- Silas -
Two weeks had passed since that sudden windfall.
I got the much needed money for myself from a completely unexpected source.
The guy hadn't returned since then and things went back to normal… or well as normal as things could get in a place between different worlds.
A few things I had observed were that some people just couldn't find the Restaurant no matter what.
I found out about this from my neighbours.
Recently, I had distributed free samples of my dishes to the neighbours to promote my Restaurant in my own neighbourhood.
Safe to say that they all loved the dishes a lot and promised to come visit my Restaurant.
It's just that none of them came.
Now, it could have been them but when I went out the next day, I was called by several neighbours who said they could find my Restaurant and they didn't seem to be lying.
Could it be that no one from this world can find my Restaurant?
That would suck.
Thankfully, my customers were increasing bit by bit in the Restaurant.
Bang-san brought his brother, Bomb and a friend, Atomic Samurai.
Seriously, this guy… Atomic and Bomb…
Those names alone proved that they were not Japanese despite the similar culture in their worlds too.
They sat together with the Ryozanpaku group. In fact they were also joined by another old man, Isaac. He was a hunter of some kind although he seemed more like a priest to me. All of them talked about Martial arts in their free time.
As I was thinking, Saitama entered the shop and was soon followed by the other two members of his group, Mikami and Suzuki.
Today all of them had a holiday and Suzuki had brought over several games from his world, so they were gonna spend the rest of the day there.
I didn't have any problems with them. In fact, I kinda enjoyed having their company.
Since the death of my parents and me having to flee the place, I had been too lonely. This Restaurant was distracting but when everyone went back… those feelings returned again.
As I was thinking of this, the door to the Restaurant opened and in came a girl. She had purple hair and the same coloured eyes.
"Welcome to the Crossroads Restaurant. Would you like to order?"
"Umm, I would like to order some takeouts." She ordered a couple of dishes.
"Would you like to eat something in the meanwhile?" I asked.
"No. That would be all."
"Sure. I will get it ready in a while."
"Thank you."
Before I could leave, the door to the Restaurant opened again.
Oh.
Another guest?
This time it was a young kid around seven or eight years old.
He had blonde hair and blue eyes and was wearing a white shirt with a red spiral mark on the arm.
Perhaps the most prominent part of his features were the three whisker-like marks on his cheeks which made him look extremely cute.
It's just that currently the boy looked roughed up as if he was there just out from a fight.
"Eh? There was a store here?" He looked around surprised.
I greeted the boy. "Welcome to the Crossroads Restaurant. What would you like to eat?"
The boy looked surprised at the offer and pointed a finger at him. "Me? I can eat here?"
"This is a Restaurant so I don't see why not."
A smile bloomed on his face at my reply.
I showed him to a table. "You can see the menu and choose anything you like. Are you with anyone, your parents maybe?" I asked.
His face dimmed a bit at the question. "I… don't have parents."
….
Somehow his expression reminded me of my own situation. It hadn't been long since my own parents died in that car accident and I was so depressed that I couldn't even go out of the house for a month. And to think a little kid like him would…
"I am sorry for asking something I shouldn't have. You know what? To apologise, you can choose anything from the menu. Today's meal is on the house." I offered him the menu.
"Really!" His face lit up.
"Promise."
The other Restaurant patrons also listened to the conversation and Shirgure and Miu offered a seat to the boy who opened the menu only to look confused. He tried reading but couldn't read properly so they helped him.
"Ramen. Can I get Ramen?"
"Sure. I will make the Special."
"Thank you Nii-chan. By the way, my name is Naruto Uzumaki dattebayo."
"Are you a student, Naruto-kun?" Miu asked. "Did you get into a fight?"
"Eh… no. I lost in a taijutsu spar against that teme." He gritted his teeth.
"Oh, you are learning Martial Arts?" Hayato asked, getting interested.
"Yup. I am training to be a Shinobi and one day I am gonna be The Hokage dattebayo." He got up and shouted with a fist pump.
A what?
"Shinobi?"
"Yes. I am gonna be the strongest Shinobi of the Village Hidden in the leaves." he said.
On asking further, we found out more about him.
Naruto Uzumaki… was an eight year old orphan who was currently studying to be a Shinobi. We got a basic idea about his world.
Apparently Ninjas were very common in his world and worked more like a mercenary organisation in cooperation with the government.
Shinobi of their world did a variety of work from cleaning the garden to protecting important people.
The Hokage was supposedly the leader of their village of ninjas and his idol the fourth Hokage was someone who saved their village from some kind of fox.
To be honest, seeing a child being so convicted about his aim… was inspiring.
In the last few months, I had lost sight of my life due to the circumstances. But now, someone who is in a worse situation than me is trying so hard to live a life and chase his dream… what was I doing?
I vowed to myself that I would stop sulking and work to make something of my new life.
Being honest to myself, I actually enjoyed my current peaceful life in the Restaurant.
"So, Naruto-kun, you said you lost in a spar against someone. A Taijutsu fight?"
"Yes. It was that teme Sasuke." he grit his teeth. "One day, I will defeat him for sure, believe it!"
"Hahahaha that's the spirit. If you need any help in Martial Arts, you can ask me for help. I am a martial arts teacher too."
"Really, you will help me?" He jumped quickly, looking at Hayato.
"Why not? I don't see how giving you a pointer or two will be a problem. You just need to get permission from your guardian."
"Guardian?"
"Yes. The one who takes care of you." Hayato asked.
"Eh? I live by myself. Grandpa Hokage comes by to give me the pension money at the start of each month."
….
….
"You live by yourself?"
"Hmm." He nodded as he continued eating. "I have an apartment in the village."
"And you live by yourself?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Hmm, let's see… for two years."
"And where did you live before that?"
"In the orphanage."
Did they just kick him out at the age of 6?
Those fuckers!
My outrage was matched by the other patrons of the Restaurant as well.
Especially the oldies.
Hayato-san was especially angry.
He got up and put a hand on the kid's head. "Say kid… would you like to be my grandson?"
….
….
….
….
I was not the only one surprised by the words of the old man.
Everyone was the same.
Miu on the other hand looked positively enthralled.
"Really, can we adopt him?"
"Since he is not in an Orphanage and lives by himself without any guardian… I don't see why not. But only if he agrees to this himself. A child should not be forced to live by themselves. Even if he does have a guardian… they failed their task here."
The boy in question was looking at the old man with shocked eyes. "Wha….?"
"Would you like to join my family?" He asked as he offered his hand. "You can be my grandson and Miu's little brother if you agree."
"B-b-but why? People… they don't like me. I am…"
"Then they are blind. I don't care about what people do. I just wish to ask for your opinion. Normally, children can be adopted from the Orphanage but since you are not living in one, then I can directly bring you with me."
"Yes yes. See, we even look similar. Blonde hair and blue eyes. We totally look like siblings." Said Miu happily
The boy got tears in his eyes and tried to speak but his voice choked when he tried to speak any words.
I patted his head. "You can take your time. Getting a loving family is something….very few are blessed with. Hayato-san is a very great man. He will always take care of you."
He looked at me and then back at Hayato-san and nodded.
"I… thank you. I would love to join your family, Jii-san."
"Ahahahaha Silas-kun. I just got a grandson today. We are having a party."
I smiled and gave them a 50% discount on everything.
The crowd welcomed the newest addition to our little group with great enthusiasm.
Meanwhile, the purple haired girl looked at everything in wonder.
I prepared her order first as she was also invited by the other patrons to join the party. She refused politely but kept looking at them in a daze.
She did ask about the Shinobi thing and found out about the powers of the Restaurant too.
"Is it real? Can people from other worlds really visit this place?"
"Yes. You might not realise it yet but you probably are from a different world from us as well. This shop is actually in a town bordering Kyoto."
"Kyoto? That's… quite far away."
"Oh. Which place are you from?"
"I….I am from Fuyuki City."
"Fuyuki City? I am sorry but I haven't heard of such a place." I replied.
"It's near Kobe."
"Oh. You can still get back home whenever you want to."
I walked to the door and opened it, showing her a different scene. "This is my world. Similarly, when you open the door, you can get to your world."
"That's…"
"Amazing right? I know. We still have a hard time believing it."
She nodded lightly.
"By the way, your order should be ready. Are you sure you don't want to try something?"
She shook lightly as if suddenly awakened. "Umm thank you but I… am getting late."
"Alright. Come back again, miss?"
"Sakura." She answered.
"Miss Sakura. My name is Silas Evans. Please visit us again."
She left the Restaurant but not before looking back at everyone once more.
– Satoru Gojo –
He watched the fight between Aoi and Yuji against the curse which had almost taken out Nanami and Nobara from a distance.
Both of them had lived thanks to him reaching there in time and using the reverse curse technique.
"Sensei, shouldn't we help them?" Nobara asked, looking worried.
He didn't answer and just looked in the direction. It took him only a fraction of a second to realise just how badly he would have fucked up if he didn't encounter the Restaurant and the guy Kamijo Touma inside when he had.
He took two weeks to verify that none of it was a trap from the one occupying Suguru's body.
The owner also made him cautious but when he did, he took the help of the so-called Esper and to his surprise, the boy was able to bypass his Limitless and touch him as well as dispell the Reversal Red Technique.
It was a scary technique and yet a boon at the same time.
One touch could exorcise the worst of the curses permanently.
Those bastards at the top would have done anything to get control of him or even try to make him into a cursed puppet to control his power if possible and in doing so, most likely causing the ruin of the entire Jujutsu world.
As strong as his power was, Satoru had observed that he couldn't even cause ripples in the Restaurant or the owner.
Thinking about it, a smile came to his lips.
Other worlds.
'Are you the strongest because you're Satoru Gojo? Or are you Satoru Gojo because you're the strongest?'
It seems we would know the answer.
The great food was just a cherry on the cake.
On observation of Kamijo Touma's power, he found that any technique or supernatural event was simply erased when it came in contact with his right hand and that's why he asked for a handshake from across the door, while in the Prison Realm. Sure enough, as soon as his hand came in contact with the Prison Realm, the entire thing crashed.
And thus, here he was… free.
The imposter had been able to flee in the time it took him to talk to Touma back in the Restaurant but all his lackeys were still out. He was able to arrive right on time and barely save the lives of both Nanami and Kugisaki.
And this time, Satoru decided to see things through.
Since there was such an interesting thing in front of him, he didn't need any distractions.
The unregistered Special Grade Curses, those bastard higher ups, the imposter and Sukuna… all of them need to step aside.
He was pretty sure they would try to put the blame of the whole incident on him so… he would let them.
Since they think Satoru Gojo is sealed or possibly dead… let them.
And when they get out of their way, ready to dig their graves….
Maybe in doing so, both little Megumi and Yuji would progress further… just like now.
"After today, we are increasing the training of the team, especially yours. Megumi and Yuji will have to train on their own for a while."
"What exactly are you planning to do now?" Nanami asked, suspiciously.
"To finish things."