Who are you?

Part 5

She made sure to wait enough for the two women to leave the shop before going in. It was an old shop. There were boxes upon boxes of products everywhere, from herbs and spices to cosmetic products. Sure enough, a grumpy-looking old man was sitting behind the counter, glaring at her.

She approached the counter. "Well, do you even know what you want brat?" He asked angrily.

She handed him her medical certificate since some of the products she wanted could not be sold to civilians. The man read the whole scroll critically, and when he handed it back, she smiled and said, "Do you have a list of your products?"

Well, it turned out that the man, indeed, had a list. She went through the items carefully and pointed out the ones she wanted. Surprisingly, the man was actually quite competent. All the plants were kept in great condition.

And the selection was quite amazing as well. She even found one of the mushrooms she was looking for. "How about this one?" She pointed to the name.

The easy demur of the man, which was only achieved after he noticed she knew her way around medicine, immediately changed. He was back to his cold, hard shell.

"No. We don't sell that anymore, and you better not look for it. that plant is better left extinct." He spat angrily.

She quickly changed the subject and continued with her other purchases.

As soon as she left the shop, she was approached by a young woman she had noticed in the shop. She assumed the woman worked in the shop since, during the whole transaction, she kept going back and forth in the room and moving things around the shop.

"I'm sorry about my father." The woman cut to the chase.

"Ah? Ok?" She said hesitantly.

"He wasn't always like this, but ever since a few years ago when our oldest brother went missing, he changed. He used to be so kind. But it's as if he changed overnight. Anyway, I'm sorry he yelled at you." The woman said.

"Oh. It's alright, I can understand." She said with a reassuring smile and bid the woman goodbye.

The innkeeper was a nice old lady. She saw the cash and didn't press for information. The inn was a cheaper one since it was more toward the edge of the city. While merchants and travelers hated this kind of inn, it was a good fit for shinobi, who didn't like people bothering them.

There were only a few rooms, and only one was occupied, so she wasn't worried about getting disturbed. Her room was a small room with only a futon and a small table. She set to putting her stuff into place. She was going to stay for a week, so she needed to unpack a bit.

She quickly took out a supply scroll. It was filled with necessities she needed for the week. She picked a small towel and her pajamas. She was tired and needed a hot bath.

She could sense the guy from the other room deep asleep. The bath was separate from the toilet, so she shouldn't have a problem with occupying the bath for a while. She focused more on her sensing. She wasn't the best sensor around, but she was talented.

She couldn't pinpoint exact information about others, but she could definitely tell when others were around her and how many. Her sensing talent was somewhere else. She could feel what others were feeling around her. She was a very sensitive empath.

Her ability was so strong that she had to seal it. She was getting constantly overloaded by the emotions of those around her, and most of the time, it was not positive, and it was overwhelming to the degree she was debilitated.

So she sealed it away. Of course, she could take down the seals, but she wasn't ready to do so anytime soon. She learned to sense in the normal way. She practiced her sensing mostly at night or when she was too tired to do other activities.

While she knew of its importance, she had other important things to do as well. She grabbed the basket with her toiletries and headed for the bath. She silently walked there so as not to disturb the other guy. She ran the bath as she brushed her teeth and did some skin care.

While she was definitely too young for a full skincare routine, she learned to enjoy some pampering. She liked to make clay masks. She learned to make them from Tsunade-sensei. They went to onsens together with Shizune and always pampered themselves with different masks and products.

She applied the mask carefully so as not to make a mess. When the bath was ready, she let herself sink into the warmth. She could feel her muscles relaxing and exhaustion leaving her body. She was a lot more durable than a civilian person. Still, so much traveling took a toll on her young body.

She was planning on visiting Kumo for a while. They had a collection of unique herbs she needed for her collection. Maybe she would spend the summer there to also advance her studies. For now, the winter was near, so she could visit Sunagakure and maybe Yugakure.

Either way, she wanted to be away from the cold. Even with all her chakra and techniques as a medic to keep herself warm, she hated the cold. It was mostly due to her early years as an orphan on the streets. The memories of that time were mostly unpleasant, and she would rather not think about them for long.

She instead focused on her memory exercises. There was so much information one had to work with as a medic, and Tsunade-sensei taught her a technique to train her to recall information. One could memorize so much information after all, but having something memorized and being able to recall it perfectly were two different matters.

So whenever she had free time, she took some mental tests from herself. She would have a set of flashcards with different information topics she wanted to work with, and on one side, she could see the name of the topic, and on the back, the keywords of description and a reference to her main journal in case she couldn't remember all of it from keywords.

She would randomly draw cards and look at the topic, trying to remember as much information about it as possible. Then, checking it on the back of the card to make sure she didn't miss anything and moved to the next topic.

It was a great way for her to spend the extra time she had while on the road since she couldn't exactly read new topics and take notes while walking. She had standards, and she needed her set up.

As Tsunade-sensei always said, whoever makes fun of multi-colored and neat notes and the time and effort it takes to make them is a fucking idiot.

After all, no one could deny how easy it is to find information when it is well organized.

She focused back on her cards. Her mind always had the tendency to wander off, and she would ramble about subjects for hours on end if something didn't snap her back to the main topic. She knew how annoying it could be to others, and she was working on it, but it was a work in progress.