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Bridge Chapter 12 (Training is a bitch)
🕑 Added 2024-09-07 09:18:15 +0000 UTCThis is fucking ridiculous. How am I this weak!? My body was sweating and shaking and I had only done two pushups. I felt like I was about to die and I did not even manage to get a point of STR for this.
If I allowed my boosted stats to come into play I could do plenty of pushups without breaking a sweat but that defeats the purpose of exercise. If I was not pushing myself then I would not get any results. It was a simple notion but one that I wished was not true considering my current state.
I flopped helplessly on the floor and gave myself some time to recover. I guess my reference to Kuruko was not just about his presence I apparently shared his physical fitness….No, that was not fair to the basketball player. The guy may be a pip-squeak but he still played a high-intensity sport.
I could not even say any remarks about his height as I was a literal child now. God, I can’t wait for this bullshit to end. I did not have a proper measurement of my height but it was probably around 4’6 if I had to guess.
I felt a little frustrated as even back in my old body when I was 11 I was nearing 5 feet at this age. I grew quickly and I grew well but god I might not even break 6 feet at the rate I was growing. I gave a tentative look at my hands and the hair falling around me.
I will say that I probably came out much better in terms of looks at least. I looked absolutely adorable if you ignored the red eyes. My skin was a bit pale but I was a fucking vampire. I was also apparently Japanese now.
I was Asian before but I was used to my skin tone being closer to wood than this pale k-pop look. Sometimes people forget about Thailand but Asians come in browns as well. Well, I guess I could not fire any shots here as I usually discounted Indians as well and they had the right to call themselves Asians as well.
I was a fan of anime and was most certainly a weeb so being Japanese was okay I guess. It was just not something I saw coming.
I let out a sigh and rubbed my face. Laying on the ground feeling helpless led me to think about all my worries. Instead of being distracted by my new powers or the hope for the future, I was pondering the past. I did not think I could miss my previous life but as my body shook from the force I used.
I was just going to have to deal with it. I had so much to look forward to after all. Even if I’m feeling rather low right now.
Wait, why the fuck was I waiting around for my body to recover. I had magic. I could recover most of my energy with some common spells I knew. Fuck, I did not even need to use magic I just had to stop repressing my vampiric side with magic and I will recover just fine.
I felt like an idiot as my body felt flush with Vitality once more. I had so many tools at my disposal but I was just not thinking about what would be the most effective.
For example my use of Item Empowerment. Sure the coat of concealment that I was making was certainly something that I thought I needed but I had other options. I could Empower an Item to help me gain stats at a faster rate.
Both of those items had their pros and cons but one of them was better for me long term. I cast an idle glance at the shadows of my room for a second. Okay, maybe the concealing coat was the right move to make.
I just want to prioritize my own safety after all. So having a coat that would effectively make everyone ignore my presence will be fantastic. I could already tell that the intensity with which the guard was watching me had faded slightly. He still had a duty to uphold so he was actively looking at me but he was no longer so intense about it.
The lack of his gaze boring into my back told me that. That was the result of my coat and it was still a relatively brand new item. Okay, maybe my pathetic display of physique has also played a part in this.
It's rather hard to take a child seriously after he did two push-ups and looked like he was about to die. Then again I was rather surprised he took me seriously at all. Most people overlooked children after all.
I suppose that is the fault of this world instead of a common conception. Naruto is a world in which children become soldiers after all.
Hashirama had a dream about making a world in which children did not have to die but he failed at that. Well, that's not necessarily true as his establishment of the Ninja Village system did save most children from the battlefield. It's just that war will always come and Shinobi are powerful even when they are young.
Madara's own thoughts about taking over the ninja world through force would have probably led to a more peaceful place. It's kind of a shit situation to agree with the villain of the story but Hashirama's failed system was clear for anyone to see.
True peace would not come for this world until Kaguya caused everyone to unite against her. In the face of some grand evil the people united as one and those bonds forged in struggle gave the world peace.
At least that's the notion that was sold at the end of the Naruto anime. I figure that it was only Naruto and Sasuke's overwhelming might that caused everyone to back down. Sure there is some good will between the villages but when the next generation comes through war might come again.
Fallout made a rather apt statement after all. War never changes. Humans are greedy and we will always want more and it is only in the face of absolute destruction that we going are to get some sort of peace.
I shook off the rather moody and philosophical thoughts and got back to exercising. I had to repress my vampiric side again to get an easy sort of result but that was the price I had to pay. As my arms started to shake again I honestly considered using my next pool of Item Empowerment on a tool to increase training speed.
I was rewarded another point of STR for my valiant efforts. Just another 47 more points and I'll have a perk of strength. God this is going to take a while. Thankfully I have the rest of eternity.
I tried to continue my workout but the door to my room slammed open startling me.
Standing in the doorway was Mika and she had a happy expression on her face.
“There you are!” She shouted out as she entered the room. I kind of froze mid-push-up at seeing her like this. She had been rather happy previously but I did not expect her to face me with this amount of joy.
I finished my push-up with shaky arms and got up. Sweat was clearly dripping down from my frame. Mika was looking at me with a tilt of her head as if she was confused about something.
“You were looking for me? I asked hesitantly as her energy was throwing me off. She nodded vigorously at me and then pointed at me with some stars in her eyes.
“It took forever even Toru-san forget about you and he was the one that brought you here!” She shouted out. Her words caused me to gain a flat look and I wanted to roll my eyes.
Even the fucking bartender forgot about me. I’m an immortal vampire who could jump between dimensions. I deserved to be remembered. I brought her fucking mother back to life! Be shocked! Bow in my presence! Don’t leave me alone with some random guy!
Wait a moment. I made my Coat diminish my presence. Did they fucking forget about me because of my coat? That would make sense but it was not that strong when they left….Fuck it, it does not matter if I’m partially at fault here I was still going to blame them.
“Well, you found me what you need short stuff?” I let out lightly as I patted the young girl's head. She pouted at being treated like a child even though she was literally a child. I felt rather conflicted about her due to my probable bindings.
Still, even if I was feeling conflicted I felt like I would have helped her anyway.
“Mei and mom are still in a meeting and they won’t let me talk to anyone because I know stuff. So I can only find you.” She let out sourly as if bemoaning her current state.
I raised an eyebrow at her statement as she brought some information to me. The older redheads were hiding me from the general populace here. They even maybe hiding me from the other clans as well.
I could certainly understand why that would be the case. I had already told the older redheads that I had a limited pool of resurrections. It would be for the best of their own interests if that pool was dedicated entirely to their Clan.
Then again that was coming from the perspective of a greedy individual like myself. Maybe I was assigning motive when there really was nothing more to read here.
“Not sure how I feel about being your absolute last choice but I'm here if you need me.” I let out with a small smile on my face.
I did feel rather sour about being ignored but it was not too bad.
“Good you can help me train, you seemed super strong.” She let out with a determined look on her face. Again I raised an eyebrow with the words coming out of her.
I expected her to ask me to play games with her. Or to even just be a listener to her problems. I suppose I should not have assigned such childish motives upon the child. Mika was someone who grew up in a war-torn world. So it would only make sense that she had different priorities.
This is the world where power represents absolutely everything. It represented your ability to gather wealth and fame for yourself. It represented the ability to express your opinion no matter what anyone else says. It represented the ability to protect what is oh so dear to you. So strength should be something idolized even in the smallest of children.
I did not really need to play around with this girl right now. I had my own training to take care of after all. Should I really spend some of my very valuable time training a child because that's what she wanted?
I looked at her shining and expectant eyes and let out to sigh. I had a bit of a soft spot for her so I might as well play along with this game.
I can work on some of my skills while training her instead of my stats. I did eventually want to reach complete and utter mastery of the Kaleidoscope after all. I could not use the World Travel function of the skill at the moment but I could fiddle around with all the tricks that that Immortal vampire knew.
It's going to take a rather long time for me to reach that Mastery but every little step was important. I would also take some amount of pleasure in avoiding the stress that working out was giving me.
“Well, I certainly have some free time I'll train with you. You got anything you want to work on in particular?” I asked for the light smile on my face as we walked out of my room.
She responded in a rather animated fashion listing all the things she was working on. It was a lot of ninjutsu and Battle Tactics and I couldn't exactly help too much at that. But I would do what I could for the little one.
