight felt like sitting on hard stone.
He sighed. There wasn't a single person beside him who hadn't already passed at least one of the two attempts, thus securing their Leaf headband on graduation. Only his lonesome self remained. A terrifying position to be in. It felt like he was sailing in a small wooden boat in the deep ocean with a roaring storm causing natural disasters around him, just for him.
He felt sympathy for Uzumaki Naruto for being held back from passing because he couldn't perform one academy three— Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) for the whiskered blonde and Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu) for him. Even when his late-night slogs of studying at his table had paid off as a passing grade on the pen-and-paper test— even when the taijutsu invigilator remark on his result had gone from 'slow, weak and unskilled' to 'needs urgent improvement'— even when his viva-voce had gone satisfyingly well (thank god for the absence of the kimono-clad bald old man)— he was still declared a failure because he couldn't perform a useless jutsu.
At the same time, he felt envious and even resentful toward Rock Lee, who had been promoted to genin without being able to do even one of the academy three because he caught the eye of a jonin. Were his own efforts any less strenuous than Rock Lee's? Was he not also pushing himself to the limit every day, pulling himself thin between studying, practicing chakra, learning jutsu, sharpening his close combat skills, and the tens of little things Maruboshi deemed every shinobi should know. Why did Rock Lee get to pass while the blade of a dead-end hovered above his neck?
Takuma folded the half-page and stored it on his person. Looking at the result only made him feel worse— he didn't have the time to feel worse; there was only one more month till the last attempt and the graduation itself.
He pushed everything he was feeling down and took out a chunky brass square padlock and a basic lockpicking kit wrapped in age-worn leather that was falling apart everywhere. Maruboshi had given him one of his old lockpicking sets so that he could practice cracking locks.
He breathed out and forced himself to calm down to focus on the lock in front of him. Maruboshi apparently had an extensive collection of locks he had collected through the years to familiarize himself with the types of locks he could encounter on missions. Maruboshi gave him locks as assignments to figure out and successfully open them, then the lock would be exchanged, and the cycle would continue.
"Oye, Takuma. You failed again, you dumbass."
Takuma had just put the tension tool into the key core when he heard the sneering voice of Hiji mocking him. Takuma wasn't surprised— annoyed, yes, but not surprised as Hiji had done the same when he had failed the first time. The Inuzuka mutt had paraded the fact that Takuma had failed in his face for a week before getting bored. Hiji was easily the most annoying person Takuma had met in both lives, and he genuinely thought the world would be a better place without him barking in everyone's ears, causing noise pollution.
Now, Hiji was back again. Takuma gripped the old yet sturdy and continued on with his silent shtick. If he was being honest, things had gotten much easier than before because Hiji was definitely on the ADHD spectrum— quite easy to get distracted. And after months of meeting the stone-cold wall that he was, Hiji had begun to lose interest, and when he did turn his rabid attention toward him, it didn't last long.
Today, he just hoped Hiji would go away quicker. He was too tired for Inuzuka's crap. From his peripheral vision, Takuma caught Hiji clicking his tongue and turning toward friends. Takuma hid a smile as he dipped his head closer to the lock. Now, it was only time before Hiji left him alone—
"Hiji, are you bothering Takuma again?"
Takuma jammed the rake pick into the back of the key core.
It was Okubo Momoe, the genius girl. The girl had a seemingly overflowing sense of justice, coming to the aid of those who could use her help, willingly providing it whenever needed.
'She thinks you're weak,' said a voice in the back of Takuma's head, making his eye twitch. Being considered weak was an unpleasant thought, and Takuma was no different.
"Didn't I already tell you to stop?" Momoe glared at Hiji with her arms crossed.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said Hiji, making a face at Momoe. "This got boring; let's go somewhere else," he led his friends away, clearly avoiding Momoe.
Takuma gave a sincere nod of thanks to Momoe. She had been a lot of help in dissuading Hiji's annoyance since her presence made him walk away like just now. He then went back to his lockpicking.
"What are you doing there, Takuma?" Momoe asked, curiously peering over the lock in Takuma's hands. "A lock... lockpicking?" she said when she saw the tools in his hands.
Takuma nodded tiredly.
"Why would you learn that?" she asked.
"Uhm... what?" Takuma titled his head. He assumed that since Momoe was the genius girl, she would already know how to pick a lock. He was half-expecting her to help him with how to pick the lock. He asked: "You don't know how to pick a lock?"
Momoe arched her brows. "Should I?" she asked.
He assumed yes. Maruboshi had said that unlocking locks was essential if a shinobi expected to be stealthy on his mission. Every building had doors, and most doors had locks— especially the important ones. It didn't have to be doors; storage containers with complex locks and safety systems had to be picked as any attempt to break the outer container could damage the merchandise inside, or so Maruboshi had said.
"So you don't know how to pick a lock?" he asked again to confirm— that couldn't be; even he could pick poorly made locks; his classmates should know at least that, if not more.
Momoe shook her head.
Takuma was baffled. He couldn't wrap his head around it. Maruboshi had insisted that lock picking was a critical skill in a shinobi's arsenal and that he needed to start learning it as soon as possible so he could be experienced when the time came to use it on the field. And it made complete sense to him: what if he was on an infiltration mission and had to keep his presence hidden— busting down doors from their frames wasn't the way to do it. Why wouldn't a shinobi learn to lockpick?
It had to be important, or why else would Maruboshi ask him to devote time to practice lockpicking when he knew how vital the graduation test was.
"Do you want to learn?" Takuma offered. He thought if he showed her the bare basics, he could use the opportunity to ask her some questions in return. An equivalent exchange, he considered fair.
"No, it's fine," Momoe said. One of Momoe's friends called her, and Momoe turned to leave only to briefly turn back to Takuma to say, "You shouldn't waste your time on such things," she narrowed her eyes at the lock and picking tools. "You've failed twice; the next attempt is your last chance. You should really concentrate on more important things." She left after saying that.
Takuma was taken aback. He looked down at his tools, and the two FAIL results flashed through his mind. A seemingly all-knowing veteran shinobi and a genius girl who could do everything. Takuma shook his head off unnecessary thoughts and went back to lockpicking.
It was probably for the better she refused; he didn't think he had the energy to hold a conversation with someone.
It was going to be okay... he had a month... he was going to pass.
Takuma gripped his tools harder.
———
.
The moon had pulled the dark curtain over the sky, and the wintry winds brought down the cold shower of snow upon the village hidden in the leaves. The village was as cold in winter as it was hot in summer. People had already laden themselves in heavy wool clothing to keep warm, and the streets were emptier than in warm springs.
In a training ground on the village's periphery, a figure dressed in a shirt and shorts stood in front of a thick wooden post. The sturdy post was being tortured by kicks from the figure, who relentlessly, one at a time, drilled the front of his foot into the wood. A steady rhythm sounded in the mum night as a thin layer of snow covered the grass.
Takuma brought down his leg and waited for half a second before kicking the wooden post again. His open-toed shinobi sandals had seen better days as he rammed his foot into the same spot that turned white from the dark bark stripped away from the continuous kicking. But Takuma didn't care. He watched the spot in the wood, and then he watched his foot kicking the spot. And he repeated.
He didn't know what time it was. He didn't care.
Every man, woman, child, shinobi or not, genius or dead last, was given the same time in a day, no more. There wasn't nearly enough time in the day; he could only squeeze out the time he was given.
With every kick, a splatter of water would twist out from every part of his body in motion. Some of it was the water from the falling snow, more of it was his own sweat.
He wanted to stop; he really did. Every nerve in his body felt taut and burning. But keeping his mind on training was the only way to not think about the fact that tomorrow was the last day of the academy. And the day after that was the third and final attempt at the graduation exam.
It was strange. He had been in the foreign world for nearly a year, and he could remember every single day of that year— yet time had passed too quickly. It truly felt that it was only earlier this day when he had found himself in a stranger's body, in a room full of strangers. Time had slipped through his fingers like loose sand.
Why hadn't he trained harder? If he had only been training like he had been in the past month for the entire time, maybe it would've not come to this. Takuma felt his stomach twist into a knot, and his heart paced faster, not because of his physical exertion but of the crossroads he was standing at. He hadn't trained enough for this, he thought as his kick landed a little higher than the target, and a piece of bark splintered.
He raised his leg to kick the post again but found the leg betraying him. He fell down onto snowed on grass and felt a spikey cold against his burning body. He stared at the sky. He was hungry but too tired to muster any eat anything, and an empty stomach wasn't enough to keep him awake— he wanted to sleep in the training ground, buried by the snow.
But he couldn't. Takuma stood up and dragged his body away from the battered post that had taken all of his fears. He had given the last year of his life to this— he was going to see it through, no matter what the result.
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
109 Power
stone Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Commentaire de paragraphe