He liked how people were so busy in the morning and completely carefree and chill during the evening. Well, who was he to say? He was basically the same as them. As soon as lessons had ended, he went straight for Ichiraku immediately. Sadly, however, Iruka-sensei was not able to join him due to some faculty meeting for the teachers back at the academy. That means he only ate two to three bowls for dinner, well, it's fine.

On the brighter side, he got a perfect grade at chakra control training today. That alone was enough to keep him happy for the whole week, unless if Iruka-sensei would join him right now and pay for his food, he would be happier. The young youthful blonde was running towards the direction of his home with a content expression on his face, completely ignoring all the looks people were giving him. Hey, he won't bother caring about what kind of things people were saying about him, because he's happy. The evening was still early, which means that it was too early to go to bed and end up in Gensokyo. Besides, he will need to prepare himself before sleeping because he knew that he will end up in a random forest somewhere in Gensokyo which would be filled with hungry yokais.

He would always make sure that he had enough kunais, shurikens, paper tags and other important supplies with him before sleeping. He figured that dying in Gensokyo is a total no-no, which would probably mean that he will sleep forever in real life with no chance of waking up! He was definitely not looking for something like that to happen to him, not even a little. Though he would be lying if he said that he was not curious… anyway, no dying in Gensokyo and even if did die sometime in the future, he hoped that things won't be as bad as he thought they could get.

But in order to not die in a place where attacks from monster like creatures were normal, he needed to be strong or 'up the ante' as what some fancy shmancy people might say. Strong, huh, now that's a vague word. However in his case, he needed to be strong in at least two types of field; defensive and offensive, which meant that he will need to learn a few jutsu and not just the three basic academy jutsu. Oh, and taijutsu, yes taijutsu was also important but only as a last resort in his case.

He's not going to charge at a mob of yokais who were out for his blood with only his fists, that's crazy! Unless if he could send out shockwaves with every punch he delivered, then he would probably do that. Unfortunately for him, he can't send out shockwaves with his punch. But fortunately for him, he did not have to make a trip to a shop today since he had everything checked earlier before going to the academy. And it's not like he'd be able to enter a shop anyway…

The boy stopped at mid run, slowly. He looked around and noticed how similar the scenery was in Gensokyo. He never experienced nighttime in Gensokyo, but maybe it'd be the same as the nighttime here… just with more yokai people walking around. He resumed his journey, albeit in a walking pace. As the sound of evening slowly transformed into that of nighttime, he hurried back home, determined to catch his 'sleep'. He may sound excited but try to see it like this; him ending up in Gensokyo whenever he would sleep was something inevitable, so he might as well find some joy in it.

After a quiet and peaceful walk, he arrived at his humble and small apartment. Okay, scratch that; this place looked like shit, smelled like one and was probably built by one. For some reason, the maintenance people won't come even after he sent them messages. He consulted the Hokage about this, but the old man's too busy to do anything about it. He kind of understood about the old man being busy most of the time, but could he not at least do something about this? He took of his sandals and arranged them neatly on the rack near the door. He got a look at his small apartment, and frowned.

If this place was any larger, he could have gotten a decent furnishing, like getting a bigger table or something like that or maybe a television. But since it is what it is, he couldn't do anything. The blonde walked over to his small kitchen and opened his fridge. "Phew… I still have milk, eggs and some meat. Good." Those three things were the most important food ingredients that he had. Ramen, however, was another thing. He could never run out of that stuff. He closed the fridge door to look at a sticky note he pasted right on it. "Hmm let's see here… Reimu wanted me to bring her tea; I need to bring extra polishing oil for my kunais and apparently; I haven't done laundry. Huh… weird." Call him forgetful, but it was never wrong to rely on sticky notes in your life.

Anyway, that's about it really. He plucked the sticky note from the fridge's door and crumpled it before throwing it away somewhere. Now all that he needed to do was to get the tea that Reimu asked and do the rest that follows after. This is pretty much the routine in his daily life ever since he started to have dreams of ending up in Gensokyo.

.

.

.

"Wait… just when did I start to end up in Gensokyo?" he asked, voice seriously confused and wondering. He blinked a few times, registering that fact that he was alone in the apartment.

As expected, no one answered him. So he did not wait for any reply and continued to do his chore before preparing himself for sleep.

In Gensokyo, the shrine maiden of Hakurei—Reimu herself—yawned as she was in the middle of sweeping the shrine's courtyard. Despite the bitter fact that this place was always empty all the freaking time, Reimu constantly felt that her usual boring and monotonous everyday life was being changed slowly by the arrival of one Uzumaki Naruto. The boy was ordinary, he's human and Reimu could tell without even needing to properly look at him. A bratty kid too… she figured that he's like a younger version of Marisa, but God knows that both blondes will deny that as soon as they hear that.

She propped her broom on the shrine's wall, figuring that this was the perfect time to catch a break after three hours of courtyard sweeping. The sun was still up high, it's midday and there was always the fact that she got nothing to do other than to sweep or doing maintenance. Things were different from the old times. There are less pesky yokais or fairies to cause serious trouble; seriously, the only annoyance she would face was either Marisa or Naruto. Not so much on the kid though, since he was always helping her and bringing her some tasty treat from his world.

Reimu quickly prepared a warm cup of tea for herself and some leftover snacks. She sat on her favorite spot on the shrine's porch that overlooked the backyard of the shrine. As she was sipping her tea peacefully, she sensed a familiar presence from the distance. Ah, it looked he's here already. And true to her thoughts, a blonde haired boy came into walked out from the shrine to join her on the porch.

"You're early. Does that mean you won't need me to carry your butt all the way from the Forest of Magic to the shrine again?" the shrine maiden asked in her indifferent yet humorous tone.

A scoff. "Heh, I need to adapt quickly if I want to survive, right?" he sat next to Reimu, before proceeding to shuffle the content of his pack to pull something out. The shrine maiden got a bag of 'Tetsuo's fine tea leaves' shoved in front of her face. "Here, your tea."

With delight and appreciation, Reimu accepted it without delay. "Thank you." She set the bag of tea leaves aside for use later. The shrine maiden took a small sip from her cup and then placing the cup on a free spot next to her. "So, what are you up to today? Playing in the village again?"

The whiskered boy shrugged his shoulders. "I got some few errands to run later. You know, deliveries and whatnot? Those kinds of thing." He stretched his arms upwards like a cat before resting them again. "And after that, I need to train on my taijutsu… but it'd be hard to train without a training partner though." He mumbled softly.

"Taijutsu?"

"Ah, it's hand to hand combat basically." Naruto briefly explained to the woman who was unfamiliar with the term. "Iruka-sensei kept on telling me that mine lack form but it suits my unpredictable nature and all that."

"Hn… well good luck with that then."

"Hm."

The sound of wind breezing past them was the only thing that could be heard within the vicinity of the shrine. In mornings like this, Gensokyo tend to be quiet and peaceful. At night, however, it's quiet and dangerous. Wild yokais tend to be more active during the night because they could feed more discretely during that period. The blonde youth pulled out his pack and placed it in front of him. He dug through the contents to pull out his utility pouch. This caused the shrine maiden to take a minor interest in what he was doing, Reimu looked at the inside of the boy's pouch and was not that surprised to see sharp objects inside. He told her that he was a ninja, an assassin or at least still a trainee, so the element of surprise was not much.

What interested her, however, was the number of sharp objects he had with him. The boy had a lot of sharp pointy things stored inside; as well as some scrolls, a metal wire and are those talismans he had with him?

"Here it is." Naruto pulled out one of the scrolls inside. It's a normal looking scroll, and nothing was out of the ordinary about it in a matter of appearance. However, that soon changed when he opened the seal of the scroll and quickly biting his thumb just enough to draw little blood and then spreading it on one of the kanjis written on the scroll.

Reimu could not hide her surprise when a cloud of white smoke suddenly burst into existence from the scroll. The smoke cleared, revealing a textbook on Naruto's hand. The shrine maiden blinked many times, still trying to get over the shock. "What was that?" she asked.

Naruto looked at her and he made an 'oh right' face. "Sorry if I scared you." He apologized. "I need to read my books you know? And since I had them sealed inside this scroll over here I need to do that. Oh but don't worry though, the smoke's not poisonous or anything." He attempted to dismiss what he assumed to be worry that was currently being expressed by Reimu. "What's wrong? Was it really that surprising?"

Reimu snapped herself from the shock, quickly returning to her normal stoic state. "Quite." She then leered over to the scroll that was currently unfurled for her to see. There were all kinds of kanjis written, but most of them are books. There are also… ramen written on them? Ramen? Why ramen? "Say Naruto… that scroll, how did it do that?"

Naruto, who was reading his book, paused to look at Reimu. "I used my blood to unseal the item that was stored here?" he answered almost unsure of what to say.

"You mean… you can make the stuffs that you store appear just by putting a little blood on it?" Reimu asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, pretty much."

The shrine maiden found herself looking at the scroll as if it was a treasure of some sort. Then, an idea popped into her mind. "Aside from books, what else do you have in there?"

"I have extra gear in them and my ramen, why?"

The word 'ramen' only caused the interest burning in Reimu to burn even brighter. "You store food there?"

"Yeah…" now he was uneasy. It's rare for Reimu to express any kind of interest in… anything. To be honest, he compared her with the antisocial and broody Uchiha back home once and he could barely notice the difference. "I do."

"Prove it to me."

.

.

.

"You just want to eat ramen don't you?"

Unsurprisingly, Reimu only looked away at the accusation.

Naruto sighed. He picked up the scroll again, this time with the intention of unsealing food from it. Reimu had done a lot for him, so this could be considered as a way to repay her back. Besides, he basically used her shrine as a hotel for him to stay whenever he ended up here; giving the poor girl a cup of instant ramen was one of the many things he could do for her. He repeated the same process of applying blood on one of the many writings on the scroll and this time, what follows after the white fume of smoke, was a cup of instant ramen.

Apparently, Gensokyans were not familiar with the word 'instant'. "What's this cup looking thing? This is not ramen… but it says that it's ramen…" Reimu took a closer look at the unfamiliar object, she even sniffed it at one point.

Naruto took the cup ramen from her and gave her a wide grin. "Just wait for a few minutes and let me do the magic."

"Magic?"

"The magic of instant food~" he said in a sing song manner while walking back into the shrine. Reimu, confused and clueless as to what the boy meant, could only tilt her head with an expression of wonder on her face.

Three minutes later, the blonde returned with the same cup ramen with him. But this time, he had chopsticks with him. He offered Reimu the cup ramen, the grin still present on his face. "Here and be careful, it's hot."

Heeding his warning, the shrine maiden took the cup ramen slowly and carefully. She opened the lid and a strong, delicious and foreign aroma hit her hard right on the nose. She was taken aback at the delicious aroma that she currently smelled and the inside, there's ramen! Naruto handed her the chopsticks and he gave her a sage like nod as if to say 'go'. Reimu dug her chopsticks inside and began to marvel when she picked up strands of chewy noodles. She took first bite and everything felt good. Real good.

That day, Reimu was converted to Ramenism.

As usual in Gensokyo, he would experience the 'busy and crowded' side of the market. It seemed as if selling things were something that the people here do all day and every day. Since he was trained as a ninja, by ninja instructors; he's smart enough to use the rooftops as a mean of transportation. But that's nothing to the Gensokyans since most of them could fly like fucking ducks. Yeah, he's rather jealous at finding out that people here could fly while he couldn't. His feelings aside, he was not kidding when he said that he was greeted by a busy and crowded market. The whole market place, which was a long road itself, was full of people crowding the stands and vendors which were along the entire road. Not even Konoha was this busy… well maybe on discounts but that usually happened on the fancier stores.

He surveyed his surroundings for a while.

"Man, another hectic rush hour huh?" he noticed that there are also people who were going to their workplaces. These people probably worked on shops or the post offices. He was doing his own kind of delivery, one that involved him getting through this sea of people. "The address wasn't clear on this one." He tapped the package strapped to his back with a leather buckle; he did not know what's inside but it's damn heavy.

The address said that it's supposed to be delivered to a place right around here, but where exactly, he did not know. Anyway, it read 'Suzunaan' on the package. He tried asking around for directions, but people kept on saying that the place was just around this area. But it wasn't! He couldn't find it! After a few seconds of standing still on the roof, he jumped down to an empty spot, planning to continue his search for the mysterious place on foot.

"Suzunaan… Suzunaan… Suzunaan…"

Looking from side to side did not help him. Just what kind of place is Suzunaan anyway? The name alone was not something that he would normally hear… maybe it's a shop of some sort? Deciding that walking around aimlessly won't get him anywhere, he decided to ask around some more. He approached people asking whether or not they know about the place but all of them gave him vague answers that he already knew. He asked more than ten people already and he's just going to waste time doing that instead of trying to deliver the package itself. The blonde repeated this for many more times, only to no avail.

"Urgh… why is it really hard to find one place?" he asked to no one particular but himself in the midst of frustration. "Well, it's not like complaining will find the address magically…"

"Hey you! You the boy with the blonde hair!"

Naruto looked around the moment he heard the word 'blonde'. He looked around but he couldn't determine where the sound came from; maybe it was just his imagination?

"I'm right here blondie! Excuse me, I just need to… get… over… there!"

Naruto watched with wide eyes when a short figure squeezed its way from within the crowd and tumbled in front of him. Fortunately, she did not land on her face. The girl, clearly identified from the voice she had and the way she's dressed, struggled to her feet with panted breathing. He took a moment to get a better look at the girl, as well as giving her time to catch her breathing. She's a fairly short girl, shorter than him; now that's something right there. She was dressed in a checkered kimono and apron with 'Kosuzu' written on the front. Her eyes were a deep shade of red, hair was a mixture between orange, red and pink and her hairstyle was that of a twin tails with bells to keep them in place. She had a pair of spaghetti lace boots as footing and overall, she looked hard to miss.

The girl, in her hunched position, raised a finger. Naruto waited patiently to hear what she had to say to him.

"You… you… are… you are the guy who's supposed to deliver my package to my store, right?" in the middle of her attempt of catching her breath, this was what she asked him.

Naruto put one and two together. "Wait… this thing belongs to you?" he gestured to the package on his back.

"If it has the name 'Suzunaan' written on it then yes, it's supposed to be mine." The girl said with a final sigh, now that she had caught her breathing. She then glared at Naruto, prompting a surprised reaction to come out from the boy. "What have you been doing huh? I've been waiting for that package for hours ago!"

Naruto took a step back. He'd dealt with angry people before, but since this was a job, he couldn't just argue with a client. Iruka-sensei mentioned something about being a ninja also meant being employed in the service industry, was he safe to assume that things might go like this later on his ninja career?

"Eh… look, I'm…. I was lost you see." Naruto said slowly. "I was trying to find the address to your place but I couldn't! People kept on telling me to go here and there, and, and they kept on leading me to places! So please, I'm sorry." He expressed his most sincere apology in the form of a short bow.

But that was enough for the girl to take… maybe a bit too much. "Urk…" the girl blanched. She was not expecting him to bow like this… "Ah mou… fine, fine! Don't bow like that, you're embarrassing me…" she said. "But maaan… the least you could do is to return back to the post office to clear things up."

Naruto smiled sheepishly. He did not thought of that really.

Seeing his smile made the girl sigh, shaking her head with disappointment. "Ah forget it… anyway," The girl with bells on her hair inspected the boy before her closer, taking note of his clothing and feature. "I've never seen you around here before… are you new?"

"Kinda. I'm not exactly from here you see, actually, I'm what you people call outsiders so—" Naruto was forced to shut his mouth.

"OUTSIDER?!" due to the girl's outburst.

The girl, now with a different personality showing on her face, looked at him as if he was some sort of star. "No wonder you got lost~!" that's not something you'd say with a smile on your face… but this thought of his was unknown to her. "My name is Mootori Kosuzu. This is my first time meeting an outsider, oh boy! You have to come with me." Suddenly, she had a serious looking expression on her face.

Naruto was unsure. Technically, he could just give her the package and be done with it.

"Ah, in order for you to complete your job, you need my stamp on the paper. Unfortunately, mine's at home so if you don't come with me, you can't return with a complete delivery."

…or not.

Naruto really had no other choice. What's the harm in it anyway?

"Ta-da~ this is our family's book rental store, Suzunaan!"

Well, there's no harm in it just as he'd predicted a while ago, but there was one thing…

This place was a fucking book store. How did he know? One; Kosuzu herself just said that this was her family's book rental store and two; he could see the books displayed even from outside the store. Now he had nothing against bookstores or anything, but he did have bad experiences with libraries. Why? He blamed Iruka-sensei for this and all the textbooks that he had to read in order just to get the meaning of what chakra is. However this time, he will let all biases aside and go complete this delivery already.

"Come in, come in." Kosuzu seemed rather excited. Maybe outsiders were not that common nowadays?

Upon entering, Naruto could smell the strange and alien scent of papers in the air. The closest thing that he could compare the smell with was that one in the library back at Konoha. Still, this was his first entering the bookstore; not like it mattered anyway since this place was pretty similar looking like a normal library, he might as well look at it as being a small library then. He noticed that aside from books ranging from soft to hard covers, there were also scrolls and other form of reading medium. He won't bother checking just to make sure that he got them right.

"Please wait a minute here while I go get the stamp."

"Okay." He saw Kosuzu walking past and inside a counter located inside the store. There's a door that probably lead to the back of the store, maybe there's where she lives? He could hear bickering, talking coming from inside. So she lives with her parents… that's somewhat normal for an unordinary place like Gensokyo. Left with the only option of waiting, the blonde haired youth could not help but wonder how people with both a house and shop merged into one live their daily lives. If he remembered correctly, there's a student at the academy who also had a house and shop merged just like this… he just could not remember who.

"Still… this place is packed with books." He murmured to himself, feeling a somewhat awe-filled sensation in him. Back in Konoha, something like this will never happen. People will not just let him enter their shops or stores freely. He did not know why, but that's how it had always been. So no one could blame him for having this alien and foreign feeling in him. It's a feeling that he will need getting used to, because it's new to him.

"Sorry for the wait!" not long after he's spoken with himself, the girl returned from the back of the store with a stamp and an ink sponge in her hands. "Here, let me stamp that paper up real quick."

He handed her the paper. "Here."

Kosuzu wasted no time on getting the deed done. She stamped the papers with such force that it caused the counter to shake for a little bit. She then handed the paper back to the blonde, a smile sporting on her face. "There you go."

Naruto took the paper back, nodding. "Now that I'm done, I'll be taking my leave. See ya—" but before he could anything, a strong hand gripped him right by the collar of his jacket. Of course, it's none other than Kosuzu herself.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait~!" she half shouted half demanded. Her pigtails shuffled slightly from the action; she then let go of the blonde's collar, and then a pout appeared on her face. "Just like that? You're going to go just like that?"

The whiskered youth cannot help but sweat drop. "I need to return as soon as I can, you see…"

"Aw, just stay for a little while! This is my first time meeting an outsider and I have questions!" she asked in an almost whining manner. If she was any younger, and shorter than him, then he might've surrendered easily. But since she's not… then there's no need for him to be like that.

"Hey, don't be unreasonable…" Naruto scratched the back of his head, still holding the paper with his other free hand. "I'm in the middle of a job you see; wasting time with you is not something that I can do. Some other time, maybe, but not now." He was actually pretty surprised at how strict he actually made himself sound.

As expected, Kosuzu frowned; her shoulders dropping. "Alright… another time, then?"

"Hmm…" he made a wry look. "Sure, only when I'm not busy. Maybe… tomorrow or something like that."

Just like a top, her expression and mood made a 180 degree turn. "Good! Then I'll be waiting." She bowed politely, albeit with a hint of cheekiness coming from her smile. He had to admit; she looked stunningly cute when she made that kind of expression.

"…Cute."

"Hm?"

"….Nothing, don't mind me." He said.

Kosuzu had to wonder why Naruto looked away when he said that, but she dismissed it as simply an impulse. "Okay then, now that you're done here, shoo! Shoo and don't come back until you've finished all your jobs!" she mocked pout, arms crossed and huffing.

"Now, now… you're the one who wanted to ask me all the questions and now you're forcing me to leave?" he asked in a joking manner which could be easily identified with the overall playful tone and blinks he was giving her.

"Hmph, that's because you're too busy to do anything. Anyway, shoo! Shoo!" she gestured the 'go away' gesture at him while trying so hard to not laugh.

Snorting at her humor, Naruto gave her an equal smirk before walking away. "Fine, fine. See you later."

"Bye." Unknown to him, he missed the smile on the girl's face when he walked away from the bookstore to return and finish his job.

Well, at least the morning was not as bad as he'd expected it to be.

"Maa, sorry about the mistake Naruto-boy. I didn't specifically tell you the place, I'll need to send the Mootori's an apology too." the old head post chief apologized with an apologetic tone.

He'd just returned to the post office and was about to complete the delivery by confirming it back to the chief, but apparently, the chief decided to make things quicker and clear all the mistakes out to him. Naruto didn't really mind. Aside from the loss of time, there's also an interesting experience of finding out that Gensokyo had a bookstore of its own in the Human Village. Not to mention, all that asking around earlier today gave him a slightly better understanding at how uncaring people could get.

If that's not a good reason… he got to talk with a rather cute girl today.

"Anyway, you're done for the day. I don't know where you live, but I sure hope that you visit and help whenever you'd have some free time." The chief said with a hopeful look.

Naruto nodded, feeling a little bit appreciated. "Alright chief."

Not long later, after a few departing words and his daily pay, the blonde returned outside. Once he stepped foot outside, he reached into his pants' pocket to get a particular item as he shuffled the contents of his pocket for a while, he then managed to get what he wanted; a small slip of wrinkled paper. This is his to do list for today, figured that he might forget what he had to do so he had gone and put some little effort to make this.

He also brought out a small pen, walking away to the side of the street so not to disturb people who were walking. He crossed out the first line on the paper, which was 'Post-delivery'. He had three more things to do; picking up kids from the school, painting fences and giving out supplies to a nearby settlement outside of the human village. He contemplated for a moment. From his point of view, the last job was the most dangerous one out of the three. He might as well do that first then, besides, he was quite confident in his skills now; so maybe this will be easier than the previous supply delivery jobs.

"Gee… they might as well make me a courier." The boy said jokingly to himself, snorting once at the statement. Well, in order to start his job, he'd need to go to the market and talk with the head manager there. So without any more thinking and doubt, he quickly made his way there via rooftop. From here to the market district was not far, in fact, it's actually quite near depending on how you'll go there. There were already a lot of short cuts from the market district to the other places in the human village, so getting there via rooftops will make his job of getting there even faster.

Besides, this method of travelling allowed him to enjoy the morning, hot and busy atmosphere all around the village! Yes, there's sarcasm there. In a serious note, this place was beautiful. Even more beautiful than Konoha, if he should dare to say… probably that was just him being biased again, because the people in this did not treat him like dog feces. Not long later, after a few minutes of roof jumping, he finally arrived at his destination. The market district was a huge place, and the administration office—one that was responsible of everything business-like in the village—was here.

He located the building; not hard to miss since it was the biggest building around. The manager must be expecting him, hopefully he won't get mad at him being late.

"Naruto-kun! Where were you? You're late for more than thirty minutes!" the manager was a lanky and formal looking man. Everything about him was orderly. From the way his yukata was done, the pen he had with him tucked to his obi and the walking board he had with him. His hair was short, almost fixed and designed so that they won't get messy.

"I'm sorry Mizutani-san, I got stuck on a previous delivery!" he laughed it off with a sheepish look on his face.

The manager sighed, shaking his head. "Well, I suppose that things like that do happen from time to time. Ahem…" he recomposed himself. "Anyway, come with me, I'll show you the supplies that you will be sending. And don't forget to ask for our supplies too from the settlement chief. You're the only we know who could make things disappear and reappear with that scroll of yours, so we haven't got time to send people to get the supplies."

"Got it."

Later, Naruto sealed all of the supplies that he will be delivering inside his storage scrolls. He could not help but wonder the increase in materials like farming tools, medicinal herbs and papers. Usually, food would be most of the thing he'd deliver, if not the only one. He pocketed all the scrolls in their respective places; all that's left was to wait for orders from the manager.

"All set, Naruto-kun?" the department manager asked.

"I'm all ready to go!" he flashed the man his grin.

"Then go. And be careful!"

With a final smile, the blonde jumped in orange and golden blurs.

Usually, deliveries like the one he was currently doing took about two or three days for the people from the human village to complete. This was because there were many risks to consider. Aside from the obvious, a confrontation with a bad yokai, getting lost, injured or missing and finally, raided by a group of misfits were some of the few things that could happen to a courier. In his opinion, he'd made the people's job a lot easier since he's faster, compact and safer. Though he won't accept dangerous requests just yet, he might consider the less dangerous and risky ones; just slightly above the level that people were willing to take.

Right now, it's already dark and he'd just finished discussing things with the settlement's chief. He's unsealed all the supplies from his scroll and replaced them with the supplies from this settlement. Turns out, this settlement provides materials like lumber, stones and several other trinkets as their trade. He also had to use some of the new storage scrolls to store some of the extra things; maybe trading was the trend nowadays in Gensokyo?

"…And that's about it boy!" the settlement's chief finished reconfirming the list of items. Naruto checked the things earlier, but since he did not really know what to do or say, he just went along with whatever the chief was saying. "A pretty useful thing you got there, is that one of those magic thing?"

"Magic?" Naruto wondered before shaking his head. "No, it's not. It's… something else." He's not sure whether he should waste time talking about sealing properties with an old man.

"I see." The old settlement chief nodded. "Hey you! Give the kid some food and water for his trip back, make it quick!"

Naruto, surprised at the gesture, was not expecting that. "You don't have to do that, old man… I'll be fine; been doing this thing for a while now, so I'm confident."

"No, no, no. Nonsense." The old chief insisted with a wizened tone. "A boy like you should eat at the right time, otherwise you won't grow properly."

Naruto's hand twitched.

"Don't you know? Without a proper eating pattern, you won't grow at all? My nephew suffered from this, you see, since he always skipped breakfast and lunch but only eat on dinner. Now, he's barely as tall as the fence next to Hato's house."

The old man might not notice it, but the boy was currently hitting himself mentally. 'So that's why I'm like this…'

"Anyway, you better return home soon my boy, tonight's a full moon and a full moon is never good for people who have night jobs like you."

Heeding the man's advice seriously, the youth nodded. "Alright." But before leaving, a nearby villager handed him a wooden lunchbox no doubt filled with food. Bringing the lunch box closer to his face, Naruto smiled in gratitude. "Thank you very much, I'll never forget this."

"We'll do the same then." The old settlement chief said in return with his wrinkly smile.

One last goodbye later, Naruto finally heads out to the dark of the night to return back to the Human Village.

The forest was dark, its ambience eerie. The night woodland critters were truly alive. For the young boy, this kind of night travelling was not that strange or new. However, this was his first time exploring the night in a full moon. This may just be his feeling but something felt… odd. It's not just the atmosphere; all senses were somewhat wrong and not right. Were the skies always this clear? Were the crickets always this loud? To be honestly speaking, he was kind of creeped out at how things were going right now. The silence was the icing on the cake.

Rubbing his eyes while in the middle of tree jumping, the blonde Uzumaki stifled a yawn. He really needed to sleep… maybe he'll sleep somewhere in the woods tonight; the safer parts, not deep in the middle of nowhere. "Ngh… I need to get there quicker…" he closed his eyes for a brief moment, allowing for a momentary rest of eyes however, when he opened them again…

"WATCH OUT~!"

"Eh?"

Is that a fucking orb of darkness coming at him?

Now people, look at the reviewer's section.

…

Now that's what I call REVIEWS. Not just 'good job, like it, write more' thing; but actual reviews, criticism, information and suggestion that will be useful for me and this story. I would like to personally thank those who gave me these important things that I need and even to those who don't. After finished writing, I noticed that the story's progress will be slow. I hope that you do not mind since this will be something that I can't fix or control, however, I will try to keep chapters balanced and equal.

Next chapter will feature Naruto's encounter with the mysterious character. And since I assume that all of you here are knowledgeable about Touhou, more than me, you all know who this 'character' is already. Anyway, on an important note, updates for 'Tough' will resume after… September 20-ish. Why so long? Well…

Standing on the eeedge of the craaaateeeer~!

That's all for this chapter, give me PMs if you have suggestion and please show support by following or fave.

This is me, signing out.