"I'm hoooome. Aika? Where are you? Yoo-hoo." Kicking off my geta, I stumbled into the house, dragging bags of groceries behind me.
"Yap." I heard her reply as I was putting the meat in the fridge.
Turning around, I looked at her and grimaced a little when I saw an envelope in her mouth. The drool was whatever, but what really got to me was that, after she opened her jaws and let the envelope drop, it landed right next to two more envelopes already on the floor.
"Alright, thanks, you clever girl. Here's your reward." I sliced a hundred-gram piece off the beef and put it in a bowl, setting it down for Aika a little ways from the fridge.
Let's see… The first one's from Homuri, letting me know the foundation idea was approved by the clan council and that a separate public account has been set up in the bank under my name. Good, that means anyone can check the fund's balance and see what transactions have been made - which is exactly how it should be. Hm, a lot of clans want to donate, that's great.
I'll have to check later who chipped in and how much. And now that the fund is officially open, I'll need to find a place for the office and for taking applications. I think I still have a few resumes from smart girls at the bank - I'll pass them to Ayumi, let her help out. Good excuse to give her a raise and tie her more closely to my business.
What's in the second envelope? Oh, that's great news. Well done, Fugaku - said it, did it. In just three days, he got the house ready for me. I'll have to check it out while I have the chance. Maybe I'll invite Kushina and Naruko to come see it too.
Now, what's in the third letter… Ahem, looks like it's my fan again:
"Dear Akira, I picked up your laundry and hung it out to dry. I hope you'll write the next part of your book soon. Your number one fan."
What?
Wait, what?
Is this a joke?
I immediately hurried to my bedroom, and even without opening the window, I could see that there was a line strung along the side of the house, with my still-damp workout clothes hanging from it - even my socks were clipped up with clothespins.
Unbelievable! How did she even hang the clothes there? Through my window? Hold on… how did she even know where I dropped off my laundry yesterday? It couldn't have been Itachi - that's not her style. And there's nothing funny about this, honestly, it's a little creepy.
After reading my fan's first letter, I compared the handwriting to the second one and was sure it was the same person.
I paced around the house for a while, racking my brain for half an hour, but I got nowhere. Who? No idea. Why? Same. How? There are two options: either someone broke into my house, or that someone is a shinobi. Or maybe it's a shinobi who broke in just to hang up my laundry. Either way, I don't like any of these options. If it were a thief, I'd know what to do. But how do you react to a fan who secretly helps with your laundry? My brain just can't process that.
****
[ Third POV ]
"Knew I'd find you here. Hey, Itachi." A young man jumped down from a tree and immediately sat down on a boulder a few meters away from her. [ image ]

Itachi only briefly tore her gaze away from the river, nodded to her friend, and went back to watching the water.
"Discontent in the clan is growing," the shaggy-haired guy muttered, joining her in the fine art of doing nothing.
"Yeah, I've noticed," she sighed, glancing at Shisui. "Root's already in the loop, right?" She was more confirming than asking.
"Of course. Danzo-sama already called me in about it. He's worried about what's happening in our clan and asked me to keep an eye on things. They asked you to watch too, right? Or are you still tailing that interesting guy?" He smirked at the end.
Itachi and Shisui had been friends long enough not to hide anything important about their clan from each other. Oh, Akira - Itachi had told her friend about him from the start, since she found the assignment boring and pointless. Over time, she started to notice that his monotonous life was, in a way, kind of interesting and sometimes even funny. She'd share the best moments with Shisui, who sometimes laughed so hard he'd roll on the ground.
"No, ever since he stayed at our place, they stopped watching him. Or maybe they just took me off his case." She said it flatly.
"Most likely, they just paused the surveillance. With things heating up with Kiri and the growing unrest in our clan, almost all resources are going to intelligence. Danzo and the Hokage don't have time for potential spies right now." Shisui shared his thoughts.
"Maybe so. But right now, I'm more worried about our clan." Itachi's anxiety showed in the way she tapped her hitae-ate's steel plate with her finger.
"Did you talk to Fugaku-dono about it?" he tried to get more info.
"I tried, but he just said he and the elders would find a way to solve it."
"Pfft, with those old conservatives, things could get even worse." Shisui summed up his opinion of the council in one sentence.
****
"You called, Danzo-sama?" The red-haired man knelt, waiting for instructions.
[ image ]

"Remember our conversation two months ago? About research number 09433," Danzo said in his low voice.
"Research number 09433: subjugation and personality alteration of the subject using psychoactive substances, genjutsu, and Yamanaka clan mental techniques." The man recalled instantly and nodded.
"Target: Uchiha Shisui. I've already assigned the mission. For the next ten days, no one will ask where he's gone. Can you handle it?"
Yamanaka Fuu was surprised, but didn't show it.
"That might not be enough time for the stabilization phase," he said after a short pause.
"We can do without it. The details are in this scroll." Fuu stood and walked over to take the scroll from his hand.
"You can go. In two days, he'll come here himself. You'll be part of the support group. Now go."
"Understood."
"It would be easier to just take your Sharingan, Shisui, but time is short. We can't wait any longer with the Uchiha, and I can always take your eyes from your corpse. You'll pay your debt to the village, help me deal with your clan, and after that, you won't bother me anymore. Your life will make good fertilizer for the roots of our tree."
****
"Okay, I get it, you're supposed to wear it the other way." Noticing that the weight belt with thick plates sat better on my first leg, I took off the one on my other leg and put it back on the right way. Then I carefully stood up from the bed. [ image ]

"Oh, this isn't as bad as I thought. The weight's distributed evenly." After a few steps, I realized my limbs weren't really restricted at all.
I scared myself for nothing. I thought this program was going to kill me for sure. Five kilos on each arm and ten on each leg - you barely feel it. Guy really picked the weights well for me, though I think I could've gone ten or twenty kilos heavier.
Feeling excited for the next workout, I left the house with a smile on my face.
****
"Hey, could you be a little more careful? I'm about to die here." I said to the two clones carrying me toward the hospital.
"Well, excuse us, your highness. Next time, order comfort-plus, not economy. It's hard enough holding you and keeping up the henge at the same time," grumbled the clone in front.
Yeah, with my current chakra control - way ahead of academy kids and most genin - learning henge through experiments took just one day and four clones. Unfortunately, the technique's effectiveness mostly depends on experience.
Now, being carried by two clones at arm's length, I noticed a lot of flaws: first, they didn't cast a shadow in the morning sun; second, the hair was too stiff, not moving at all in the wind or with motion; third, the facial expressions - only the lips moved, the rest of the face was frozen like wax. And that's just what I noticed in the first few minutes. Any shinobi would spot those oddities.
The technique itself is basically a material illusion, but only partly material. If you press harder than a normal handshake, it pops. The illusion is a colored projection of yin chakra, with a thin layer of yang chakra for substance. So even if you know the hand signs, this jutsu is tough to master if you can't even walk on water or up walls - you need pretty good control.
Still, it's probably the most useful jutsu for any shinobi. I'm glad I've got it in my arsenal now.
I spent about an hour in the hospital. During that time, I nodded along, listening to the med-nin's lecture about the dangers of muscle overload. Basically, some muscles had micro-tears, some were a bit more torn, some were stretched, and thank Hagoromo, my tendons and ligaments were fine. I spent another half hour enjoying a sports massage.
Thanks to the miracle of the Mystical Palm Technique, I managed to get home on my own, though it wasn't easy. That workout cost me three thousand ryo, counting the treatment and massage.
After a quick shower and sending four clones to look for a summon, I only had enough energy to make it to bed.
"I take it back, Guy - you psycho, sadist, masochist."
What does a "hard" workout look like to him? Am I supposed to crawl to the hospital from the Shinigami's stomach?
Still… I managed to finish today's quota. Luckily, the first two weeks of training are every other day. I think I can force myself… no, I'll have to force myself to go through this again. Better to cry now than bleed later, right? Though with today's workout, it's a miracle I didn't have internal bleeding.
I woke up after lunch, and since it was Aika's hunger that woke me, not a clone, it meant I'd failed to find a summon again today.
Sleep helped me recover a bit, but my muscles and body still sent me little pain signals. Getting out of bed was a struggle, every step to the kitchen made my legs and back shake, even my neck hurt when I bent my head to sip green tea.
Lunch was a tray of eggs, four chicken breasts, and for dessert, a banana shake with a crumbled high-calorie ration bar - the kind that was so popular during the Third Shinobi War.
And I'll have to stick to this high-protein diet for… who knows how long, since Guy's program doesn't say. I'll have to mix it up in a month, I can't stand eating the same thing every day. It's just not me.
I spent another three hours at home resting while the clones tried to perfect the first stage of the Rasengan. The ball now exploded in two seconds in my left hand and one and a half in my right. Still couldn't do it with my foot, not even with both at once.
"Aika, aren't you tired of sleeping all day?" I asked the fox lying on my lap.
She just lifted her head, licked my hand, and put it back down.
I should really take her outside sometimes - she seems sluggish. I think she's even put on a couple of kilos.
"Alright, let's go check out our new house. We'll stop by the neighbors too." Not that I'm planning to move in anytime soon - it's risky, just like visiting the Uchiha district at night.
****
"Oh, Aika! I was starting to miss you." Kushina reached out so my fox could climb into her arms. As soon as she did, Aika was hugged tight.
Seeing Aika's happy face, pressed to Kushina's chest, I couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Kushina, it's been a while for us too - maybe we could upgrade from a nod to a big hug?
"How've you been?" I asked, stepping inside.
"Good, ever since Naruko started cleaning her room." She grinned, playing with Aika, who lay in her arms like a baby.
"Let me guess - she uses clones for that?" I laughed, sitting down at the kitchen table.
"Exactly," she sighed. "On the one hand, it's great she learned the technique - now she does chores without me reminding her. But I feel like, over time, she'll get so used to it she'll turn completely lazy."
Right on! Sometimes I catch myself thinking about summoning a clone just to bring me a glass of water. I'm still fighting those lazy urges, but I have a feeling that in ten or twenty years, if I make it that far, I'll be dumping every task on clones.
"Haha, maybe. But you have to admit, it's an amazing jutsu. The Second Hokage was a true genius. If he'd lived to old age, Konoha might have jutsu for every household chore. Like a laundry jutsu, for example."
"Oh, I have something like that, but it's not really a jutsu - it's a fuin that keeps dust and dirt out of the fabric. Unfortunately, it doesn't block smells, so you still have to wash clothes sometimes." That surprised me.
"What powers the fuin? And don't you have to redo it after every wash?" I asked, skeptical - the ink would definitely smudge, and the tricks Kushina did with one finger and chakra always faded as soon as her chakra ran out or with the slightest interference.
"The person wearing it powers it, and as for redoing it… maybe if the clothes rip, or after a year. I sewed the fuin into the inside of the clothes - it's a pain, but then you don't have to worry about the seal breaking."
"Sewed it in? Wait, what? Are threads good chakra conductors?"
"Well, according to Hoishiki's law, chakra flows where there's the least resistance. And as we know, organic materials have the lowest resistance, so I used special medical threads made from organic elements. They're expensive because they're hard to make, so I only used them for my best clothes and for Naruko's everyday stuff."
Damn, why am I only learning about this now? And how many of these chakra laws are there? Kishimoto, you really left a lot out of the anime.
Why is everything so complicated here? I remember reading about isekai MCs who just whip up new jutsu on the fly, beat up jonin at ten, and regrow lost limbs in a year. Meanwhile, I'm stuck here running into every possible snag. Where's my plot armor? Why does everything work out so easily for those idiots? Hey, world god! Just because I use my brain like a normal person doesn't mean I'm against a little plot convenience. Can I at least get a harmonica or a flute if not a deus ex machina?
And then, out of nowhere… nothing happened. Still just a regular not-quite-shinobi. Wait, something did happen - the kettle boiled.
"Akira, the usual?" Kushina asked politely, letting Aika wander around the house.
"Yeah." I couldn't help but sigh.
🔥~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🔥
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