This was somewhere where he was comfortable, and that loosened his guard in regards to his willingness to talk about things that, normally, wouldn't be too bad to share in his world.
Before Naruto could try to do something to salvage his blunder, Mio supplied him with a means to do just that. "Did you mean to say 'magic', Naruto-san?"
The shinobi blinked, and focused his gaze on the red-head, quietly studying her.
She was unconscious when Naruto and Maria initially met each other face-to-face, as well as their subsequent conversation.
...Now that he was looking at her, especially as she cautiously shifted her gaze away from him, he could quickly figure something out about her.
She was scared of him.
He supposed that that made sense, since the last memory that she had of him probably revolved around his killing of those stray devils.
That was not exactly the best of impressions possible to a young girl like her.
A belief which turned out to be exactly correct.
Naruse Mio was a young girl that has lived a normal life mere months prior to this moment, and was, frankly, more than a little wary of the young man that killed those beasts without a care.
Yeah, they were mindless monsters...but still...
That being said, Maria seemed to have gotten a good impression of this man while she was out, and she trusted her guardian's advice.
After all, she would be dead without it guiding her when her foster parents were killed.
The red-head winced at the thought, still smarting from the fact, but quickly swallowed it down.
Meanwhile, Naruto took the lifeline that was given to him, accepting Mio's help. "Yeah, magic. Exactly that! Sorry about that, but I rarely talk about my powers to others, so it's a bit...weird, to talk about this."
Even while he was speaking, the young man was nervously scratching his head, a gesture which was filled with nervous energy that needed to be removed.
Apparently, Maria took it as a sheepish apology.
"No need to apologize, it is understandable, Naruto-sama." Maria said with a smile, cheerful.
Naruto twitched, feeling that the 'sama' honorific was a bit too much, as he really wasn't used to such formal ways of speaking...even if he was forced to use 'san' more often so that he didn't stand out...
But he had to ignore that for the moment in order to address something more important.
Ground rules.
"Alright, since we are going to live with one another for a while, I have a couple of rules that both of you need to follow, since this is my home and you're crashing here for a while." Naruto stated clearly, leaving no room for interpretation.
Both girls nodded in understanding, grateful to even be having a place to crash at all.
"First; don't practice any of your magic inside the house, unless it doesn't blow up. Second; both of you will have some chores to do to pay me back for freeloading. Last and most important; do not go into my room under any circumstances. We clear?" the shinobi emphasized, trying to be unwavering on these points.
To be truthful though, the chores thing was something that he just made up on the spot while he was thinking about the rules that he could place. He usually forced his clones to keep the place nice and tidy before now, but now that these two were living here, he didn't have to use that anymore.
This was his way of getting out of doing chores himself.
But the last rule was very important to emphasize, since his room now carried all of his ninja gear and scrolls.
All of which he managed to scrounge up after his surprise entry into this world.
It also held all of the numerous records of possible leads that could -possibly- help him get back home, but so far, the only one that proved somewhat successful was the kuchiyose no jutsu for his contract with the toads.
It didn't work.
Or rather, he required an exorbitant amount of chakra to use it when compared to the amount he needed back home, and considering how large his chakra reserves were, that really was saying something.
The most he was able to summon was a tadpole, which took up to twenty-five percent of his chakra. Maybe he was too far away from home to use the kuchiyose no jutsu...?
Well...at least he's done one smart thing today.
Once upon a time, all of his materials and notes were sprawled across the living room haphazardly, but thanks to some quick thinking, he changed that.
When Maria wasn't looking, he made a clone and forced it to race back home in order to clean everything up, put it into his room, and lock it up with some seals that reinforced the door. Hiding them from view.
He didn't mind if people thought that he was a strong magician, but if people figured out that he wasn't from this world...then that was something different entirely.
Maybe it was the fact that his clones saw too many alien books and movies, but he was still pretty sure that people would want to catch him in order to do experiments on him...
The blond shivered slightly just thinking about it, nursing his new-found wariness of medical equipment.
Meanwhile, both girls shot glances at one another once Naruto finished laying out his ground rules, speaking without words.
After a brief pause, they both eventually nodded and turned back to the blond, prepared to agree to his terms.
A safe haven with rules was infinitely better than no safe haven at all, as they could actually take a breather from their consistently dangerous lives on the run.
Naruto took a second to check the time by checking the clock on the wall, sighing at what he saw. "Alright, I'm gonna head to school now...so you guys can just stay here and rest up, since neither of you are completely healed yet. I will see you guys after school."
The young man was already getting up from his seat in order to leave, dreading his boring day.
Yet, in an interesting twist, he was suddenly stopped by a hand to his shoulder.
Which just so happened to belong to the still-uncomfortable Mio.
"Can I...well...um..." Mio stuttered out, her voice faint and low, eyes shifty.
The red-head was obviously trying to say something to Naruto, though, for the life of him, he couldn't quite grasp what. It was all a garbled mess to him.
Maria, for her part, couldn't help but smile at her friend's shy nature, before quickly deciding to stop the painful scene and help her.
"She wants to come with you to the school so that she could apply there. I apologize for Mio-sama's behavior...she doesn't know how to act in front of her 'savior' yet I bet." Maria claimed, shooting a sly glance towards Mio's direction.
Whether the charge was true or not, the red-head's face still took on a similar shade to her own vibrant red hair.
"Th-! That's not it!" Mio shouted indignantly to the silverette, before clamping her mouth shut and glaring at the ground.
"...Then what is it?" Naruto questioned with a tilt of his head, more confused than anything else.
At the blond's query, Mio managed to stop glaring at the ground and ignore her obviously amused guardian. "I...wanted to go to school too..."
The shinobi's eyes widened slightly, surprised to hear that kind of request, of all things. "...Why?"
By this point, the red-head was beginning to squirm under his focus, but managed to keep forging ahead regardless. "...Before I knew about my lineage, I lived like a normal human girl. It's what I was, nothing more or less than that. So I can't help but...well...want that sense of normalcy again, you know?"
As if a switch had been flipped, she kept going, gaining more steam as she went along. "I just want a chance to feel safe again, with the worse thing that I have to worry about doing is getting good grades. So can I, please, please, please come with you to see this school?"
Mio was practically begging now, so much so that she was actually kowtowing to him, hoping beyond hope that he would give her the green light.
She knew that Naruto had, essentially, become their de-facto guardian while they lived in his home, so it was actually quite selfish of her to make such a request.
He probably felt responsible for their well-being by this point, so this appeal to his kindness could be easily seen as an abuse his inner decency in order to make herself feel 'normal' again.
All while she was placing herself out in the open again, where she could be attacked once more.
It wasn't fair to either Naruto or Maria.
But, deep inside, she knew that desperately needed this.
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