"...sensei said it would be hard, because I'm young and the chunin exams are very dangerous, but he thinks I'm ready!" She seemed really proud of herself. Meanwhile, Ray was trying to figure out when he was on Naruto's universe, seeing that the Konoha hitai-ate on his sister's gloves gave away the where.
And who was she, by the way? He knew of two kunoichi with purple hair in Konoha: Anko and Yuugao. But, who knows? It could be someone that died at some point before Naruto's graduation or someone from Boruto — gods, please don't.
Fortunately, she had just given him a decisive hint. She was young, ten years old at most. Despite that, she was already chunin material. Ray knew the students were rushed out of Konoha's Academy during the shinobi wars and after the Kyuubi attack due to sheer necessity, while the opposite happened in peaceful times. That's why geniuses like Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Itachi and Jiraya graduated at around six, give or take a year, while prodigies like Neji and Sasuke graduated at twelve like everyone else.
Of course, these two weren't nearly as good as those three, which means they wouldn't graduate that early, but they could have graduated two to four years earlier than the average shinobi. Even Iruka had graduated a year earlier!
In other words, this girl was either Yuugao or someone else that didn't appear in the anime, because Anko was promoted to chunin on her first try when she was twelve. Assuming she really was Yuugao, then he was... well, born, at around the time Kurama was released in Konoha. Her identity as Yuugao still needed confirmation, though.
The girl put him back in the cradle, and Ray noticed her expression had drastically changed. She wore a sad smile.
"How are you feeling today, Reiji-kun?", she said. Ray had to find out why she called him Reiji. "Are you in pain?"
Huh? Why would I be?
All the energy she showed before was gone. She had a way to show her feelings through her whole body, and now her legs came closer to each other in a position that weakened her balance, her shoulders were lowered, and her eyes... were tearing up...
Ray couldn't understand. That's not right. Is there something wrong with me? She wiped her tears away, but more started to form. Ray didn't like that. He didn't know this girl, he didn't even know her name. Still... she was crying because of him. He couldn't allow it, damn it.
"...woowai."
Don't cry, he tried to say, but his undeveloped vocal chords would not allow it. What could he do? He tried to get up, but he wasn't strong enough to do that. He had to say something she would understand.
Quest Alert!
Make your sister stop crying!
Rewards:
+Rep with your sister.
+1 CHA
Ray blinked. That's convenient. Did I just create a quest for myself? I'll have to look into that later... His sister was still crying, after all. Sister, huh? Let's try something.
"...owee... owee-wuann... owee-chuan...", was the best he could do. It was frustrating, but also...
Ping!
A new skill has been created through a specific action!
[Baby Skill: Talk (Passive) lv-1 (99% to go)]
A skill that allows you to talk!
Limitations: You can only say the name of those close to you.
...Rewarding.
Ohh, yeah, now I've got this.
"Onee-chan", he said. His voice was still childish, and he couldn't properly connect the syllables, so he could only hope she would understand.
She did.
"Wh-wh-what?! Reiji-kun, did you just say your first world?!"
Well, she wasn't crying anymore. She was, instead, looking at Ray with wide eyes and an eager look.
Ping!
Quest Completed!
Make your sister stop crying!
Reward:
+1 CHA
+Rep with your sister
With a quick look at his status' page, he noticed his CHA attribute had, indeed, been raised by one. He wondered if he could access the reputation page as well... Fortunately, he remembered it wasn't a good idea to space out and ignore everything around him.
"Onee-chan", he repeated, and his sister... Well, Ray must give her some credit, because she managed to hold her girlish squeal for five whole seconds before giving in to her primal instincts and giving any of Sasuke's fangirls a run for their money. Then, she hugged him so tightly it hurt, and Ray thought he was gonna die.
When she finally released him, Ray turned his attention to the box floating just beside his head.
-4 hp
Whoa, she managed to give me a small amount of damage, ha ha. Wait a minute, thanks to that mysterious status, my max hp is halved, which means...
HP: 1/10
HOLY SHIT I ALMOST DIED! WHAT THE FUCK!
He took a deep breath, or several, before he managed to calm himself. Okay, that was close. I need to find out what the hell is taking away half of my HP because that would have been a ridiculous way to die in a game.
His sister then proceeded to repeatedly ask him to say onee-chan. From an observer's point of view, Ray pondered it would have been an obnoxiously sweet scene. To Ray, it was terrifying. He had 1hp left, and if she hugged him like that again, he would die.
He would fucking die!
The event was not without its benefits, however. Ray mentally kept track of how many times he had to say the words, reaching twenty-seven before the girl decided she should take a shower and go to sleep.
Ray took the opportunity to do some research. Not that kind of research, perverts! This is a ten years old girl we're talking about!
He wanted to find out how much experience he earned towards leveling up his [Talk] skill, and see if there was any pattern to it. Now, how could he access his skill page?
"Err... Skills?" is the adult-translated version of what he said.
A new box appeared. This one was composed of an inner beige rectangle, framed by another of the same color as his status page: bronze. On the inside, there was an image of a baby with a speech balloon connected to its mouth. Ray touched it, and the same red box from before appeared in front of him:
[Baby Skill: Talk (Passive) lv-1 (73% to go)]
A skill that allows you to talk!
Limitations: You can only say the name of those close to you.
One percent for each time I talked to onee-chan, interesting. The girl managed to imprint that world into his mind, apparently. I want to max this thing as soon as possible and get out of this damn baby nightmare. I don't even care if people start saying I'm some sort of genius, I won't survive the boredom of being a baby for too long!
Ping!
Quest Alert!
[Grown up!]
- Max [Baby Skill: Talk]
- Max [Baby Skill: Walk]
- Max [Baby Skill: Bathroom]
Rewards:
Unlock all remaining functionalities of The Game.
Oh no, please, don't tell me I need to learn how to use the bathroom as well!
Unfortunately for him, babies have no control over what happened to their diapers. Knowing what a toilet seat is and that he had to use it would help a lot, but he might simply not be able to get there it in time.
Okay, let's get this over with. I just have to say "onee-chan" seventy times more to get it to level two, right? I wonder what is the maximum level of this thing... Well, at least no one is looking.
"Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan..."
Unfortunately for him, hiding just outside his room and keeping watch over the house, there was a masked man now very concerned for his mental health.
Plus, every siscon in the world, no matter where they were or what they were doing, suddenly fell to their knees and started to drop tears of joy for no apparent reason.
"...Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan."
Seventy-three... Oh, finally! I thought I would go insane there for a moment, or worse, develop a crush on my sister...
The weird thing is that he didn't hear a ping! when he was finished. He tried saying it three more times just to be sure, but nothing happened.
He sighed.
"Skills", and his status screen appeared in front of his eyes. He touched the Talk icon, and this is what it said:
[Baby Skill: Talk (Passive) lv-1 (66,4% to go)]
A skill that allows you to talk!
Limitations: You can only say the name of those close to you.
What?! It only went up by 7,6%, what a bul-... oh, I get it. I only get 10% of the experience when I'm practicing, compared to using it for real. I wonder if the same thing applies to other skills, especially the combat oriented ones.
That was a good information to have.
Also... Now that I think about it... Do I want to become a shinobi and take the combat route?
He could peacefully live his life and let things sort themselves out. With his knowledge of the future, he could survive any conflict by merely not being at the wrong places at the wrong times, like Konoha during the chunin exams...
What a silly question.
...But this is Ray we are talking about. That possibility never even crossed his mind.
I'll be the best damn ninja is this world, and explore the shit out of this Game thing so hard Madara will piss himself in fear by the time he is resurrected!
Oh, if only he knew.
Ray noticed something weird. No, weird doesn't cut it, it was downright scary. By now, he was sure enough his sister was Yuugao, even if he had no real confirmation of it. The clothes were a dead giveaway.
But that's not the scary part, not at all.
When a ten years old girl walked through his door, calling him "Reiji-kun" — What the fuck does Reiji even means?! —, Ray just assumed she was the first person in the house to see him after he woke up in this world. When she laid down to sleep in a bed next to his cradle, he concluded he lived in her room, and that her parents were sleeping or something. When the following morning came and went without anyone other than Yuugao giving the slightest hint of living in the house, Ray felt something was wrong. But when a genin showed up to take care of him as part of a D-Rank mission, there was no denying it.
Yuugao lives alone.
That's right. Yuugao was the only person living in the house, with children occasionally appearing to take care of him.
I've been adopted by a ten years old girl that is legally considered an adult because she is a soldier. And since she spends a lot of time dealing with missions and training, there is a freaking genin just outside my room doing whatever the fuck he wants instead of watching out for me. A baby. With zero fucking years of life.
Ray was pissed. He didn't really have a reason to be worried about himself, since all his necessities were being tended to without delay and the genin was surprisingly attentive. He once faked a gag, just to see if he would notice, and the boy was by his side in no time.
It's just... How the fuck is a ten years old allowed to adopt a baby by herself? Shouldn't I be in Konoha's Orphanage or with a real family, with adults taking care of me?! I might have an adult's maturity, but they don't fucking know that! How the hell did the Hokage allow such a thing? It makes no sense at all!
Ping!
Huh? I didn't do anything(/I), Ray thought. He was surprised by the blue box appearing in front of him.
Plot hole discovered!
How is it possible that you were adopted by a ten years old? Why would anyone allow such a thing?
Find out before The Author starts to look bad!
Wait, what the hell, The Author?!
Oh shit, my bad, I forgot you can't break the fourth wall.
Quest Alert!
[Plot Hole pt1]
Find out why you were allowed to be adopted by a ten years old girl.
Rewards:
?
What the... Did the screen just change?
No, it didn't.
Huh, I feel like I was spacing out, but I forgot what I was thinking about, weird...
The following few days consisted basically of Ray trying to stand up while supported by his cradle's bars and saying onee-chan whenever was socially acceptable if Yuugao was close, or if he felt his sanity wouldn't suffer too much.
Thankfully, his [Baby Skill: Talk] took no more than a day to reach level 2, and he was finally released from being the number one religious symbol of every siscon in the elemental nations. Or so he would like to think.
[Baby Skill: Talk (Passive) lv-2 (100% to go)]
A skill that allows you to talk!
Limitations: You can only say the name of the things you are familiar with.
He also noticed it would take twice the amount of effort to bring it to level two. That was an important information to have. He wondered if every skill would follow that pattern...
And if you think his sister was astonished when Ray started to say words like "food", "toy", "hug", "hurts", and a few others just a day after he had spoken his first ones ever, imagine the poor ANBU outside the house.
The poor guy... This is a snippet from his mission report of what happened from his point of view:
At 3:13 pm, he started his chant again, and a deep shiver traveled down my spine.
"...Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan. Onee-chan..."
Pause.
"...Food. Food. Water. Ray. Baby..."
Pause. I can't understand how a child could suddenly learn and start to pronounce new words!
"...Death", he finally said.
And I seriously passed out after hearing it.
I am formally requesting to be rearranged as soon as possible.
I am also requesting to be allowed into psychotherapy sections within the Yamanaka clan compound.
The guy was allowed two days off to recover from his nightmare-inducing experience, and was convinced by his therapist that he had heard things wrong because he was too bored with his work when suddenly presented with an unexpected situation, or something along these lines. Now, he was back at Ray's window, keeping watch.
Ray did manage to bring his [Baby Skill: Talk] up to level three:
[Baby Skill: Talk (Passive) lv-3 (88,625% to go)]
A skill that allows you to talk!
Limitations: You can formulate very basic sentences.
Fortunately, he thought it was wise to hide his progress this time, and put a restriction on himself to only say things he could already say at level two. That was a very wise decision, by the way.
Although he was doing very good progress with his ability to speak, walking was something else altogether. He wasn't even able to get up yet! In fact, he wasn't even able to create the damn skill! Thanks to that, he was bored out of his mind. Well, he would still be bored if he could stand on his cradle, but at least he would have something else to do when he got tired of saying random words for no reason at all.
That's why he decided to start manipulating chakra.
There is no reason I shouldn't be able to, right? Whatever disease is affecting me left five perfectly healthy chakra points I can use. Let's see if I can make something with then.
He brought the palm of his hands together and tried to use his chakra knowledge from another world. That's why he concentrated on his gut, trying to feel something there.
He didn't.
He couldn't keep quiet for more than a couple minutes if his life depended on it. And he didn't really feel anything. It was a painful experience.
That's because I have literally zero control over chakra. It's right there on my status page.
Still, he had nothing better to do. He tried again in the next day, and in the day after that. He spent less time worrying about this [Baby Skills] than chakra control, except for when his sister was around.
It wasn't until the fifth day he had an idea, particularly because he had finally progressed with his ability to walk:
[Baby Skill: Walk (Passive) lv-1 (99,5% to go)]
A skill that allows you to walk!
Limitations: You can do some weird crawling.
Cost: 1 SP per minute.
He passed out after thirty seconds of crawling, by the way. It was humiliating.
But what really made things click in his mind was how he had managed to acquire the ability to craw. It was based on how you learn to move specific muscles in your body you initially couldn't, like winking, moving a single eyebrow or doing that chest bumping thing bodybuilders do. Ray would like to state he has never tried to do it, much less going as far as actually learning it. Don't believe him.
Anyway, to learn how to wink, you would initially move a bunch of muscles around your eyes while trying to isolate the desired ones. Hence, if Yuugao had ever arrived earlier and sneaked into her and Ray's room for some reason, she would have caught a baby trying to move around using motions inspired by a very strange hybrid of a snake and a caterpillar.
...ANBU-san wasn't so lucky.
Nevertheless, it worked.
He decided to apply the same principle to chakra control. He brought his palms together and started with what he was doing before: trying to feel the chakra in his gut. After a few minutes of concentration, he imagined it flowing up the left side of his abdomen, crossing to the right side of his chest, then all the way through his right arm, where he would imagine it being transferred to his left hand, going through his arm and chest, then down the right side of his abdomen. To make it easier to imagine, if Ray's hand were above his head like in a Hindu god statue, he would be trying to make his chakra travel in an 8 pattern.
When he felt he was habituated with the mental path he was to tracing for his chakra, be started to move his muscles alongside with this flow, as if squeezing the chakra forward.
It took a whole day, but against all odds:
Ping!
Through sheer force of will, a lot of meditation and an ingenious method of assuming control of your chakra coils, you have earned a new perk!
[Secret Perk: Chakra Control Prodigy, Rank I]
By learning to control your chakra flow at a very early age, you are sure to become very skilled at it later on!
Bonus: Allows you to train you Chakra Control with a 90% exp penalty.
Ping!
Perks system unlocked!
Ping!
A new skill has been created thanks to a perk!
[Chakra Control Traning (Passive) lv-1 (100% to go)]
A skill that allows you to increase your chakra control!
Bonus: +1 CC per level of this skill.
Recommended training method: Leaf Concentration Exercise.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I'm fucking awesome! Apparently, I'm not even supposed to manipulate chakra at this age!
Ray would deny it if asked at a later date, but he was squealing in an adorable way only a baby could. Totally not cool, bro.
Regardless, he had, indeed, done something no baby should be able to. He had intentionally molded his chakra!
Thankfully for him — with the word him being intentionally ambiguous in this context —, the ANBU operative just outside his window wasn't enough of a sensor to detect the tiny amounts of chakra Ray could manipulate at this point. Especially not with the amount of chakra lingering in the air that he could sense breaking his concentration.
A few hours later, while he was waiting for Yuugao to come home and his SP bar to be refilled, Ray pondered a few things about his game system.
I wonder if there is anything in my perk list. Also, I want to check how much reputation I have with Yuugao. How can I access this information? Hm, maybe if I...
"Reputation", he said. Kinda. A red box appeared in front of him.
Your reputation page is currently unavailable.
Damn. This is not the first time I trip on having "limited Game functionalities". Oh, well.
"Perks", he tried again. This is time, he was rewarded with a bronze window.
Perks:
- ?: ?, ?, -10 CHA, ?, ?, ?.
- ?: ?, ?, ?, ?, +10 LUC, ?, ?, ?.
Oh, you have to be kidding me! More question marks?! ...wait, these perks seem to be identical to my mysterious status, except the first one.
A quick check to his status page, confirmed he was, indeed, missing his last three secret status. The other one was also missing it's only question mark, which is the exact number his first perk had.
That... Is not a coincidence. My mysterious status were probably perks since the beginning, but they couldn't be shown as such because the perk system was still locked. Well, first things first, what is the difference between a status and a perk?
He took a moment to gather the information he had received until now. Considering that I had a "clean diapers" status at one point, I'll go ahead and say that a perk is more like a trait, a part of what I am or what I can do, while a status is something that is affecting me at a given time, like a poison.
But following that line of reasoning, my crippling status is both a part of what I am and a debilitating condition. It's similar to Kimimaro's kekkei genkai and the illness it caused. Well, at least I'm assuming that was the origin of his disease...
Of course, Ray became worried after coming up with that comparison. The idea of having a time bomb tied to his genetic code was not an enticing one. But what could he do? He was a freaking baby. He would have to deal with that later...
(A.N.: Math ahead. Read at your own peril)
A little more than a month later, Ray had done a very good progress with his two [Baby Skills]. Well, actually, there was also a third one, but he refuses to talk about it.
[Baby Skill: Talk (Passive) lv-4 (9,85% to go)]
A skill that allows you to talk!
Limitations: You can talk like a four years old child.
He made sure to only use up to the lv-2 version of [Talk] to avoid drawing too much attention, while gradually moving to lv-3 when communicating with Yuugao. He also stopped leveling when he reached the 10% to go mark. This way, he would have control over when he wanted to max the skill and leave baby mode.
[Baby Skill: Walk (Passive) lv-4 (60,9375% to go)]
A skill that allows you to walk!
Limitations: You can walk on your own, albeit slowly
Cost: 1 SP per minute.
Those skills supplied him with some interesting pieces of information. First, all of his [Baby Skills] required twice as much experience to level up at each level, and likely had a max level of 5. However, his Chakra Control Training followed other rules. It required 15% more experience after each level up.
Regarding SP, Ray noticed that, at first, for every fifty times he emptied his SP, which actually meant he had to empty it a fucking hundred times thanks to being crippled with -50% SP, his max VIT went up by 1, as announced by a ping and a blue box. Consequently, his max SP went up by 1 in his status page. That pattern held until he reached 5 points, then he would need to use twice as much SP to get it to level 6. Also, he generated 1% of his SP per minute he wasn't using it, which means it took fifty minutes to fill the available half of his bar.
Unfortunately, he couldn't practice his [Baby Skill: Walk] when someone was around unless it was Yuugao and she was sleeping. Those moments were a bit rare, luckily, because he was training hard for the chunin exams.
Of course, he was much more interested in understanding chakra than stamina. It wasn't hard to get a leaf, he just had to point to a three and repeatedly say "Pretty. Want!" until Yuugao understood what he was getting at. He could have said "Onee-chan, want leaf. Please", but that would probably get him in trouble too soon.
His CD followed a nearly identical pattern, except he had a -50% CP Regen tag attached to it in addition to his -50% CP, but it actually required half the amount of bars spent, and Ray could easily train it twenty-four hours a day, if you include the time required to regenerate his CP, seeing that even if someone was in the room, caring for him, he just need to wait until said person looked somewhere else for a few seconds and stick the leaf to his forehead. He could hide it with his hand too. Because of those two advantages, he actually had more CD than VIT now.
The first time he tried sticking the damn leaf to his forehead, he passed out in three seconds, and only woke up one hour and forty minutes later. From that, he gathered that his CONTROL meant how much of his chakra was actually used for whatever he wanted to do. The rest went to waste.
Holding the leaf on his head required 1 CP per minute, but since his CONTROL was at a ridiculous 1%, Ray actually used 100 CP per minute. His CP pool only had 5 points into it, thanks to his -50% CP status, hence why Ray couldn't hold the leaf for more than three seconds. The worst part was that thanks to having -50% CP Regen, it took him twenty minutes to get back one chakra point.
Ray was smart enough to choose if he wanted to pass out or not by not allowing his CP or SP to reach zero. In other words, he abused this concept and passed out from SP exhaustion all the time, except when he knew Yuugao would be coming home. Doing that slowed his SP training just a little bit, like less than one percent or something, but it was totally worth. He just made sure bring his CP to 1 before passing out, since he would need every second of it to make up for receiving -90% experience towards his Chakra Control Exercise for being a baby. Thankfully, having a healthy sleeping cycle was fully optional thanks to The Game.
After such hard work, this is what he got:
"Status", he whispered.
Ray, The Baby Gamer
Level - 0 (Locked)
HP - 30/60
SP - 2.5/5
CP - 35/70
CONTROL - 1%
Allegiance - None
STR - 0
VIT - 5
DEX - 0
INT - ?
CHA - 0 (+20 - 10) = 10
CD - 7
CC - 1
LUC - 10
Points - 0R
Money - 0R
Ray is a baby. He sleeps a lot, eats when he feels like doing it and still needs diapers.
Status:
Baby - Limited Game functionalities
- ?. Effects: -50% HP, -90% HP Regen, -50% SP, -50% CP, -50% CP Regen.
Perks:
- ?. Effects: ?, ?, -10 CHA, ?, ?, ?.
- ?. Effects: ?, ?, ?, ?, +10 LUC, ?, ?, ?.
- ?. Effects: ?, ?, ?.
[Chakra Control Traning (Passive) lv-1 (76.6% to go)]
A skill that allows you to increase your chakra control!
Bonus: +1 CC per level of this skill.
Recommended training method: Leaf Sticking.
That's... Not very good, honestly. However, I have twelve years until Konoha's Crush. That is one hundred and forty-four times the amount of training I had until now. I'll be so strong by then I could probably kill the snake bastard myself.
Oh, if only he knew.
Thank you SO MUCH for your awesome support! Seriously, 100 followers in a week? 500 views? Around 70 favorites? TWELVE reviews?!
I was so happy I went out of my way to write this chapter as fast as I did. I'm still a novice, and english is not my first language; it takes a LOT of time to write a single chapter like this! But I'm certainly getting faster, and hopefully better as well.
Moving on. Most people correctly guesses Yuugao. I had this planned for quite a while, but I did occasionally consider swapping her with Anko... It's just that I have things in mind that requires Yuugao where she is. I'm surprised no one remembered Konan has purple hair as well, tho.
Regarding this chapter, I had planned to finish The Baby Arc, but I didn't want to write more than 5k words, and I really wanted to post this while I have exactly one hundred followers. Symbology and all that.
Anyway, what are Ray's mysterious perks? Also, did you like my attempt at mixing some comedy into the narrative? Please tell me what you think in a review. It is VERY motivating to read one, even if it only has a single word in it :)
See ya o/