13

For the second time that day, Shikaku placed me on his shoulder. Unlike last time, he didn't use any Jutsu.

I was somewhat grateful for that. Disorientation sucked.

Instead, he just walked.

A slow, and somehow lazy, walk through the village towards the Nara compound.

A couple people, both ninjas and civilians, stopped to stare at me, but I was surprised by the sheer indifference that most of the populace had towards me. It'd be different if they actually knew what I was, but I had no intention of ever telling anybody that. Ignorance was bliss, in their case.

It took nearly an hour for Shikaku's slow walk to bring us to his compound, though I found myself not minding much.

Even the shoulder of the flak jacket was comfortable, and if the inside was as comfortable as the outside, I can see why Jonin wore it all the time.

I wonder if he has spares?

If not, well, he had to sleep eventually.

Shikaku paused before he opened the door to his compound.

He looked at me, with an odd expression on his face.

The door opened, revealing a women with long, brown hair tied into a ponytail with a few strands framing her face. Yoshino Nara, Shikaku's wife.

Whatever she had been about to say was cut off when she laid her eyes on me.

"Shikaku?"

"It showed up earlier today, which lead to Hokage-sama assigning me to take care of it." Shikaku sighed. "And its taken a liking to my jacket."

Damn right. This jacket was comfortable.

Yoshino giggled.

Shikaku pulled me of his shoulder, handing me to Yoshino.

As soon as Shikaku let go of me, Yoshino adopted a surprised look on her face.

"It doesn't weigh as much as it looks like."

Shikaku nodded, frowning. "No, it doesn't weigh much at all. Far less than it should, considering it's volume. Its weight compared to its volume would have it slightly above the density of air, but it doesn't act like it weighs that little." He sighed. "I had thought it was using Chakra, but..."

Yoshino frowned. "I can't sense any."

"Neither can I. Not even the slightest amount, in fact. It's almost like it doesn't have any."

Well... I didn't. Literally everything else in this world did, though, so I suppose that I couldn't blame them for not believing that I didn't.

"However, it has abilities that, without Chakra, the laws of physics simply don't make possible."

The laws of physics could go fuck themselves are far as Heartless are concerned.

Darkness, Light and Nothingness in general, really.

"Which makes it an odd creature. It behaves like it weighs more than it does, seeing as it isn't bothered by shifting weights or breezes, and is capable of performing things that shouldn't be possible without Chakra, during which I was still not able to detect Chakra."

Yoshino frowned, listening intently.

"Which brings me to a few conclusions. The first of which is that it does have Chakra, but is simply undetectable, and the second of which is that it doesn't, which means that it doesn't completely follow the laws of physics as we are aware of them."

Shikaku let out a long, suffering sigh. "What a drag."

Huh. That must have been driving him up a wall, and I hadn't even realized.

Shikaku turned a half-lidded stare to me, the tiniest glare hidden within.

I tilted my head to the side and blinked back.

That could be fun.