SO: CHAPTER 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2

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Kids of Konohagakure usually graduate from the Academy from the age of 11 to 12. Now since Raki's 12-years-old, her graduation exam is approaching.

In a month, to be precise.

So after the other girl sat down and exchanged greetings with Raki, Raki immediately asked her the important question.

"Damn, so you're the Hyuga clan heiress? Does that mean you know all the three jutsus needed to graduate from the academy…?" Raki munched on her food while asking the girl in front of her, the girl with Byakugan, Hinata Hyuga.

Hinata was blushing, her face bright red, as she slowly nodded. "Y-yes… I know them well enough."

"Really?" Raki feigned surprise. "That's so awesome! I can't even properly perform one! You're really amazing, Hinata! Oh, calling you just Hinata is fine, isn’t it? I don't have to use honorifics, right? Right?"

Honorifics were cringe as hell. She never used honorifics in her life, not even on her brother. She knew that she had to do it here, and she would do that to feign respect to the higher-ups, but at the very least she didn't want to use them on kids. Not even if the kid was a clan heiress.

Hinata nodded slowly. "I-it's fine."

"Mhm, so nice of you! Then can you teach me the jutsus, pretty please?" Raki's shoulders fell with a sad expression. "You know, I’m an orphan, so I have no parents…  so teachers always treat me badly… you saw it earlier, didn't you? Forgive me if it's too much to ask…"

Hinata's eyes widened as pity flashed in her eyes for a moment. "O-of course not, please don't be sad! I-I will help you learn them!"

Raki's expression visibly brightened. "Thanks, then how about you come to my house this evening? There you can teach me how to do it. You'll come right?"

Hinata didn’t look too enthusiastic at this. "Uh… I have to return home immediately after school ends… or my father would get worried."

"Oh…" Raki's expression lowered. "I see…" she sighed deeply. "I understand… I only asked you because I saw you as a friend since I have none… so I was lonely and all that, you know…? But of course, how could an orphan ever be friends with a clan heir…?"

Raki sighed once again, and Hinata's face reddened the more flustered she got. "N-no, t-that's not what I meant…! Please, forgive me! F-fine, I will come to your house after school!" She said in a heartbeat.

Raki smiled and jumped around the table, taking the seat beside Hinata, making sure their shoulders were touching.

—★—

The classes that came next were teached by Iruka, who was far better than Mizuki, the white-haired teacher who punished Raki.

Iruka was raving about the responsibilities that all the students had in the development of the village, regardless if they passed the graduation exam or not. Raki found all that useless, so she simply observed the other students around her, while sitting besides Hinata.

There was the main trio—Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Raki didn't like any of them. Besides the problem she had with the anime, Raki actually wasn't interested in guys, which already excluded Naruto and Sasuke from her mind of interest. Since she liked girls however, that left Sakura—but that girl was probably the most trashy character in this dimension. Trash as in, she had talent, enough to become the strongest Kunoichi one day, but Raki just didn't like the bitch. Not at all. Which excluded Sakura from her mind of interest too.

In the end, she found no one worthy of note. Which made her realise that she should lower her standard quite a bit as this world was way too pathetic to reach her especially high standards…

But then again, what the hell was she even doing? She wasn't here to build an army or whatever here. She simply wanted to get her powers back as soon as possible, no matter the means, and then return to her home where she would pay back her bastard of a brother. ...On the way, she might as well take the time to enjoy some beautiful girls here and there, but that's about it.

So, she simply observed the students for a bit longer before classes were finally over... and Raki led Hinata towards her house.

On their way home, Raki's eyes moved around the street.

There were food stalls, restaurants, labour workers, ninjas and kids everywhere. People were smiling, laughing and joking, some were arguing between themselves but stopped immediately when a ninja came to calm them down. It didn't look so different from a usual village, except for the addition of Ninjas.

"Wow, the village is pretty crowded huh?" Raki asked, to which Hinata nodded.

"Yes… It's all thanks to the First Hokage, he gave his all to found the village. He made everything organised and peaceful before his death."

Raki glanced at Hinata's face from the side. 'Dang, this village is brainwashing kids… wow.'

Kinda like how her brother used to brainwash her. That bastard. Because of this, she kinda related to Hinata a bit…

After walking for two more minutes, the two small girls finally reached a small two-story building, coloured in a matching of white and yellow. This was the best thing Raki's 'father' bestowed her before his death.

The building was made for her, around 6-years ago, meaning it didn't look that bad… at least compared to the orphanage where others like her lived.

Raki undid the lock and pushed the door open before walking in, Hinata followed behind her.

"Sorry, this may be a little too messy for a clan princess." She said as she took the stairs to the upper floor, followed closely by a flustered Hinata.

"Please stop saying that… didn't you call me your friend? N-nobody called me that upon the first meeting, you know?" Hinata softly said, jogging to catch up with Raki who was already on the second floor, where all the windows were closed, and thus had little light.

Instead of opening those windows, Raki lit the light bulb. Seeing Hinata's confusion, she began to explain.

"I don't want any stray Anbus peeking in… I would be so embarrassed if they saw me asking for help from a girl my age. That's not a problem, is it?"

Of course, that wasn't entirely true. The truth was, she just didn't want a stray Anbu to see her perform the three jutsus on her first try after just observing Hinata.

Raki, before gaining her consciousness, was the epitome of 'Average'. It's as if she was an average computer program, coded  to be average. So, her talents were also average, which was just enough to get her into the Academy, yet not enough for her to graduate from it. Despite what Raki told Hinata, the previous Raki could actually perform the three Jutsus, albeit barely. She needed a better example, someone who would let her observe from a close distance without being creeped out. Which was exactly why she brought Hinata in here.

"Let's not waste time and get into it." Raki said to Hinata. "Please, start with the Transformation Jutsu."

Hinata nodded, a bit embarrassed seeing Raki attentively staring at her from the edge of the bed.

"Mhm… okay."

Hinata moved her hands to form hand signs. They were sluggish, deliberately slowed down for Raki to see them. Raki observed how Hinata's hands made signs and formed symbols.

As Raki had said before, she had eye-related powers similar to the Sharingan in the past. Along with some super convenient things that the Sharingan could never achieve, it allowed her to copy all moves and movements. Now that she didn't have those eyes, it was kinda annoying to follow the gestures using her normal eyes. But she was still an experienced fighter, so as Hinata's hand signs ended, causing a puff of smoke to burst out of her, Raki had by then understood how the jutsu worked.

It's not all about hand signs, somethings happened with the chakra inside but Raki could  already guess what from the knowledge present in her mind.

The smoke around Hinata dissipated and another Raki appeared from it.

A petite, thin, and a rather beautiful girl stood in front of Raki. She had a small face with sharp canines and fair skin. Her eyes were large while their corners were angled upwards, with a beauty mark underneath one eye. Her hair was short and fine, black in colour just like her eyes, and reached just above her shoulders.

Raki looked like a younger and ugly version of her former self. But then again, what was 'ugly' to her, was stunning by this world's standards. She looked cute, some might say more so than Hinata herself if not for the shabby clothes.

"Oh… gorgeous." Raki said as the fake one blushed. But Hinata had misunderstood, Raki was praising herself. "Let me try!"

Hinata nodded, cancelling her transformation as it was too straining for her youthful chakra paths.

Raki stood up from the bed and concentrated. She took in a deep breath, replaying the hand signs in her mind before she went into it herself.

Hand signs are a way to move chakra through the body in a rhythm that is hard to achieve by normal means. If a person has good chakra control, they would need fewer hand signs than others, because then they would be able to move their chakra in the required rhythm just by their own thought.

When her older brother erased her powers, her talent and experience with energy manipulation were also gone.

On a side note, she basically lost everything that counted as 'Power', which included the many battle techniques she knew from other universes. Though not all of them were lost since she noted ‌some techniques were still present in her mind,  as long as they were below the limit of this world. But not like that made any changes, since each Universe has its own laws, and sometimes many techniques that are considered basics in one universe would be impossible to pull off in another universe.

Either way, even though she lost her knowledge and experience on energy manipulation, she copied the hand signs with ease, which by itself moved her chakra through her channels in the required rhythm.

Seeing Raki perfectly executing all hand signs, Hinata's eyes widened as a puff of smoke covered Raki's body, before a tall, stunning woman appeared in front of her.

A leather coat hung from her shoulders and leather pants were tightened around her legs while she wore a white shirt with loose buttons. Her eyes were bright gold and had slit pupils, holding a sense of absolute superiority present in them.

It was an adult version of Raki.

[Image Here]

"Oh…" Hinata blinked, her blush deepening as she stared in shock. "That was quick… y-you're quite talented, Raki."

Raki looked at her body, smiling. "Oh? Thanks, I guess. I think-"

However, she couldn't finish her words as smoke surrounded her once again and her transformation was undone.

"..."

Raki, small and young again, deadpanned while Hinata smiled nervously.

"Looks like you don't have enough chakra… guess we have to try the other two Jutsus tomorrow."

"..."

Raki stood in her spot, her face blank as she whimpered in her mind.

The mindless-Raki could perform all three at once, but that was because her Jutsus weren't perfect, which needed less chakra. But now that Raki has done the perfect version of the jutsu, it clearly cost her more chakra. An amount of chakra that was enough to make her chakra-pool go almost empty.

'How am I so weak…?' Raki wiped an internal tear. 'If only broth- wait, no. He's the one who did this, that bastard!'

With that, Hinata quickly apologised and returned home, just as the day ended.

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