Small Steps
A sleepy kunoichi—nicknamed the Narcoleptic Ninja—has big dreams. Wanting to save her teammates Obito, Kakashi, as well as her sensei and his love, the sleepy kunoichi will have to work hard to see her dream come true. Reborn!OC
young akemi-chan: moony
years til nine tails: 10 years, 2 months
akemi: 8 years, 2 months
location: nemachizuki forest (summer)
Call it a second soul or a crappy reincarnation, but I've always had memories of a world unlike my own, from a person twice my age.
(Although, it's a bit disconcerting that this reality I live is supposed to be fiction.)
Those thoughts mess with my mind, warping it so my mental age and maturity is unknown even to me. Maybe I should be wise from all the second-hand experience. But why should I rely on it when I'm not even a decade old? Everything begins to tangle together and I just want to sleep. Dreams aren't affected by my troublesome situation.
Who am I really? I think, opening my eyes to watch puffy clouds swimming in the sea of blue.
Honestly... I don't have an answer. I probably never will. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's my normal.
For now, I live apart from eccentric ninja and chakra monsters... from wars and deaths. I can enjoy being sprawled on this warm grass, watching creatures such as ladybugs or worms go about their easy lives. They know exactly who they are and what they must do with no regard for their past or future.
(I wish I could've been reincarnated as something more carefree. Maybe a puppy or a slime.)
The breeze picks up, blowing my fringe like the grass around me over my eyes. The green field ripples like waves. The lure of sleeping is pulling me deep under its spell...
"An-chaaan!"
Until a girly, cheery voice sends a wave a terror through me.
Warily, I turn my head and look. Bounding to me from across the garden, waving, is none other than my cousin.
(I really hate that nickname.)
Sayaka stops right next to me, elegantly falling to sit on her folded knees, bouncing. Her mint green skirt pools around her lower half like a cupcake. Overall, her energy ruins the mood.
"An-chan, An-chaaan," Sayaka singsongs.
She's not leaving until she gets what she wants. Reluctantly, I say, "...Sayaka."
"It's such a beautiful day and there's nothing to do," she says. "So, I decided to get a nice little mission for both of us!"
A mission we both can do?
Has she even met me?
My cousin is about five years my age, meaning she has already completed the Ninja Academy and, in fact, has become a Chuunin not too long ago. Her forehead protector barely stands out against her neck with its black ribbon the same color as her short hair and our eyes. Unlike me, she is very responsible and hardworking. Sayaka has no problems with missions.
Me, however...
I had a very sickly start at life. Naturally, it led to my family coddling me and treating me as if I were glass. So, I never had to work much harder than fighting my illness. As such, I'm a homeschooled eight-year-old. I used to attend the local civilian elementary school, but my sleeping habits proved too much for teachers. For me, becoming a ninja...
was never an option.
Not traditionally, at least.
So, how can I do missions despite me not being a ninja?
Sayaka and I... we're civilian-nin.
(I use I lightly.)
As the name implies, we're civilians who pretend to be ninja. Not to be vigilantes or to run some kind of black market. The fact is that ninja are expensive. Ninja can cause a huge mess. When a ninja enters a village, the village as a whole becomes slightly more dangerous. There could be enemy ninja lurking. Could be that the ninja is inefficient and causes more harm than good.
That is how civilian-nin came about: civilians performing ninja duties without any chakra nor formal training. They're farmers with makeshift weapons and martial art experience. We cost much less than shinobi and remain much more anonymous as we can easily become a simple civilian. We do not attract enemy ninja and our damage output is minimal without chakra use.
That said, civilian-nin don't get any major, political jobs. We're often tasked to D-Rank and C-Rank equivalents. People who hire actual shinobi for a D-Rank have more money than they know what to do with.
Our profession is a secret within the Land of Fire. If word gets out there are civilians siphoning jobs off the market for actual shinobi, there will be consequences.
My cousin isn't supposed to be an actual shinobi and a civilian-nin. Sayaka is only required to become one in case of another war. Because of the Second Great Shinobi War, civilians were banned from assisting on the war front due to their casualties outnumbering shinobi. Now, Sayaka can fight in the war without any problems, just like our parents did while we were little, without being real shinobi.
(Just in time for the incoming third war...)
"You want..." I stop and stare seriously at my cousin. "You want me... on a mission...?"
"Of course," she grins.
Which is ludicrous. I'm the worst civilian-nin this family has seen.
I've never, ever completed a single successful mission.
Our missions can be as easy locating missing children to setting up an ambush for thieves. Although I never go on any serious mission, I can't even do my part in the easier missions.
It's not as if I'm not trying to be successful, though. It's just too hard to keep going.
What's the point in being a faux ninja? I know my family doesn't expect for me to become a legitimate ninja. I don't either.
So I fail mission after mission to instead sleep or laze about. Because there's no point, no reason for me to try.
(And yet... my family keeps on trying.)
"...I don't wanna," I tell her, rolling over and away.
Sayaka giggles. Easily, she picks me up and positions me on her back. I know I won't fall, but I still wrap my arms around her neck. "Silly, An-chan! If you stay still too long, you just might become a tree. And I can't water you forever, so you're coming with me!"
(As if that logic makes sense...)
"...where?" I sigh.
"Fukemachi Village's Nemachizuki Forest, of course!"
"Fu-... fumachi...?"
Sayaka giggles and walks. "Silly! We will be there before! You! Know it!"
She isn't kidding. When I wake up, I can feel I hadn't been asleep long.
Sayaka had stopped moving and is watching the town probably about four of me away. She shifts my position on her back and exhales. "Reminds you of home, doesn't it?"
The town pours out the forest like water spilling out from a dam. The tall, dense vegetation makes up almost all of the village's scenery. The houses and buildings are largely tree based.
"Fukemachi Village is mainly a lumber village. One of the largest exporters, too," Sayaka tells me, walking again. "The trees here are thrice as dense as the ones in the Hidden Leaf. Legends say the First Hokage created this especially dense forest as a gift to his first daughter."
"...who'd want a forest... for a birthday present?" I say.
"His daughter loved forests, that's why. She loved to play hide and go seek with him. Of course, it wasn't a tame game like what we play, but an intense match between ninja." Sayaka pauses to laugh. "But anyways... all Fukemachi Village has going for is its lumbering after the First's and Second's deaths not too long ago..."
With her being five years older than me, she'd seen them both. The First Hokage spoke when she entered the Academy and the Second Hokage visited her school. The Third Hokage signed the paper giving her a Chuunin vest.
"Well," my cousin Sayaka says, after clearing her throat, "that and bunnies!"
"...bunnies?"
We reach the threshold of the village, off the thick grass and onto the soft pebble and dirt streets.
"Hold that thought, An-chan, I need to find our client."
Sayaka walks with a bounce in her step. It makes her puffy skirt rise and fall like a swimming jellyfish, makes her short bob swish, and makes me quite nauseous.
(Can she walk normally?)
Fukemachi Village has no shinobi at all. No forehead protectors rests on any foreheads (or any other place on bodies, really) and no standard shinobi vests are worn. Here, there are men and women dressed in simple clothing that reeks of sawdust and grass. Any person who doesn't work have decent, almost trendy clothes and no notable scent.
As we are civilians and they are civilians, the people of Fukemachi Village only stare a bit too long at Sayaka's obviously trendy fashion style (who would wear shinobi boots and puffy long sleeved tops in this place? Plus mint greens and whites at that?). Their eyes glance over my very simple outfit.
But there's not a single look of dread or weariness civilians normally give ninja.
Sayaka returns each stare with a friendly smile, successfully making every person look abruptly away as she continues past. All except for right now when she pauses and gasps.
"Ah, An-chan," she gushes, "look, look!"
Sayaka skips over to a rather muscular man in a gray shirt lacking sleeves, a man who only stops on his path to stare at her forehead protector she recently put on. She digs into her shirt sleeve and pulls out a small scroll. "Say, say, are you the leader of this place?"
The man's thick, furrowed brows relax. "Ah, I know that scroll. So you are the one I sent for..." He breaks off uncertainly as he catches wind of me.
"Nice to meet you! My name is Sayaka. This girl on my back is An-chan! Say 'hi,' An-chan! Please be kind to us!"
(Really, Sayaka, do you have to tell him that lousy nickname?)
I can only muster up a small incline of my head.
"What's the point of bringing along a little kid? I don't have any babysitters for her." There's nothing overly hostile about his words or body language despite his words.
"She's in training. She needs experience. What other way than to get experience for a simple mission than to join me?"
"Simple? You sure?"
Sayaka remains unfazed. "Of course it is. All we have to do is find and get rid of the bunnies, right? That's no problem at all! My brother is a total nut for animals. I think I learned a few things from him!"
Unlike her, I can't really think positively.
(A man like him thinks this isn't simple?)
I pluck the scroll from her fingers and open it. Of course, I can't really read much because I never really focused hard enough to learn. That's probably why Sayaka didn't stop me.
Forest... bunny... fear... people... to run away... to scream... moon... nighttime... help us please...
um...
scary bunnies?
Sayaka continues to talk, "Leader, sir, please tell me everything you know about these bunnies."
"Well... bunnies aren't much of an issue. However these... these aren't right. They're too smart and too mischievous for their own good. They might be specialized bunnies—like the bunnies summoners use."
"Summoners...?" I mumble.
"Certain people can summon animals using contracts," Sayaka says. "Like Lord Hokage! He can summon monkeys."
"Right. They are not common bunnies and, as such, are outside the realm of a common person. These bunnies live deep in the Nemachizuki Forest and come to the town at night and when villagers are asleep."
"Bunnies up at night? And... do they come to the town at night for food?"
"I believe so, yet no one has reported missing food that wasn't the result of a rebellious young one."
"Hmm, thank you, Leader."
We still have time to kill after eating, so Sayaka offers to walk around the village.
"Strange, isn't it?" Sayaka says to either me or herself. I walk beside her, so I don't really feel like craning my neck up to see. "No missing food? If not that, there must be food or water where they stay. So the bunnies must want something more..."
I try to think hard.
(I mean, I got a soul twice my age in my noggin, so shouldn't I be smarter?)
"It's a forest so there should be plenty of food, water, and materials to make a nice living space. So either they're curious about the people or maybe someone's inviting them...?"
But Sayaka comes up with a plausible solution. I guess... experience sometimes beats age.
Sayaka claps her hands then rubs them together furiously. "Alright! It's time to interrogate the rest of the villagers!" With me on her back, she begins her interrogation. Most of the villagers were at work in the forest, but the ones who stay back hold either fear or fury towards the elusive bunnies.
"Excuse me," Sayaka says after introducing us, "what do you know of the bunnies?"
"Annoying, that's what," says a woman with a baby in her arms. "My kids won't stop talking about seeing those bunnies. Wished they just get lost; don't need my babies hurting themselves out there."
"Those critters aren't right." A very large and stocky man towers over the both of us. "We spent ten days hunting them. Ev'ry time, no prey. Our traps were even destroyed, and not by human hands."
Sayaka tilts her head at that. "Are you sure a human didn't do that?"
"Please, we'll know if a human lives there—shinobi or not. And none does. The only explanation is if those critters were summons."
"They are spirits, obviously," says a man clothed in a robe, smelling the least like leaves and dust. "Our best hunters could not catch them—impossible, you know? Those rabbits must not exist at all, then."
Many of the people she speaks to fall into those three categories or a simple "I don't know, but get rid of them." Sayaka doesn't get much out of those people. At sunset... a rich orange glow pours over the village wherever the trees do not block the sunlight.
Sayaka sits me on a bench and ponders next to me, swinging her legs.
"Guess once it's night, we'll just have to find the bunnies ourselves. Like I said, my brother keeps so many animals! It's probably in my genes somewhere to decipher animals too!"
Well...
Knowing her mom, it's certainly not in her genes. I've never seen much of her dad, though, so I can't determine that for certain.
Sayaka hums as she thinks. I start to doze off until my stomach starts to throb and ache. What did I have for lunch? Can't remember... I probably fell asleep then, too.
I tug at Sayaka's sleeve and my stomach growls before saying anything.
My cousin's startled face turns into a grin. "Not bad, An-chan! But you do know you can just speak normally, eh?"
...just for that, I hop off the bench and search for food myself. Course, I don't make much ground before Sayaka picks me up by my middle and bounds to the nearest restaurant.
We sit on stools and Sayaka points to the words I have no chance at reading, pronouncing them, describing the food. Most of the food selections all have one part making up the ideogram in common.
"Why..." I say, "...do all of these have... cheese?"
"That's the game of this place! It's nothing but sweet milky treats!"
A dairy based sweets store? But shouldn't there be cows or goats in the village that we'd see? Maybe dairy is a super common import. I guess it makes sense why a place like this would care so much about dairy. A person needs a strong body for a rigorous job.
Sayaka lets me try a vanilla cheesecake while she gets a smoothie. The junk food shuts my stomach up. By the time I'm finished, it's nighttime. Motion barely exists. A silence made more profound by the easily heard katydids and dying sounds of cicada sends a shiver up my spine. Looking at Sayaka, a frown looks offplaced on her pale face.
As if sensing my movement, she turns to me and, with a bright grin, winks.
The shivers vanish... now replaced with a Really? look.
"Anyway," Sayaka says almost too loudly, pulling storage tags out her sleeves like candy, "I've prepared some bunny catching equipment while you were sleeping. And, you know, that wasn't too difficult considering you slept a bunch today!"
Yeah, that's natural. I almost hunch up my shoulders in agreement.
Out the storage tag is a dozen carrots, still cold to the touch, still fresh and crisp. She gives them to me, pulling my sleeves over my hands so they won't slip.
With the carrots in my grasp, Sayaka tucks a different colored storage tag in my pocket. The paper is now yellow and its ideogram is written in red. "If there's too many for you, please put them back inside. I'd hate to waste food!"
"...but... I don't know..." I feel like I've seen this tag before.
"Ah, An-chan, this isn't the first time I've given this to you. It's a blood-based storage tag, remember? You don't need to mold your chakra for it."
(But if I wanted to put the carrots back, how am I supposed to grab it and bleed on the tag? Isn't this tag too tiny for all these carrots?)
Sayaka continues on talking, blissfully unaware that she's a little bad at planning without her brother on her side.
"The hunters gave me some tips about catching bunnies! Plus, I took a few notes out of my brother's book—not literally, An-chan! And the plan is very simple...
"You'll walk around and try to entice the bunnies so I can set traps. If these bunnies are as smart as everyone thinks, they'll likely ambush me while I'm setting a trap. Even if you trick one bunny, that's one bunny less that knows of the trap.
"We'll be separated but I'll be close by. No matter where you are An-chan, know that your Sayaka always knows where you are!"
As she speaks, I feel my motivation drain away. What's the point in all of this? I want to say. Why are we faux ninja wasting our time like this?
I don't have the courage to say it out loud.
And so Sayaka deposits me somewhere inside the Nemachizuki Forest while she Body Flickers away. Without her voice or her eccentric way of walking or her carrying me or her thinking out loud...
It's quiet.
Lonely.
Much less bright.
Sure, sure her green and blacks looked more muted in the forest than my pastel yellows, but why do I remember them as being so bright? As night coontinues, the moon warps and twists elongated tree shadows so that the silhouettes look foreign. Unnatural. Beastly.
Every step I take crunches on the grass and organic debris so loudly. My breathing, my swallowing—too, too loud.
The wind through the trees sound like hissing.
The falling leaves graze my cheeks like the lick of a snake.
The warped shadows are monsters extending their beastly hands to catch me...
I crouch down, legs unable to keep me upright. The carrots press tightly onto my chest as I hug them tightly. I'm trembling, but I'm hardly cold.
(Should I close my eyes? Should I? Seeing is scary but not seeing is scarier...)
I bury my face into the green leaves. Yes, this reminds me of Sayaka. She'll return soon and—
Very, very close to me, a distinct rustling of bushes. It's too heavy to be the wind. It's definitely a person.
She came back for me, she must have been teasing me. Like always...
Out the bush is a thing not much taller than I.
I can't think of anything but look at it.
It's pure white with an almost opalescent glow as the moonlight strikes its fur. Its pupil-less eyes are pure silver like the cape it wears around its neck.
"Ah, good evening," greets the very deep voiced bunny, "are you a lost human?"
Wh—...what?
(I think I feel asleep. It's so dark anyways...)
"Um..." I rise and show him the carrots. "I have some."
"Oh? And those are? An offering?"
"Guess so. Don't you know... what carrots are?"
"I have never eaten a carrot in my life!" The bunnies throws its head back and laughs like an exaggerated hero. "However, I will except this offering, human! Are you, perhaps, a female?"
...is it not obvious?
...the girly yellows and strawberry-milk-pinks of my shirt didn't give it away?
I nod slowly.
"Excellent, excellent! Please, please join me! Come join the rest of my clan!"
Without letting me reply, the bunny just hops away.
Well... if he is going to show me all of the bunnies, I might as well follow his lead. It's funner in this absurd dreamscape than in reality, that's for sure.
So I walk behind him. It's easy to separate the surreal colors of the bunny from the haunting forest. Finally, over a hill and past a large tree, and I see them.
There are twenty-nine bunnies total. None are as tall as the first bunny. But all are just as surreal looking. Their mass of little heads swivel towards us, though more to me.
"Everybunny! I have brought with us a human girl! She comes with an offering of carrots!"
They look at one another, noses sniffing, confused? A bunny bursts from the crowd, giving off a firery vibe. Down his body, a long, black streak marks his fur.
"Moon King Getsuei the Jaded," shouts a nasally voice. "What have you brought back? What are these 'carrots' you speak of? Are we certain these are not fatal? You understand the humans are impatient to see us gone!"
The silver caped bunny who led me here, Getsuei, looks at me. "Are these carrots poisonous?"
I take a bite out of one, crunch, swallow. "I mean... they're sweet."
"Then they are not poisonous, Yazuki," Getsuei states.
"But, My King!" Yazuki sputters.
Getsuei cuts Yazuki off. "Rabbits of the Moon Kingdom, tonight we have been blessed by this human girl! May our land prosper and survive another era!"
The bunnies start to cheer. I sort of wave, not really knowing what would be appropriate.
(This really... isn't the weirdest dream I've ever had.)
A blue caped bunny bursts from the crowd, fur long and grayish more than white. An old man's voice emerges from the bunny while he bows. "Great evening, human girl, I am Nanukazuki, or 'Nanuka' for short. My job is to manage the rice cakes. Oh, how delighted you'll know that the rice cakes will be oh so very sweet and pure."
"Rice cakes?" I say.
"Ah, we regularly prepare rice cakes for our Moon Kingdom ever since our main food source's recipe has been lost. Having the land necessary to plant is rather difficult, which is why you find us here."
"...oh."
Of course, rice is such a popular commodity here. It's almost in surplus.
"It is very lucky indeed you've decided to show up," Nanuka continues, nose twitching rapidly. "By this sunrise, we would have been erased completely."
"Huh? I thought... you were animal summons?"
"Our goddess has left us," Getsuei says, lowering his head in brief silence. "We fend for our own under my guidance!"
He turns enough so that his cape flutters in the wind. Being still now, I can read his name: moon and shadow.
Alternatively, his name can be said as Tsukikage.
"Oh wow," I breathe. "...but isn't this too much hassle? I'm... only a person."
"No, no, you are very important to the Moon Kingdom," Nanuka says. "Very, very few souls as young and pure as you have met us. With you here with us, we'll be able to produce the most divine rice cakes of our entire existence!"
The bunnies cheer, their tails are quivering.
"I'm glad," I say. "...but I can't stay."
Nanuka laughs. "Silly, silly! You have to make the rice cakes! Of course you won't 'stay'!"
Now I have to tilt my head. I'm used to crazy dream logic, though. "...I... can't cook...?"
The rice cake maker only laughs harder. "Silly human girl, I will be doing the cooking. Your role is to spill your blood for our kind and fertilize our land. After all, we certainly cannot make rice cakes without first having a pure soul."
huh.
I realign my head. Yet the world still seems tilted. Nothing has changed. Nanuka still laughs, the bunnies are excited and flustered, Getsuei enjoys his success.
And yet...
I am not charmed and amused.
I feel cold on the inside. I want to run away.
These carrots I hold onto are heavy heavy heavy.
"Once you leave your useless mortal body with us," Getsuei adds eagerly, "you'll be known to us as a Moon Princess, Demi-goddess of the Moon. That is the highest honor we bestow!"
I drop the carrots and, as I stumble backwards a bit, feel no less heavy at all. If anything, I feel exposed.
"No," I mumble, "I... some Moon Princess... no..."
"Eh?" Getsuei's ears perk up.
"...I need... to leave, so, um..." I elaborate, quiet.
Now, the scene changes. The bunnies are not cheering, there is no happiness.
The bunnies blur together with the black, alien tree shadows to become something horrible.
"Ah."
Getsuei's voice is gravelly. Not a single trace of softness remains.
"I'm sorry, but you never had a choice once we all accepted you."
Without a word being spoken, I know the crowd of bunnies are about to lunge for me.
My breathing picks up as I turn, staring at a path made of mostly shadows. I have no idea where I am.
(Why won't this nightmare end?)
"Where do you think you're going? After my An-chan?"
I turn.
Sayaka's staff touches the ground first before the balls of her feet. With the contact comes a burst of wind that throws the bunnies back a few centimeters.
They all start to rise. Getsuei is the first to cry, "Capture that human girl!"
Sayaka giggles. "How can I take you adorable critters seriously? My brother will be upset I hit animals, but maybe he'll understand you all are a little rude!"
From her thigh holster under her skirt, Sayaka grabs and sends kunai flying. They shimmer slightly blue from her chakra. In a blur, the weapons cut through the sky, suddenly reappearing to stab the ground or tree or a bunny.
It's so easy to tell when a bunny is hit. The red stands out against their pale fur. But it's especially obvious when the kunai is stuck in the center of their chest.
Sayaka is killing them...
I don't know why, but the ground feels like it moves beneath my feet as I think that.
The wounded bunnies grab the kunai and pull them out their bodies should the weapon remain. As soon as it is removed, their wounds regenerate almost instantly with a gross, wet sound.
"What? They can heal?" my cousin says a bit too loud.
"Of course!" Getsuei cries from his spot in the back. "We Rabbits of the Moon Kingdom receive strength from the moon! So long as that moon remains in the sky, we are blessed by our Moon Goddess to remain alive!"
"Huh..." Sayaka's stance grows more firm. "But didn't I hear you mention you'll die come sunrise? So there's one thing I gotta do... if I can't kill you, then at least you won't take my An-chan!"
Getsuei's eyes widen. "W-Wait, the human girl is more important. Deliver An-chan to me now!"
Sayaka lunges forward, swinging her staff hard, cracking heads and necks of bunnies who start to shrug off the attempt. "An-chan, get out of here now!"
I...
I've never been good at a single mission.
I've always failed.
I'm unreliable.
So when I shamelessly turn away and bolt, I feel as if I can just do this one thing, maybe I can finally do something right.
I run and run.
The world is nothing more than silvers and blacks.
Trees, bushes, and things the darkness hide get in my way. I don't know where I am or where Sayaka is, if I'm making a huge circle or heading to a dead end.
(I'm... scared...)
I'm helpless.
(Please... Sayaka...)
Something holds my feet and forces me to crash onto the ground hard. I roll over, spitting dirt out my mouth, searching for a rock or stick.
"Human, desist! I will do no harm!"
That voice and those words... I stop panicking and sit up. The bunny with the one black streak is talking to me.
"...Yazuki?" I cough and pant.
"Ahem! Call me properly!" Yazuki stands tall, puffs out his chest. "I am Juugoyazuki, the harvester. I am the one who was created by the Moon Goddess to make the moon recipe."
"...m-moon recipe?"
"Yes. A long time ago, our goddess created twenty-nine bunnies. Every day, one bunny would protect the Moon Kingdom from Earth until our goddess disappeared. Without her divine intelligence, I am unable to harvest the ingredients necessary for the moon recipe.
"As such, my kind resorted to desperate measures. Nanukazuki discovered pure souls could be used to make spirit rice cakes which we could feed off of. Despite my attempts to dissuade them from the black practice, I still could not discover the moon recipe."
Having caught my breath, I am a bit more clearheaded. "Ah... well... what do you know... about the moon recipe?"
"Only that a human from which our goddess derived from will know the answer."
I blink.
Yazuki stares.
"Er," I say, "that's it?"
"Yes, that's it! It's hard to recreate something you do not understand after all, human!" More calmly, "I do know the moon has an abundance of it, however. It can make an abundance rice cakes with souls... but the goddess created something so much more delicate."
"What'd it taste like...?"
"Mmm... slightly tangy, thick... fulfilling. Sometimes it would be fluffy, sometimes liquid, sometimes cold. It never, ever lasted long at all, however."
Doesn't that sound a lot like
"...cheese," I say.
"Excuse me?"
"...the nursery rhyme. The moon... is made of cheese."
"Cheese! Yes! Most excellent!" Yazuki's nose stops its twitching. "How does a bunny create recipes with cheese?"
"Oh. Well... you need a cookbook, then... That would be in Fukemachi." I look around to see the moonlight is almost gone and is nearly replaced by starlight. "We don't have long either..."
"Fine! I shall take us to the village at once! Follow, human An-chan!"
I chase after him while groaning. Whether it's his bunny senses or if he's travelled this way before, we get to the village fairly quickly. Yazuki won't let me stop for a breather, simply tugging me along.
"Where would this village have cookbooks for cheese?" he says softly as we run through the sleeping village.
"Ah... uh..."
I suppose a store would be closed at this hour. Once it opens, it'll be too late.
"...I'm sleepy," I sigh, feeling my eyelids lower on their own volition.
(But if the weird bunnies die at sunrise, won't it be okay? After all... they've killed so many.)
"What? You cannot sleep now! Please, human... we must find this! We all want to meet our mother again... our precious goddess," Yazuki urges, pawing my arm.
(What if... something awful happens to Sayaka? What if she doesn't make it until sunrise?)
"Um..."
I blink away the heaviness for now.
Even though we've travelled all over Fukemachi Village, nothing seems familiar. Especially in the darkness where whites become grays and blues become blacks. In this night, not even the moon can lead me.
Oh.
The Moon.
"Yazuki," I say, "there's... there's a place with the ideogram 'cheese' on it. It—It looks like this." I draw the ideogram on the dirt road. Of all things, this is familiar to me.
"Hm. Yes. I have seen this before. Over here."
We're back to running, turning around corners and running across large stretches of grass until this place starts looking kinda familiar.
We've made it to the cheese place. The building is very plain looking apart from the green and pink store decorations. As expected, it's completely closed with a metal wall pulled and locked on its store front and windows. It's safe to assume all doors are also locked.
"This is the cheese place, is it not?" Yazuki turns back to me as I catch up. Too busy panting, I nod. "Are not the doors closed? How do you suppose we retrieve the cookbook?"
"Well... the cookbook... is bunny sized. Most books are..."
"That does not answer the question! Hurry, human, the red sun is almost upon us!"
I jog around the back and tug on the door near the dumpster. It remains shut. I don't even have the strength to push it open.
Even so, the door looks so old and gross—how could it withstand my tugging? There's even a gap under the door, on the sides, a bigger gap near the door hinge. All gaps have the diameter less than a pupil. Maybe a strand of hair could fit through, or a bunny whisker.
"Are we stuck?" Yazuki looks at me expectantly. "Is this the end of my kind?"
I stuff my hand in my pockets, frowning real hard in thought. Something smooth brushes my hand. I pull it out.
"Ah..."
The blood-based storage tag.
Measuring the rectangular tag, it can fit through the small gap. Problem is, I still need blood to seal and unseal, but maybe...
With difficultly, I bite the inside of cheek. The copper smell floods my mouth, nose, and throat and feels hot against my tongue. Two fingers brush the wound and return red with blood.
"Yazuki... when this blood reaches the center of this tag... you'll be put inside it. I'm... going to slide you in and undo it. You'll grab the book."
His tail wiggles. "Interesting! Well, there is no time to waste! Do it, human!"
He hops on over the tag and once I put my blood on it, he disappears with a poof. Before the cloud clears, I'm grabbing the seal and slipping it through the gap under the door. From the gap near the hinge, the widest gap, and a bit from the window when I stand on a box, I can see the seal is next to the hinge gap.
"...hopefully this works..."
I pull a few strands of hair. My hair isn't long, but it's long enough to slip through the gap and reach the tag. I can't see it when it happens. I only hear the poof and, "Ah! That was a strange feeling..."
He thinks that's strange.
"The cookbook... has the ideogram for cook. Do you... want me to spell that too?"
"Not necessary—I can read ideograms like that, I do assist a cook after all."
"...oh, sorry."
Through the gaps, I can see that Yazuki's fur shimmers silver in the darkness. He searches through cabinets, finding only ingredients, and heads upstairs where the family lives. Above, the night sky slowly fades into a bluish color, Yazuki appears with a book in hand.
"Human! Reach!" Yazuki pushes the tag a bit through the gap so I can pull it from my side. He then stands above it with the book.
With no time to waste, I stuff a strand of some more blood covered hair. And pull the tag.
The door, thankfully, didn't get sealed too. Probably because it was such a giant thing and seal can't take much.
Nevertheless, Yazuki and I have the cookbook.
"I shall run back, you will follow my footprints!" And without much debate, he bolts, leaving me to trail behind.
Birds are singing, there is movement within the village, the forest doesn't look as haunting as before. Above all, a part of me realizes I just spent my first night with no sleep. That's... kinda momentous.
By the time I finally catch up, I see Sayaka dirty, bleeding, exhausted. She smiles, though, seeing me, and holds me.
King Getsuei is looking through the cookbook with the bunnies. "Cheese? The Moon Goddess made us cheese?"
"Yes, yes. All of the tools these humans use can be stolen or recreated," Yazuki says. "We won't need to rely on souls! With this, the goddess watches over us again!"
Nanuka nods. "I... understand. Then... it is unfortunate we can no longer enjoy rice cakes. However, I am eager to try this again."
King Getsuei looks at us. "Sincerest apologies, humans. We shall return back to our home never again to bother you. Thank you greatly for perserving our kingdom."
"Ah, gee," Sayaka sighs, "go before I kill one of you for real!"
If I had to be fighting never dying bunnies for hours, I'd be a bit peeved too.
"Human girl, wait!"
Yazuki hops to me. Sayaka points a kunai to his throat before he gets too close, though.
"When the moon of the fifteenth day shines bright," Yazuki tells me, "please wish a good harvest. If you continue to do this, I will be able to grant you a blessing."
"...blessing?"
"Yes. It is a small token of my gratitude."
"...ah, er... thanks."
"An-chan doesn't need your blessing," Sayaka pouts. "Shoo." She holds me almost possessively.
The bunnies all group together, all twenty-nine of them.
And, all at once, before the Sun peeks over the horizon, they vanish with a smoke cloud.
Sayaka, still wounded, carries me on her back. She bandaged herself good enough and took some pain medication, but her pale face, heavy steps, and breathing give it away.
"Those were mean bunnies," she smiles. "I led them to traps, holes, and explosive tags. At one point, I humored them into thinking I was you. Funnily enough, they figured out I wasn't you. As expected, you're one of a kind, An-chan."
Since I wasn't conscious last time we came here, I can't tell if we're moving slowly. But it feels like we are.
"...do you wanna rest?" I say.
She laughs breathily. "I'll rest once my An-chan is safe and sound at home. Besides... I'm so happy to get home and tell everyone the good news."
"...the moon bunnies?"
"What? No way, those were just really weird summon animals. No, I mean you just completed your first, successful mission! Congratulations..."
"Oh..."
I did it. I actually did it.
My heart beats fast.
My first successful mission, huh?
It feels amazing.
But how come this went so well?
What was so different that I didn't fall asleep and give up trying? This time... there was so Sayaka, no person to cheer me on to continue.
"...my first... successful mission..." I murmur, starting to fall asleep.
Over the next two months, I go right back to failing missions.
Sure I went into some missions confident I could recreate my first success... yet that motivation could never last long. And, as such, the allure of sleeping and lazing about is just too strong.
Still... for the fun of it, I pray to Yazuki on the fifteenth of every month. On the morning of the sixteenth, there's always a slice of cheese in my bed. When I eat it, it tastes just like regular cheese. Wouldn't moon cheese taste unique? Maybe Sayaka's pranking me?
I asked her and she was honestly confused. "Um, are you sure this is regular cheese? It taste way too sweet. It's nice every once in a while, though!"
"Nevermind..."
One day, Mom calls me into her office, really serious and quiet. Completely unlike her.
I sit with my legs folded under me and Mom does the same across the table. After breathing in and out, she speaks.
"It pains me to say this," she begins slowly, "but... I feel that you should never become a civilian-nin."
small steps chapter 1 | moony
AN: Welcome to Small Steps. This idea was created way back in August 2014 and is just now seeing the light of day. Of all my reborn!OC ideas, this is the oldest and refuses to go anywhere. Might as well get this out so I can finally say I made it happen, right?
So, ideally, I will translate Japanese words into English with few exceptions. I don't really want there to be language barrier. An-chan is untranslated because An is weird on its own. Things like Kakashi-sensei are untranslated while Hokage-sama is strictly because Teacher Kakashi doesn't flow smoothly as Lord Hokage. Ninja, shinobi, shuriken, and kunai are untranslated because no-one knows their real translations-enduring person, endurance, etc. Jounin and other ranks are untranslated because they don't flow smoothly (which I'll explain next chapter).
I'll explain more exceptions as I go, but, typically, I don't want there to be a surplus of Japanese in a chapter. I don't want to alienate English speakers.
It's first person present because I feel those attributes match the very personal and explorative nature of the story. Third person would just leave some kind of gap, you know?
This first chapter is probably the most surreal the story is going to get. I just felt that our abnormal heroine needed an abnormal, almost dreamlike introduction.