26 CH_26

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The bustling streets of the Leaf village suited one of a metropolitan in its busy residents traversing them in hordes every day to get to the next task of their fast lives. No one paid attention to the unassuming young child that sat on the roadside bench with a creaky exercise gripper in hand.

Takuma watched the two shops in front of him. One was a mom-and-pop diner, and the other was a branch of the Leaf Postal Services. The sun was at its peak height, with the shade of the building above him as his only shelter. The clock had entered the lunchtime zone.

Meaning rush crunchtime for both businesses. People rushed into the post office in the urgency to have their work done before the tellers placed lunch break signs in front of their counters and disappeared for three-quarters of an hour official break. But Takuma knew for a fact that the employees in the district six branch of Leaf Postal Service took breaks beyond an hour, something against policy. No one punished them; the lazy branch manager never ever arrived before lunch.

As any eatery would, the small diner was busy in the lunchtime zone. It wasn't a place for families or friends to dine out together. The diner's main clientele was the working men and women who wanted an affordable lunch every day without burning a hole in their pockets. Takuma's eyes were drawn to the man who walked into the diner; he recognized the man and knew he would come walking out in a few minutes. As he knew, the man wearing a factory worker's garb walked out of the diner with a packed lunch in his hand. The diner was famous for its takeaway lunch box service and sold many around lunchtime.

Takuma counted. He counted the people who went into the shop. He counted when they entered, how long they stayed, when they left. He watched the post office to see how many people dropped off packages and how many picked something up. For the diner, he measured their lunchbox sales, their dine-in numbers, and how long it took people to eat their food.

And he noted down the points of interest he saw. He didn't know shorthand or any coded language to record information yet, but knowing what to take down and how to do it was important in note taking was a skill in itself that needed polishing (or so Kibe had said in class).

His eyes were drawn to the post office as a group of people exited the building. All of them wore matching baby blue uniforms, the staple color for postal service employees. The group of men and women entered the diner.

Takuma looked toward the storefront beside him at the wall clock and noted the time. It was precisely one o'clock. Now, he had to wait. Takuma took out a packed lunch of his own— it was lunchtime, after all.

The minute hand on the wall clock made its way across the clock face until it reached the end of the post office lunchtime. The employees didn't exit the diner, but the people in need of the service had already started to line up in the store.

Based on his past observations, Takuma knew the post office tellers wouldn't leave the diner before it was at least one hour because if they entered the post office, they would've to work under customer pressure. Takuma cleaned up any mess he had made while eating and waited five more minutes to see if the tellers would return to their job.

He rubbed his knees as he looked between the post office and the diner.

"Alright, let's do this," Takuma said to himself.

He got up and walked into a nearby dark alley. He put his lunch bag to the side and pulled up both of his sleeves to reveal a row of 1-ryu coins each stuck on his arm from his wrists to shoulders. On a closer look, each coin was actually a stack of two coins taped together. A high-risk exercise developed by Takuma to force himself to improve his chakra control. Every ryu was essential to his monthly budget before he got his next allowance, and misplacing money without getting to spend it made his life hell on earth— he would rather spend money on unneeded commodities than unknowingly drop it somewhere. Thus came the risk— to maintain concentration on precise chakra control or lose precious money with the threat of going hungry on the last few days of the month.

The results were worth the constant fear of losing money. He had gone from feather-like leaves to heavy coins. If asked, Takuma would take Maruboshi's sprinting torture over his mental brand of punishment— physical exhaustion was temporary, but money loss was permanent— alas, that was the point.

He pulled up his shorts and pulled off the slanted band of coins circling his thigh, and put his hand up his shirt to get a couple coins off his front and back. More coins, larger risk.

Takuma placed upon his heart and felt its elevated pulse. He breathed in and out to calm his nerves and stared at the post office to reaffirm his conviction. He had to do it. It was the test before the test— a harder one to make the easy one a breeze.

Dog — Boar — Ram

Poof!

Smoke covered Takuma, and when it blew away, a tall man with a gaunt face and oily hair slicked to the side, closely sticking his inverse egg-shaped head, stood in his place. Takuma took out a small mirror from his person to check his new appearance. He was much taller and lean as a skeleton; his faded violet shirt and black shorts were replaced by a baby blue post office uniform.

Maruboshi's two seal combination exercise had paid off. After a long month of intense practice, his chakra no longer ran out of his control while performing the Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu), which was only three hand seals.

Muramoto Teruo. The branch manager of the district six branch. A lazy, incompetent buffoon who had somehow been able to keep his job as a manager, who had allowed those under him to spiral out of discipline. Takuma didn't know if no one in the postal service had noticed the condition of the branch or if they knew and were ignoring it. Whatever it was, he didn't have that information.

But it did make Muramoto Terou a great guilt-free target of imitation.

Takuma touched his new face. He recalled the real Terou's face and judged his replication to be passable. He had seen the man plenty of times to pull off an unsuspicious imitation. As long as no one touched him, they wouldn't outright know he wasn't Muramoto Terou— or at least, that was what he hoped to be true.

Ready to proceed, Takuma flexed all the muscles in his body for a few seconds before loosening up. He then slouched his back and shifted his neck forward a little to give himself a text neck to emulate the real Terou's body posture. He had practiced it in the mirror every night for today.

He took out a white handkerchief and placed it on his mouth before exiting the alleyway and walking towards the post office across the street. He didn't care if people thought the post office manager coming out of a dingy alleyway was strange because no one was going to do anything about it.

The inside of the post office was familiar territory to Takuma. It was scary how easy it was to scout an understaffed place of business during rush hour when the employees had no time to pay attention to a wandering person when they had a horde of customers to take care of. There was no special reason for him to choose the post office. The grocer he shopped for his vegetables had once complained about it when he was shopping, and things had shaped from there.

The moment Takuma entered the post office, the guard on duty hastily stood up. The guard stayed inside the building so he wouldn't need to stay in the hot outside, and he faced inside the building so that he was facing the ceiling fan. If Takuma wanted to knock him out, it would take one swift surprise attack, and the civilian guard would be out cold. The branch had no shinobi presence because of its small size and limited service, thus an ideal testing ground for Takuma.

"M-Manager!" the guard stood up, sputtering.

Takuma gave him a displeased look and then loudly coughed into his handkerchief. He said nothing and moved further in.

The building's customer-facing front was relatively small compared to the similarly-sized building on the street; Takuma assumed the rest of the building was devoted to storage and sorting facilities for mail.

Takuma's postal service uniform was naturally noticed by the customers, and some approached him to complain. Takuma loudly coughed into his handkerchief, making it look as nasty as he could. It had its intended effects, and they backed off.

He cast his eyes towards the teller counters, and they were empty. He frowned angrily and turned to the guard. "Where is everyone," he asked, his voice hoarse and breaking.

Takuma had only heard the Terou's voice once, but even if he wanted to mimic the manager's voice— voice modulation didn't exist in Takuma's skillset. He could only pretend that he had a nasty cough and cold.

"O-Out for lunch," said the guard, gulping. "Miss Tahashi is inside."

"Get her out," Takuma ordered, and the guard scurried into the back. Takuma turned to the customers and said, "I apologize on behalf of my staff. I implore all of you to be patient for a little longer while I get everything into place."

The guard pulled in a plump middle-aged woman with red-rimmed glasses and the most outrageously puffed-up hairstyle he had seen on a woman. The first time he had seen the woman had been an experience.

Takuma didn't give the woman a chance to speak. "Why isn't," he coughed twice, "everyone back already." The woman tried to reply, but Takuma didn't let her speak. "Why aren't you already at the counter?" He bore down at her with a menacing gaze.

The woman shriveled under his gaze. She tried to eek out, "M-Manager, I-I..."

"Can't you see, you're wasting these people's time?" he said loud enough so that everyone could hear. "Why are you still standing here? Go! Go! Do your job, or do you want me to do it for you?"

The terrified woman rushed her chubby legs to her counter and immediately opened it for business.

"I swear, not one of them does their job properly," Takuma grunted. He turned to the guard and scolded him, "What are you doing, standing there like a buffoon? Don't you see all these people waiting? Go and bring everyone back."

The guard rushed out of the building.

Takuma had scolded two of the post office employees while pretending to be their boss. Talked to an entire crowd while pretending to be someone else. As fun as he felt it was— it was now time to leave.

He immediately walked out of the building and saw the guard entering the diner. He dropped the handkerchief over his face and walked back into the alley.

Poof! Takuma went back to his original form. He picked up his lunch bag and exited the alleyway. He watched from beside the roadside bench as the uniformed employees rushed out of the diner and ran into the post office.

Takuma grinned. That was mission accomplished.

'From Lupin to Kaido Kid, screw everyone. I will be the best impersonator, the grandmaster of disguise, north of fantasy,' Takuma thought.

After enjoying the fruit of his labor for a moment, Takuma ducked back into the street. He put the coins back on his body. The day would be perfect if he got home with all the money still on his body.

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