124. Lucky Guy

(34/75 lol, if you guys complete the goal, chapter on Sunday, otherwise Monday)

"Well, I don't know how you guys got that orb, but integrating that artificial thing into someone's body shouldn't be possible, at least not to this degree."

"Oh, does that mean Neko-chan is special?" Sora took the Neko in her arms and looked at her face-to-face.

"Indeed. I don't know why she integrated with it, but it does seem to help her with spatial-temporal transportation."

"She also had the ability to see through space-time even before she ingested the orb," Shikamaru added.

"Oh? Is that so? That's something. It seems the orb is a perfect fit to complement her powers. Since she can perceive an area and then transport to it using the orb's power, maybe this ability of hers let her integrate seamlessly with the orb," the ancient squirrel mused.

"Maybe we should name Neko-chan. It's rude to call her just 'neko,' you know," Ino suggested.

Sora thought hard. 

"How about Sasera? It sounds similar to Samsara. We don't want her abilities to be public, so this name should work, right?"

"Yeah, not bad."

"Let's leave then. I'm bored of seeing this area for hundreds of years," Zashiki urged them to leave quickly.

This was a good point for any betrayal to happen. 

Unfortunately, or fortunately for Sora, nothing like that happened. 

Unlike previous opponents, Zashiki could safely be considered at least S-rank.

Plus, the latter was sitting on his shoulders. 

So, if something had happened, he'd be the first to go.

The blackness consumed everyone, and suddenly they were in the air?

Soon, they fell into the water for some reason.

"Kyaaaaa!" The screams of the ladies could be heard even underwater.

Meanwhile, Zashiki Warashi was standing on the water and giggling.

"Hehe, it's been a while since I pranked any ladies in the hot springs. Even if it was unintentional... it seems ladies haven't changed, even after all this time."

Sora and the others were able to leave safely since his group was made up of kids and animals.

Well, Jiraiya would have been jealous of being in his position.

Then again, to Sora, puberty was still too far off, so he didn't feel any kind of way about it.

"So, let's first confirm if we're in the same time period as before. Sora, make a shadow clone and send him out. Let's stay in a group until we're sure," Shikamaru suggested, and the others nodded.

Sora created a shadow clone and sent it for checking.

A few minutes later...

"Well, we're still in our era, but..." Sora awkwardly started.

"But?" Ino prompted him to continue.

"But, it's been three months since we arrived here."

"What? There was a special flavour of barbecue released two months ago! We need to go back in time!" Choji took Sasera and shook her, asking her to take them back.

Unfortunately for him, Sasera was out of most of her chakra, so he had to deal with it.

"That's a drag," Shikamaru said, lying down on the ground.

He just wanted to peacefully watch the clouds now. 

The last few days in that dimension were too hectic for him.

"Well, kids, thank you for freeing me from that dimension. I'll officially gift you something once I see how my clan is thriving. If you want to know where the person you were tracking—Dorobou—is, go to Wave through Whirlpool. Until then, don't get pranked," Zashiki said before disappearing in a poof.

"He should've caught the guy and handed him to us. How troublesome," Shikamaru sighed.

"Choji, maybe more flavours have been released since then. You can try them all at once," Ino tried to placate Choji, who had missed the barbecue, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. 

Didn't her statement imply that he might have missed more than one first-day launch?

Shikamaru sighed.

Sasera somehow managed to escape Choji's grasp and lay on top of Sora's head again.

"Sora, do you have any way to inform the Hokage that we were delayed for some reason? We probably have missing posters by now, or worse, they've declared us dead. It would be funny if we returned to the village only to see our funerals," Shikamaru's morbid joke caused the others to pale.

"So, you want to complete the mission?" Sora asked suspiciously. Since when did the Nara heir take the initiative to complete a mission? He was acting strange.

"Well, yes. It would be better than dealing with all the crap waiting for us if we go back directly. We'll return to the village in a week or two anyway, to let things cool down. Otherwise, there'll be rumours like Konoha can revive their fallen ninjas or something," Shikamaru rolled his eyes.

"That would be funny," Sora chuckled, weaving hand signs for a summoning jutsu.

A parrot appeared.

"Polly missed you, boss. Polly wants a mission!" The parrot immediately started pecking at Sora's head like a woodcutter drilling into a tree.

"I'm sorry, crazy things have been happening lately. I want you to deliver a message to Baa-chan," Sora said, summoning a brush and paper.

In an instant, lines of text appeared on the paper, and Sora sheathed his brush.

His middle name was "Speed" after all.

"Wow, that was fast!" Ino and Choji even clapped for him, clearly impressed.

"I hope she can understand what he wrote," Shikamaru muttered.

"Polly will definitely complete the mission, boss!" With that, Polly flew off.

"You didn't write anything about time travel or whatnot, right?" Shikamaru asked to confirm that Sora hadn't made a rookie mistake.

"Nah."

"Hmm."

"Okay, so do we head toward the Land of Waves?" Ino asked.

"First, let's eat. I want some good food," Choji suggested. Or rather, he wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

Everyone agreed since they hadn't eaten a good meal in a while.

After a big, hearty meal, Sora not paying for his meal again...

Shikamaru summoned his cart, and they used it to travel.

Sora just slept since he was tired, just like Sasera, who was always in sleep mode.

"Whoa, is this where the Uzumaki Clan used to reside?" Ino's loud voice woke both the kid and the cat.

Talk about being loud.

It almost seemed like it was on purpose.

"Whoa... there's literally nothing to see," Sora deadpanned, along with the cat, at Ino.

"Did you know that Uzumakis were good with seals, had red hair, large chakra reserves, and were exceptionally good sensors? They also had a kekkei genkai related to sealing, I think," Shikamaru informed Sora.

"Oh... Naruto-nii-chan doesn't look like an Uzumaki at all. That description sounds more like me... No wonder Kasumi-nee-chan mistook me for an Uzumaki. Do you think my parents were remnants of the Uzumaki Clan?" Sora asked. He didn't really know much about the Uzumakis, and everything up until now was based on his deductions from listening to other people mention the name.

"Highly likely. You're an Uzumaki prodigy. I can't understand how you became a seal master at six years old. Does fuinjutsu come naturally to you, like a kekkei genkai?" Shikamaru continued his interrogation, disguised as a conversation.

He was extracting information, after all. Information is power in this world. Sometimes to fool your enemies, you first need to fool your allies.

I don't know how that fits into this context, but whatever. (A/N: Do you guys get annoyed by these random 4th-wall breaks? Let me know in the comments, and I'll adjust my writing style accordingly. It just feels intuitive to me, like the words are flowing naturally.)

"Nah, it didn't come intuitively like a kekkei genkai. I had to make it intuitive myself," Sora shrugged. His initial development of fuinjutsu solely credited the system, which hadn't been seen in who knows how many chapters (around 80, I think).

It was due to him reaching over 40 in intelligence that he was able to intuitively self-regulate his learning process, enhancing it further.

These days, the amount of points required to increase his stats was phenomenal, so the system was practically useless to him now.

Maybe in a year or two, he'd have enough points to increase his intelligence stat by one again.

That would be really invaluable.

His luck was already high enough that he could dimensionally hop with three other people and find a cat that's a pro-max version of adult Sasuke (lol).

His luck was so good that he didn't even know he'd already died, and the timeline had to be reset by a Uchiha of all people so that he could live.

Then again, in that case, Indra's reincarnation was involved, so it was bound for his luck to use the other party's luck to survive.

Anyway...

"Never mind, it seems you don't have the kekkei genkai for it. It is what it is,"

Shikamaru sighed.

***

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