Chapter 4 - Playing With the System

Within the Senju homestead, which admittedly was not heavily populated, Akio quickly made a name for himself as a cute and energetic young lad. Everyone in the family gained a good impression after meeting him, even if he occasionally pulled pranks like putting water pails above doorways and such. In a way, his liveliness rejuvenated the clan's general mood that had steadily dwindled after the passing of Hashirama and Tobirama, especially since the latter did not leave any descendants.

A few days after the adoption finalized, the other clans received the news that the Senju clan adopted a new child. Many speculated that the Senju clan had discovered a particularly talented orphan. Some others did not care that much and figured the First's wife simply wanted to bolster the numbers of their clan since she might not live much longer.

As for Tsunade, whenever she wasn't out on missions, she and Akio were practically glued to the hip. She played with him. She taught him about chakra and shinobi. She even started sleeping in the same futon as him after a couple weeks. At one point, Akio even walked into a room where Tsunade and her sort-of-but-not-really-boyfriend Kato Dan were arguing about how much time she was spending with him, which created an awkward situation.

The night after Tsunade's fight with Dan, while Akio was getting ready for bed, a small translucent box appeared in front of his eyes.

[Conjugal Apparatus reboot complete.]

"Ah, I almost forgot about this thing… So, what is it, exactly? System? Status? Hmm."

Since nothing happened, he just focused really hard for a few seconds until he felt his small chakra pool lurch into motion. A large translucent screen appeared. It looked vaguely reminiscent of old JRPG menus. Thin strands that looked like chakra strings a puppet-user might use connected the screen and his body together. The only difference compared to normal chakra strings was the silver color instead of blue.

[Welcome to the Conjugal Apparatus.]

[Due to a traumatic system failure, all previous settings have been wiped.]

Akio studied the notifications for a few moments before dismissing them.

'Traumatic system failure? Maybe I already had this thing, but the head injury I had when I met nee-san caused it to crash or something? Either that, or there was another system host or something. Well, whatever. It doesn't matter either way.'

From there, he studied the menu that had a few separate boxes. Some were grayed out, so he first focused on the visible ones. The smallest box on the top left showed a pixelated and chibified version of himself bouncing up and down along with some personal details.

[Name: Senju Akio]

[Age: 5]

[Local Rank: Civilian]

[Universal Rank: Irrelevant]

[Status: Healthy]

Akio raised a brow at the information. He didn't quite know what to make of the ranks yet. At the very least, the 'healthy' status reminded him of the health monitoring function of the Pipboy in Fallout, although it had more of an anime aesthetic to it.

Moving onto the next box, he frowned. It was almost completely empty aside from the [Missions] title at the top and a (+) in the main area of the box. Since there was a small 'i' mark there, he pressed it. A new notification screen appeared in front of him.

[Missions: Missions must be completed to earn Credits or miscellaneous rewards. Create missions, and a reward will be determined based on the mission you create. Due to the nature of your soul, missions focused on conjugal operations will have higher rewards. Note: Complete your first conjugal mission to reactivate other functions.]

"Huh. Cool. What does conjugal mean, though? I'll ask nee-san later."

Since the other boxes were grayed out for now, he decided to test the mission function first. His fingers twitched a little in anticipation as he clicked the (+) icon.

[Specify Mission Parameters Below:]

[Objectives; Description; Time Limit; Failure Conditions/Penalties]

"Hmm… Interesting. Let's try this," Akio mumbled to himself.

When he clicked on the first section, a keyboard appeared. He blinked and raised his brows, but then rolled with it and typed in a mission to test the system out.

[Objective: Hug Tsunade]

[Description: Hug Tsunade within the time limit.]

[Time Limit: 24 Hours]

[Failure Conditions: Do not hug Tsunade within 24 hours.]

[Failure Penalties: None]

He entered the mission by pressing a 'Complete' button at the bottom of the info entry box. A moment later, a new rectangular box appeared in the missions section. It contained the mission parameters he had specified with the addition of a reward totaling 10 Credits, which he assumed was a tiny reward. It then asked if he would like to submit the mission as is or make changes.

Wondering if he could affect the final reward, he tested every parameter. Over the next few minutes, he realized that the harder he made the mission, the more the rewards increased.

When he set the time limit to one minute, it increased the reward to 100 Credits. When he changed the failure conditions to going blind out of curiosity, it raised the reward again to 1106 Credits and a minor increase in his chakra pool, which made his eyes widen. He also changed the mission objective a few times, which subsequently changed the reward based on the difficulty.

As a final test, he changed the mission to doing ten push-ups. The reward dropped to a single Credit. After making the same changes and testing all sorts of other mission objectives, he noted that any type of mission that didn't involve interacting with women barely gave him one tenth of the reward.

"At least it's something though. Well, enough of that. Time to hug my sister."

In the end, he settled on submitting to hug Tsunade within ten minutes with a potential punishment of losing his sense of touch and sound for eight hours.

Like a man on a mission, Akio stormed out of the bathroom and ran to the bedroom. He opened the door and darted toward Tsunade who was packing clothes and supplies into her travel bags.

"Nee-san!"

"Akio? Oof! You little runt. Don't hug me so suddenly."

Barely registering that he had received a reward of 186 Credits, Akio replied, "Hehe. Love ya, nee-san."

"Pft. Love you too, Akio-kun. Now, go to sleep."

"Hm. Are you going on a mission again?" Akio asked, glancing at the packed bags.

"Yeah. Medical shinobi are always busy."

"Stay safe out there."

"Don't worry. Your big sister is the strongest kunoichi in the world," Tsunade replied with a confident smile. Then, she caressed his fluffy hair and said, "Now, stop hugging me and sleep. A growing boy like you needs lots of sleep."

"You must not need any sleep, then, with how big you are," Akio subconsciously commented with his eyes on her chest. Since she normally wrapped her chest during daily activities, bedtime was practically the only moment he could see them in all their glory. Well, covered by pajamas, anyway.

Instantly, a fist smacked his skull. He totally forgot to ask what conjugal meant after that.

~~~~~~~~~~

(A/N: Was struggling while writing a certain part of the next chap of Just Another Multiverse Chat Group, so I decided to take a break and wrote this. Well, back to the drawing board for JAMCG, then. I'll see you fellow degens later.)