Hi.

~,,––,,^^-

Naruto

A few days had passed since school had started and I'd spoken to the Toujou girl on the roof. After the whole mess of a morning on that first day, I had decided to play it safe and get in the habit of setting my actual alarm clock to go off five minutes after my phone alarm whenever I needed to use it, which was most days now that school had started up.

I would never again– barring any ridiculous and unexpected circumstances– be forced to miss my lunch because of a late wake up. Whether I bought a bento, made one, or went to the cafeteria for grub, I would eat!

That being the case, I had used up what was left in my fridge this morning to throw together a basic meal for lunch today, most of it being leftovers. Some steamed rice from last night's dinner, a variety of dumplings from a Chinese takeout place I had two nights ago, and the last of my pre-prepared chicken.

Not exactly a balanced meal, but whatever.

It was Friday during the break period, and I was currently eating said lunch outside, sitting on the grass under a tree near the gymnasium building, with an open view of the soccer and baseball fields. At least, the baseball field that is. The 'soccer field' was really just a totally unmarked stretch of packed dirt, and the school's team and soccer club just brought out those big portable nets whenever they wanted to practice and play.

As I ate, I spent my time relaxing in the shade and feeling the breeze while just watching the various groups of students using the fields. There seemed to be two distinct groups at the moment, with the rest being like me, individuals and small cliques who decided to get some fresh air for their lunch period.

The smaller of the two was mostly made up of a bunch of upper years in Kuoh sports jerseys playing what looked like a big game of team keep-away with a soccer ball. The biggest gathering of students was a lower year phys-ed class using the baseball field to play kickball. I couldn't help but snort when a particular image formed in my imagination.

'That Toujou girl wouldn't look out of place with them, even with that class being noticeably a couple grades below us,' I smothered my smirk as I brought my chopsticks to my mouth.

Despite that one time on the roof being the only time we'd spoken, I couldn't deny that she'd left more of an impression on me than any of our other classmates. I was normally a lot more active about getting to know people, but I'd barely spoken to my classmates beyond casual conversation and answering a few basic questions about myself. I was having a lot of trouble finding interest in a lot of what my peers liked to talk about.

I just struggled to actively relate to them on a personal level after my experiences. Hopefully that would change as we all got more familiar with each other and I got more immersed in the culture of being a student, but for now that still left me high and dry.

It hadn't really fully sunk in until now, but the people around me really did grow up in an entirely different world. Things were peaceful here in a way the Elemental Nations haven't ever been. They could afford to take it easy and mess around a whole lot more, not really thinking about their future until late into their teen years.

That peace like this was possible made me happy, but it also made me feel a little out of place. Although to be fair, I was still in the process of adjusting to a completely new routine. The thing that really made me feel weird were the slight changes to my body after I finished healing.

I used to be taller. Not a lot, but enough to be noticeable to me in the way my body moved. Before I was awake for them to ask about my medical history, the hospital used their gadgets and my blood to determine my approximate age. According to the doctors, they put me down as around fifteen years old when I was brought to them.

I was just about to turn seventeen when we fought Kaguya.

At the time I was just utterly confused and had to roll with it in an unfamiliar world, but having spent months studying my ass off with a focus on the human body, I now have a couple of possible ideas on how or why I became medically younger… and shorter. Unfortunately, without my chakra I have less than a zero percent chance at confirming or denying any of them.

So, back to the awkward part. Fast forward a bunch of months, and now I'm a fresh-faced 'not-quite sixteen years old' kid, in a class with a bunch of fifteen-year-olds. When I'm actually almost eighteen. But 'oh-by-the-way', I've also guessed based on changes in my own behavior, that apparently my brain-and-biochemistry has also been set back. It's a lot more noticeable, going from a focused and (mostly) mature young adult to a scatterbrained goofball over the span of a day or two, compared to going through the final stages of puberty over the course of months-to-years. I had to struggle for months to give my attention to catching up to this world's education standard.

I'm not actually annoyed by that part– being a mature and responsible adult is for boring people and Shikamaru– but it's been super awkward for me hormone-wise. I'd been happily done with puberty before, but now I'm having to deal with struggling to keep my eyes up again when a hot girl walks by or talks to me. The fact that I'm now pretty close to having lived for eighteen years, and sometimes find my eyes unintentionally drifting towards girls practically still going through puberty, makes me feel skeevy as hell.

And then my brain jumps to some 'other' distraction because one of the hot teachers bends over to look at a classmate's paper… or something like that.

"–sure your source was telling the truth?"

My musing was interrupted by the sound of a guy's voice and a group of footsteps. The footsteps– three pairs, I noted– were steadily coming closer.

"I swear on your very glasses, he's legit!" a second voice exclaimed.

I glanced over my right shoulder with one eye to see what the hell the commotion was. What my sight was met with was a trio of boys, walking in my general direction on the pathway behind my tree, heading towards the back end of the gymnasium.

One of the guys– probably the one who spoke first– had short black hair parted in the center, a large pair of thin rimmed glasses, and wore his uniform to school code. Outer jacket closed up with the tie and everything.

A second guy had his head turned towards the first one. He had a shaved head with big ears, a goofy looking squinted grin on his face, and wore his school jacket open and without the tie.

"Don't swear on my glasses you idiot!" Glasses rounded on Baldy with a vein popping out on his temple, getting in the grinning boy's face. "The point is to swear on something of yours to present confidence in your assertion!"

"Exactly! You wouldn't have your scouter if you lost your glasses, so I'm putting my access to your scouter on the line!" Baldy responded with a laugh.

Right as Glasses opened his mouth to retort, a pair of hands appeared between the two, one clapping onto Glasses' shoulder and the other palming Baldy's face, before pushing them away from each other.

"My brothers," the third member of the group solemnly declared as he stepped between them, halting their walking. "We must focus on reaching the Holy Land before time runs out."

The third and final member of the group had average looking brown hair and eyes and wore both his overshirt and jacket undone, revealing a red undershirt.

"Matsuda!" He turned towards Baldy. "Motohama is right. Although we have the privilege of access to his skill, it is his 'special' (weak) body that loses power when they are removed." He then rounded on Glasses, gesturing derisively towards Baldy. "Motohama! Don't let this guy (idiot) fool you! His source was an upperclassman from his old team who has no idea what a degenerate lolicon he is! I swear on my future harem that it is trustworthy!"

For a moment it wasn't just me staring at the guy, as both of his friends just looked at him–

""Screw you, Hyoudou.""

–Before shutting him down.

"Let's hurry and get there before the period ends, Matsuda."

"Right on. I'll lead the way, Motohama."

They both nodded at each other and continued on their way down the path, fully passing behind me, and leaving their friend standing there like an idiot for a minute as they left him behind.

He broke out of his stupor and stumbled into a run after them, my head turning to my left to catch sight of him after he passed my tree.

"H-hey! w-wait up for me, guys!" His voice trailed off in the distance as he caught up to them, rounding the corner around the gymnasium.

I sat there for a moment just staring after them.

What the hell was that about?

"They're a bunch of pervert weirdos, probably off doing something creepy." An airy, almost husky voice spoke up from off to the side.

"Huh?" I turned back to my right, this time to see that Mitsu-something girl from class walking towards me.

She was coming from the direction of the group of upperclassmen playing soccer. Unlike in class where she wore her uniform to regulation– or as close to regulation as possible for a girl wearing the boy's uniform– her blazer hung around her hips with the sleeves tied together like some sort of half-skirt, and her dress shirt had the top couple few buttons undone, showing off a generous amount of cleavage and the fact that she wasn't wearing an undershirt.

Her ribbon tie, instead of being around her neck, was being used as a makeshift hair tie to hold her medium length straight red hair up in a high ponytail, a pair of bangs left out to frame her face. One of her hands was rubbing the back of her neck while the other rested in her slacks pocket, her hazel eyes glancing in the direction the boys left with the same bored expression I'd seen on her face in class.

She glanced back towards me as she stopped a few feet away, hand falling from her neck to slip in her other pocket.

"I was heading over to get a drink-" she nodded her head vaguely past me in the direction of the gymnasium, "-from the vending machine, and overheard your muttering. That, and I saw the Idiot Triplets themselves run off."

Oops, I guess I had spoken that out loud.

"Ah. Makes sense." I put the lid on my bento and set it down, before bracing my hands on the grass and pushing myself up to a stand. It would have been awkward talking while being the only one seated, and I could honestly go for a drink too. Annoyingly, she was noticeably taller than me still. If I were to make a bet, I'd say she's probably in the top five percent of height for girls her age.

"You said there's a vending machine over there?" I gestured vaguely at the gymnasium.

"Mm." She nodded once, her ponytail bobbing with the motion. The only piece missing from her almost-delinquent looks and bored mannerism was some gum to blow a bubble with. "It's on the other side of the building."

I scratched my cheek with a finger "Huh. I thought it would be inside or something. Well then," I half turned and gestured for her to show the way, "after you?"

She took the lead and explained as we started walking and talking. "I heard from one of the gals over there that it used to be on this side for players to have easy access to, years ago." She had pointed a thumb over her shoulder towards the field. "Then it broke. Some idiot kicked a ball too hard in its direction and broke the glass."

She shrugged.

"Then they moved it inside, it broke again in a dodgeball incident, and now it's over on the other side, closer to the Kendo club's training building."

"Kendo club?" I felt a grin starting to grow. "That's the sword fighting thing, right?"

She looked at me strangely out of the corner of her eye. "Uh, yeah. That's close enough to accurate, I guess."

"Cool, cool…" I tucked that away in my mind for later. Tilting my head, I asked her about the other thing that got my attention. "So, 'Idiot Triplets'?"

She snorted.

"Yeah. The dumbasses are a year ahead of us and enrolled here first, but they went to the same school as me. They've always been friends, and idiots as far as I could tell, but up until like two years ago, only Hyoudou was a perverted weirdo." She shrugged. "Seems it's spread, 'cause apparently people started calling them the 'Perverted Trio'."

I chuckled awkwardly, looking at the tomboy as we reached the end of the building and turned the corner. "That sure is… something. It's not like they're peeking on the girls changing rooms or anything though, right? They can't be that bad if they haven't gotten kicked out of school yet."

This world seemed to take sexual harassment way more seriously than my old one. Peeping wouldn't just get you a beating if you were unlucky and got caught, you could also face some serious legal penalties.

"They are." The recognizable monotone voice that answered me wasn't the girl I'd been walking with.

I looked away from Mizu-whatever to see Koneko standing blank-faced with a can of something in hand. Next to her was a black vending machine with a clear glass front panel, and next to that was a large metal trash bin, the type that had an inner bin that could be removed from the metal casing bolted into the ground.

I grinned.

"Heya, Toujou-chan! Been a while since I've seen you outside of class!" I called out. My grin shifted into a smirk. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you must be a ninja with how quickly you disappear." I greeted her with the little inside-joke as we walked the last couple meters.

She ignored me and turned her head slightly to look at the girl I'd been walking with.

"Mitsuri-san." Koneko said expressionlessly.

Ah, that's right! Mitsuri was her name.

"Toujou." Mitsuri said boredly.

Wait.

I squawked in mostly-fake outrage. "Hey, no fair! Why'd you greet her and not me!?"

They continued staring at each other for a couple seconds after my yelling, then nodded at each other on some unspoken signal.

Koneko looked up at me and said-

"You're too loud."

-before bringing her can up with two hands and drinking from it placidly while maintaining eye contact.

I deflated and grabbed my chest in pain. I opened my mouth to retort–

–But Mitsuri walked in between the two of us to reach for the vending machine's button panel, completely interrupting me.

"I take it you two know each other?" She asked blandly while watching the machine get to work fetching her drink.

"Nah, not really," I said, completely recovered from the social damage. "We met on the first day of school and only spoke once on the roof. She went up there to eat her lunch in peace and I went up to get some fresh air and take in the view." I shrugged, though only Koneko saw it, since Mitsuri had bent down to grab her drink. "That was just more memorable to me than a lot of my other interactions with our classmates, so it left an impression I guess. Haven't spoken to her outside of the classroom since, though not for a lack of trying. She keeps disappearing before I can catch her."

I cast a faux-agitated look at Koneko with that last part.

She just continued calmly sipping her drink through the str– where the hell did the straw come from!?

Mitsuri stood and turned to us with a bottle of some sort of cola in hand, getting me to glance at her for a split second. When I looked back at the white haired girl, she was sipping from her can normally, straw nowhere to be found.

What the-? So that's how it is. The little devil was just fucking with me.

Mitsuri twisted the cap off her bottle and took a swig of her soda while I fed the machine a pair of hundred-yen coins.

"So what you're saying," she began as I reached towards the panel, "is that you're a creepy stalker. Got it." She took a big step away from me and closer to Koneko

I violently twitched at that and my fingers pressed the wrong button before I whipped around, crossing my arms in an 'x' in front of me and sputtering.

"Wha- That's not- No! Wrong! That's not at all what I'm saying!" I glanced around to see if anyone could have heard her, before noticing the machine grab a can with a picture of a cartoon cow head on it. "Dammit, you made me get the wrong drink… the hell even is that, beef soup broth in a can?"

My shoulders slumped and I sighed as I bent down to grab it when it clattered down to the retrieval area.

I stood up and sent Koneko my best pleading look.

"You'll vouch for me, right Koneko-chan?"

She took a step to the side, half hiding behind Mitsuri, and said one word with what amounted to significant revulsion in her voice.

"Creepy."

I felt a vein bulge on my forehead.

"Why you little…!"

Mitsuri stepped further in front of her, frowning and looking down at me with disgust in her eyes.

I huffed and crossed my arms, mock glaring at Koneko. "... You're enjoying this, aren't you? Quit messing with me, Shorty."

That got a glare back from her, peeking out from behind the taller girl. "You're almost as short as me, idiot."

I growled.

"Heh." Koneko stepped out from behind Mitsuri, who was now looking down at her with a deadpan expression, likely realizing there was nothing innocent about the smaller girl. Koneko looked up at her and shook her head. "He's an idiot, but he's alright."

"Hey!"

She ignored my shout of indignation, but turned to me anyway.

"Sorry for avoiding you. Was busy with my club duties, forgot to ask for your number."

I blinked at the sudden apology. I didn't think it was necessary. Sometimes people were just busy, and to be frank, we didn't actually even know each other. We'd spoken all of a single time, and while it was kinda fun, I figured the big draw for either of us to speak again was learning more about each other's "worlds". Figuratively, in my case, and literally in hers. Not that she'd be aware of that fact.

Also… "... my number?"

"... you know, your phone number?" Mitsuri was looking at me like I was an idiot.

"Oh, right!" I smacked my forehead lightly with my palm. "I keep forgetting about that, since I just got my first phone less than a week ago." I let my hand drop, before cracking open my can and taking a sip of the warm liquid. My nose scrunched in disgruntled appreciation. It was no ramen, but it was alright.

"..." They stared at me.

"..." I stared back, taking another sip.

"... Well? You gonna give her your number, or what?"

I felt my face heat up slightly and rubbed the back of my head.

"I uhh, I kinda, sorta, maybe, might have forgotten what my phone number is, eheheh…" I laughed awkwardly and averted my eyes from their judging gazes.

I heard a sigh, followed by the soft pattering of footsteps on the concrete pathway for a moment before they stopped.

"Your phone, give it."

I looked down to see Koneko standing right in front of me with her hand held out expectantly.

I wordlessly reached into my pocket and pulled it out, placing it in her outstretched palm.

It was about a minute of painfully awkward relative silence while the short girl tapped away at the screen before she held it out for me to take.

I took it back gratefully, and then dispelled the atmosphere in the most graceful way possible–

"So you said the Pervert Trio are actually bad enough to try peeping on their classmates?" I asked, sipping on the slightly spiced broth.

–By blatantly and unashamedly pretending that the last few minutes had never happened.

Mitsuri just continued to stare at me with a deadpan expression, but Koneko rolled with the subject change completely unruffled.

"Nn. Not 'try'." She lifted a hand to point at another building, probably the Kendo training dojo if I had to guess. "Saw the pervs go in the locker room door." She said with a slight narrowing of her brow.

Mitsuri turned her head to follow the gesture and tsked in annoyance. "I don't know how the jackasses haven't gotten expelled yet if they've escalated to locker room voyeurism. Used to be they just traded porn mags and games in the halls."

I rubbed one of my whiskers with a finger. "Ehhh, I mean it sucks for the girls, but it's not like it's the end of the world." I shrugged. "They should get punished, sure, but ruining their future seems a bit much for being idiots hit too hard with puberty."

Her gaze chilled slightly as she regarded me. "You don't think it's a big issue? Peeping is a crime, you know."

"So is beating the crap out of people, even when you think they deserve an ass-kicking, but that usually just gets a detention or two from what I've heard." I said with a chuckle, then shrugged again. "Besides, I've seen worse from grown ups that I'd consider otherwise good people, and they didn't even have the excuse of teenage hormones."

She grunted in grudging acceptance. Or, at least, that's how I interpreted it. Regardless, she went back to her 'vaguely annoyed at nothing in particular' expression rather than being annoyed at me, so I'd take that as a win.

I brought up my left hand, palm facing upward, and continued. "For one, my godfather used to peep on bathhouses to get inspiration for his porn writing, but he was one of the most reliable people I've known. He taught me most of what I know about living life in a way I can be proud of." I lowered it, and raised my right hand, can in its grasp. "On the other hand, even if I used both hands and both feet to count, it wouldn't be enough for the amount of times I've seen him get his ass beat by the women he's perved on. Where I'm from, peepers tend to get what's coming to them without authorities getting involved, and he's deserved every one of them."

I shrugged a final time. "But maybe that's just me being desensitized to that sort of thing."

I chugged the rest of the broth, giving an explosive sigh when I finished, and then flicked my wrist, tossing it casually over my shoulder. It clanged a few times on the rim of the trash can behind me before falling into the bin with some muffled thumping.

Koneko was still sipping her drink with her regular expression, but Mitsuri looked reluctantly impressed.

"... That was almost cool, until I remembered you said your Godfather sexually harassing women is normal."

I almost tripped, even though I wasn't even walking or anything.

Jeeze, when it's said out loud like that, it makes it super embarrassing to be associated with the man. Rest in peace, you old perv. Even in a new world, the tales of your 'exploits' are keeping your memory alive in the minds of women.

I brought my fist up to my mouth and coughed, trying to draw attention away from my reaction.

"Hey, look! A distraction!" I suddenly pointed towards the Kendo building.

It worked somehow, both of them turning to look.

As if I was predicting the future, a moment after they looked was the moment that the three boys from earlier came bursting out from the side entrance, seemingly running for their lives. Following a couple seconds behind was a group of girls in traditional looking practice gear, waving shinai around and chasing the boys down.

Huh. I didn't actually expect Koneko to look, and thought she was just humoring me when she did. I had guessed being a Devil might come with enhanced senses, but I would have figured it'd just be minor boosts to help process more info, not full on super hearing if she actually heard the commotion from here before it left the building.

The three of us continued to stand there watching the boys run, when one of them– the brown haired boy, Issei if I remember right– tripped and fell. The two others stopped for a moment and made to go back for him.

"My brothers, keep running! Save yourselves!" The downed boy yelled to them, like it was some sort of deadly escape scene in a movie.

"Right on!"

"Okay, see yah!"

They immediately continued sprinting away, leaving their friend as the Kendo girls were approaching.

"W-Wait you bastards! You're supposed to say 'Not without you!' and come back for-shit, not the face! Not the face!"

We stood watching the girls smack the shit out of the guy with their bamboo training swords for a couple minutes. It was pretty nostalgic for me, watching a pervert getting beat up by women, and not just a little bit funny.

Especially considering the timing was close enough to help make my point for me.

I turned to Mitsuri and gestured at the scene playing out some distance away, getting her to glance at me for a moment.

"See what I mean? Take away the context of him peeping, and all those girls would get assault charges, expelled, or suspension at the very least. They made the choice to take his punishment into their own hands." I then laughed loudly while pointing at the boy. "Besides, you can't tell me that's not funny as hell!"

Koneko at least agreed with me, going by the faint smile on her lips as she watched.

The beating had let up with the girls surrounding Issei in a half-circle, shinai held in varying positions of rest. The boy was prostrated in the dirt in a dogeza, degrading himself and begging the girls for forgiveness while they glared down at him.

Mitsuri shrugged. "If they want to beat him up just for him to do it again a week later, they can be my guest. All I'm saying is if I catch him peeping on me, I'm reporting him straight to the school board."

I tilted my head at that. "Fair enough. I won't argue against people handling their own issues as they see fit, as long as it's not self-destructively."

With that, the conversation drifted from topic to topic until it was time for us to head back to class.

-^^,,––,,~

AN: If it wasn't obvious by a quick google search of the arc's names, this chapter should serve as a baseline of what this starting arc is about; character interactions and establishing character voices/relationships. Apogee means "The highest point" or "Culmination", while Perigee is the lowest point closest to the Earth in a satellite's orbit. Basically, while Naruto is nerfed to a purely biological level right now, he is the closest to "human" level he has ever been in many regards, so this arc will be "human" level interactions. More actiony stuff will start picking up shortly after the canon timeline rolls around.