[Third Person POV]
Three weeks had passed since Hajime first started giving the kitsune mother-daughter pair chakra lessons, and many things had happened since.
The most notable change was that Yasaka created a full shadow clone in a few days.
Her ability to create them was far from perfect, though.
Currently, Yasaka was only capable of creating a single shadow clone that could last up to five hours.
Of course, that was currently enough for her, since it gave her the free time to continue training it. Over the last few weeks, she had finally improved to the point where she could keep the shadow clone active for most of the day.
A few of her attendants had already noticed some changes, but nothing specific yet.
Yasaka also took time to teach Kunou how it felt to learn it herself, hoping it would speed up her daughter's training.
Kunou persisted in her training, despite the lack of success thus far.
When the training was over, the two would either spend time out together or relax at Hajime's place with him and his friends.
Hajime, Tsubaki, and Akeno weren't idle either during this time.
Tsubaki and Akeno continued their training routines, pushing themselves to beginner mid-class and peak low-class, respectively.
Tsubaki had focused on Mirror Alice, trying to create some new moves with it.
Luckily, she had rapidly made progress with the help of the more freed-up Yasaka, who had been giving personal lessons to the four of them.
She could now split her mirror in half, but the total area of the mirror remained the same for now. Still, it meant she could block two attacks at once or alternate mirrors, reducing the cooldown timer for them.
Tsubaki also sparred with her and Hajime, which allowed her to polish her naginata skills further, though recently she had hit a roadblock.
It was a combination of a lack of physical capability and experience.
Despite how brutal the spars with Yasaka were, she still would avoid trying to kill anyone, meaning Tsubaki needed one good fight for her to know where to take her skills next.
Akeno was different, having practiced many new moves thanks to some help from Hajime.
Using his knowledge from Laxus and Jiraiya, Akeno recreated several moves that the two learned.
The strain from all the practice quickly raised her magic reserves, which now sat at peak low-class.
Hajime had been preparing to take them out bounty hunting soon, so the girls would both have the breakthroughs they needed to continue training.
Hajime hadn't been idle either.
His main focus was on the seals and machinery he had.
The Milano he'd made almost no progress on. Although it had some maintenance manuals, they were all in another language, forcing him to rely on understanding the few pictures there were, though it wasn't enough.
Without knowing what was what, he didn't dare to touch anything at the risk of breaking the only spaceship he had.
The colossus proved much easier, thanks to its reliance on basic mechanical principles and the availability of maintenance manuals in a language he understood.
The manuals were in Atlesian and Mistralian, which turned out to be the equivalent of a German-French hybrid and Japanese, respectively, the latter of which he understood.
His progress with seals was much simpler.
He'd made several thousand explosion and storage seals, the two most practical and easiest to make.
Yasaka had joined in at times, curious about the entire art that it was. Though her attempts were noticeably weaker in quality at first, that was due to inexperience, as Jiraiya's memories had said.
A key feature of seals is chakra flow, specifically the chakra you put into the seals when drawing them.
Though experienced with manipulating her energy, Yasaka had never tried manipulating it in this way, so it took several dozen attempts before she got it right.
As for creating new seals, Hajime hadn't made any breakthroughs on that front. New seals could take months to make, even when an Uzumaki was the one trying. Hajime wasn't dismayed, though, understanding he was technically the only person who knew how to make seals.
-----
Today, Hajime's house was empty except for him.
Yasaka had brought Kunou, Tsubaki, Akeno, and the two familiars with her, claiming they were having a 'girl's day out'.
Hajime knew it was a lie, though, since in a few days it would be his tenth birthday.
The group of girls, led by Yasaka, was out getting everything they would need for the party: balloons, streamers, cake, and presents.
The presents were the hardest to pick out.
Despite all the time the group had spent with Hajime, it was difficult to know what to get him.
He'd spent the last several months focused almost completely on training in some way.
He still took breaks now and then, but lots of time was spent working on his combat.
In the end, Kimiko and Blue both 'got' him some snacks, while everyone else got him a magical object of some kind.
A few days later, while Hajime was out of the house doing his morning training, they all entered to prepare the place for the party.
Yasaka, being the only adult there, blew up the balloons with a helium pump, giggling when Kunou snuck some helium from a balloon to raise her pitch.
Kunou, using a step ladder and her tails, hung up the streamers, getting the usual wave pattern from the drooping.
Tsubaki and Akeno were setting up the table, preparing the takeout they got for lunch, as well as the cake, candles, and gifts, which were placed at the end of the table for after lunch.
By the time 11:30 rolled around, Hajime had returned from his morning run.
When he entered, the lights were off, which was to be expected.
Entering his dining room, he was greeted by everyone wearing party hats.
"Surprise!"
-----
Before the party started, everyone sat down at the table to eat.
Yasaka brought up some interesting news from around the supernatural world, while Kunou talked about her tutoring sessions.
Once lunch was over, Yasaka brought over the cake. She placed it down in front of Hajime before lighting the candles.
Hajime inhaled sharply before blowing them out and making his wish.
After everyone was given their cake, it was time to open the presents.
Kimiko and Blue, who had no concept of money, were given snacks to gift to Hajime, each with a different snack he liked.
Kunou gave him a set of floating, glowing crystals that functioned like fairy lights.
Akeno gave him a cup with a special ritual that connects it to whatever drink container he wants, allowing the cup to refill automatically.
Tsubaki got him a magic hunting bow, enchanted to have the arrows track the target.
Yasaka got him a set of ofudas. Seeing his mastery of seals, she thought it would benefit him to learn about a similar discipline.
After opening all the gifts, everyone spent some time together talking before transitioning to the living room to watch TV.
After the party was over and Hajime was in his room, Hajime decided now was the time to try out his gacha, hoping he'd get a little birthday luck.
{ You have obtained Tang San (Douluo Dalu). }
{ Tang San is a 6-year-old who has just awakened his martial soul by Matthew Nuo, who went to awaken martial souls that year out of boredom. He noticed the oddities of an innate soul power of 10 on blue silver grass and Tang San's clenched fist. Upon returning to his branch, he alerted Spirit Hall, who sent out several Title Douluo to kill him and his father. }
Seeing he got such a character, Hajime felt several emotions, the biggest of which was confusion.
He knew the story from his past life, though he preferred fanfics to the original due to the blatant plot armor near the end. Tang San didn't die until the war against the Spirit Empire, which meant his summons and assimilations could potentially be from different timelines or universes than the original.
He wasn't sure why this reward was different from the previous ones. Did he overlook something on the cards he'd previously assimilated, or was this just the first alternate version type of card he got?
Hajime was excited, though, not for the character, but for what he represented.
Godhood. Tang San was the chosen one of the Asura God, with twin martial souls, a cultivation technique that could steal origin from others, and protagonist luck.
Even if he could naturally reach godhood in the DxD world, knowing he was practically guaranteed it now felt amazing.
Aside from that, most of the Tang Sect techniques Tang San stole were all incredibly useful.
Two of them functioned like the Rokushiki techniques, Shave and Iron Body.
The poison and plant knowledge, while technically useless since he had no access to either, would still be useful when visiting that world eventually.
The hidden weapons Tang San valued so much were, in fact, the worst of all the knowledge. They only benefited assassins, and while he did have Deathstroke's skills, they were still useless to him.
They traded strength for stealth, shrinking the size to hide the weapons on one's body. Unfortunately, this drastically weakened them, making them useful only the first time they were used. That's not even mentioning soul tools, which were far more useful in that world, and could do more than just kill.
Still, they weren't completely useless. Hajime could imagine how many people might want to get hidden weapons as a final defense, like Sirzechs giving one to Rias and Millicas.
Even the weaker ones were capable of injuring an unprepared low-class, while the best ones could take out a high-class. Of course, this wholly relied on taking them by surprise, but it was still useful.
-----
The day after the party, Hajime said he needed to be alone in the training grounds for something important.
When he got there, he opened his gacha inventory and checked on the character cards he had.
{ Red Tornado, Warden Wrath, Danny Phantom, Pamela Beesley, Bai Tza, The Deep, Xerneas, Bunnicula, Welf, Adam (Hazbin Hotel), Gang Orca, Blake Belladonna, Heather (Total Drama), Jenny Realight, Monet (One Piece), Tang San (Douluo Dalu) }
Of them, only nine he felt any desire to summon, either because they didn't have anything he felt was worth assimilating or because he was confident in dealing with them.
Deciding to start simple, he brought a card to his hand.
{ Bunnicula }
From what he remembered of the show, Bunnicula was a vampire rabbit with a kind trickster personality.
He loved mischief, but was also fiercely protective of those he cared about.
Bunnicula had a large variety of powers, some of which were dependent on whichever vegetable he ate.
Mentally activating the card to summon Bunnicula, Hajime took a step back and watched as the card glowed. At the same time, Hajime activated a weakness removal card to get rid of the vampire rabbit's greatest weakness, the sun.
{ Summoning Bunnicula }
As the glow reached a peak, it started to dim, replacing the card with a small, black and white rabbit with vampire fangs.
"*Unintelligible noises*." As soon as he appeared, Bunnicula started moving around and making noises, though he quickly calmed down.
"I understood none of that."
Bunnicula frowned at that before trying to mime what he was trying to say.
Pointing at the sun and then mimicking dying, Hajime understood what Bunnicula was asking.
"Oh, why aren't you burning?" The bunny nodded. "I occasionally can remove weaknesses. Since that's the only crippling weakness I'm likely to encounter today, I've removed it for you."
Bunnicula squinted at Hajime, as if he were trying to figure out what he was before his ears turned into wings, and he flew up and hugged Hajime's head, saying some more garbled words likely equivalent to a thank you.
Though Bunnicula was a naturally strange individual, his reaction to being summoned meant that those he summoned likely wouldn't immediately go crazy after everything that happened.
With that, Hajime drew several cards at once and activated them all.
__________
Author's Note:
This morning, I had to deal with two issues: a leak coming from something in the attic and coming out in my room, and a Verizon technician came over to address my constant internet problems. What a day.
Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!