I arrived home at 12:30. It was crazy to me that that had all happened in one morning, it felt like it should have been an entire day or at least a chapter of a book. I walked into my new home to see my Grandmother docilely making a batch of cookies. I'm a little surprised at how calm she is but thats quickly offset by the awesome fact that she's making cookies. If there's anything grandmothers can do, it's cook and my grandma knows how much I love cookies. I still remember some of the recipes my first grandma and I would cook so when I came over my grandma would be happy to have her little helper cooking with her. With that in mind I walk up and offer my assistance to her.

"Oh Kaneki-chan, yes I remember your father said you will be staying here a while. I could have sworn he said it yesterday though."

I face-fault(another real life anime feature, I should definitely try to exploit this). She didn't even realise I had been kidnapped. Aside from being an amazing cook my grandmother was also getting a little forgetful. I shrugged and gave a basic outline that I had indeed arrived yesterday but late and been kidnapped in the morning. She listened to the story with an amused look in her eye and when I finished she patted me on the head and gave me a cookie.

"Kaneki-chan you have had a rough week I see." I suppress the urge to snort at the understatement, "Go get yourself cleaned up and I'll make you some lunch ok?"

"Ok Grandma. Also, before I forget, here is a list that my sensei said I should be eating."

My grandma gives it a once over and gives it the evil eye. "I will take this into account but when I put something on your plate you will eat it young man."

I nod then head off to clean up quickly. After all my work I would probably eat the table if Grandma didn't put anything on it. When I return to the table piled full of rice, tempura and other delicious looking foods I am prevented from eating AGAIN by the presence of my father at the table.

"Hello Kaneki please sit down we need to talk."

What. Practically no word from him right after mum dies now he turns up? What's with that? Anyway I honestly don't know how he's going to act because before mum died she was there to calm him down and humanitise what he did.

"Ok then. What do you want to talk about?"

"You need to be trained to take on the head of the family business. You probably don't know but I am the head of a large trading business in the land of lightning. Your mother told me to wait but with her not being here I believe it important to start your lessons in how to continue the company."

So that's 2 people who want to train me that my mum was denying. I can't wait to see who's next because the latest invitation is not very enticing. Before I impetuously throw his request/demand I realise that I will need to be smart about this. My father is a businessman foremost so I will have to approach this from a business angle.

"I'm sorry but I think that Okaa-san was right in holding off on the lessons. I don't even want to be part of your business. Could you find someone else you could train for the position."

He barely pauses to think before responding, "It must be passed onto a family member and we are the only members of my clan left, it has to be you. You will be taking lessons in etiquette and economics to become the next clan head."

"And what if I refuse?"

"It is I who keeps you and your grandmother under a roof with food. Refusing is not an option for you."

"How well would it go down when your business partners found out you refused food and lodging from your dead wife's mother and your son?"

"It would be regrettable but it would be worse if you didn't learn the business."

"Then how about I do different jobs in the business every now and then?"

"You need to learn how to run the business not work in it. You could follow around and study how one of my underlings work."

"I would get in their way and could be influenced poorly. What if I took some economics lessons and every now and then come in to show you what I know?"

"You will take economics lessons and complete projects that I assign to you, with assistance from my company. Is that acceptable to you son?"

I could tell I'd pushed him as far as possible. It's not fun bartering with your 3 year old son after all. Besides, I already know a decent amount about economics so it shouldn't be to hard to complete his little challenges. "Ok Father, when will I start?"

"You will study the state of my company and how it is operated with one of my secretaries on Thursday and Friday afternoons. Your other time will be spent working on the projects I set you."

"And what will happen once I reach school age?"

"I expect if you are able to barter with me you can complete schoolwork with little difficulty. There will be no change, you will just have to work harder."

Now is a choice of if I tell him I plan to go to the academy, not civilian school. I think that I will keep him in the dark about it as he will probably refuse. In the words of a wise man, 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission.' My father leaves and I sit down to finish the large meal prepared. My Grandma eyes me with concern but doesn't mention anything. She really is quite sweet but I do wish she would tell me what she thought of that. I feel as if I did well but have continued to create distance between my father and I. Well he certainly isn't working to build bridges. Learn with a secretary? That's not exactly father son times and secretaries are rarely endeared to their bosses, especially if said boss hoists their child off on them.

The next day after training my father arrives and takes me to his head office in Kumo. He shows me his office then calls over a secretary who was trying very hard not to look peeved over. He receives some paper from the secretary then leaves me with her. She looks about 25-30 with brown hair and a nice doll like face that's marred by a small grimace as she regards me. She starts the tour and I start to learn more about Kumo's economy and what my fathers company does. In a nutshell the company takes the many manufactured and mined goods of Kumo and exports them to neighbouring countries for things we can't produce ourselves. Land of fire for wood, Land of Rice patties for food etc. It seems that there is quite allot of competition between three Kumo companies for who is the largest importer. It all sounds very interesting and exploitable but I tuck those thoughts away and listen.

"Our company, Kazama's Caravans, is the largest importer of wood to Kumo and our largest export is ore and precious metals. We have well established trade routes with Land of Fire and we allow other merchants to travel with us for a price. We also have other trade caravans going to smaller countries for food, Suna for artisan goods and even some to the closer islands of Kiri for seafood and medical products but that's more difficult now due to the civil war there..."

Civil war in Kiri! That helps me narrow the time down in relation to canon a bit. She continues to yammer on about the difficulties of trading with different nations but I'm too busy planning. If the Kiri war has started that means I must be closer to Naruto's age group. I should try and find out which Hokage is in office. I know that the Yondaime died the same day Naruto was born so that would be an easy way to find my time period.

"..so us and one other company trade mainly overland so there's lots of competition that I will have to teach you. The third company is more international than us but is less competition because they mainly do shipping. I'll teach you a little about sea trade but that doesn't matter as much as we trade with land locked countries mainly. If you're trying to trade by sea you almost always go through Gato corporation so we will stay away from that."

Gato, Gato, Gato. There are sirens going off in my head that name sounds SO familiar. I can't quite remember from when in Naruto Gato was from but I know he did something. Something involving his shipping company and... Kiri? I don't remember.

"Are you even listening to me? You are quite distracted, I hope our other lessons aren't like this."

"Sorry I was distracted, please continue."

So my first lesson continued until I had a basic idea of the structure and politics of the Kumo economical scene. We would continue to work on that for the next few weeks until my father was satisfied with my knowledge. I rarely had the same teacher for more than a 2 or 3 lessons which was fine because it gave me a broad view of the topic. It was actually quite interesting as quite a large amount of what I was learning had effects on shinobi. For example if one of our ore shipments went missing, depending on where it was Shinobi would be dispatched to find out what happened or if one of the shipments of food came in late or was intercepted it had the shinobi corps instantly on alert because cutting off supply lines to an isolated place like Kumogakure is quite common tactics in war.

I was an attentive learner which surprised my teachers, they didn't expect such a young child to so quickly grasp the subjects. It was actually quite annoying because the only person who didn't constantly underestimate me and coddle me was Saki sensei. After my show of determination she had taken it as a challenge to get me into shape. We continued with my exercise, training my endurance for the most part, then progressing onto speed training with different sprints and then some strength training. I was keeping up well with both trainings and my body was finally starting to develop more usable muscles. No more toddling about for me, I could run jump and role like an olympian, albeit a 3 year old olympian.

For my 4th birthday my Grandmother made me a cake and took me with her to a large ornate looking building on the edge of Kumo. We entered inside and a smiling receptionist greeted my Grandmother by name then ushered us inside. I couldn't believe my senses when a smell came wafting down the corridor. The scent of baking cookies had me hopping with excitement when I entered a room filled with plants and was confused. The smell was definitely coming from this room but I couldn't find the little slices of heaven. My Grandmother walked in behind me smiling.

"What do you smell Kaneki?"

"I smell cookies but where are they?"

She lets out a laugh. "Of course you would smell cookies, you're obsessed with them. What you are smelling is not actually cookies it's the plant Traveler's End. It gives off a pheromone which the brain comprehends as a comforting smell. You smell cookies because it comforts you."

"That's really cool. What do you smell Grandma? And why are we here?"

"Yes it is quite cool isn't it. I brought you here because you seem to have so much work on your hands I thought you could use a little time in this garden here to relax."

I noticed her avoiding my question but I let it pass. I was preoccupied by the many different plants surrounding us in what I suddenly realised was a greenhouse. There were many different scents and colours and altogether I was happy my Grandmother brought me here. It was quite relaxing. As I regarded the plants around me I noticed that not all of them were beautiful or had strong scents. In fact most of them looked like normal little plants that you could find on the mountainsides where I trained.

"Grandma, what are those plants? Do they bloom under different conditions or something?"

"You are quite observant Kaneki. This greenhouse isn't just for relaxing in you know. It's used for growing the different plants required for medicines and poisons."

"But why are they in this greenhouse? I see some of these on the mountainside near the training fields."

"Those are wild strains and are difficult to cultivate properly. This is just a small business so they decided to keep all their stock in one place for safety."

I processed what I'd just learned and filed it among my other plans for activation at a later date. By this point I had quite a few different schemes to help me that I needed to start. At the moment though, I need to continue training and gathering information. For now I will just enjoy my time here and complete my training like the good little prodigy I am.

"Why did the woman out front know your name?"

"I worked here for quite a while and visit here quite often. Sadly my memory is fading a bit and I don't have the fortitude to continue working in the garden here."

"Do you remember enough to teach me anything about them?"

"Well I could certainly try, I believe I made a few notebooks while I worked here that could help you. I always wanted to make an almanac but there are so many different strains and this is only in Land of Lightening!"

"Thank-you Grandma I would love to see your notebooks."

We both settled down to enjoy the scenery. She gave passing commentary on different plans that I pointed out and even gave me a few leaves to suck on that were called Pepper Leaves which were nice and spicy. We went home after a few hours and while Grandma looked for her notebooks I walked up to the training fields I had been at this morning. There I searched around until I found a small normal looking bush with little black spotted leaves. I took one of the leaves and tasted it. Sure enough it was a pepper leaf bush and the taste was even stronger than the ones in the greenhouse. I remembered that in general herbs found in the bush or highlands were generally more potent, at least in my first life. That aside it was good to see I was correct in my assumptions that the herbs grew on the mountain.

I wandered around a bit collecting samples of leaves I remembered from the greenhouse for when I returned. When I returned my grandmother was happily going through one of the notebooks she had found. I showed her the leaves I found an with a gleam in her eye she pointed out the entries in her journals they corresponded to. It became less of a task for me and more of a game of matching leaf to entry and when we finally finished we were both hungry and it was getting dark. All in all it was an interesting birthday for me and my Grandmother. Just before I went to sleep my Grandmother came in and sat beside me.

"Kaneki you are doing a tremendous amount of work for someone your age. I know you may just think of me as an old lady but if you ever need some help you can ask me. I want to help you."

"Thankyou Grandma."

I fall asleep with the comforting presence of my Grandma beside me. Sadly the comfort doesn't last long as my dreams are filled with details and schemes tumbling over and over with no end.

*A/N - Sorry I was late on the update, I got lost on the road of life. This chapter was difficult to write for me as I basically made up a whole bunch of backstory to Kumo. I based it off what I know of remote cities, the Naruto wiki saying Kumo has the best economy and some ideas from other fanfictions. The pepper leaf is real it's from the broad leaf pepper tree that I encountered once while I was hiking - warning do not wipe ass with pepper leaf. My friends dared me and I couldn't sleep that night. Review, favourite and I'll try to update more frequently. :D