15

A light footfall sounded through the hallway, nearly non-existent in its own right.

Who knows, if I wasn't what I am, I might have missed it. As it is, my Heartless hearing easily discerned the sound from the near-silence of the morning. I knew who it was, because only two people in this compound walked like that, and the other had already left 5 or so hours ago.

At 9 in the morning, Shikamaru woke up. A full half an hour later, he finally deigned to get out of bed.

Even at 5 years old, he was almost as lazy as he would be at 12.

Almost.

Shikamaru, at 12, had mastered the art of being lazy and uncaring.

Shikamaru, at 5, had not. While I would never describe him as energetic or restless, he was still, however slightly, more active than his older self. He actually did things when he was bored, even if such things didn't actually take much effort.

Physical activity, beyond a slow, paced and somehow bored walk wasn't going to happen.

Shogi, on the other hand, was something he was quite fond of. If I actually knew how to play, I may have even tried to challenge him.

Shikamaru sat down next to me, on the plush pillow that was nearly as comfortable as Shikaku's Flak Jacket.

I looked up from my work and nodded, acknowledging his presence.

Shikamaru yawned, waving at me.

Then, he frowned, turning and actually looking at me.

"Where's dad?"

I shrugged.

I didn't actually know, seeing as he left at four in the morning. I also didn't know why he had left that early, but it was probably Shady Ninja Stuff.

Why else would Shikaku, who was a very lazy person, head out at four in the morning?

It had to be something serious.

Shikamaru nodded.

"What are you doing?"

I stared back at my current... project, I guess. An innocently unfurled scroll, containing equally innocent swirls and patterns that formed an odd choreograph. One large connected pattern in the center, with 4 protruding lines that ended in 4 separate patterns of swirls.

It was appearance was deceivingly. Though it looked like seemingly random swirls and lines, the truth of the matter was that these were Sealing Techniques. Otherwise known as Fūinjutsu.

This particular one was a storage scroll.

Shikaku had left it on the table and showed me how to use it.

The large seal in the center was where the magic happened, the part where objects where sealed and unsealed.

The four seals extending from it were, as I found out after a bit of experimentation, a control mechanism. One of them activated the sealing, storing whatever was placed on top of the seal.

The other three seals were the release mechanisms. The first seal released the first object that had been sealed in it, the second released the last object that had been sealed in it, and the third released everything inside.

What was really interesting was that the seals weren't actually reliant on the user knowing how to channel Chakra. Instead, it was simply a matter of placing your hand -claw, in my case- on the appropriate seal for a few seconds, before it activated.

I could slightly sense the Chakra in the air being pulled into the seal whenever that happened, which led me to believe that these were for civilian usage. Carrying around a scroll was a hell of a lot easier than carrying around everything you could fit inside its seal.

I grabbed a pillow, put it on the main seal and placed my claw on the activation seal.

Looking at it from a normal inside-the-world perspective, all you would see is a burst of smoke, hiding the disappearance of the pillow.

Looking at it from outside the world was an entirely different beast. The fabrics of time and space around the pillow twisted, creating a dimensional bubble around it that compressed into a spot outside of normal space, joining together with a variety of other dimensional bubbles.

The creation of a dimensional pocket in which to store items. It was precisely shit like this that caused me to wonder why they hadn't managed to destroy their planet yet. A village, at least.

These people aren't Ninja. They're Wizards and nothing they say will ever convince me otherwise.

My claw drifted to the release-all seal.

A dozen dimensional pockets reacted, collapsing and releasing their contents into the real world. Again, an explosion of smoke concealed the transition, but it cleared soon enough.

2 pots, 3 knives, 4 plates, a frying pan, the pillow and Shikaku's spare Flak Jacket now sat on the scroll.

Shikamaru reached out and snatched the Flak Jacket from the pile, before curling up like a turtle inside it.

Didn't blame him. It was comfortable on the outside, but the inside was even better.

In another explosion of smoke, the items disappeared.

The pocket dimension reformed, slightly outside of the world.

I pushed away from the world, ignoring the malevolence, Chakra and Darkness, simply watching the pocket dimension.

I could see the items inside, even when it was almost hidden by the comparable sea of Darkness and Chakra around it.

The sound of a door slamming called my attention away from the pocket dimension.

I pushed into the world again, just in time to see Shikaku collapse into the couch, a particularly sour expression on his face.

Oh, this couldn't be good.