5 IV

'Ahh~ the taste of cardboard in the morning… how I have not missed you, but yet again here you are violating my taste buds. 'Going through the usual morning meal and diaper change I once again found myself on a crib inside a windowless orphanage.

'Better check whether my chakra control increased from last night meditation before I go to the playroom.' I thought to myself, bringing my status window up I found that my control indeed had increased. Going from 0.09 to 0.15 having raised it by 0.06 despite having done about the same meditation as the day prior had me confused, but otherwise satisfied to see that I was getting somewhere.

Running my eyes over the rest of my stats I find I have increased my strength to 0.51, dexterity to 0.39 and my chakra had increased for a mysterious reason yet again putting it at 0.42 being a much greater increase than earlier. Last, my little "spot the caretaker" game had enhanced my perception from 0.85 to 0.94 leaving yet again my intellect and agility to their initial values of 1.24 and 0.33 respectively.

Rolling onto my stomach I bring myself to the floor, gripping the edge of the crib and orientate myself towards the doorframe, steel myself and then I start waddling toward the doorframe valiantly with my back straight and doing my best to not look like I have shat my pants.

Having had to stop midway to catch my balance, but otherwise having made the way without falling I stood gripping the doorframe with my stubby little fingers with the brightest smile I could muster before that feeling was pushed to the back of my mind and I once more had a stone face. 'WHAT!? I cannot even feel happy for a moment, stupid adaption!'

'It's okay to feel happy, It's okay to feel happy, It's ok- …' Staring into the hallway while attempting to push my adaption towards allowing me happiness for a couple of minutes with a blank face, probably did not look creepy at all if the weird looks my way was anything to go by. Then again, everyone had been looking weird at me from the start, so maybe it was just my face looking weird.

Stopping my session of empathy enhancement, I attempted to waddle my way through the traffic, making it halfway there before a caretaker actually took one of my hands in her own and assisted me to the playroom. Having led me to the picture books, she sat down and called out to the children "Come, … fun … learning!" and immediately like a flock of dogs having heard it was time for a walk all the children happily came over and sat down around the caretaker.

'Hoo damn they must be doing something right, it is fairly creepy how not even one of these kids thought to do otherwise…' While thinking so to myself, the caretaker took one of the picture books, opened it on the first page and showed the picture on the first page, then proceeded to sound it out "ka-ta-na" and then she looked to the crowd of children whom then repeated to the best of their abilities, myself included.

Giving a smile and an affirmation, she then proceeded to the next word showing a human heart and a human body with a red dot marking the spot, pointing to it saying "heart" after which the crowd and myself repeated. Once more smiling and giving an affirmation it went on like this for a couple of minutes before I spotted one of the kids looking at me weirdly.

Looking him in the eyes had him quickly looking away and I went back to sounding out words the caretaker said and pointed out. After a couple more words, I found the same kid looking at me and he once more looked away when I looked him in the eyes. 'Weird kid… what makes me so interesting?' This went on for what felt like an hour or at least a very long time. Every time some kids would get unruly the caretaker would scold them while saying affirmations and smiling nicely to those who behaved. Having thus finished a session of Japanese mixed with biology I looked the weird kid in the eyes making him yet again avert his eyes. Feeling a little tired I moved towards the doorframe, so I could hopefully get to nap in my own crib.

After getting a quick nap, I once more waddled my way to the playroom. This time without assistance, probably since there was no teaching session about to start. Thus, I made way to the books yet again, this time I had the same book the caretaker had used along with a book on the jutsu signs. This way I could sound out the words based on my memory while I tried my best to form the jutsu signs in the other book.

Minding my own business; sounding out words, doing signs and occasionally switching to signs and observation in an attempt to spot the caretaker, I thought I could have another easy day of slow progress. Life however is never easy, not for long anyway.

Spotting the weird kid making his way towards me, and seeing his eyes switching between looking at myself and the book the caretaker had used earlier today I immediately realized his intention.

'The weird little kid wants to steal my book!' What am I to do though? I cannot just grab the books and run away, I have a hard enough time as it is going from A to B without extra objects effecting my balance!

Deciding to observe the situation further and hopefully just having misjudged his intentions I waited while continuing my training as he neared my little isolated corner of the playroom.

'Maybe he just wants to join me and sound out the words?' I thought naively as the big bully came closer and just as I had initially thought his grabby little hands went for the book the caretaker had been using earlier.

Not wanting to go down without a fight I quickly grabbed onto the other side of the book like a vice as only little toddlers can. Which stopped the kid from taking the book then and there, that was swiftly changed though as he simply looked upon me angrily and hit me on the head resulting in me releasing the book in shock.

'He hit me! The weird little kid hit me!' Shocked I looked around attempting to spot a caretaker in hopes of justice, but as always they were always so damned hard to find and so, here I was one book less and my head were throbbing slightly from pain.

Not wanting to let it go and in some twisted way wanting the kid to not think I was some pushover. I scrambled onto my feet bringing the other book with me in its closed form and swung with my whole body landing a corner of the book just above the knee on other kid as he was turning away from me.

This resulted in me overextending and as such, I lost balance landing me on my knees and hands in an almost opposite direction than the weird kid. Hearing the beginning of a sniffle from the kid I swiftly made the decision to bail the heck out of here, so I crawled as if my life depended on it, away from the weird kid and in this case towards where other kids were play fighting with kunai.

I did not make it far before I heard a full out wail from the weird kid, which only made me speed up even further… to no success on my part however, as the old caretaker quickly had me up in the air, turned around and facing her angry scowl.

Not saying anything, she brought me to the other kid all the while I was facing her angry wrinkled face. Having made it to the bully she sat me down next to him and asked him what happened, after which he pointed to me, the book and his knee. Hurriedly I pointed to my own head and attempted to look as sad as I possibly could. Not easy when essentially being emotionally challenged, something got through however and the old caretaker reprimanded the both of us, sat us both down beside each other and essentially forced us to share the books.

'Could have done that from the start weird kid! It is all your damned fault!' Briefly having a spout of anger before I shared the awkward silence of sitting here not really wanting to share now that the weird kid had initiated contact the way he had, but still wanting to train and eventually being independent.

As such, I being the older one mentally took the initiative, looked the weird kid in the eyes making him avoid contact for a second, swiftly taking the opportunity I opened the book where I had progressed to and started sound out words.

The caretaker having seen our actions looked on bemused, but otherwise did not intervene and disappeared from sight yet again. Not wanting to be left out or some other kind of kid rivalry the weird kid started sounding out words and from the way, he butchered the words it was obvious he was trying to sound them out quicker than I did.

Eventually, the kid got tired of trying to one-upping me, and here we were both sounding out words as good little toddlers. I however grew bored of the lack of challenge quickly and opened up the sign book and joined that into my routine again, the other kid seeing that tried to copy it but quickly gave up again as his words started getting butchered again.

Eventually, even that got me bored and as the bully I am, I occasionally took to making eye contact with the weird kid making him flustered and stumbling on his words. As for every normal kid, however focus is a feeble thing and I lost my object of entertainment as the kid moved on to bother other kids.

Once more, I was left alone to practise and once more, I did so until I got tired, went back to my crib, got a nap, had a meal I would rather forget and waddled my way to the playroom.

Wanting a break from sounding out words and doing hand signs I turned my orientation towards the obstacle course, while I would probably get embarrassed immensely from my lack of dexterity at least I hoped to train that along with agility here eventually.

The first obstacle I found after it was my turn to attempt said obstacle course was a slightly elevated pole I had to pass. Surprisingly succeeding in doing so, I however found myself face to face with a net wall I had to scale. Attempting to do so, rapidly turned out to be a bad idea as I simply did not have the strength to pull up my own weight, or in any way of form keep my balance while the wobbly net was being scaled by other older kids beside me.

Even had to have a caretaker untangle my legs from said net before I dejectedly made my way back to the book section and sounded out words and made hand signs until I was ushered into my crib, given my dinner and put to sleep, not however before bitterly doing my daily meditation that kept making me frustrated.