After healing the horse, which resulted in exclamations of awe and surprise at seeing her flaming form, she helped everyone around to start following the route. She knew they were no ninjas, who must be ready at every moment to escape, but it still surprised when it took them an hour to coordinate.
She spent most of her time with Tomio, the uncute boy, waiting. Also, next to him was Sumiko, the one who covered his mouth. She still seemed to be wary of her, which was understandable, but she was still nice to talk around.
"So what type of stuff you all do?" she asked while walking next to the carriage where Tomio and Sumiko were.
"We do puppetry," Tomio was quick to point at himself. While Sumiko was more honest as she added, "Mostly we change the background and help around."
"Sumiko!"
"Oh, nice. I only know about puppetry by fighting. Never seen a play for fun."
Tomio tilted his head with squinted eyes. "To fight? Are you having me on?"
Sumiko reproached him with a nudge of her elbow. Still, even she seemed dubious. "Actually, I heard about it. I think they put poisons on their puppets?"
"Yeah, they use chakra strings to control them and put all types of weapons with poisons inside to fight at a distance. It's cool."
When Tomio realized she was not joking, he seemed to contemplate the option. He nodded after a while. "Yeah, it does sound cool."
"So you all guys do puppetry?"
Sumiko shakes her head. "No, that's only where we can help, though."
"The grownups do kabuki dances and we have Shizuka, too. She can paint quick portraits," Tomio added, not forgetting to point out to a plain brown-haired woman in one of the other carriages. "So we've got a lot of skills to learn."
She was going to ask what he was talking about before she remembered what their exchange was. "Oh. What do you think I should learn?"
He leaned slightly closer, before adding begrudgingly, "Well, you're kind of pretty. Maybe some make-up, dance, and flute? Those are what I've seen the girls were more interested in."
"What about you, Sumiko?"
She seemed to be flustered at being asked, but then she quickly shook it off. "Well, some of the older sisters were geishas. They know about etiquette, flower arrangement, and tea serving. Those are interesting, too."
Tomio scrunched his nose. "Why would one learn how to serve tea? Is it difficult enough?"
She was going to laugh at Tomio's face, but Kurama stopped her with, 'You totally need to learn that.'
Blinking, she asked dubiously, 'Tea ser—'
'Not that. Though it would probably be best to learn it, too. However, what I meant was etiquette.'
'Are you trying to say that I don't know how—'
'Yes.' He sighed. 'You will probably need to meet other important people, better to learn how to act. I could teach you, as I was once inside Mito's body, but it's better to learn from other humans. I'll just expand in what I think you need.'
She scrunched her nose, without realizing she was doing the same expression Tomio did not a while ago, and only turned her head when Sumiko said, "Ashura-san?"
Looking up, she saw Sumiko and Tomio looking at her curiously. "What?"
Tomio pointed at her, accusing her of being distracted while they waited for her.
"Tomio!"
Naruto chuckled as she ran a hand through her hair. "Sorry, sorry. I think I will take the tea serving and etiquette lessons, though."
"Why?" Tomio asked.
She shrugged while giving a sly smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
After that she continued walking with a skip on her step, sounding as assured of herself as always, but when night fell and she was resting with her back on a tree, she couldn't help but think more about it. She had already asked for instruction in the aforementioned lessons. Tsuyoshi told her he was going to talk with the others and was going to give her a schedule tomorrow.
So, with nothing to do, she went inside her mindscape with her doubts as she couldn't help but ask Kurama, "I'm not against learning, but why should I conform to other's guidelines when I could just be just myself?"
The nine-tailed fox rolled his eyes. "You think having some basic etiquette is changing yourself?"
"Well, I've seen how they act, and they look so… fake and stuffy."
Dealing with etiquette and politics is not so dissimilar from battles. It's not about being prim or proper. Though I admit that helps, too."
"Ha!" Naruto pointed at him, but at the glare she received, she wilted.
"It's all about adapting to different environments through your behavior. Becoming a snob is not necessary, just be knowledgeable enough to not seem clueless."
She squinted at one wall while she crossed her arms. "Learn enough so I can know when to ignore it, then?"
A long-suffering sigh. "Basically. Though I do admit it's about respect, too. You can demonstrate your respect for someone by being polite to them, right?"
"Yeah, duh."
"Well, being polite is just another way of etiquette. So if you learn it, you're basically learning how to respect others. It's not subservience, which we don't want to show others. You're the Sage's chosen, after all."
"You make it seem very important."
He nodded. "In the same way that having self-respect plays an important role in guiding our ethical decisions. We show respect for others through our manners."
She frowned at him. "You don't show good manners towards me."
"I'm a tailed beast. Manners are a concept created by humans; I don't need it."
"Then how come you know so much about it?"
She didn't even bother hiding the doubt in her tone.
"Mito was part of the Uzumaki Royal line," he said dryly. "Some of what she taught your mother was rather interesting."
"My mom learned from Mito?"
"They had already chosen her as the next jinchuriki. She was the youngest kid with the highest chakra pool, after all."
"Oh."
"Oh, indeed." The fox huffed at her. "So, now what do you think about your lessons tomorrow?"
She smiled widely. "I'll give my best, believe it! After all, you can't know how to break the rules if you don't know the rules."
Kurama just sighed fondly.
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