4 Chap.4 The greatest treasure

Tony stood in front of a huge compound whose entrance was marked with the kanji for "food." This place was the target of him, the Akimichi clan. A clan that has had more than fifteen generations and has a strong relationship with the Yamanaka clan and the Nara clan. As long as he gets adopted, he will be akin to having the backing of not one, but three clans.

But he can't deny that something he thought wouldn't affect him made him nervous. He did not have a good relationship with his original family, they loved each other very much, there is no doubt about that, but disputes always arose over certain issues and it ended up affecting everyone. The last conversation he had with his parents ended in a heated argument because they kept remembering that he was the only one of his children who was not married, and they tried to force him to be with women he didn't know. That's why he locked himself away for the weekend, to try to relax and be able to talk to them again with his batteries recharged.

He now he could never do that anymore.

"Okay, let's go there."

Just as he was about to enter…

"Are the bags of premium exotic flavored potato chips nearly out of stock?" ruuuuuuun!

That was all he could hear before he was hit by something at high speeds and knocked unconscious on the ground.

…Later, in a room at the Akimichi compound…

"Choji Akimichi!" How many times have I told you not to run out of the house? —a large woman hit him on the head with a ladle— Now look! You have rendered the poor child unconscious. We're lucky nothing broke!

"But mom! Potato bags...

-Without discussion! The woman stood her ground. "No potato bags for a week!"

—NOOOOOOOO! —A cry of despair and lamentation was heard throughout the Akimichi complex and the surrounding area.

A ladle at supersonic speeds fell on his head and left him silent.

"DON'T YELL, THE CHILD IS STILL SLEEPING!" —She told him with an even louder voice— SHUT, TAKE THE CHILD FOR A WHILE TO CALM DOWN! the woman ordered.

"Yes darling, but please calm down." A large man with red hair and purple line marks on his cheeks took the boy away from his mother's wrath.

"What's all that noise?" heard the woman in a room behind her.

Tony looked around him without understanding what he was doing there.

Don't tell me I got hit by another truck?!

I swear that whatever the case...

Fortunately, her doubts were quickly dispelled when a woman entered the room and she recognized her at a glance as Choji's mother. She with short brown hair, crimson lipstick, black eyes, orange eye shadow and a large build like the rest of the clan.

-How do you feel? —asked the woman—would you like something to eat?

"I'm fine," Tony replied with a slightly disoriented expression. "Where am I?"

"You're in the Akimichi clan, my son hit you by accident when he was leaving the compound," she explained.

"Akimichi?"

"Oh dear," the woman worried at her reaction. She didn't know if her blow had affected his head or if he was a stranger—Wait here, I'll be right back.

Tony was left alone in the room and tried to reorganize his thoughts. It seems that he had managed to enter the Akimichi clan, but not in the way that he expected. The woman was soon back with another woman and Tony's pupils contracted as he recognized that person's style.

Someone from the Yamanaka clan!

Wasting no time, he quickly talked to the System about a last minute plan. And he was glad to act fast, because apparently the person noticed his panic and raised his fingers to do some kind of jutsu that made him lose consciousness.

"Lady Yamanaka!" What are you doing?

"His reaction to him right now is very suspicious, it seemed like he was scared of me," explained the woman in Venetian English-style clothing. "He could be a spy from another village!" I'm going to read his memory and we'll get rid of doubts.

-This…

It wasn't the first time that someone had sent a child to another village as a spy, they had been doing things like that for centuries, but something inside her told her that the unconscious child was not a spy.

"Don't worry," Mrs. Yamanaka consoled. "The last thing he'll remember is when your son knocked him unconscious, he won't know we read his memory."

Although she still had doubts, Mrs. Akimichi did not stop her friend from acting.

Mrs. Yamanaka put her hands on her head and used her clan's technique to access Tony's memories. At least, the ones the System allowed him to see. She kept her eyes closed for a few minutes and when she opened them, she was surprised.

-And good? —Mrs. Akimichi was on tenterhooks all this time and she needed to know what was going on.

Mrs. Yamanaka took a deep breath and told him everything she saw. A poor but happy childhood with her family, until a few weeks ago some ninja bandits attacked the place. His family split up and the boy's mother yelled at him to go to the Leaf village to look for the Akimichi clan, that they would help him because of his grandmother's debt. The boy managed to hide, but unfortunately, he saw firsthand how his family was massacred and the place where he grew up was burned. The boy wandered disoriented, was attacked by wild beasts from which he miraculously escaped, ate roots to survive and endured the adverse weather until he reached the village. He didn't know where the Akimichi clan was, so he temporarily slept with the Inuzukas and accidentally arrived at the graveyard, from where he left with tears in his eyes remembering his dead family. It was only today that he managed to find the complex and stood at the door not knowing how to proceed. The rest of the story, they already knew.

-Poor boy! —Mrs. Akimichi had tears in her eyes after hearing the story— But why was she scared when she saw you?

"It's because the female ninja who killed her family looks like me." Mrs. Yamanaka looked at the unconscious Tony with complicated eyes. "It would have been strange if she didn't react like she did." If she hadn't knocked him unconscious, he might have tried to attack me as revenge for his family.

-I see.

"Do you know anything about the debt his mother said?" She asked curiously.

"I don't think so," Mrs. Akimichi thought for a while, "But my late mother told me that she had been helped many times in the past and she still had promises to keep." Perhaps the child's family had one of my clan's pledges.

"And what will you do with him?" —Asked Mrs. Yamanaka— I'll be honest with you, I've seen many children in his situation due to wars and if we leave him in an orphanage, it could leave him scarred for life.

Mrs. Akimichi looked at Tony and only now did she notice the slight swelling in her eyes. The boy must have cried a lot just before reaching his clan's compound. Mrs. Yamanaka did not interrupt her friend's thoughts. Now she was the one who felt bad about being too suspicious of the poor creature.

He wasn't a spy, just a boy who had lost everything he loved and was holding on to the last rope of him.

"I'll ask Choza to adopt him into the clan," the large woman said determinedly.

Since her mother deposited her hope and her greatest treasure in her clan, she will make sure that the child can have a roof to sleep in, a full stomach and people to trust.