[Saiyō Residence - 8 months later]
Kusuri Saiyō, formerly known as Luke Reinel, was a tad out of his element.
This was unsurprising, as he was also a tad out of his reality.
The world he was used to had planes and the internet.
The world he was in now had ninjas out its ears.
The one positive was the fact that he mostly recognized the world he was in now, as well as his current location: Konoha.
Well, he was about 90% sure it was Konoha. He didn't speak Japanese, and at a year old in his new life, he hadn't quite had time to fully learn. He had begun to pick up on small bits and pieces, but there's really only so much a one-year-old can do to learn a language.
Actually, his age is a bit of an assumption too, most of his arrival is a blur - one of the many side effects of having a brain not even supposed to be able to do math yet.
For similar reasons, most of his time had been spent asleep, although that had begun to decrease a tad recently, interrupted by food and play from the two people who were taking care of him; he believed them to most likely be his grandparents. They were too old to be his parents, and he had yet to see anyone else who could qualify.
He spent most of his time attempting to further his understanding of Japanese. His rudimentary understanding was enough for simple sentences, but he only ever said single words as full sentences, no matter how simple, would be a good bit suspicious.
He had made decent headway on walking as well, though his ability to stand for very long was unsurprisingly lacking.
That day, however, was one of the more interesting days: the days when he got to leave the house.
The place he was brought to most often was a small, cozy tea shop that his grandparents appeared to own. While there, he was regularly cooed at and fawned over by many of the patrons, who found his presence adorable. He kind of enjoyed it actually.
Today, however, he was being brought to somewhere different, somewhere that required a walk through town.
He always enjoyed the people-watching that such walks facilitated. It let him glean extra bits of information about his surroundings. For example, it was through people-watching that he gained a rough estimate of the current time frame prior to being able to understand the necessary Japanese.
He put his current time about a year after Kurama attacked Konoha, placing him at about the same age as Naruto and much of the main cast.
On an unrelated note, he had also gained some very, very basic knowledge about chakra. Specifically that he had it. He could feel it rushing in the background, naturally flowing through his body like a river. Although with its current power, a creek would be a more apt metaphor.
As a baby, he was, rather obviously, quite weak. If he didn't have the strength to throw even the measliest of punches, he obviously wouldn't be able to walk on water or summon Gamabunta. He believed he might end up having a bit of a head start in the long run though, as he could start doing some rather basic training once his chakra starts properly developing.
He and his grandparents finally arrived at their destination. Before walking in he was unsure what to expect, as they had been using a lot of words he hadn't picked up on yet. After walking in, however, a few words clicked.
"Oh!" he thought, "So kekkonshiki means wedding! That explains a lot actually."
The decor made the fact that it was a wedding quite obvious, but even with the decor, it wasn't particularly large or grand. No more than twenty people were present, and of those, most seemed to be the direct family of the bride and groom.
Said bride and groom were a pair by the names of Iori Nakamura and Aika Inada - soon to be Aika Nakamura. Kusuri was unsure of his relation to them, as the terms used to describe it included calling Iori his uncle, as well as calling Kusuri's grandfather Iori's uncle, which was kind of impossible, but he didn't really question it that much.
Not long after they entered Iori walked over to fraternize, joined by people who appeared to be his parents.
"Normally I'd be worried if someone brought a toddler to a wedding, but then again I'm not sure if Ku can even cry in the first place," Hideo Nakamura, Iori's father, said jovially.
Kusuri's grandfather took a step closer and shook his hand.
"Yes, Ku is rather quiet for his age. Made us worry a bit at first, but he's getting along fine. In fact, he said his first word a week and a half ago!"
Kusuri could have spoken a word long before then, in fact, he could currently speak in mostly correct sentences if he tried, but he rather liked not being thought of as some kind of demon baby.
"We can't thank you enough for helping with the catering," Iori said with a thankful tone.
"Ha! It was our pleasure!" Ina chuckled, "The mochi is a new recipe by the way. I think I finally found the perfect amount of sugar."
They continued small talk for a few minutes before Hideo chimed in, "Oh, we should probably get to our seats, the ceremony should be starting soon."
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Kusuri rejoiced internally when the wedding was finally over. It was quite boring if he was being honest. He had nothing against any of the people involved, he just didn't really have the attention span to pay attention or sit still for that long without some serious mental effort.
Next after the ceremony itself was something that was apparently called a nijikai, which Kusuri realized was some kind of after-party.
Since said after-party was at a bar, he wasn't invited.
He was brought home by his grandparents, who decided they would get some work done since they had the rest of the day to themselves. They placed Kusuri on the floor in a small play area, before going off to do some chores.
As had become tradition, once they were out of earshot, Kusuri walked over to the lock, picked it with the paperclip he kept hidden in his playpen and escaped to the house at large.
That day, he decided he would further his reading.
He walked and crawled his way over to where his grandparents kept the story books, grabbed the most easily accessible one, and began looking through it.
He had been doing his best to memorize the words in each story, so he could then cross-reference them with the words in the books to decipher what sounds each symbol matched to. He was making decent headway but had a long way to becoming fully literate.
He had memorized his grandparent's chores schedule for the most part, and knew roughly what time he needed to be back in the playpen to avoid suspicion. When that time grew closer, he put the book back where he found it and began to race back to his playpen where he relocked the gate and hid his makeshift lockpick.
He felt kind of bad hiding things from his grandparents, they were just about some of the nicest people he had met, this world or otherwise, but if he had went several years not even able to read the sign on the shop, he probably would've gone crazy.
Eventually, his grandparents returned. The day was mostly over at that point, so they played with him a bit, fed him, and finally putting him to bed with a storybook. The icing on the cake was it was the same book Kusuri had been decifering earlier, allowing him to essentialy have his work double checked.
As he began to fall asleep, Kusuri mind raced with many events of the day, before his mind settled on a single thought.
"I can't wait till I'm old enough to start actually doing things."