8. First friend

"What are we going to do?" asked Aiko walking beside the black haired girl, it was his first time talking to someone of similar age. She wore a dark blue coat with a paper fan symbol on its back, blackpants and a white t-shirt with a ninja tool bag strapped to her knees.

The girl tilted her head as if thinking for a bit and said " wanna practice throwing shurikens?"

Aiko quickly agreed as he had never done it.

"Follow me, then" she said running along the street at a quick speed.

Aiko started following her, increasing his speed to match hers.

Ichiro looked beside her and saw the boy was able to keep up with her and increased her speed to the full but the boy was still able to follow even though his posture was not standard.

Suddenly Ichiro's speed increased as she jumped and landed a few feet away into the woods that were close by, Konoha's structure true to its name was covered with trees.

"How did you do that?" asked Aiko catching up to her surprised

Ichiro smiled a little looking at his surprised face and asked "wanna learn?"

"Yes" replied Aiko without hesitation though he was a bit stunned looking at her beautiful smile.

"Call me big sister and I will teach you" she said maintaining her smile

"Why?" Aiko asked, feeling bewildered at the sudden request.

"I am going to have a sibling, so I want to see how it feels" she said, her eyes sparkling a little.

Aiko was confused with her change in behaviour, but for some reason he did not want to call her big sister so he said no.

Seeing his reply Ichiro pouted a little, but soon the smile returned to her face as she said "If you win me in shuriken throwing contest, then I Will teach you or you have to call me big sister"

'Do you accept the challenge of Ichiro Uchiha?

-yes

-no', he got a notification from his system.

Aiko wanted to say that he had never thrown shurikens before, but he was also curious how she was able to jump like that so he hesitated.

Ichiro, noticing his hesitation, ran towards the tree and started walking on it like she was walking on ground and halfway she added "and this?"

Kakashi and guy who was observing from quite some distance were surprised to see ichiro do that and guy commented " Why are there so many geniuses" with a bitter face before saying, " I will surpass them with the power of youth" loudly causing kakashi to have an urge to face palm.

Now Aiko's curiosity was fully spiked as he had spent most of his time these days in the basement studying Fūinjutsu or walking on the streets filled with ordinary people.

"Okay" he nodded his head.

Ichiro went towards a tree with wide trunk and drew three concentric circles on them with a kunai and took some distance with it turning towards Aiko she said "i will first show you how to do it and you can try a few times and then we can start the competition" she took out a shuriken from her bag and held it between het index finger and thumb and threw it towards the tree hitting it at the dead centre of the circles shocking Aiko.

She went towards the tree and removed the shuriken and handed it to Aiko along with two more.

"He he, you can practice" she said, as if her prank had succeeded. Even in the clan only people older than her were better than her, nobody of the same age even came close.

Since she went to the battlefield with her father, the concept of death has been disturbing her and she also realized that strength was very important for protecting life. So she had been training very much to become strong. When her mother told that she was going to have a sibling, she felt very happy and eager for the new life that was going to enter her family while also feeling afraid whether she could protect it well. So, today when she saw a cute boy with hair like fire and shorter than her (AN: only a little bit) made her wonder whether her brother will also be so cute when he is born, so she wanted him to call her Big sister.

Aiko not knowing about her weird thoughts took a similar stance like her, increased calm mind skill to 90% getting rid of his distracting thoughts and threw the shuriken, in the first try the shuriken hit the outer circle and adjusting his aim, he tried again and this time it almost entered the first circle, and in the third try it went just beside the centre point.

Ichiro looking at this result was very impressed. Even kakashi and guy who were observing here were impressed by his skill, but Aiko was not satisfied and he had a feeling that even if he practised many times today, he could not make consecutive perfect shots.

He collected the shurikens and tried again and got one perfect shot on his second try causing Ichiro to clap.

After thinking for a bit, he turned towards her, "As long it hits, it's ok right?, it doesn't matter how I throw it?" he asked

"Yeah as long as you throw from this distance" she replied curious as to what he was going to do.

"Ok, you go first" he said handing her the shurikens while forming a plan in his mind.

As he expected, Ichiro made three perfect shots and showed a cute victory hand sign.

Once it was his turn, he walked towards the tree with the target stood in front of it and made a hand sign for moulding chakra and created chakra and made a few hand signs and pressed his palm on the centre of the target, a black circle with strange markings formed on it, but it only flashed for a second before dissipating, causing him to sigh.

But, he did not lose heart and tried again this time the seal flashed like before but instead of dissipating it shrunk and formed a thin circle around the centre point, at the same time he got a system notification.

'Ding! New skill 'seal creation' obtained' do you wish to learn it?

-yes

-no'

Aiko clicked 'yes' as a small smile formed on his face.

'Ding new skill obtained

Skill: Seal creation [lvl 1]

Increases success rate of seal formation

Current increase 10%'

'Ding! You have levelled up

All attributes +1'

He was surprised seeing the level up message but decided to check about it later.

"What are you doing?" asked Ichiro curiously looking at him

"You will see," he said mysteriously.

"Hey, kakashi what is going on?" asked Guy who was also curious.

"It's a type of seal, as for what it does, I don't know" replied Kakashi looking at the two kids.

Aiko took some distance from the tree and applied the other seal on the edges of the shuriken he had and felt that it felt a bit more natural now creating a seal, though it was the simplest one he had studied.

"Ok " he said, taking position and threw three shrurikens at the tree one after another in quick succession, but the result that he obtained shocked the three observers as the three shrikens got embedded in the dead centre of the target.

"Wow" it was Ichiro's turn to exclaim in surprise, even Guy and Kakashi were perplexed at the result.

"How did you do it, was it because of the weird thing you did before?" Ichiro asked, coming close to him.

"Yes, I applied mutually attracting seal on the target centre and shuriken edges, so that when they are nearby they attract each other" explained Aiko

"Wow, kakashi, it took me days of training to perfect my shuriken throw" lamented Guy

"Yes, this is an interesting method" marvelled Kakashi.

"Now, teach me how you jumped like that," said Aiko, feeling a little proud looking at her surprised face.

"Ok, you teach me how you did that" she said looking at the tree and Aiko agreed to it.

"You can jump that high by putting the moulded chakra into your legs, the amount of chakra will determine your jumping power" she said jumping high again creating a cloud of dust and reaching the top of the tree.

"Eh?, that's it?" asked Aiko feeling a bit cheated

"I didn't say it was a complex trick," she said slyly leaving him speechless.

"So, you use chakra to attach your legs to the tree and climb it?" asked Aiko thinking back to how he sensed a spike in her chakra when she climbed the tree.

"Yes, yes, very intelligent," said Ichiro, rubbing his hair, acting like an elder..

"Hey Kakashi, am I really dumb or are those kids very intelligent?" asked Guy listening in on their conversation.

Kakashi remained silent, not wanting to damage his friend's spirit by answering.

"Stop that, I am not calling you Elder sister" said Aiko taking a step back, his face going a bit pink

"Why? You are shorter than me and I am stronger than you" she said pouting, but she was actually enjoying teasing him.

'His eyes are so pure', she thought. Even though she was young, she was very sensitive, she could always feel that the people in the village treated her clan differently. Even inside the clan her father was very strict, but she knew he loved her in his own way as he always made time to train with her, but once she started showing talent the children and elder's behaviour around her changed, making her feel a bit lonely.

"I don't care, but we can be friends" he said, suddenly surprising her.

"Friends…" she murmured looking at the red-haired boy in front of her.

"OK" she said, giving him a beautiful smile causing his heart beat to increase, bewildering him, as he had to use skill to bring it back under control.