Temporary Worker Reports for Duty

Early in the morning, many people have the habit of taking a shower to combat low blood pressure. Mizuki is one of them; on mornings when he isn't busy, he usually uses a shower to wake himself up.

However, today is not the time. A guest has arrived at his home, and although she is young, she is still a girl. If some sort of "lucky pervert" incident were to occur, it would be impossible to explain.

After rushing through his morning routine and tidying up a bit, Mizuki prepared to begin his one-month stint as a mentor.

He poured a cup of tea for Sakura and one for himself, then sat down across from her to chat.

Mizuki spoke first: "Since Hatake Kakashi asked, and I've already accepted the benefits, I will do my best to teach you. First, I want to know your goal. Is it merely to deal with your Sound Ninja opponent, or is it to genuinely improve your strength? You only have one month, so you won't be able to learn much. You'd better think carefully and answer me properly."

"Is there a difference?" Sakura asked, puzzled.

"Being able to beat one specific person and being able to beat many people are not the same concept. Your opponent is indeed strong, but having a powerful specialty means that once you are specifically countered, you will be extremely passive. Real, tangible improvement in strength is a completely different matter. Think carefully about which one you choose," Mizuki explained patiently.

Hearing Mizuki's words, Sakura seemed to understand a little and lowered her head to ponder.

Seeing that Sakura understood, Mizuki nodded in approval.

"As expected of a smart child; she is truly easy to teach."

Mizuki waited quietly for Sakura's answer, sipping his tea while eating the pastries she had brought.

Before long, Sakura looked up and said, "Please teach me how to become stronger, Master Mizuki~"

"Cough, cough," this "Master" nearly made Mizuki spit out his tea. "Don't call me Master. You will have more suitable masters in the future; I am just teaching you a few things because I accepted a favor from Hatake Kakashi."

"Regardless, the grace of being taught cannot be forgotten," Sakura said. "I'll just call you Teacher Mizuki, like before."

"That's fine." Mizuki nodded in agreement. "So, what do you want to learn?"

"I don't really know what to learn," Sakura said awkwardly. "But the things Teacher Mizuki taught me last time felt quite intuitive to learn. I wonder if we could continue with that?"

"Sigh," Mizuki sighed at Sakura's words. "I'll decide, then."

Such a gifted and intelligent child, yet because she lacked guidance, she couldn't even identify her own strengths and weaknesses. Konoha was truly in a serious state of decline. If the Sannin were all present, and the village's core strength hadn't been decimated or scattered, would Mizuki really need to be giving Sakura these remedial lessons? Naruto wouldn't even be unaware that he was a jinchuriki, waiting until Jiraiya returned to the village to finally be taught.

Just as Mizuki was about to give Sakura some simple instructions, the door suddenly opened.

"Oh? We have a guest?" Tsubaki, who had pushed the door open, spotted Sakura Haruno.

"Hello, who are you?" Sakura Haruno hurriedly stood up to bow.

"This is the Tsubaki I told you about," Mizuki said, standing up to introduce her. "My fiancée."

"Ah, Teacher Mizuki, you have a fiancée? I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion."

"It's fine. Mizuki, is this your student?"

"No, she is Hatake Kakashi's student. I am just guiding her temporarily; we will be seeing each other often for the next month," Mizuki explained.

"Is this the one you mentioned~" Tsubaki asked.

"That's right, the temp," Mizuki confirmed.

"Teacher Mizuki, is this flower shop yours?" Sakura Haruno looked around the new store that hadn't been open for long.

"That's right. What do you think?"

"It's not bad, about the same as Ino's family's shop," Sakura said. "I didn't expect the new flower shop Ino mentioned was actually opened by you, Teacher~"

"Tsubaki and I opened it together. It hasn't even been a month yet."

"Is that so? But~" Sakura looked at the sign hanging at the entrance. "Four Seasons Flower Shop? It feels a bit strange."

"How so? I thought about the name for a long time," Mizuki said. Whenever he mentioned fresh flowers, he couldn't help but think of the Lord of Four Seasons Flowers, so he had come up with such an odd name. It wasn't like Old Man Teuchi's Ichiraku Ramen or the Yamanaka Clan's Yamanaka Flower Shop. "Although it's a rare type, it feels pretty good, right?"

"Ah," Sakura observed the sign with a puzzled expression. "There are some strange patterns on this sign. Although it looks very beautiful, there seems to be a problem with it. There's even a faint fluctuation of chakra~"

"Don't say another word. I'll tell you the details later; don't tell Tsubaki." Mizuki wore a look of sheer horror.

That's right, Mizuki had done some work on this sign behind everyone's back. In all these days, plenty of powerful ninjas had visited the shop, but not one of them had discovered the issue—yet a genin had seen right through it.

This sign could be considered one of Mizuki's proudest achievements of the past few months. Shortly after finishing the CD, he had used a specially cultivated bamboo as the base material. After careful manual crafting, the green-blue paint on the surface was actually a mixture of fungi and algae extracted from lichen. By using these organisms—which had most of their activity removed while retaining basic survival capabilities—and combining them with the sealing jutsu and genjutsu barrier patterns hidden in the frame and materials, he had created a sign with an inherent genjutsu. It had no special function other than a psychological suggestion that made people who saw the sign feel an urge to enter the shop.

The most troublesome step was the technique of extracting chakra by aggregating the consciousness of lower organisms. To find a suitable host, Mizuki had eventually chosen lichen. As a symbiotic group of fungi, bacteria, and algae, it possessed composite attributes; Mizuki hadn't found any organism more suitable than lichen yet.

Although the power provided was negligible for now, it had opened up a broader space for Mizuki. Through sealing jutsu, the integration of consciousness was feasible—or rather, this world acknowledged the existence of such organisms. Thus, many things that were only theoretically possible could be realized as long as one had the capability.

"No wonder Orochimaru could perform Living Corpse Reincarnation, causing only mental and spiritual weakness without ever causing self-cognition deviation. And why forbidden jutsus like Edo Tensei could be used repeatedly on the same person. The theory of Shadow Clone memory transmission also makes sense. And it stands to reason that the Summoning Technique identifies the pseudo-jinchuriki and the summoner as the same person."