Doctor, Ivy and Entrance

Between two mountains lie a paradise named Valley of Roses, famous for its assortment of roses found in the foot of the mountain. This valley makes it a very famous tourist spot for new couples. Due to this valley, very fossil soil present at the base of mountain and presence of river, a settlement began at the base of the mountain which has now grown to village. It would have grown further if not for the constant threat of magic beasts from the mountains and difficulty in maintaining supply lines for merchants. Hence it was named Rose Village.

Due to rich soil of the place, raw material gained from plants are surplus and is the main source of income of town, where as it imports processed goods.

As it is present in north of capital and between two major cities, some more wealthy merchants have opened their stores in the town. It seems like the wildlife of the mountain protect the village too from these merchants and their schemes for monopoly of market.

In the streets, on the other side of mountains, a cool and collected women with black hair was seen walking quietly carring shopping bags with a boy no more that 10 by her side. Boy was wearing a grey hoodie and blue mask cover his face and carring some bags too as he walked slightly behind the women with furrowed brows looking at the ground and lost in his thoughts.

The road was filled with snow due to winter and the boy was not paying attention on road. He fell head first to the ground when his leg bumped in some rock. He slowly stand up and grow annoyed seeing the amused look at the women's face. In his annoyance he kicks the rock, but instead of rock he slips on the snow and again lands headfirst in the snow. However this time hearing the women chuckle, his face turns red in embarrassment. And redness spreads to his ears when he listens to one of the kid younger than him call him weird.

Kakashi POV:

'Stupid rock, stupid snow, stupid kid, gah

How embarrassing.'

Picking up the bags from ground, I was thankful that nothing spilled.

Shaking my thoughts out of my mind, what was doing prior to the event was trying to figure out the difference between mana flow when using different elements. The problem was I had thought something would feel different. But no everything feels exactly the same, so I asked mother about it.

"Hmm, well maybe it is because your body's self protective instinct restricting you to pour your attribute in your mana to avoid self harm.

Normally when you gain a attribute, you body slowly grows to become immune to your element and yours have no attribute so it feel threatened by every attribute. Well we will eventually come to a point where I will teach you to overcome your instincts."

"Huh, can't I overcome my instincts slowly as others do by flowing my attribute filled mana daily?"

"You could do so but it is highly inefficient because you have the property to increase or decrease the attribute in your mana, so you will subconsciously decrease the attribute in your mana not to mention you can damage yourself if you try too hard to overcome your instincts. Don't pursue it for now."

"Okay."

Walking further, I was suprised to see my sister Sona waiting for us. She was in white shirt with blue pants and her grimore attached to her side.

(A/N: I don't know much about women's clothing, so you have to endure such vague discription. I will try to improve it.)

"Good afternoon aunt Sonia, Hello Kakashi. Are you going to visit doctor?"

"Yes, but why are you here?"

"Why, can't I visit the doctor too,"

"No, didn't mean like that."

"Why the mask? It does feel weird"

As I told her the reason, she took some bags from me and some from my mother then joined us as we made our way to doctor's residence. It was my first time going there as I never fell ill in my almost 13 months of stay in this village.

Walking further we came in front of building named...

Wait orphanage.

Wait my mother is an orphan too and sona is the daughter of mayor. Suddenly what Ivy said clicked in my mind. So the guests Ivy is waiting for is us.

And the mother of the orphanage was a doctor.

This day can't get worse, gah remembering the excuse I gave her is making me feel uneasy. And it's not like I can not go inside, because this meeting's secret purpose is for me to touch her.

Alright, first mission for my mask and acting. My hair are hidden and she is a natural airhead, I can pull it off.

I ignored my mother's chuckle as I decided changes in my personality and try to deepen my voice. Sona knocked the door.

But when when I saw sona shaking her head at me while smiling, I couldn't help but feel embarrassed.

I quickly controlled myself as the door swung open and Ivy with two other kids opened the door for us and welcomed us inside.

Chuckling inside as I saw Ivy force her original personality inside and behave more politely, I walked inside with no external change following mother and sis.

Inside was a big hall where about 10 children were playing and guided by two adults, one was young woman and another was old. Except two children rest seemed younger than Ivy. One girl with black hair about 12 was reading something from book and another one boy about 10 helping one of the sisters with kids. There were 2 infants too.

As the door closed behind us, my mother removed her shawl and the grandmother greet her.

"Look at your self, Sonia, growing up to become such a fine women from a lazy girl."

I looked at my mother who showed no reaction to her words aside from slight smile, just bowed her head and replied.

"All thanks to your blessings and support, Mother Margaret."

"And this here should be your son, no?"

"Yes, good afternoon."

I quickly replied and an awkward silence ensued. I forgot how horrible my social skills are. Even now, I am stiff as stone. Thankfully it was broken by her next words but it only embarrassed me more.

"Ha ha ha, no need to feel so uptight, boy. Relax. See your temperature is rising." She said placing her hand on my forehead. Atleast purpose is fulfilled.

"And you would be Sona Rose, right?"

"Yes, it is a pleasure to meet you again."

Sona replied confidently.

Grandma (for sake of simplicity let's call her that) called us inside in her cabin but my mother said to me remain and make 'friends' fully knowing how much I suck in socializing as she with Sona made her way inside.

I silently fumed as I made my way to corner and placed my bag there and politely refused the sister's offer for a snacks.

Unbeknownst to me, Ivy had caught my slipup in my conversation with grandma, but still hasn't connected dots. But determined for answers she made her way to me.

And I stiffened at her approach but relaxed when I noticed she still isn't sure. I know how childish it seems but I don't want to be embarrassed more that I already have been.

"What is your name ?" She asked when she reached me.

I decided to take formal approach as often when you are recieving end of conversation you reply in same tone as the one who is leading it.

"My name is Sukia, it is a pleasure to meet you. May I know your name?"

Such a troublesome way of speaking but it worked as she fumbled and forced a formal tone.

"Oh, my name is Ivy, Ivy Thatcher."

"You have a surname and you still live in an orphanage."

I had no idea how to lead a conversation, but there is no need for that with her, just keep the question rolling and hope she forget about her suspicion"

"Actually grandma is my real grandma, she had decided to open an orphanage when she retired from magic knights, many years ago. So when my parents died in war, she took me in." She said in sad voice

"Oh I am so sorry to hear that, I shouldn't have brought it up"

So she have a lineage in magic, huh. No wonder she had too much mana, must be some branch family of some royal or noble.

That aside I successfully managed to keep her from suspicion, after some hours I has surrounded by children including Ivy, as was telling them made up story about knight and princess, dumb kids.

As sun was setting, door from cabin's room opened and grandma along with my mother and sis came out. I too adruptly ended the story (thankfully no one complained) and stood up and promised to come back.

I picked my bag up and made my way to door, at this point I have already lowered my guard. But tragedy happened, at the doorway where grandma with some kids came to send us back, she said.

"Wow, Kakashi, you should come here more often, with your help managing kids will become much easier."

"Wait.. Kakashi, where is he?"

Thankfully she is such a idiot, but waiting for her to realise to lead to disaster, so I did the only thing I could do in that situation.

I ran away after muttering a quick thank you.

"Wait Sukia is Kakashi, huh. Wait, Kakashi, where are you running, just you wait I will beat you up tomorrow." And she lost it, thankfully she didn't follow.

I waited for my mother at the end of road, thankfully she didn't say anything, just smiled sweetly and handed me the some bags as she was already full and we made our way back. Sister has headed to her home, which was in opposite direction.

"Did you enjoy yourself today?"

"In the orphanage, yes"

I don't know, why but it felt good seeing the kids smile and become immersed in the story.

"Good, you should enjoy yourself more, even I sometimes forget that you are just an 8 years old." I didn't mind treated like a kid by my mother. I just hmmed in response.

Soon we reached home. Mother cooked the dinner as I arranged the things we had bought today. The lazed around in my bed till my mother called me for dinner. After dinner, mother reminded me that I had to search for the entrance for basemen. Groaning, i thought where it could be .

Our house was a two storey building. On the first floor there were 4 room, mine, mother's and two guest room with a bathroom. Ground floor has a main hall with kitchen, porch, bathroom and a storage room at the back. House was made with wood. Surrounding our house, was small ground on all sides then fence on the edge of property.

Mother hasn't said that entrance would be inside but I doubt it would be outside of the property. Because even if we lived in relatively sparce area but it is still populated. Mother has created that basement in secret, even I didn't know of its existence, so I don't think she would reveal it this easily. Inside house has also not shown any change in past months or atleast one I noticed.

Well, let's start from ground outside house as it had the highest chance. I don't know when it's construction ended, but suspect its construction was triggered by the incident happened several months ago. And I don't know the size of basement, nor do I know who much time infrastructure company take to make it. So basically it's discovery is based on luck. I am not liking these odds.

Scouting through the ground with a lamp I didn't find any visible changes in grass, all of them showed signs of trimming that I did last week. Suddenly a thought occurred, there had been few trees which grew here and there in our right side and backside of the house and right side and front side had been clean.

But recently few trees were removed about three months ago. And the trees removed had thick and long roots and were close to main house.

For the construction of basement those roots would have to be removed and majority of its roots the tree would dry up and fall. So they removed it. When I had asked mother about that she had said that roots are damaging the foundation of house, well quite a good reasoning. So i checked that area again but no, no sign of entrance.

' Wouldn't be this easy.'

Then I began thinking about what changes took place 3 to 4 months ago, assuming maximum they will take is one month to finish it. We hardly have guests and the last one would be that that lady 5 months ago, but she didn't see the house fully, she just came, chatted few hours with mother and left. Well I was not listening, as I was in ground trying to increase agility and coordination between limbs by climbing trees.

'So she must have seen a map or blueprint of the house, maybe it is present in store room.'

Reaching store room, I checked for blueprints and found it and it showed some thing interesting.

On the blue printe of ground floor, entrance was not marked, but it showed something else. It showed the existence of window on the back side of my house which opened in storeroom but in reality there is nothing here.

So I went to scour the area where the window was supposed to be. There I saw my old bookshelf there which was replaced about 10 months ago but it is not the reason for closing of window as there is quite a space left.

As I moved it out of the way, I saw a different part of the wood bolted in three of the four holes, means it was tampered.

I quickly removed all the nails and found the paper inside and other side and outside was blocked by some kind of thick sheet, which I didn't bother with, quickly bolting the screw back. I opened the paper and saw it was map of the house main room of ground floor were marked with red squares, second floor were with blue square, trees with green circle, three were crossed and a grey outline surrounding the main house and a grey square in the middle of one of the red squares

That was the entrance, in the middle of store room, I quickly reached the middle and didn't saw anything that resembled an entrance.

Then I tried using mana, nope, then lightning infused mana, yeah it opened up.

A magic circle opened up and outlined the square and the wedge deepened and got thrown inside hinged at one end.

I lifted my head and saw my mother looking at me with a proud smile and ruffled my hair.

Maybe today wasn't so bad.