There's one thing I forgot to mention—yes, the protagonist really is the cover character. Mm… the cover illustration is of her grown-up version…————————————————————————————————
With the Three Basic Techniques scroll in hand, Mitsuki Mui cheerfully walked back home.
Once she arrived, Mui didn't immediately rush to start training. Instead, she first sat down to have lunch. After all, she was still in the middle of growing—skipping meals was out of the question.
Only after eating did she take the scroll to the backyard.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The moment she stepped outside, a string of sharp sounds greeted her.
"Oh… training again, Kakashi?"
"Mm… that's right."
Kakashi paused briefly when he saw Mitsuki Mui enter, then went right back to work, hammering his small fists and legs against the wooden training post.
This backyard had been arranged not long after Mui first moved in—she'd asked Hatake Sakumo to knock down the dividing wall between their houses to create a shared training ground.
Sakumo had even asked her at the time if she wasn't worried he might be a dangerous man. The thought still made her want to laugh.
"What nonsense… if you really were a bad guy, you think a flimsy wall could keep out the White Fang of Konoha? Looks like Sakumo's intelligence isn't all that high after all."
Every time Mui came here, she couldn't resist mocking him like that in her head.
"Hm? What are you looking at?"
Kakashi had stopped to take a short break and, noticing the scroll in her hands, frowned.
"Oh, nothing much. Just the Three Basic Techniques. What, your dad never taught you?"
"No… he didn't. Father said I should wait until I was older before learning ninjutsu. Right now, he says, it's still too early. But where did you get a ninjutsu scroll from? Didn't you tell me before that your family only had chakra refinement notes left, and nothing else?"
"Ah… yeah, that wasn't a lie. This one's different though—our Academy teacher gave it to me today. Said he thought I was cute."
"…Bragging about being cute… how shameless…"
"Eh? Don't tell me I'm not cute?" Mui leaned her face close to his as she asked.
Kakashi instantly flushed red. Even though his mask covered most of it, Mui could still tell.
"Y-you're… c-cute…"
Mui nodded in satisfaction. At least this Kakashi wasn't yet the future one who would shamelessly read smut books in front of his students.
Poof—
In the next instant, Mui's hands formed a seal, and her figure transformed into another person—none other than Kakashi himself.
"C-cute…" she parroted in his exact voice and expression.
"H-hey! You—!"
Kakashi's face darkened with anger.
"Hahahaha! Too good! That was way too fun!" Mui waved dismissively when she saw how upset he was. "Alright, alright, I'll stop. I'll stop."
"Hey—!"
"What is it? Oh… are you asking when I learned the Transformation Technique?"
"Yeah…" Kakashi frowned.
"Oh, just now." Mui pressed a finger to her lips with a playful look. "I was reading the scroll and, well, I learned it. Problem?"
"…Nothing, it's just… your training speed seems a bit fast."
"Fast? Didn't feel that way to me. I thought it was simple, really. Just looked at it and—bam—I could do it."
"…I see…"
Kakashi's expression turned complicated.
He'd trained with Mui several times before, and though he knew she was lazier than him, her talent was undeniably on a different level altogether. Honestly, it put a lot of pressure on him.
Mui, of course, paid his feelings no mind and went straight back to practicing the other two techniques recorded in the scroll.
And sure enough, just from a single read-through, she had already mastered them.
What could she say? This was the reality of AA-Rank training speed.
In moments like this, she was nothing short of an absolute genius.
[Talent Ability: "Oppai is Power" Detailed Explanation]
No chest = historically strongest talent (unfortunately for Mui, she already hit AA-Rank back when she was five, so she never got to enjoy the benefits of slower growth stages).
AA-Rank: Beyond reason.
A-Rank: Monster.
B-Rank: Genius.
C-Rank: Pretty good.
D-Rank: Average person.
E-Rank: Weak.
F-Rank: Useless.
G-Rank: Idiot.
H-Rank: Goldfish brain—no matter what you learn, you forget it after seven seconds. Daily training is a nightmare.
(For reference: Kakashi's talent is B-Rank. Minato is A-Rank. Uchiha Madara is A-Rank. If you think I've ranked them too high or too low, then… reach through the screen and punch me!)