"POOF!"

"Huh, Where did he go?"

What Shin punched next was a wooden log. His malicious, ambiguous grin shifted to uncertainty as smoke appeared out of nowhere.

He turned around already disoriented, but when he realized that his cousin had vanished alongside his "package," he was confused.

Seconds later, confusion soon led to panic when he thought of the implications involved. When the teenage boy was sweating, grinding his teeth, the wind swooshed, and two shadows emerged before him.

As soon as he recognized the more prominent, terrifying figure of the man, the latter glared doubtfully and asked:

"What's happening here?"

The teen stammered and trembled about to break from the familiar pressure the necromancer often gave when he was enforcing.

It wasn't long before a helper rushed though, after he also noticed the commotion.

...

Half an hour later,

"What was all that about?"

Hibari had rushed through the forest with his ex sister in law. As he used the substitution jutsu, he decided to be practical. He knew his cousin better than he wanted to.

Since the fight he wanted to avoid wasn't going to end anytime soon, he took matters into his hands and escaped with the distressed damsel before the rabid mustang could figure the trick.

Besides the darkness, the few sly methods picked up after two months of the Shinobi lifestyle; the white mist did an efficient job of leaving his reckless kinsman blindsided.

But even if he was happy, he didn't need to be so covert with the rest of his clansmen, mainly due to his puny Mana, he needed to clarify the young lady's situation when they finally left the compound.

He wasn't the girl's babysitter, so he wouldn't take her home. He didn't help her because he liked her, but having Shin assault the lady at the Genjo's estate was a recipe for war between the two clans.

They were currently seated at a café out of the neighborhood when he finally decided to break the silence and ask the girl what happened.

...

Mayumi shook her head, signifying probably that she couldn't tell me.

"You're really going to be that way?" I asked her for one last time.

"I'm sorry, Hibari. I'm thankful how you defended me from Shin, but it wasn't needed." She replied and slumped her shoulders.

"Is that so?" I honestly couldn't care any longer, not even mad, just regretful.

"You know your way back." I sipped on the glass of milkshake one last time and put a bill on the table.

As my hand touched the door, I didn't even flinch when the girl stood up and declared:

"Thank you, Hibari! You're a good guy."

I left the place, memorizing how Nakazawas' commitments and words were not to be taken seriously. My current state of mind was probably going to make this statement a lie in the days to come.

...

When I got home, the thoughts of dining with the family were long gone. I didn't know what Shin was doing right now, but after the small exchange we had, I felt urgency.

Seeing how Mayumi acted even when I went out of my way to save her, someone I should be hating, any potential plan to disturb my cousin's future activities was forgotten.

No, what left me concerned, was my position in the family and the world. The girl I had saved called me a nice person, something I would typically have been glad about.

That is if I didn't notice the oddities and contradictions shown in her behavior. I didn't have the energy to be concerned about why Shin would know more than I did, why my uncle would forbid me entrance, or why the girl would be secretive.

If I didn't learn the substitution jutsu in the first place, I wouldn't have been able to figure out this much. So starting from that night, the wheels in my mind started to turn.

I needed to reach a level of strength where people would be forced to talk to me as an equal. A level of power others couldn't identify me as the "nice" but useless guy. One, they didn't want to share anything with.

Even if it was probably the last time, I would help that girl or anyone from that clan in particular.

As I returned home and tried to clear my thoughts before I jumped back inside the digital world for very long this time, I stared relaxedly at the poster of a young Sasuke on the ceiling.

It was the scene where he put his fingers together to perform his ever-famous fireball technique for the first time. Even if getting the bell from his teacher's hands was on his mind, the boy was putting his fingers together very adeptly to perform the seals.

"Wait a minute, seals?" Something clicked in my mind at that moment. I jumped up from the bed fiercely and raced for the computer. As my hands were using the mouse and the keyboard frenziedly, I clicked on the first useful and interesting-looking image that appeared after I correctly and used Google for what it was made for.

As I looked at the hand seals, probably performed by the one-eyed jonin because of the black gloves, I sat down on the chair, sighed in exhaustion and shame before I complained bitterly:

"What is life?"