16 Just A Normal Day

(April 1, 1128)

It's been 5 days since he returned to the village, and he didn't know if things had gone for the better or for the worse. First of all, since he risked his life so recklessly, he has to complete a minimum of 50 D-Rank Missions as punishment, which also means his team would also have to do it as well. That infuriated Azumi but nonetheless, she complied. And second, he cannot leave the perimeters of the village for a month, that means even if he finishes his punishment, he still wouldn't be able to do higher ranked missions.

Which pretty much sucks.

Sasuke is the lucky one here because he's still in the damn hospital due to the injuries he suffered after Kisame smashed him into the pavement of the bridge. Meanwhile, the raven-haired genin is still stuck on his bed, wishing to join them on their missions.

Anyway, after returning, his sensei decided to take him to the Akimichi Steak House, one of the many restaurants they have all over the village. The Akimichi Clan is one of the richest clans in the village due to how good they are at cooking and marketing.

It was lovely, and expensive, there but he didn't do that much that day since Maha-san made him some food after he went back to their house. Speaking of her, he is really, really grateful that no one told her about his "death". If they did, he would've heard no end of it and she might suffer a heart attack due to that.

After today, his team and him would have completed a total of 40 D-Rank Missions since 5 days ago. It's really quite easy to do that amount when Azumi actually uses her brain and uses her shadow clone jutsu, which she learned from her mother. Apparently, she can summon a few of them. Around a hundred or two.

At the moment, they're doing their last mission for the day; chopping a bunch of vegetables. Yeah, the proud shinobis of Konoha are now working in a kitchen. He really didn't want to do this, so he had Azumi use her clones to chop all of the vegetables.

There are 30 kilos worth of vegetables here, and they're getting paid 3000 Ryo for chopping them all. That amount of money is not little, considering that they're going to finish this in less than two hours. The average worker makes about 30 Ryo per hour, and in a day, that worker would've made 240 Ryo. That's enough to buy 14 kilos of rice or 7 kilos of chicken meat. Enough to feed two people for a week.

For someone to pay 3000 Ryo just to have someone cut their vegetables for them is completely ridiculous. It's lazy and their client is probably financially irresponsible.

Though maybe that's why their restaurant is failing rapidly. But that's not his problem, they're just here to do their job.

They managed to finish up quickly since Azumi has some experience with the kitchen, considering that she used to help the maids in her house to prepare dinner whenever she was done training or was just bored.

"Woohoo, It's finally done! Now I can hang out with the girls!" Azumi happily said as the two of them walked towards her house, which is a bit far from the restaurant they cut vegetables for.

Curious, he asked, "Is that always what you do every day? Hang out with your friends?"

She looked at him, snorted, and replied, "Duh. All four of us always hang out with each other any time we're free. It's the best thing ever! But you wouldn't understand, seeing that you barely have any friends."

Well, that's just a low blow. But that's true since he rarely talks with anyone, unless he knows them or just buys stuff from them. He didn't retort to that because he's not childish enough to have a spat with a child.

"Anyway, the chunin exams are just 3 days away. Are you going to participate?" He asked.

She nodded immediately, and said, "Of course! I want to rise in the shinobi ranks as fast as possible, so I can become the Hokage by the time I'm 20, just like my dad!"

He shrugged, "I guess that's a good end goal. Say, what will you do once you become Hokage?" He's honestly curious about that.

"Well, I'm going to make everyone's life better in the village," she replied with no hesitation.

"But how though? How are you going to do that?" From his experience as an unofficial governor in his previous city, Eden, there is only one thing most people want; stability. With stability, they can finally sigh in relief and do the things they love. With stability, they can spend their time with their families, raise children, and live their lives in peace. Sure, there will be people that don't want a life like that but in their cases, they are free to leave. Or if they don't, they can also leave… their heads behind, that is.

He wants to know her answer on how she'll obtain that stability for her people, if she became the Hokage.

And he's far from proud when he heard it.

She puffed her chest really well, as she confidently said, "I'm going to give the people money so that they don't have to work anymore!"

He sighed, and the look of disappointment in his eyes tells what he's thinking about her at the moment.

"You really should've paid more attention to your history and economic classes back in the academy," he stated.

She cocked her head to confusion, then got mad when she understood what he had just said.

"Okay, mister smarty pants. Then let me hear your wonderful idea on how to make the village great," she said with a bit of passive-aggressiveness in her voice.

He rolled his eyes, and said, "Giving the people free money so that they don't have to work anymore is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That's just teaching them to be lazy. Why don't you give them free lessons on how they would have to work to earn their own money? Or create more jobs so that all of your people can actually work to earn a living? Listen, to have loyal citizens, you must show that you're a leader, not a charity worker. When times are tough, never show your deflated shoulders. Always stand with confidence to not demoralize your people. Do you understand?"

She crossed her arms, looked away, and pouted, "Yeah, yeah. You're so wise and smart, jackass," then her face slightly went red as she said, "But… thanks."

His eyes widened a little at that. Is she actually maturing? That's surprising.

She started to walk faster, intending to leave them behind.

'Stupid, stupid. Why did I have to thank him?' She berated herself in her thoughts, embarrassed.

As she was trying to separate from her teammate, she suddenly bumped into someone. She looked at them, and saw that they were her friends.

"Oh, we were just looking for you," Hinata said, wearing a loose white jacket alongside a pair of shorts for girls, with her hands in her pockets.

Ino nodded, and said, "It's already 4pm, our agreement was 3pm. Where were you?"

Relieved at seeing her friends, she said, "I was doing D-Rank missions, remember? I have to do fifty of them since dad just had to punish Ren for being reckless. Anyway, we can go now, right?"

"Of course, girl. C'mon!" Ino wrapped her arm around the Namikaze heiress's neck but for a brief moment, her eyes stared at Azumi with an eerie gaze. Like a lovesick girl looking at her crush.

Sakura saw this, and couldn't help but shake her head. The Yamanaka heiress has always been like this, even back in the academy. Well, in the academy Ino was more wild, willing to inappropriately touch every female friend she had. But at the moment, she's more restricted with just the 3 of them. They don't mind it though, considering just how hot Ino is. Recently, however, she's been more fascinated with Azumi. She'd even sniff her hair whenever Ino thought no one was looking.

Sage, she feels a bit sorry towards Azumi for not telling her that their lesbian friend is over the hills for her.

Helel watched from on top of a rooftop how his teammate exchanged words with her friends. As soon as he saw her trying to avoid him earlier, he left. Besides, he doesn't have anything to talk to her about anyway. And he needed to go home soon, Maha-san might already be cooking something for dinner, and if he's late, the food might go cold.

But there's another reason why he must return… he can already feel the World Gate inside of him slowly breaking. With just another push, he will finally enter the realm of Demigods. Once that happens, not only would his Arcane Energy and physical strength increase, his physical defense would also strengthen itself.

His body basically undergoes some sort of metamorphosis while in the Demigod Realm. As his level increases, the more his body changes, becoming tougher and tougher, like a shell. This is to prepare him for when he eventually reaches the Transcendent Realm, where his body will slowly break and then it'll rebuild itself into something much, much stronger.

He doesn't know how strong guns are but in the Demigod Realm, a knife wouldn't even be able to pierce his skin. At around Peak Level, he can even survive an entire hill falling on him.

Trust him, that has happened before when he was fighting some Elder in the Transcendent Realm. The dude pulled a huge hill out of his ass and just smashed it at him for some reason. He did kill all of their descendants but to drop something like that on him? That's just not cool.

Anyway, he's getting pretty excited entering the Demigod Realm. It's funny since he used to be a cultivator in the Deity Realm, the cultivation realm where it's pretty much your decision if you want to destroy the world or not, and he's getting giddy by only entering the second realm.

His guess was right when he stepped foot into the house while smelling something delicious in the air. It smells like tomato and meat coming from the kitchen.

"I'm home," he announced, and he could hear footsteps nearing him.

Soon, he saw Maha-san with a big smile on her face, saying, "You're just in time. I've finished cooking the spaghetti and its sauce. It's our dinner for tonight."

"Mhmm, I can't wait," seeing her wide smile, he couldn't help but smile also.

"Alright, let's go. I'll just be preparing the plates and utensils, so you just sit there, Minato-chan."

He was a bit confused why she called him his father's name but decided not to call her out on it, thinking that it's just an accident on her part.