Chapter 16
Rubbing her hands together, Sora said a quick 'thank you for the meal' before digging in.
Two months had passed since she had her family had moved to Konoha. In those two months, Terumasa had seen fit to rather substantially increase her pay from 200 ryo up to a full thousand. An hour. And on top of that, he was more than happy for her to work a full five days a week at ten hours a day. Anyone from her old world would have called that extreme child labour, abuse and various other things, but honestly, she was pleased as punch.
And so after just two months of work she had earned a total of 400,000 ryo. Using some very basic calculations using the values of typical items and comparing them to prices from her original work, that roughly translated to over £26,000 or just over $35,000, for two months of work. When paired with her parent's pay, after deducting living expenses and monthly rent on their accommodation, that was still enough for their family to put down a down-payment on an actual three-bedroom house halfway between the centre and outskirts of Konoha, saddled neatly in the area between the hospital and Terumasa's shop.
Because she, her father and mother all had income which clearly was far more than enough to afford to pay off the interest on the loan, said loan went through without a hitch, and they were quickly able to move into the new place. After this was done, Sora was able to begin the first step of her musical plan. If this step fell through, it wasn't the end of the world, it would just make what she intended to do a lot harder.
With the portion of money that she kept for herself for necessary expenditure, she purchased all the materials she would need to make a guitar. One issue she had was that she knew she was being observed, which meant she couldn't freely use her inventory, which subsequently meant she couldn't take the easy way out and use her crafting menu to produce a guitar.
As such, she had to craft it manually. Thankfully, her crafting proficiency didn't just mean she could use a forge or hammer metal, she could also do fine woodworking, and knew what she had to do when creating certain things. That meant that after only one failed attempt, she was able to make a satisfactory guitar. It was simple as hell, just a wooden acoustic guitar, but it was hers, and she was honestly proud to have made it with her own two hands.
That guitar was now slung across her back in a leather pocket, held there by a strap. Her intentions were to head straight to a training area to practice, but on the way she got peckish and decided to choose a food stand to eat at. After plenty of indecisive choosing, she eventually decided upon a ramen stand. She had never actually tried ramen before, the closest she'd ever come was a few bowls of super noodles cooked on a small fire, not exactly the best way to eat noodles but that was all she had.
Picking one of the strands of noodle up, she examined it, then stuck it into her mouth, slurping it like spaghetti. It was nice, though she could see why there were so many different options, ramen on its own was like...like water. Alone it wasn't too interesting, but you could have it if you needed sustenance. However, where it would shine was in adding things to it, creating new and unique flavours for such a simple thing.
Sora slowly began to eat the meal, while at the same time she took her notepad out and began to go through her list for about the millionth time that month. It wasn't that she was really afraid of her plan failing, if it did she always had her job as a blacksmith to fall back on. It was more that she didn't want that failure to be because she missed something obvious. "Sora-chan? Is that you?" Blinking, Sora turned towards the voice, slightly surprised to see the same red-headed woman who had sealed her Byakugan rising from having ducked beneath the lining on the stall.
"Uzumaki-san, it's nice to see you." She said honestly, smiling at her. And she really did think so. While the woman had sealed her eye away, she didn't hold that against her in the slightest. Plus, she was kind and friendly and...bubbly was the best way to put it as if the darkness of the world just couldn't have an effect on her. "Do you come here to eat often then Uzumaki-san?"
The woman waved her off, sitting down next to her. "None of that Sora-chan. Now that we're not in an...ugh, official setting, call me Kushina-onee-san at least, please." She then adopted a far more serious visage, making Sora slightly nervous. She hadn't activated her Byakugan or anything...maybe she wanted the scroll back? "And to ask me such a question is pure sacrilege towards ramen. You must repent now! Teuchi-oji-san, three-"
Kushina then looked at her and frowned. "Yeah, three bowls of ramen for Sora-chan here, one Shoyu, one Tonkotsu, one Miso. As for me, my regulars please, arigato gozaimazu!" She said whilst bowing sincerely, catching Sora off-guard slightly with her vehemence. Looking down at her own still mostly-full bowl of ramen, Sora feared for the state of her stomach, since she didn't know if she'd be able to even nearly finish that much food.
As she opened her mouth to tell Kushina that, the redhead put a finger over her lips. "Don't worry, you won't have to eat all of each bowl, but you have to try the basic four so we can find out which is your favourite. I could tell at a glance that this is your very first time isn't it? Gah, a ramen virgin tasting the food of the gods for the first time!" Sora's mouth dropped open in surprise at the...well, piousness was the best way to describe Kushina's seemingly religious fervour towards ramen. "So, what's that on your back?"
Smiling, Sora slung her guitar around to her front, patting on it. "A guitar. I...made it myself because I figured I wanted to try something new, something nobody has done before, to play music for people. Not rich people, not Daimyo's or Kage's, but just...standing up on a stage and playing songs for people. As you can see, haven't managed to even finish figuring it all out yet.
She gestured at her notepad, and pushed it towards Kushina when she seemed interested in it. Sora ate another mouthful of ramen as Kushina flipped through her pages then placed the notepad back down. "Sora, this...you're right, I've never heard of anyone doing this sort of thing before. Sure, maybe sometimes somebody might decide to play the zither or the koto in public, but turning it into an actual occupation? I think it's great. Mind if I tag along, I'm on forced leave for a week so I'd be happy to come have a listen."
Patting her guitar, Sora smiled wryly. "I'd like that, the only problem is that I can't play very well yet." And it was true, she couldn't. That didn't mean she was a total beginner, she had visited the library and within there were quite a few books that unlocked miscellaneous proficiencies, a few of which regarded musical instruments, and the proficiency they unlocked and levelled was exactly that, it covered all instruments. If she picked up a flute or a banjo she'd play with the same level of ability as her guitar. There was also one for singing that she had read, but just one, so it just made her more nervous honestly.
"Well, I promise not to judge."
Sitting down on the ground with her legs crossed and guitar on her knees, Sora watched as Kushina followed suit, uncaring of the dirt she was sitting on.
Taking out her notepad, Sora began to flip through a few pages, trying to pick a song she felt she could play. Of course, she could only do songs that required just a guitar and vocals, but she had noted down plenty of songs she could play as covers. But what she also had to take into account was her voice. She couldn't play something like Hurt by Johnny Cash because his voice was so deep and just purely different to hers, it would come out completely wrong.
Finally, she settled on a song. I See Fire, it fit perfectly, and was more about the emotions of the song and the guitar than anything else, so her voice and the fact she couldn't have anything else playing in the background didn't matter. And so, Sora took out a pick from her guitar case, picked up her guitar, got the music ready to play in her own head just to help her out by listening to it at the same time, then began to play. At first, she was a touch hesitant to be playing in front of someone else for the first time, as all her levels in musical instrument proficiency came from books, but she quickly got into the song, not paying attention to Kushina as she closed her eyes and sang.
Partway through the song she started to sway slightly from side to side, her pick moving across the strings as though she had spent weeks if not months practising. After a few minutes, the song naturally came to an end, and Sora opened her eyes again, exhaling softly as she looked at Kushina, who seemed quite frankly stunned. "That...was amazing." She said simply, leaning back slightly. "Like...really amazing. Sora, you've got an honest talent for music. I might not be the best person to ask about music, but I honestly think you've got something amazing here. I just want to know what you're going to sound like in the future if this is what you sound like when you 'can't play very well yet' because that was beautiful." Sora rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, hefting her guitar slightly.
"You want to hear another then?"
Sora ended up spending over an hour sat down playing music for Kushina.
And honestly, it was worth every second of it. Not just for the fact that she rose four whole proficiency levels in instruments and five in singing during it partially due to her civilian title, but also that Kushina seemed to genuinely enjoy listening to her music. Though, calling it her music was a bit wrong because she didn't invent any of the songs, so taking credit was a bit...off to her, but they were all in another world, and if it meant spreading music, carving out a lifestyle for herself and having a fun time doing it, stealing the credit for songs didn't seem that bad to her.
After Kushina left, telling her that she could usually be found at Ichiraku's, the stall that they had met at, Sora did continue to practice her music for a short while, and very quickly found that her speed of improvement had dropped. Not by a massive amount, about 25% slower than before, but that made it obvious that having someone listen and give feedback on her playing and singing, even if it was mostly just gushing over how much she loved the music, was better than sitting alone in a field playing to herself and whatever mysterious watchers were listening.
So, putting her guitar away, Sora decided to spend the rest of her day practising and training. She hadn't slacked off before, every Saturday and Sunday she did at least a few hours of training, and even if she now had something to do on those days, that didn't mean she didn't want to also be practising her other abilities. She still needed to ask her mother about the clone jutsu she used, that way she could be certain about whether or not she could pull off what she wanted to do. If she wasn't able to use it for some reason, well, she'd already demonstrated that she could just play guitar and sing, and that was good enough for Kushina, so maybe she could just do that if she wasn't able to use that jutsu.
Hopping up from where she had been seated, Sora dusted herself off, putting her guitar off to the side before fixating on a point in front of her. She focused herself on that space, forming the Tiger hand seal as she burned chakra and moved to that point in the blink of an eye, only taking an extra step to cancel out the rest of her forward momentum.
Her mother had explained in more detail when she asked that the Shunshin was not just about focusing on appearing in a place and wanting to stop, it was visualising that space. As such, once she was able to appear without stumbling at all, her next step would be to Shunshin to a place outside of her line of sight. The way the Shunshin worked was that it took the most efficient route to that location at incredibly high speed, which was why when watching somebody good at the Shunshin, they would look like a blur darting from place to place at incredible speeds if they were even visible at all.
And so that was what she was practising at, as her Shunshin proficiency rose at double the rate thanks to her perk, a fact that really surprised her mother when she reported accurately exactly what she was capable of. The Jutsu itself was odd, it used time instead of distance to measure how much chakra would be expended, so for a straight line it would be easy, but having to turn, climb, drop or move in weird ways that would slow her down and increase the duration significantly, it would majorly increase the price. That was probably why the Shunshin wasn't used in tight or weird confinements, it would cost the user too much chakra and make the technique majorly inefficient.
One thing she needed to do was get permission from the Hokage to use her Byakugan when training, since being able to use it meant she could perfectly visualise an area a little over 15 meters in radius around her, and that meant she could Shunshin anywhere in that area with ease, since she could directly picture it. However, she doubted that 'for training' consisted as a sufficient reason to deactivate the seal on her Byakugan, so it would be better in this case to ask permission than forgiveness. But doing so could wait until she was actually confident in being able to use her Shunshin to move forwards without stumbling or wavering.
At least she wasn't eating dirt anymore from using her Shunshin with a low proficiency across rough and uneven ground.
"Do you want to spar with me?"
Glancing over at the girl who had been her audience for the past few minutes, Sora raised an eyebrow. The violet-haired girl had arrived not long ago and had taken up a spot leaning against a tree and watching her, to which Sora simply ignored her, not really minding having an audience. "Uhh, sure? I don't have any weapons on me though so it'd need to be either Taijutsu or Ninjutsu, sorry." The girl shrugged, a lazy smile on her face as she walked towards her.
"Taijutsu is fine by me." She then held her hand out and formed a half-seal, prompting her to tilt her head to the side in curiosity. "It's the Seal of Confrontation, it marks the start of conflict. You...aren't a Konoha-nin are you?" Sora shook her head, slightly amused at the confusion on her face. "But you have a Byakugan, so...were you born to a Hyuuga and a non-clan member outside the village or something?"
Sora shook her head again. "Not exactly, I came from a different village and for reasons I can't actually say I ended up with this eye. So, we just form opposing seals and that signals conflict, then I'm guessing another for peace?" The girl nodded, drawing her hand in as she maintained the seal. Mimicking the seal, Sora watched as the girl then opened her hand and adopted a Taijutsu stance.
Doing the same, she waited a moment, then a moment longer, watching as the girl decided to start the fight herself, charging forwards to engage her in Taijutsu directly. Sora responded by sweeping one leg back, adhering her forward foot to the ground and drawing back her right arm with her left held defensively in front of her. As the girl got into range, Sora initiated her unorthodox attack.
Using an really underpowered Shunshin, she moved, and as because one leg was stuck in place, it meant her other leg hurtled forwards at high speed, immediately making the girl attempt to stop. Sora didn't give her an opportunity though, she immediately stopped adhering herself to the ground, using that speed to sling herself forwards as she bent her leg and flew towards the girl knee-first.
Obviously not a completely rookie at fighting, the girl was able to move her body sideways enough to avoid the strike, but that just meant that Sora's left hand was positioned perfectly to reach out and adhere her palm to her left shoulder. Her speed meant she slingshotted the girl around, bringing her in for an easy palm-strike with her prepared right hand, slamming said palm into her stomach and making her buckle over. Sora followed up with a swift axe-kick to her back, sending her to the ground.
As the girl hit the dirt, Sora realised that maybe fighting against her mother so much might have ever so slightly lent itself towards being just a bit too ruthless against opponents, since her mother would ruthlessly punish any opening she left. "Sorry, I shouldn't have gone at you so hard, the only person I've ever sparred against properly is my mother, and she's...really scary, so I never really learned to not go full-force." Sora quickly lifted the girl up, and winced as she saw the bruised skin of her shoulder from the violent manoeuvre she had pulled.
No doubt the skin under her shirt was probably also quite badly bruised from her strike. In response, the girl coughed once, then patted her on the shoulder. "Fucking hell that was awesome. You stuck onto my shoulder to throw me with your own body-weight, straight into your hand!" She coughed again, and Sora frowned, gesturing at her stomach. "Oh I'll be fine, my Jonin-sensei gives me way worse when I fuck up."
"Mind if I have a look anyway? I know some Iryojutsu." The girl shrugged, lifting up her shirt and letting Sora see the nasty purple splotch of a bruise that had formed on her stomach. She quickly formed a sequence of hand seals and began to heal what she had done, watching the bruise recede from a wide purple canvas to unblemished skin in just a scant minute. "Sorry again, I really didn't mean to hit you that hard."
In response, the girl put two fingers out, except this time, it was towards her. "You form a half-tiger and we merge them, forming the Seal of Reconciliation. No hard feelings, we're still comrades and friends, that kind of thing." Smiling, Sora did so, hooking her fingers together with the purple-haired girl. "So, what's your name? Oh, I'm Mitarashi Anko, nice to meetcha." Sora released the seal, dusting herself off slightly before bowing in an overly-exaggerated fashion towards the newly-revealed Anko.
"Metami Sora, at your service."
I didn't intend to have these two meet, but the thing is, they are really close in age.
Anko is 12, nearly 13 when Naruto is born, and Sora will be 13 and nearly 14, so they are just about a year apart in age. At first this was just going to be sparring so Sora could demonstrate how odd the Sticky Fist Taijutsu can be, essentially abusing the Wall-Walking Technique to adhere to surfaces, opponents, anything that would give her an edge. Since she doesn't have the height or weight advantage on anyone, she has to use momentum and physics to give herself an advantage, so even though Anko outsizes her, Sora was still able to use her Taijutsu to beat her quickly.
A lot of that though was that Anko didn't expect it even slightly. Who expects their opponent to suddenly adhere themselves to your shoulder at high speed, pulling you across and down, straight into the path of their other hand for a palm-strike? It's such an awkward and technical move, but from fighting against Karatachi for ages, Sora was able to pull it off against a much less experienced opponent. Plus, Anko has only been a Genin for a little over a year here, so she doesn't even have that much experience fighting deadly opponents.
Sure, Orochimaru is her Jonin-sensei, but that doesn't mean she magically gains tons of real combat experience, especially considering how he's likely an even less attentive teacher than Kakashi was to Naruto.
Name: Sora Metami
Level: 34
Age: 12
Experience: 3,927/34,000
To Next Level: 30,073
Title: Civilian - +100% increase to civilian-based proficiencies, -25% decrease to shinobi-based proficiencies
Health Points: 2,293 (100 Base HP + (Vitality x Strength)
Regeneration Rate: 76.4/minute (Health ÷ 30) (Severe or noticed injuries can be chosen to retain scars)
Chakra Points: 2,344 (100 Base CP + (Wisdom x Intelligence)
Regeneration Rate: 78.1/minute (Chakra ÷ 30)
Strength: 43 (Each point increases melee damage by 1%, adds 1 slot to inventory)
Vitality: 51 (Each point raises poison resistance by 0.1%, reduces need for sleep by 0.1%)
Agility: 52 (Each point increases top speed by 0.1m/s, increases weapon proficiency gain by 1%)
Wisdom: 34 (Each point decreases chakra cost for techniques by 0.1%)
Intelligence: 66 (Each point increases experience gain by 1%)
Luck: 10 (Each point increases the chance of something lucky happening by 0.01%, decreases the chance of something unlucky happening by 0.01%)
