15 15: Oh Those Reincarnators...
The pressure of the locked memories was starting to increase. It's been a few months since Seija started training in the forest and everything was going well, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was on its way and she had no way of knowing exactly when.
[Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu]
A huge sphere of flame rolled through the clearing and exploded against the right-most boulder, leaving a large scorch mark and ever-so-slightly melting the stone at the central point, which quickly cooled and hardened in the rain.
'Haah... haaahh... That makes three in a row... am I getting any faster?'
"[Your casting time has decreased from 3.323 seconds to 3.094 seconds since you started practising this Jutsu today.]"
'Sweet, not bad for only a few hours' work.'
"[The rate of progression slowed down with each cast. Mastering this Jutsu to require only a single sign will take months without dedicating your Shadow Clones to it as well.]"
'Ha! You know they're already busy.' She said, taking a casual step backwards and feeling the wind blast past her face from one of her clones' Great Breakthroughs, a C-rank Wind Style Jutsu that she was rather fond of.
The fact that the clones could also interface with Firewall was an unexpected boon. It meant that Firewall could detect reincarnators within range of the clones, not just herself.
And it wasn't just the clones, she had managed to figure out that he could also see through her Byakugan, allowing his detection range to really skyrocket if she or her clones had it active. This was discovered and proven on one particular day...
- - - - -
On that day, Seija had begun her usual walk back from training out in the forest. After the first few trips she had realised that she could use all the stimulus in the woods to train her Byakugan's range and accuracy better, so she started wearing that old Anbu mask she had taken a liking to all those years ago. The mask perfectly hid her entire face and seeing her eyes through the thick glass was almost impossible, so it was perfect for discretly using her Byakugan on her way to and from the forest.
As the town entered her range of vision, she received a very interesting message.
"[Seija. Reincarnator detected.]"
She immediately Flickered into cover within a large bush.
'Where?'
"[They aren't near to you. Do you see that caravan with your Byakugan?]"
'Those merchants that just pulled into town? Ah, you're highlighting one of them, that's him?'
"[It is. I was not aware that my detection capabilities functioned through your Dojutsu. This is useful information.]"
'Nice. What should I do about them? They appear to be merely helping out around the caravan and honestly their chakra seems... really weak. They're barely stronger than a civilian, let alone an actual ninja.'
"[Look at what they are selling. Sealing tags. If those were created using a Skill given to them by their system or were rewards from the system itself then I can disarm them for free experience. Get me into range. Ten meters.]"
'On it.'
Seija smoothly extracted herself from the bush and picked up the pace to reach town quickly. The merchants had only just arrived and would likely stay for a few hours yet, but it was better to get there early and not miss them in case something makes them choose to leave prematurely.
[Body Flicker Jutsu]
Her sudden burst of speed brought her right into an alleyway at the edge of the town. There she quickly deactivated her Byakugan and removed her mask, storing it in a small sealing scroll in her equipment pouch.
Bringing her hands together, she wove the signs for the Transformation Jutsu.
She chose to hide her eye-color by changing it to a pale blue and turned her long, spiky dark-brown hair an ash-grey shade. She usually kept the hair - besides the bangs and fringe - in a high ponytail that hangs down just past her shoulders so she undid that too, letting her hair flow free. Her features were rather distinctive and she would rather not give a reincarnator the chance to remember them.
Disguise complete, she stepped out of the alleyway and headed straight for the main street where all of the village's trade happened.
"[They have entered my detection range again. Without the Byakugan that will remain restricted to 100 meters, remember.]"
'I know, Firewall. That just means I'm almost there.'
Seija could barely see past the small crowd of people that had lined up to browse the merchant caravan's goods, so it took her a bit to find a spot where she could stand discreetly off to the side and peruse the goods herself, within ten meters.
Finally within the ten meter range, she could get a good look at the boy. And his Fuinjutsu tags.
'Bingo. He's got a pouch of artist's tools on his belt. I can see a brush with what looks to be black paint dried onto the end, just like what was used for the tags. He looks barely five years old, so why else would he have a piece of equipment like that? He's giving himself away.'
"[You must remember that even though he is a reincarnator, physically he is still only five years old. Your own intelligence has nearly recovered to your previous life's level. His is still a few years off. Of course he would make mistakes.]"
'Right. The tags?'
"[Witness.]"
The tags began to glow softly within her vision. Very differently from her chakra-sight provided by the Byakugan. It looked much more digital, which seemed to add up considering Great Firewall's overall system aesthetic.
'All of them were made by a Skill? How lazy.'
"[Correct, Seija. I can begin to disarm them now, if you wish. Though doing so may cause the merchants to lose reputation here should the seals be sold in their deactivated state. Your town does not have much food production, so driving away merchants would be bad for the place in the long-term.]"
'I could just buy them.' She pointed out.
"[...Indeed. Luckily they are rather cheap. It seems the boy knows that his work is only low quality right now. He may be capitalising on the war rumors and is selling them as basic self defense tools for a person to booby-trap their home with, according to those signs he has put up.]"
'Right you are. That's perfect for me then.' She discreetly pulled out another small sealing scroll and removed a stack of 100-Ryo notes, slipping them into her pouch alongside the scroll they came from.
'Let's deal, little boy.'
- - - - -
Kaowru was having a pretty nerve-wracking day so far. It's been only a month since his system unlocked itself and today was the first day that he could start making money off his new Fuinjutsu Skill that he bought using all of his points in the Skill Shop.
"[Chin up, boy! Your customers won't want to buy anything from a kid with a glum face like that!]" The jovial voice of his system, Abacus, decided to break the silence in his mind.
'Abacus you know I've already sold a few, right? About 15% of my stock is already gone.'
"[Right you are, right you are! But that's nothing compared to the other merchants here, no? They're already through at least 23% of theirs on average... Oh! Look alive, we've got an interesting one here.]"
'Hm?'
Kaowru quickly looked up from where he was leaning over and saw a girl with grey hair somewhat older than himself approach the front of his little stall.
"Hi there. According to those signs you're selling low-powered explosive seal tags, right? Do you accept bulk purchases?" She spoke smoothly and cooly, her voice was slightly deeper than other girls around her age that he'd met. Especially his older and younger siblings. Among which he was unfortunately the only boy.
"Um... yeah I think I can do that." Something about this girl was putting him on edge. It was right at the tip of his mind but he couldn't quite figure it out yet.
"Awesome. I need a supply of weak ones like these for my Bukijutsu training, and right now I'm totally out. I want to buy all of them. Looks like there's ten stacks of five left, so according to your prices on that sign, this 1200 Ryo should suffice." She held out a stack of twelve 100-Ryo notes. Which she had pulled out of a small pouch that jingled slightly with the distinct sound of metal objects clinking against each other.
Kaowru gulped. He realised what was putting him on edge.
'Ninja! She's a ninja! She's the first one I've seen since I was reborn with this stupid caravan... No wonder she was putting me on edge, I thought I recognised that type of pouch on her hip from somewhere.' Kaowru was panicking slightly now, but fortunately Abacus was there to help.
"[Oi, kid! Calm down would ya? Just take the money and hand over the stuff, you've got a Quest to complete that requires that you to sell at least 1000 Ryo's worth of goods to a real shinobi, and she's right here making a bulk purchase! Who knows when you'll get another shot like this while your caravan is still treking around in this rain-soaked country?]"
'So she really is a full fledged shinobi? She's not a reincarnator is she?!'
"[Nah kid, Appraisal says her name is Seika, and she's a Genin-level ninja. That's all it says. If she had a system, I'd know it the second you laid eyes on her. And besides, the odds of you running into a system user in a tiny town like this in the middle of nowhere are next to nothing!]"
"Heeeey~! You there? You look like you're spacing out..." Kaowru was snapped back to reality when the girl started speaking to him again.
"Ah! Sorry! Yes, yes I'll just take that and you can have all the tags on display there. Have fun training, or w-whatever!" His voice started to shake near the end there, but he felt like his customer-service training was really pulling him through.
"Nice! You take care now. Buh-bye~!" She spoke in a sing-song tone as she took out a sealing scroll and made his tags vanish into right before his eyes. And on that note she headed out into the crowd, weaving past the people with practiced ease, disappearing behind them.
'Man~ that was so cooooool!' Kaowru immediately logged on to the Global Chat to brag about his small victory.
[-Global Chat-]
[-Reincarnator #9: "Hey guys! Guess who just sold a bunch of explosive tags to a REAL LIFE NINJA?!"-]
[-Reincarnator #6: "Congratulations. My own shinobi training hasn't started yet... My caretakers are rather stubborn so they wanted me to wait until I turn six first. Fortunately, that is tomorrow."-]
[-Reincarnator #2: "Yeah yeah that's real neat I guess. I'm already busy training so I'm already way ahead of y'all."-]
[-Reincarnator #9: "Yeah but have you ever got both 1200 Ryo AND a completed quest objective from selling at least 1000 Ryo's worth of goods to a shinobi, at the same time? Didn't think so >B^) ."-]
[-Reincarnator #2: "D-Did you just sunglasses-emoji me in the god-damned Global Chat? How did you even do that? This chat is supposed to pull the words right out of our minds to match our vocal patterns! Ah whatever... I can't lie even I'm a bit jealous at those rewards. I get like basically zero pocket money and my Harem system won't freaking activate until I hit puberty..."-]
[-Reincarnator #4: "Worth noting that number #1 still exists, number #2. You're not ahead of ALL of us >B^) ."-]
[-Reincarnator #2: "Man... I sure hope this emoji doesn't become a running gag where everyone spams it at me every time I speak."-]
[-Reincarnator #7: "Well we would have, but now you've ruined it by pointing it out. Great job, I guess. Early Happy Birthday BTW, number #6!"-]
[-Reincarnator #11: "H-Happy birthday..."-]
The conversation went off track from there and Kaowru decided to log out.
All in all it had been a good day for him, if a somewhat unnecessarily tense one for his liking.
- - -
Seija slinked out of the crowd and back out into the forest, dropping her transformation and donning her mask as she went.
'Alright Firewall, how do we do this? By the way, what was that alert you gave me right as I was walking up to the kid?'
"[His system used a Skill, 'Appraisal', on you. Naturally, I parried it and gave back false information about you. 'Seika' was the name I gave you, and your job was 'Genin-level ninja']"
"[Regardless, simply place the tags out in front of you. I will handle the rest.]"
She did so, and watched as the glowing, digital light around the first of the fifty tags faded and vanished. She picked the tag up and tried to activate it on a short fuse, but nothing happened, just as expected.
As Firewall worked his way through the 45th tag, she received a new notification.
[-Your system, Great Firewall, has levelled up!-]
'That feels rather early.'
"[I have not yet had the chance to engage my defenses against enemy systems directly, so parrying that Appraisal gave me a lot of experience for the first time. Without that, even all fifty of these bombs would not be enough to push me over to level 2. Speaking of which, the bombs are all disarmed.]"
'Ok, so what does this level get us?'
"[Mostly just more of the same when it comes to my abilities. My active defense range has increased from 10 meters to 25. As such my passive detection range has increased to 250 meters. And I am now more effective against all other systems. Notably, we can now encounter lower levelled systems thanks to my level no longer being the lowest possible. I will be able to overwealm them much easier, I may even be able to temporarily cut the systems off from their users entirely as long as they remain within 25 meters of you.]"
"[Due to the way that levels work, the next one will be some time away. It will take more than ten times the experience, so eventually we will need to become more proactive in seeking reincarnators out in the future.]"
- - - - -
That had been a good day. Teasing that reincarnator was fun. As expected, being in a merchant caravan that mostly sold food meant that he never would've interracted with a real shinobi like her, and it was satisfying to watch his eyes flick between his system-menu, her face, the money in her hand, and her hip pouch full of loose shuriken and kunai.
Seija once more shrugged off the feeling that she was missing something, now long-since used to it even before her third birthday, and continued her training. Tomorrow her mother would take a few days off to teach her some Hyuga Taijutsu, which she didn't see herself using much due to how recognisable the stances were, but she readily accepted more training whenever she could get it.
