Reaching Immortality (book two)

Chapter 5. A simple wave mission

I was sitting crossed legged outside the gates of Konoha with my hands in my lap as I lazily watched my surroundings.

It did not feel important to me to be completely on my guard on a child's mission, but I still kept a basic eye out. The man Tazuna had been here for an hour already waiting on team seven, and his fidgeting was beginning to grate on my nerves.

The agreed upon time to meet at the gates was eight am, Tazuna has been here since six.

The fact that I was here till around the same time didn't matter since my reasons for being here were to relax a while and watch the morning traffic using the nice disguise Minato had made for me.

Tazuna seemed stressed, worried, and ready to drink the bottle he kept taking out of his bag and putting back in. It was quite peculiar for a simple escort mission.

It appeared to me, that the man was either nervous about hiring shinobi, or he was guilty about hiring a genin team instead of a chunin oriented team. However to get a chunin team for this escort mission would mean he'd have to pay so much more and register the mission as B-rank.

I decided to put the man out of my thoughts as I looked down at my clever disguise. It made me proud everyday to see my first student creating interesting seals and leading Konoha as the fourth Hokage.

Almost as if his achievements were my own. It wasn't something I'd ever thought I'd experience when I first agreed to take the little blonde brat in as my apprentice. I imagine that simple decision had saved me in more ways than one.

This little disguise here allowed me to experience what it felt like to be a girl. A real girl.

I had the parts and everything. It was incredibly strange not having my usual 'little brother' tucked into my underwear, but it was also incredibly comfortable. It was something I'd never thought to try and experience when I was born into this fantastical world of magic and chakra.

A gender swap.

I took the form of a fourteen year old genin, with my usual long black locks. I kept my face structure the same, however Minato had suggested that my eyes should be bigger, as well as a different color. He also suggested a different skin color since grey was extremely uncommon.

That was a given, but I grew to not care about how annoyingly detailed Minato had to be when he gave out instruction.

Every once in a while Tazuna would look over to his left at me with a curious expression before going back to fidgeting and looking at the morning traffic.

It was a hot day, and the cement beneath us only made it hotter. The cars going by were quiet since they weren't run on gasoline like my old world. Instead they were run with stored chakra and seals.

My own invention from my notebooks that my sensei had stolen off of my body.

The buildings around us were huge, with the large glass windows reflecting the sun onto the concrete and creating even more heat. Though I was glad to see that my sensei hadn't gotten rid of the greenery.

The trees in between buildings and on the sides of the walkways were larger than ever before, and the park nearby was filled with flowers and other herbs.

I had to admit that despite the heat, the place called Konoha had become a beautiful mixture of modern day infrastructure and wilderness. This is what I imagined a city of fairies to look like.

After an hour, Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto appeared right on time and greeted each other before heading towards our location to greet Tazuna and give me a curious glance.