Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve

[Fiction]

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— After the events of Chapter 12 —
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The Hokage's Office was part of an administrative building. Situated on a floor heavily guarded by shinobi in-charge of Hokage's protection. The entire floor was only accessible to those with certain security clearance, and every outside visitor was noted at the entrance and designated an escort to keep on with their movements.

On that floor existed another entry point that worked both as a second emergency exit and an entrance for those who wanted to enter the floor without being seen.

A man with dark blonde hair tied in a ponytail resting over his shoulder walked into an empty dine-in takoyaki deli with no signs outside. The building was narrow and short, with a counter stretched from one end to the other with only four barstool-styled chairs for customers. A short middle-aged woman with a mean look dressed in white sat behind the counter reading a fashion magazine.

When she heard the door chime, she glared at the ponytailed man.

"Three-and-half plate to go. Make 'em crispy and zingy," said the man.

"175-ryo," said the woman, her voice gruff.

"Wasn't it 140 before?" he asked.

"Do you want it or not?"

The man sighed, "Make it quick. I will be using the bathroom."

The woman followed with her eyes until he disappeared into the back of the restaurant. She opened her magazine and started to read again.

The back of the restaurant had two doors. The blue one had the lavatory sign, while the other was painted gray. The man faced the restaurant door and pulled it by the doorknob before pushing it down and turning it to open the door. The room's inside was a storage unit with all sorts of things stuffed into it. The man made his way to a wooden cabinet and pulled it open to reveal a set of stairs stretching underground. The stairs led to an underground tunnel with rough excavated walls with wooden supports, illuminated by yellow light bulbs hanging off the top. They shed just enough light to make the path barely visible enough for safely walking.

At the end of the tunnel, the man found a figure wearing a white porcelain mask with a boar design and red markings sitting on a stool beside a steel gate.

"Hand, before, room, white, arm, thick," the ponytailed man said to the masked man and wondered if he should've put on his own.

The masked man stood up and patted the ponytailed man on the side of his arm. The hand stayed for a moment before the masked man stepped back and nodded. The man turned his back while the masked figure turned to the steel door and swung the large circular wheel on it in a specific pattern to unlock it.

The man nodded to the masked figure and stepped through the door that closed behind him. The door opened to another stretch of stairs that led to an empty room, opening up through a large floor tile.

The man knew that even though the room looked bare, three people were watching him at that very moment. He didn't try to discern their position and simply walked out of the room and tread the familiar corridors until he was standing in front of a door.

He knocked on the door in a specific way and then waited.

A few seconds later, he heard, "Come in."

The man straightened his clothes before stepping inside the room. The room was large, somewhat oval, and filled with stacks of unfinished paperwork. There was a desk with large windows overlooking the village behind it.

"Lord Hokage," the man knelt down and greeted the man sitting behind the desk.

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up from his paperwork and asked the man to get up. "How was he, Raven? Anything of concern?" he asked before bringing his smoking pipe to his mouth.

"Nothing out of order, Lord Hokage," said Raven. "The subject suffered a panic attack that put him into a coma..."

"A panic attack?" the Hokage lowered his smoking pipe. "He's but a child. What was the cause?"

Raven shook his head. "It was as the report stated— the subject's mind is muddled, and with the intense emotional distress behind the panic attack, I couldn't find the exact cause. If I could get some time and assistance, I believe I can get that information."

The Hokage had assigned him a mission to pose as a doctor and use his clan's abilities to inspect the subject's mind. Takuma was the child's name. At first, he was confused about why the Hokage had asked him to infiltrate a child's mind. But after reading the report on the subject, he understood why the Hokage had been concerned by the subject suddenly ending up in the hospital. To think a child, who hadn't even graduated from the academy, would have such a past. It saddened him greatly when he saw the scars mentioned in the report present on the boy's body. The boy would carry them throughout his life.

The Hokage shook his head. "We have already tried to get more. It didn't work back then." He sighed, "I thought his mind would heal with time, but I believe it is still the same?"

Raven nodded. The boy's mind was protecting him by repressing the memories of the past. And as it protected the boy from himself, it also protected him from his clan's jutsu. He couldn't pass through the blockages created by the mind— if he tried to force it, he would damage the boy's mind. If he had assistance from his clan members, he could peer through the natural blockages and get more information... but the risk of damaging the boy's mind wouldn't go away. Raven glanced up at the Hokage— he could tell the Hokage didn't want to go through with that.

"What about the update you were provided?" the Hokage asked. "Were they confirmed?"

Raven nodded. Even if he encountered the blockages in the boy's mind, it didn't mean he came out empty handed. He was handpicked as part of the masks for a reason.

"According to the subject's memories, Maruboshi Kosuke has been teaching him for the last few months. The subject isn't performing well at the academy and has been training under Maruboshi Kosuke to resolve his grades. They meet every day as long as Maruboshi Kosuke doesn't have a mission that renders him unable to attend— even on those days, the subject goes to their meeting location and trains on his own."

The broken memories, covered with dark haze, had provided him enough to confidently support his claims.

"Do you wish for us to investigate Maruboshi Kosuke?" asked Raven.

"That won't be needed," the Hokage shook his head. "I have known Kosuke for long. There's no one more loyal. If nothing showed up on the preliminary search, there's no need to investigate him more." He then asked, "Could his condition be the cause behind the panic attack?"

Raven didn't offer an answer immediately. He thought about it and recalled what he had experienced in the boy's mind. "I can't deny the possibility. The subject's mind is repressing memories to protect him, but the mind is as fragile as it is strong. Given a strong enough stimulus, something could've escaped the bindings that caused the boy to experience heightened levels of stress that triggered the attack. The subject was defensive when I revealed my identity..."

"Most people would be," said the Hokage.

Raven nodded. His clan's ability came with a stigma. "... and refused to talk about what caused the panic attack, but that doesn't tell us that it was his past that caused the attack. It could've very well been something recent that caused it. The subject has been very worried about his academy performance."

"But to suffer a panic attack..." the Hokage tapped his wrinkly finger on his table. "Very well, if the condition of his mind hasn't changed, there is no use in pursuing this any longer." He looked at Raven, "Add your findings into the report and close this case."

"Should we add surveillance on the boy?" Raven asked.

"No. Thank you, Raven. You may take your leave."

Raven bowed and turned to leave when he stopped and doubled back. "One more thing," he said.

"Yes?" the Hokage said as he browsed the paperwork on his desk.

Raven pursed his lips. When he was in the boy's mind, he felt jumpy. It wasn't uncommon. The human mind was a complex puzzle yet to be solved; even after the generations of his clan discovering its secrets, there was so much they didn't know about. He had felt all kinds of sensations when he was inside people's minds— every brain reacted to his infiltrating presence in its unique way.

The Hokage looked up when he didn't speak. "Raven?" he asked.

"... No, Lord Hokage... It's nothing. I will take my leave," he decided not to say. It must've been because of the boy's past, all that he had gone through, that had led his mind to repress his memories.

"Very well," said the Hokage and returned to his seemingly never-ending piles of paperwork.

Raven bowed and turned to leave. By the time he was out of the door, he felt confident in his reasoning. Even if he was ANBU, the Hokage didn't need to know the functioning of his clan's jutsu.

... It was just that the sensation this time was the strongest he had ever felt.




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[Fiction]

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STATUS UPDATE

[Complete] ARC-01: The Sakura-Colored Days of Shinobi Academy
Chapters: 30(+1 Interlude)
Word Count: 67,975​

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[Ongoing] ARC-02: Untitled (I had twenty days to name it... couldn't come up with anything)​

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Sitting on a bench outside an administrative office wasn't how Takuma thought he would start his shinobi career, but the reality of the situation was more different than anything he had imagined. He leaned against the bench and thought about how all of his expectations had been subverted by a single line on a slip of paper.

It had been a week since his convocation ceremony. He didn't know how to feel when he didn't see the names of two of his classmates, and instead, his assignment had said two words: Genin Corps. Takuma had no idea what that meant— something like that didn't exist in the manga he had read, or at least, he didn't remember reading about it.

What he knew was that his two fails were the reason he was assigned to the Genin Corps.

'—It's not as good as being assigned under a Jonin team leader, but if you want, it can be as good, even better—'

Maruboshi's words had been contradictory. How could it be not as good but still better? There was a flash of regret on Maruboshi's face that he wasn't part of a three-man cell led by a jonin, but that look had quickly turned into an expression of seriousness. The old shinobi had told him that as long as he put his nose down and put in the work, his efforts would be rewarded.

Those words had only served to confuse Takuma more because he still didn't know what the Genin Corps was. Maruboshi had simply defined it as the general pool of Leaf genins. But Takuma knew he was holding back something... something Takuma hadn't been able to draw out of him. So, he went to search on his own.

He couldn't whip out his phone and pull up a search engine to get the information he wanted, so he could turn to the next best source— a library. His official shinobi documentation had yet to be issued, so he could only go to the civilian library for answers. Fortunately for him, he found information about the shinobi military organization in case the civilians wanted to know more about their shinobi counterparts. Unfortunately for him, the records told him the same thing as Maruboshi and were directly led by the Leaf Genin Resource Command.

The first break had come from an unexpected source.

-.-.-​

Takuma sat outside an administrative office with an application for his official shinobi documentation and a folder of required documents in his hands, waiting to be called in, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head to see a familiar face standing beside him.

"Taro..."

Oishi Taro was a classmate of his. Takuma didn't think he had talked to him in the past year. They had sparred numerous times, and Taro had beaten Takuma every time, but they had no contact other than that.

"Yo," Taro raised his hand in greeting. "I heard you got directly shipped to Genin Corps."

"How did you know that?" Takuma hadn't told anyone, and he doubted Maruboshi was talking to any of his classmates.

"You weren't there when the Jonin sensei came to fetch us," said the boy with a man bun. "Everyone except you was there. Hiji laughed that they must've failed you, but Kibe-sensei shut him down and told us that you were somewhere else. My mom told me later that you must've been directly assigned to the Genin Corps."

"Ah..." Taro's parents were shinobi; they weren't from shinobi clans. From what Takuma remembered, his mother was a Chunin. He didn't know about the father.

"I guess we are in the same boat then," said Taro, sitting beside him.

"You're in the Genin Corps?" Takuma shifted to face Taro, surprise spreading on his face.

Taro slumped against the bench like he was sitting on a couch in front of his TV. "Uh-huh, the Jonin-sensei failed me."

Takuma frowned. "Aren't they supposed to send you back to the academy; why did they send you to Genin Corps."

"That's something they tell to scare us," Taro scoffed. "If you fail your jonin sensei test, you get sent to the Genin Corps. Our year had twelve teams— eight of them were failed by their jonin."

"Eight!" Takuma breathed in sharply— that was a two-thirds fail rate.

"It's normal, mom told me," Taro shrugged. "Elie jonin don't grow on trees, and taking a three-genin team is a four-year commitment from the jonin's side. They just don't accept anyone."

Takuma's mouth turned into an O-ring. He didn't know much of that. But just after a moment's thought, it made sense that the failure rate would be so high.

He wet his lips before asking, "Hey, what do you think about the Genin Corps? I heard it's not a good place."

Taro hummed in thought as he sunk even lower into the wood bench. "It's not the best place to be. The best place would be training under a jonin sensei in a three-man cell. Those guys have personalized training, fast-track on missions, and better pay. And most importantly, they have the backing of a jonin— a jonin's word means a lot in the village. In the Genin Corps, you have no choice for your mission, the training isn't that good, the pay is lower— and of course, we don't have the backing of jonin... So yeah, not a great place."

"...You don't seem to be stressed about being in the Genin Corps, though," asked Takuma doubtfully.

"My mom said this: Genin Corps is the place where the shinobi career went to die..." That didn't sound ominous at all, Takuma gulped. "... that is if you stay there."

"W-What do you mean?"

"Eight out of twelve teams failed, which means twenty-four out thirty-six of us failed— twenty-five if we count you. More failed than passed, so ending up in Genin Corps is more common than ending up in a three-man cell. Even those who passed might end up in Genin Corp if they don't get promoted by the end of the four-year commitment by the jonin. So, most genin end up in the Genin Corps one way or another. It's the norm. The problem is when you stay in the Genin Corps for too long. You either—"

Taro was interrupted by the sudden sharp ring of a desk bell from inside the administrative office, followed by a shrill: "Next!" Then a person pushed the salon doors and walked out of the office.

"It's your turn," said Taro.

'What was this timing?!' Takuma yelled to himself as he got up and went into the office to face an annoyed shinobi who snatched the document out of his hands when he tried to offer them. Then the shinobi complained about the application and documents for ten minutes before accepting them and sending Takuma out of the office. The entire time, Takuma's mind was on the conversation he was having with Taro.

'Back to the talk,' he thought as he pushed past the salon doors. But then he heard a bell ring with: "Next!"

Taro stood up from the bench and walked inside the office, leaving Takuma alone to sit on the bench, feeling restless to resume the conversation with Taro.

"Let's get out of here," said Taro. They left the building, and Taro led them to a tea shop where he ordered a plate of dango sticks. "Do you want some?" he asked.

"No, thank you," said Takuma. He could now afford to splurge a little as the base salary of a Leaf genin was higher than the allowance he got from the state. That was not counting the per-mission pay he would earn upon completing missions. An average Leaf genin could live an above-average lavish life as a single person with no other commitments; they could even support an additional person if they live a smart affordable lifestyle. Moreover, there were concessions for various commodities provided to shinobi, making the cost of living even cheaper.

He just didn't want to spend money.

"The man in the office, he was a genin from the Genin Corps," Taro said after eating a couple dango. "Every clerk, pen-pusher, desk jockey, and building guard who's old— like twenty— is from the Genin Corps. That's a fact."

Takuma sweatdropped. Twenty was barely an 'adult' adult. The worldview of a genuine eleven year old was frightening.

"If you stay in the Genin Corps for long without progress, there's an opportunity to get into clerical positions and get off active duty— but it also means you'll never go anywhere else," Taro continued as he bit off another dango.

"A non-combatant position doesn't sound bad, though," Takuma said. Shinobi was a dangerous occupation, and getting away from the field must sound great to many people.

"But you don't have to be in the Genin Corps to avoid field duty," Taro said as he licked the dango stick.

"What do you mean? If you can't get promoted to chunin, you can't go anywhere else," Takuma asked in confusion.

"There are more ways to get out of Genin Corps, you know.... Oh, you don't know," Taro said after looking at Takuma's expression. Takuma really didn't know. "You can test for the Engineer's exam to join the Engineering school and later join one of the Engineering Divisions. Similarly, you can join the Medical Corps by becoming an Iryo-nin(medical shinobi)— it's tough, though, dad failed the interviews three times before they let him in. Then there are intelligence analysts, lawyers, boring research... my uncle is a beu-beuri-beauricrut?"

"Bureaucrat?"

"Yeah, that! Whatever that is. You can do a lot after spending the thirty months of mandatory active duty. Why stay in the Genin Corps?" Taro shrugged, "Or you can retire when you're old."

Takuma did know the last part. A Leaf shinobi could leave after ten years of duty and return to their civilian status and choose to pursue something else. You had to put in twenty years at least to get the minimum amount pension, though. And again, the early twenties weren't old.

"What about you? What do you want to do?" Takuma asked Taro.

Taro shrugged. "I wanted to get on the jonin team, but that's not happening now. My dad wants me to study for the Medical Corps, and my mom wants me to become a lawyer. I don't know what I want to do. Not thinking about it, will think about it later. My mum's a chunin, so I'll be fine... so whatever."

'Having connections like that close to you is definitely useful,' thought Takuma. Could he consider Maruboshi as his connection? Yeah, he could. What was Maruboshi's shinobi rank?

"You're pretty smart, huh, Taro," said Takuma in praise.

"Hmm? Na, you just stupid for not knowing it."

Takuma's eye twitched at the blunt insult. He said, "Did Hiji pass?"

"He did. With Aimi and Sho."

"So you must be stupider than the mutt."

That made a hit. Takuma could tell from the way Taro's eyes narrowed that he had made a hit.

"I'm just a... what do they say... a late bloomer," said Taro.

Kids these days were quicker than he was at their age, Takuma thought as he said: "I could be a late bloomer as well."

"Na, you just stupid."

"Does your insult vocabulary only have stupid in it?"

"My mom says not to use curse words."

-.-.-​

Takuma sighed, remembering his conversation with Taro a couple of days back. It wasn't the best place, but it wasn't the dead ditch he had initially feared. Maruboshi's words about putting in the effort made sense after hearing that genins could get away from Genin Corps and get into other divisions to improve their career.

But did he want that? Takuma furrowed his brows. The reason he had been aiming to become a shinobi wasn't that he wanted career progression and better pay— yes, those perks were great— but the main reason had been something else.

"Next!"

Takuma stepped into the office and faced another desk genin. He handed her a slip and told his name. The woman got up from her desk and walked to a cabinet before returning to him and giving him a sealed envelope. She asked him to check it and then sign a collection form.

He tore the envelope and titled it to drop a laminated id-card onto his palm.

———

Leaf Shinobi Identification Card
Name: Takuma
Shinobi Registration: 055-0037
Rank: Genin
Status: Active
Pay Grade: GN1

———​

Takuma stared at his picture on the card. It was a bad picture, on the level of a driving license ugly. He knew it would stick until the id-card's expiration date before he would need to renew it or when there was a need for a change.

He hadn't chosen to become a shinobi to have a career progression and nice pay. He had chosen because he knew what was waiting for him out there— he didn't even need to cross the village walls— the dangers lurked in the supposed safe village.

He had chosen to become a shinobi because he didn't have a choice.

He had chosen it because it was essential.

Takuma gripped the card harder. He was going to see to it that the rank of the card would someday say jonin on it— the elite, someone harder to kill off.

Because it was essential for his survival.




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[Fiction]

The next day, Takuma found himself in a large field. Unlike the grassy fields with Maruboshi, every step on these yellow fields would kick up dust. Situated in one of the shinobi cantonments of the Leaf village, the field was the site for the first meeting of the newly minted rookies joining the Genin Corps. After completing his morning training, Takuma arrived early on the field to be safe on his first day.

So here he was, waiting for the other rookie genins to arrive. His classmates began to arrive in groups as if they had decided to meet somewhere else before coming to the meeting site. He didn't greet them and stood by the side, watching them mingle and taking note of everyone who had failed the jonin test to end up in the same position. They may have acted like they were better than him in the academy, but now they were on the same level as him. He did wave to Taro, who gave him a 'sup' nod. Unlike the day they had met, his messy man bun was made tight and clean. Even he, himself, had cut and combed his hair, clipped his nails, and had his clothes ironed, all to make an excellent first impression.

Takuma noticed someone he didn't recognize walking into the field. He immediately straightened up, thinking it was someone senior from the Genin Corps, only to notice that the person was young. The new arrival looked about the same age as him. Soon after, more young people began trickling into the field, and Takuma recognized none of them. They all looked to be his age, and all of them had shiny plates on their forehead protectors.

"Hello," one of the strangers walked to him and greeted him with a smile with a gap between the front two incisors. "Where are you from?"

Takuma furrowed his brows a smudge. The person spoke in an accent he had never heard before— he had only one accent in the Leaf village, which was the one he spoke in, but this one was different. He did understand it, though it took a second to process.

"My name's Takuma. Who might you be?" he introduced.

"Oh! Nice to meet you, Takuma! I'm Ando Masaaki!" said the boy as he shook Takuma's hand with both his hands. "I came from Inaho," he said with a grin.

"You're from, where, again?"

"Inaho, it's down south, beyond the Kaikyo-en, near the Shuen fields," Masaaki rattled off the words like a Gatling gun.

Takuma took a moment to separate the joint sentence into individual words. Land of Fire's political landscape with its various regions, provinces, and cities had been part of the academy curriculum. He didn't know Inaho, but he did know Kaikyo-en, it was one of the two great mountain ranges that ran through the Land of Fire. The Hidden Leaf village, itself, was located two hundred kilometers from the Kaikyo-en range's mountains. He also knew about the Shuen fields, the rice bowl of the Land of Fire— as much as seventy percent of the nation's rice came from Shuen fields.

"So, you're not from the Leaf village?" Takuma looked at Masaaki's forehead protector wrapped around his head. "You are a rookie, right?"

"Gave the exam back at home, passed last month. Came here last week with my pops, he went back home yesterday," said Masaaki, his hundred-watt smile dimmed a little bit.

Takuma digested the information in his mind. He wanted to ask the obvious question but decided to bite it back and went with: "So, how was the academy back at home?"

"Hmm? We didn't have one back in Inaho. Kiwanishi had one. Inaho, Kiwanishi, and three other villages shared that one academy."

He knew it! Takuma had no idea that there were shinobi academies outside the Hidden Leaf village but from Masaaki's words, he had one near his home. And it was safe to assume that similar shinobi academies existed across the Land of Fire to recruit more people as shinobi. It made sense, didn't it— why only use children from one village/city when you have an entire nation's youth to choose from.

Takuma felt he had learned something important. He wet his lip before posing his second question, "Did you give the jonin test?"

If Masaaki had dog ears, they would droop down. "Yeah, me, Ai, and Nenro gave the test, but she failed us," he said, sounding.

'Of course, or else you wouldn't be here,' thought Takuma.

"... The others back home will make fun of us even though we bragged so much."

"Others, fun? What do you mean?"

Then Masaaki told Takuma something that made him realize how privileged his classmates— not him— were by attending the shinobi academy in the Leaf village. According to Masaaki, every year, only the top three to six of the academy graduates, the very best, would be selected to travel to the Leaf village to be tested by a jonin to be part of a three-man cell— the rest of them would be directly conscripted to the Genin Corps, and serve around the regions near their academy, they didn't even get to come to the Leaf village.

'No, I'm privileged as well,' thought Takuma. Even though he didn't get a chance to test for the jonin-led three-man cell, he was at least in the Leaf village and not in some remote place.

"So, you're from here, huh," Masaaki said.

"Hmm?" Takuma, who had been lost in thought, focused back on his new companion. "Yeah, I'm from Leaf village. Why?"

Masaaki looked towards the only large group in the field. It was made up of Takuma's classmates. "You're not standing with them or not dressed like that, so I thought you'd be the same as me," he said.

Takuma peered at his classmates, and all of them were wearing their own clothes— unlike Takuma and Masaaki, who wore the standard blue vest and pants. In fact, Takuma's classmates, along with a couple more, were the only ones not wearing the standard gear— everyone else was dressed in the same blue attire.

"Did they tell you to dress in uniform?" asked Takuma. He was wearing one of the sets Maruboshi had gifted him. He was also issued two extra pairs yesterday after getting his id-card. Though, Maruboshi's gifts were of higher quality fabric.

"Isaki-sensei, the chunin who came with us, told us to wear the standard gear to put a good impression because we're not from here," said Masaaki, still staring at Takuma's classmates. "You don't get along with them?"

Takuma shrugged. "Can't say I do. They're not bad people, though. If you want to make friends, go ahead," he said before asking: "What about your other two friends? I don't see them; you didn't come with them?"

"Oh no, they're there," Masaaki pointed to a pair standing on the other side of the field. The boy and girl were, similarly, dressed in the standard gear and stood awfully close to each other, and upon a longer look, they were holding hands.

"Oh my, are they..."

"Yuck," Masaaki stuck out his tongue in disgust, "they're always like that. One day, I swear, they will merge into one blob."

Takuma laughed. He didn't know if it was natural physiology or because of chakra, but the children in this world were more mature than the children back in his world. It was good that they matured quicker because being a child soldier wasn't nothing to sneeze at.

After a while, there were around a hundred genins gathered in the field in small groups (with Takuma's classmates forming the largest group). Soon after, two older men dressed in the standard shinobi gear with flak jackets strolled into the field. One of them looked like a bodybuilder with a buzz cut, while the other looked shady with his dark shades and forehead protector covering his entire head.

"Get into a ten-by-ten grid now," said the bulky man in a naturally loud, gruff voice. "There should be ninety-seven of you here."

"Quickly!" said the shady man in a breathy voice.

The rookie genin followed the orders and formed a ten-by-ten grid with the last three places empty.

The bulky shinobi waited until everyone was silent and looked at them and then raised one of his hands to reveal an analog stopwatch. "It took you two minutes and seventeen seconds to stand properly," he stared down the genin in front of him before sneering. "Pathetic!"

Takuma narrowed his eyes at the venom in the bulky man's voice. He glanced around, and others were showing varied expressions reflecting the same emotion.

"At least all of you're on time," the shady guy snickered.

"All of you, whatever filth you crawled from, are here because you were deemed unfit by an elite jonin of their time and guidance, in other words, they marked you as useless garbage. Due to that, you were conscripted to the Genin Corps because this is the only place that would take you in," the bulky guy said apathetically. Takuma could feel the tension rise around him. He could see Masaaki beside him clench his fist— recalling what he had told him, Masaaki was sent to the Leaf village for being the best in his class, and now, he was being told that he was useless— he could understand the reaction.

"I am Chunin Ueda Yoshio," said the bulky man. "But you don't call me that. Call me by name, and I'll make you regret being born. If you want to address me, do it by sir. As a matter of fact, any shit that comes out of your mouth should be followed by a sir. Does everybody understand?"

There was an unchorused mumble of "Yes, sir" from the genins.

"You guys can't even respond properly," the shady guy shouted at them. "I have perfect hearing, and I didn't hear it. DO— YOU— UNDERSTAND?"

This time, the group chorused with a loud "YES, SIR!"

"We will see about that," Yoshi glared at everyone. "I don't know what I did, but I was unfortunate enough to be handed the duty to whip you failures into shape so that you won't embarrass Leaf shinobi... no, all shinobi across the lands... in front of our patrons. I will try to accomplish this task, no matter how unlikely I think it is, because those are my orders— and every word that comes out of my mouth will be your orders. Understood?"

"YES, SIR!"

"Good, now tell me which one of you is the shitstain named Takuma."

Takuma, who had been staring straight ahead like in a military movie, flinched. "Me, sir!" he hesitantly raised his hand.

Yoshio walked through the grid until he was standing uncomfortably close to Takuma, who could feel his warm breath over his face and smell the scent of deodorant that the larger man had worn. Takuma didn't blink or look at Yoshio and simply started ahead in the back of the skull of the person standing in front of him.

"Listen, everyone, dear boy Takuma here failed his graduation test twice before he somehow lucked out on the third try. I don't know how he passed the third time, and if the invigilator weren't chunin, who is not even on the same planet as him, I would've thought he cheated. I think he still did something fishy to pass because there's no way this stupid twig could be a shinobi. He was so bad that, unlike all of you, they didn't even let him test for a three-man cell," hearing Yoshio's voice this close rattled Takuma's heart in his chest. Yoshio leaned forward, his nose almost touching Takuma's temple. "I don't know whose ass you licked to get that headband, but make one stupid mistake, and I swear to god that there will be no luck helping you here."

"Yes, sir!" Takuma said loudly, his eyes trained straight. He had taken the judging eyes of his classmates until they had grown desensitized and had grown to see it as normal. A little bit of yelling in his face, while new, didn't really affect him. He was prepared for it. The announcement of his failure to people who didn't know did get to him, even though he knew the rumor would leak his result through his classmates.

Yoshio, who was leaning away from Takuma, froze when he heard the shout and stared at Takuma with a hard stare that only broke because someone in the assembly scoffed.

It was one of Takuma's classmates, and while Yoshio missed it, the shady guy caught it. He briskly walked to the guy and yelled into his face. "Is there something funny, genin?! Tell everyone so they can also laugh. Do you think you're better than him? Do you?! At least he wore his uniform; you didn't even have that common sense! We gave you the gears for a reason. God damn wear them!"

The classmate who had laughed flinched and looked down at his feet.

"Everyone who didn't wear the provided uniform will stay back today," said Yoshio.

He walked to the front of the group before addressing them again. "You're hereby part of the Genin Corp basic training. If I do my job properly, you'll enjoy hell after you die."

Takuma straightened and up clenched his fists. If life was going to be hard, then so was he.




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[Fiction]

Takuma could hear his breathing inside his head as he observed his team in various states of exertion. On the first day, the rookie genins had been apportioned into teams of five each. Any group activity was to be done with the team.

His new team... was interesting, to say the least.

"You... You're a monster, Masaaki," said the girl with the bub cut and a lock of hair braided a violet ribbon just in front of the ear. She was huffing heavily with her hands on her knees as she looked up at Masaaki.

She wasn't wrong. After sprinting for the better part of half an hour, Masaaki looked like he could do it for another hour without breaking a sweat.

Masaaki's laugh was boisterous. "You don't train enough, Ai," he said with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I train enough! You're the deviant one!"

Masaaki laughed more.

"Ai's right, Masaaki. You're just something else," said the guy standing beside Ai with his hands resting on his waist as he caught his breathing.

Takuma could confidently say that he hadn't seen a more handsome eleven year old in both of his lives. Nenro, Masaaki's classmate from the academy, was strikingly good-looking with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and tall stature. Takuma had noticed many interested eyes from girls in the rookies lingering at Nenro, and many had even come to talk to him over—the number would've been higher if Ai hadn't staked her claim in public. Takuma wondered if it was a coincidence or deliberate that Masaaki, Ai, and Nenro were placed together on the team.

That left the last member of his team. Takuma turned to look at the ground behind him, where Taro wheezed on the ground as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the world.

"... I never noticed you have such low stamina," Takuma said to Taro.

Taro stared up at him and looked like he wanted to say something but closed his eyes.

"Takuma, you also seem to be doing well," Nenro's voice made Takuma turn towards the handsome blonde and chuckle.

"... I run a lot," he smiled wryly.

"I'm sorry, should I've not asked?" Nenro asked with a worried look on his face.

"Eh? Ah, no, no, it's nothing," Takuma waved him off— it was more like he was forced to run by Maruboshi during the Leaf/Coin Concentration Practice. He wasn't as sunny as Masaaki, but he had already caught his breath and could go again. "How's the search for the apartment going?" he asked.

Ai perked up as a starry look appeared in her eyes. "We found the perfect place! It's only a couple streets away from the main road. The market and bathhouse are like five minutes away. And you won't believe how nice the apartment is— it's better than my home back in Kiwanishi!" she said in glowing praise.

"We're going to finalize the lease today," Nenro smiled softly.

"Well, congratulations on finding someplace you like."

"We're going to have a housewarming party or something when we get some time. Come visit us then," said Masaaki.

Takuma nodded. He still lived in the same place. The state previously rented the place, and the rent was paid directly by them without Takuma needing to do it himself. But after Takuma graduated, that stopped like the allowance. The landlord had come asking the very first day if Takuma wanted to rent, and he had agreed. Even though his house was nowhere near the main streets or the market— the apartment was excellent in shape and had twenty-four hours of electricity and water, and even though the neighborhood didn't house great characters, it was quiet, something Takuma appreciated. Plus, he was comfortable with his place, and that's what mattered most. And it wasn't like he could afford a place in a nicer area like the trio— even they could only afford it because they were splitting the rent three ways. The landlord had drawn a new lease after a long round of negotiation in which Takuma dragged the price down as much as he could. On the downside, he had to give three months' rent in advance, which had put a dent in his savings.

"Though, I'm surprised that we found the place so quickly. The landlord didn't even try to negotiate the price much and looked happy to rent the place to us," said Nenro with concern, "I fear that there must be something wrong with the place."

"Don't jinx it, Nenro," Ai lightly kicked Nenro on his leg.

"Shinobi make great tenants..." Everyone turned to Taro, who had now sat on the ground. "... or to be precise, genin makes for great tenants. Shinobi are paid more handsomely than most professions out there, and genin are only assigned D- and C-rank missions where the risk of dying is lower than the higher-grade missions that aren't assigned to genins. There's rarely any downside to renting out to genins. Chunin and Jonin, on the other hand, are a completely different story. B-rank missions anticipate combat with other shinobi, and the risk of casualty spikes up like a mountain; I don't even need to speak about A-rank assignments. And owners don't really prefer tenants who can die one random day, leaving them responsible for cleaning out the place, contacting the next of kin, and doing additional paperwork— thus making chunin and jonin terrible tenants. My dad said that he and mum were forced to take out a loan to buy our house because they couldn't find a good place to rent."

That made sense. Takuma didn't know how much his status as genin contributed to his landlord from keeping the apartment for the ever-reliable state to renting out his property to an eleven-year-old. The landlord had visited the apartment for regular check-ups and had never complained about anything as Takuma kept his place clean, and he never had any complaints from his neighbors as he wasn't at home for most of the day. Maybe that contributed as well, he thought.

"Gather up!"

Yoshio's voice boomed in the field. No one wasted one movement and hurried to gather in front of the instructor as if the last one would be strung up dead. In less than half a minute, twenty-five genins had placed themselves in a neat five-by-five grid that they had learned to form in the past two weeks. The ninety-seven genins had been quartered into three groups of twenty-five(one of twenty-two) made up of teams of five(or four). Takuma's group had the fortune(or ill fortune, as Taro put it) to be taught by Yoshio, while some other chunins took the other groups.

"To be tired by running a few steps. Pathetic," said Yoshio as he walked the ample space between each genin. He had a baton in his hand to strike them whenever someone did something he didn't appreciate. Yoshio walked behind Taro and smacked him on his back to make him stand in rod-like attention— or whenever he found even the slightest of mistakes.

"As you losers are right now, you're going to be mauled by drunkards and filthy bandits, and while I don't mind that happening, the higher-ups don't want to see the money spent stitching your uniforms go to waste— I warned them not to pay you little shits, but they didn't listen— so I have to make sure you don't die in some random ditch while on missions."

Takuma felt insulted at the remark. He didn't know about a bandit, as he hadn't met one, but he could wipe the floor with the drunkards he had said in his neighborhood. He glanced at his taijutsu-proficient classmates, and they looked more displeased than him.

"We're going to remedy that, but before that, I need a volunteer." A mocking smirk surfaced on his face, "Which one of you sorry doormats think they can take me on? Anyone who thinks they're better than me?"

A hand was immediately raised, and Takuma recognized it was one of his classmates, one with higher taijutsu proficiency. "Sir! I think I can do that, sir!" he said loudly.

Yoshio grinned and threw the baton away. He beckoned the guy forward. The genin walked out of the grid with an angry look on his face and immediately darted toward Yoshio without warning. The chunin instructor's grin widened as he effortlessly caught a kick from the genin. Yoshio's muscles bulged under his vest as he used the caught leg to swing the genin and thrash him into the ground face first. There was a sickening "gah" from Takuma's classmate.

Yoshio raised his foot and stomped it down on the guy's calf. Even though it wasn't audible, Takuma could hear the bone crack in his mind. His breath caught for a second.

"Are you alright, genin?" Yoshio asked, unbothered by what he had just done.

Takuma's classmate was holding his leg and shaking. His body had shrunk slightly into a fetal position. He said in a croaky voice, "Sir! Yes... sir! H-However, I-I think I broke my foot, s-sir!"

"Nothing serious then," smiled Yoshio. He then yelled, "Medic!"

In the middle of the large field shared by all five groups, the shady guy with dark glasses, who had accompanied Yoshio on the first day, sat on a foldable chair under a beach umbrella. He put down whatever book he was reading and teleported from there to beside Yoshio using Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Jutsu).

He knelt down beside the cowering genin. He pulled the pant sleeve and observed the injury while the genin hissed, groaned, and yelled in pain when he was poked or his leg was was moved. The shady guy weaved hand seals before holding the leg with one hand and placing his other hand over the point of breakage for an iridescent green glow of Iryo-jutsu to appear.

"You see, I was pissed when they forced me to teach you a lot that I decided. I couldn't do anything as they were my orders, but I decided to make it a little fun. So, I proposed a harmless bet to the instructors. All four of us train our groups, and at the end of the basic training, one team for each group will participate in a tournament to decide a winner," said Yoshio.

Takuma narrowed his eyes. The shitty instructor was using them for fun and games. This was definitely some sort of new rookie hazing— pitting them against each other like animals in a fight club and enjoying as they beat each other up.

"Of course, we understand the need for some motivation for you lazy lot," Yoshio continued. "The four teams that participate in the tournament will not be participating as teams; they will participate as individuals, meaning there will be one winner," the chunin instructor raised one finger. "As a reward, the winner will get a C-rank jutsu scroll."

Takuma's eyes widened as he heard gasps around him. The academy three were E-rank jutsu. Rookie genins like them were allowed access to a library of D-rank jutsu. C-rank jutsu was beyond that. Takuma didn't know if genins were allowed access to C-rank jutsu, but from the gasps around him, he could infer that even if they were, he wasn't going to get his hands on one for a long time.

"For my group, that's you guys; there will be a leaderboard that will be updated every week. Every week, the team on the top will be exempted from some punishment everyone else will have to face," Yoshio's face was the perfect expression of evil.

"The team on the top of the leaderboard at the end of the basic training will participate in the final tournament."

Takuma clenched his grip on his other wrist behind his back. He could feel his heartbeat through the pulse on his wrist. A C-rank jutsu. For an orphan like him who wasn't part of a jonin-led three-man cell, or from a shinobi clan, or had close relatives in the shinobi organization, a C-rank jutsu was more precious than gold.

He had to get it.

He was going to get it...

... No matter what it took.




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[Fiction]

The roofs in the Hidden Leaf village were considered free property for shinobi to traverse through. Any day, one could spot at least two dozen shinobi jumping from roof to roof to avoid the roads crowded with slow civilians.

Takuma looked down at the road street from a tall roof in a residential area. He stepped back and ran to the next roof, jumping over a gap between the buildings that would've made him pee a little even thinking about jumping if he was in his previous body. His new body, though— his shinobi body could put any professional traceurs, individuals who practiced parkour, to shame. He had strength, balance, dexterity, and nimbleness that allowed him to be as comfortable between buildings and roofs as he would be on a flat road.

He again stepped near the ledge and observed Taro and Masaaki walking on the road. The rookie genins were made to walk a beat in a part of a village as part of guard duty— they would walk the streets, converse with the people they met on the way, keep up to date with the events in the area, and help anyone who they could.

However, as this was part of the basic training, Yoshio instructed them to only have two people on the road while the other three would watch over them as part of a stealth and backup simulation. Takuma peered at the buildings across the street and saw Nenro also skipping through the rooftops of the buildings and keeping an eye on the two walking the road. As for Ai, she was somewhere hidden doing the same job— he had lost sight of her, which meant she was doing a good job.

Basic training hadn't been what he expected. The training was tough, but nothing he hadn't done with Maruboshi. Takuma still started his training at four in the morning (he did it alone as Maruboshi had started retaking regular missions) before going to the genin basic training. He trained in different things, involving his team and group under Yoshio, who did hit him- well, everyone- a lot. The chunin instructor, in only their first week, threw a shuriken into one of his genins' palms after an argument before nonchalantly calling for the Iryo-nin.

As long as the shady guy chunin— Takuma still didn't know his name— could heal the injury, Yoshio would inflict it as a punishment. Takuma had gotten his thigh bone bruised and suffered micro-fractures that had pained him so much when Yoshio had made him walk to the shady guy sitting halfway across the field to get healed.

The thing that disappointed Takuma was that they were still going through academy-level stuff that everyone could do. Everyone knew how to do it, but Yoshio ordered them to train them anyways and would punish them for even the most minor mistakes. Takuma hoped they would move on to something new.

"What are you thinking about?"

Takuma skipped on his feet, shifting his weight on the ball of his feet, as he twisted back with a kunai already in his hand to slash the person who had sneaked up on him.

*Scrriiing!*

His kunai met another as sparks flew on contact. Takuma immediately overpowered his opponent and was about to push them back to get some space and launch the next attack when he noticed that the supposed foe was his female teammate.

"What were you thinking sneaking up on me like that?!" Takuma said as he stepped back and loosened his grip on his kunai. One didn't just sneak up on a shinobi like that and not expect to get stabbed in the face.

He sighed; he still needed to get used to his new teammate's antics.

Ai stuck out her tongue and twirled her kunai with her finger in the ring. Among Takuma's team, Ai was the mood-maker with her outgoing character. In the team with quiet characters such as Takuma and Taro, Ai was the one who struck up conversations that involved the entire group. Even Masaaki, the friendliest of them all, and Nenro, the most popular guy of the rookie genins, followed Ai's lead in conversations.

Takuma was sure if Ai was in his previous world, she would be successful as a streamer or any internet personality.

"Why're you here?" he asked.

"Nothing happens during patrolling. I was getting bored. I wish something would happen, anything," Ai shrugged as she followed Takuma to the next roof.

"Nothing happening is good for us," said Takuma, still keeping an eye on the road from every successive rooftop. But he didn't tell her to go away— he was also getting bored.

"Hey, do you think we will ace the board this week?" Ai asked.

Group Yoshio Weekly Rankings. The five teams would compete throughout the week in every activity in hopes of being at the top of the group's weekly rankings. There was no set scoreboard, and Yoshio didn't reveal the running order until the very last day while announcing the winner— nor did he specify a point system that would help them estimate their ranking. Because of that, every team had to be on top of their game throughout the week, fearing that some other team had taken their spot the other day.

"We haven't done anything different than the last three weeks, so I don't think so," Takuma said.

"But we are doing everything we can," Ai grumbled before doing a flip between two buildings. "I really want us to win this week!"

The rankings reset every week, and their group had been consistently in second and third position every week, while every other team was wildly inconsistent in their rankings. Takuma was sure when the points for every week were tallied, they would be favorites for entry into the final tournament. However, that wasn't enough. Coming first in the weekly rankings came with a reward in the form of mission points.

Mission points were the other currency in the Leaf shinobi military other than money. In many ways, mission points were more important than ryo, as jutsu from the jutsu library could only be accessed by paying through mission points. As the name suggested, mission points were earned by completing missions. The genin in basic training weren't allowed to apply to official missions to earn mission points.

So for Takuma, the only way to earn mission points was through topping Group Yoshio's Weekly Rankings.

"The way I see it, we need to win the fights if we want to top the rankings," Takuma said as he stopped on a rooftop and watched the building across the street as Nenro ran through the roof while a young man hung his washed laundry on the clothing line to dry. Nenro apologetically nodded for disturbing the man and immediately jumped to the next roof.

Ai giggled at the sight. She then asked, "Taro said something like that, right?"

Takuma nodded. Taro had pointed out that the teams that grabbed the first place in the last three weeks had collectively won most fights throughout the week. He had shown them a tally as proof that he had drafted sometime they weren't looking.

"Yoshio said that the final tournament is a competition among instructors, and I'm pretty sure they have put money into it. I mean, why wouldn't they. So, by giving out mission points, Yoshio is trying to reward the team with the combat ability who would then win him the final tournament," Takuma analyzed. If the other teams hadn't figured it out yet, it was only a matter of time before everyone did.

Combined with Taro's win tally, it was safe to infer that fights had a considerable weight in Yoshio's secret/internal grading system.

"Uhm, that's gonna to be tough," Ai said with a little blush on her cheeks.

Takuma was no longer the weakest person among his peers. He had gone from the bottom of the barrel to the top fifteen out of the twenty-five people group. He didn't win any fights, but he had a better record than Ai, who won more than Taro. Nenro and Masaaki were the reason why their team was able to bag the third and sometimes second place— Nenro hovered in eleventh or tenth place, but it was Masaaki who consistently made it into the top ten rankings, which, other than him, was occupied by the clan and shinobi-born kids. The buzz-cut bald kid with gap between his front teeth hit like a tank.

"If we want to be on the top, you, me, and Taro will need to win more," said Takuma with a shrug. It was the plain truth. "That and complete the drills faster and better than everyone else— if we can do that, it's only natural we will be on the top."

"It sounds easy," she sighed.

"Not to me," Takuma pursed his lips and knew that she understood it as well. He had been trying to polish his taijutsu skills. He had observed Nenro and Masaaki fighting. They possessed a fluidity in their movement, and he tried to ask them what it was, but they didn't seem to know what he was pointing out. He lacked what they had.

If they wanted mission points, something needed to change soon.


———
.


The change came quickly.

"Today, we're going to work on chakra control," Yoshio announced after another grueling conditioning drill. He did his customary round through the grid and let his baton eat while correcting the postures. "Takuma, how did you train your chakra control— if you did, that is?"

"Through Leaf Concentration Practice, sir!" Takuma said in a sturdy voice, his body rigid in attention.

"So, what are we going to do today?"

Takuma thought about what they had been doing these days— the same old academy stuff, so he was going to repeat his words, but as the words formed in his throat, he felt Yoshio's heat behind him, and he swore he could feel the cold baton as well.

"The Tree-Climbing Practice, sir!" he took the risk and changed the answer at the last moment.

Yoshio, who had gripped his baton ready to strike Takuma, smacked it back into his palm and stared at the back of Takuma's head for a solid few seconds. Takuma felt the gaze trying to boil his brain through his skull.

"You're correct for a change," said Yoshi, "and you've ruined my day."

Takuma held back the biggest grin from splitting his face and put on his best stone-cold stoic face as Yoshio passed him by, giving him a displeased look.

"Today, we're going to learn the next step in improving your pathetic chakra control. Follow me! The last one to arrive will have to do thirty pushups with their heaviest teammate on their back," saying that Yoshio took off and the genin, who had just done a long conditioning drill, had to follow the absurd pace set by the chunin instructor.

Yoshio only stopped when they reached an area with a tall wall in the middle. It was just a single gray concrete wall just standing in the middle of the empty field. They had to crane up their necks to look at the wall that looked to be around four-story tall.

"Even though it's called the tree-climbing practice, you lot are going to do it on a wall," Yoshio said. He then paused and looked at Takuma. "So, you were technically wrong... this improves my mood."

Yoshio walked to the wall and started to climb up the wall without using his hands. He walked halfway, removed one of his legs, and crossed it over the other thigh. "Gather chakra in the bottom of your feet and climb the tree using the same concept of sticking as the leaf concentration practice. Just here, the weight is different, and the sole of your feet is a difficult place to gather chakra. If any of your numbskulls didn't know, better chakra control means you can cast jutsu easier. The second purpose is to develop a sense of building chakra in your body. A shinobi is constantly moving in the heat of battle, and processes like molding chakra and directing it gets difficult when most of your mind needs to focus on other things— you need to practice chakra control until it becomes instinctual, and the tree-climbing practice is the place where you start."

Yoshio jumped off the wall and landed on the ground with his bulky body throwing up a lot of dust. He continued, "This is how you're going to do it. You will climb up the wall and walk down the other side."

Then a grin appeared on Yoshio's face that disturbed Takuma. The sound of weight shifting of feet around him told that the rest of the group thought the same.

"The first team to complete the exercise successfully will be rewarded. All the members will get a very generous cache of mission points," Yoshio announced.

The moment Yoshio finished, Takuma knew how he was going to make up for the mission points he had lost out by not being the top team.





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[Fiction]

If Takuma could say it, he would say it up close to Yoshio's face. For all his bulging muscles and overwhelming masculine energy, the chunin instructor was softer than Maruboshi. Takuma definitely feared Yoshio's metal baton, verbal harassment, and the punishments for mistakes, but he would take all of that in a heartbeat as opposed to the penalties that Maruboshi imposed upon failure. Even the much more difficult tree-walking practice didn't seem as daunting and dreadful as Maruboshi's version of leaf concentration practice with multiple objects of heavier and heavier weights with grinding penalties to the boot.

Takuma looked at his peers on either side as they started with a run up on the ground and used that momentum and speed to try rushing up the wall. He didn't know who started it, but soon everyone was using the same running approach. Only two people hadn't adopted the strategy— Takuma himself and Taro.

Takuma had his past trauma of wanting to fail the least, even if it meant he tried less than others— the trauma of losing money still haunted him. As for Taro, he simply stood at the back, observing everyone. Takuma gave Taro a fleeting glance before focusing on the wall in front of him.

While the tree-walking practice and leaf concentration practice operated on the same concept of 'sticking' using chakra, one key difference between the two exercises set them apart. The difference was the difference in mass(or force caused by mass) in action.

Yesterday, when Yoshio announced the tree-walking practice and the mission point reward, he had distributed the scroll on the tree-walking practice. Unlike a jutsu scroll, this scroll didn't have any hand seals and directions, as the exercise didn't need any. Instead, the tree-walking scroll was a theoretical research piece on how leaf concentration and tree-walking practice worked. And after having embarrassed himself in front of Maruboshi upon skipping the text walls in the Henge no Jutsu(Transformation Jutsu) scroll, Takuma had spent time reading the scroll in an effort to learn the technique quickly and bag the mission points.

Takuma placed his hand, palm flat, on the wall and channeled chakra through his chakra pathway system and out of the hand's tenketsu(chakra points). He pushed his hand down slightly, and instead of sticking, the hand slid down. Even the slightest tug was enough to dislodge his hand when he used the amount of chakra he used to stick a stack of coins.

'Mass's going to be key here,' Takuma thought as he pressed one finger on the wall and applied a constant downward pull, dragging his finger down— until it suddenly stopped as Takuma felt a force adhering his finger to the wall.

The theory scroll was complex. Takuma disliked that it was clearly written by an academician for other academics in the classic research paper language that had trumped him back at college when he needed to do secondary research for assignments and projects. He wasn't that. He hadn't researched chakra; his knowledge was that of a layman. Every sentence and paragraph had taken him thrice over to understand. But he had gained something out of it.

While twenty or so people ran toward the wall, Takuma stood near the wall with his hand raised straight above. He jumped as high as he could and tried to slap his hand on the wall at the top of his leap and keep them on the wall as he inevitably slid down. When compared to others, he looked downright stupid.

Nenro was doing the exercise beside him and asked, "Takuma, what are you doing?"

Takuma shushed harshly and said, "Go away, don't bother me," without looking at his teammate.

Takuma jumped again and slapped his hand at the peak of his vertical reach. He slid down again—but a tiny bit slower than before. He jumped again, and this time his hand was blown away from the wall as he crashed his back on the floor.

"Are you alright?!" Nenro came to him again.

"Yeah, yeah! I'm alright, thanks!" Takuma got up.

"Do you want me to help?" asked Nenro. Where Nenro practiced, there was a white chalk palm print on the wall fifteen feet above the ground.

Takuma shook his head at his teammate. "Maybe, tomorrow. But not today, my friend, not today," he smiled before facing the wall again.

Due to the nature of chakra 'sticking' where only the correct amount allowed perfect adhesion, anything less would form a weak bond, and anything more would blow the person or object away— Takuma couldn't stand on the ground and adhere his hands to the wall and start scaling the wall like Spiderman. Even if he stuck his hand on a spot and then tried to dangle from it, the weight change would erase the adhesion, and he would fall. If he tried to compensate chakra for the weight before dangling, his hand would be blown away as, at that moment, the chakra was much more than required for just the hand to stick.

Chakra 'sticking' was different from glue in such a way. Something Takuma had learned from the scroll.

He could dynamically regulate chakra as mass(or force) changed— which was needed to actually tree-walk as with every step, a force was applied on the surface, requiring a change in chakra quantity to maintain the adhesion— but his proficiency was still away from that level.

So, he jumped, and after numerous tries of slowly sliding down or being blown away... Slap! Takuma slapped his hand on the wall while simultaneously releasing chakra through tenketsu.

And with one hand stuck on the wall... he dangled.

Takuma looked down and he could see his feet off the ground. "Holy shit, I did it," he muttered to himself. He looked around, and he could see the other genin staring at him. He waved to Masaaki, who waved back with his jaw slightly open.

They had yet to be able to stick a point on the wall. All of them were trying to run up the wall, taking the next step as soon as possible before the loose adhesion on the foot collapsed due to excessive force so they could plant the other foot on a higher point. That wasn't true tree-walking.

Takuma remembered. Yoshio had walked up the wall and then had stopped halfway through and remained there, even removing one foot to showboat. Staying on the spot on a vertical surface— that was true tree-walking.

Looking up at the height of the wall, Takuma could see a lot of distance for him to cover. He raised his free hand and tried to place it on a higher spot, but in doing so, he put force on his adhered hand so he could push his body upwards a little— force increased, and the applied chakra was suddenly not enough to maintain the adhesion. Takuma's hand came off the wall, and he slid down rapidly.

Slap! He hurriedly slapped his other hand on the wall and applied the same amount of chakra he had done for the correct adhesion, and it worked; his fall stopped, and he dangled with his other hand supporting his weight. Only, instead of gaining height as he had attempted, he lost several feet of it.

"Shit," he cursed. Takuma sighed. He was now in the same position as the others. They could run up but not stick. He could stick but not climb up.

But he wasn't worried because he had read the scroll. He needed to increase the chakra output dynamically as the force against the wall increased.

'Do it slowly,' he thought— it was like letting up the clutch, you did it smoothly. He strained his arm as he pulled himself up and placed the other arm higher up on the wall, and in one fell swoop, he outputted the chakra on the higher hand while letting the lower one go.

"Okay!" Takuma yelled out loud, hyped for the one step he had taken.

He immediately tried to climb higher and ended up messing up the chakra output and ended up slipping a couple feet before catching himself. This time, he cursed himself out loud.

Climbing using chakra was different from traditional climbing, as Takuma wasn't using his legs to secure leverage. He used his hands as absolute holds and then pulled himself up with them without using his legs to push himself up. From the ground, it looked like he was dragging himself up the straight wall. Doing it this way was tiring— his shoulders, elbows, and wrists felt exhausted and weak. If he wanted the chakra to act like sticky gloves, he would need a lot of practice in regulating his chakra according to the force shifts— for now, he had to do it this way.

When he looked down, he saw that he was several meters high. He had already scaled three out of four stories height. Takuma looked up, and even though the slow deliberate climb had his body hurting, he raised his other hand.

He was going to make it to the top.


———
.


Yoshio, on the other side of the wall, sat on an outdoor chair with a report in his hand. Even though he was training genin brats, he still had to do damn paperwork.

'They need to pay me more for this shit,' he grumbled as he filled what felt like the hundredth dotted line.

He hadn't gone checked how his group was doing on the other side of the wall. They weren't academy students anymore, and it wasn't his responsibility to baby them. They needed to work hard if they wanted to succeed. He would go observe them secretly just before the end of the session (which was whenever he wanted it to end) to see who all was slacking and punish them like the pathetic weasels they were. He didn't mind if they hadn't made substantial progress. As long as they put in the work, they would eventually get it— which was the important thing. Of course, if someone showed substantial progress that satisfied him, they could slack off. Results did matter, after all.

"Wooh!"

He heard a voice and craned his neck up to see a figure standing on top of the wall with his hands raised up. He narrowed his eyes to identify who it was and his eyes widened when he saw it was Takuma.

The weakest of his group... of the current of the batch. The only one to fail two graduation attempts. Some failed one of them, but none failed two— none had done it in a while. Which was why it had been such a conversation among the instructor.

He was waiting to see a lazy brat unfit to be a shinobi walk into the basic training, and he was ready to whip the kid into a functional bottom-of-the-barrel genin, the type who eventually became career genin— but the person who walked on contradicted most he had seen on the report. Yes, he was barely skilled in the basic bukijutsu, but other than that, he was decently competent in taijutsu and could perform the academy three well (how much chakra he was wasting was another topic). He was disciplined and seemed to gel with his team. If Yoshio had to point something out, Takuma seemed a bit too rigid and needed to talk more.

He was no way the best genin he had got, but at the same time, he wasn't the worst he had seen. And he could appreciate those who put in the work.

'Didn't expect him to get to the top first,' Yoshio thought— he assumed it would be one of the clan kids.

But then he saw Takuma starting to climb down.

'What the hell's he doing?'

Takuma climbed down on his hands instead of his feet as he explicitly instructed. Yoshio could tell that Takuma was using chakra but on his hands and not his feet. And what was supposed to be the harder part of the challenge— as walking down the wall meant that gravity was now working in favor, which made sticking to the wall much harder while rapidly came down as opposed to when running up where you could lean your body forward while rushing; without proper technique, their hold would weaken, and they would plummet down— had turned into Takuma climbing down flat against the wall, looking foolish.

The climb down was excruciatingly slow, showing the boy's inexperience with the technique. Takuma eventually made his way to the bottom without messing up.

"Wooh!" celebrated the brat, his arms limp by his side.

"And what is this celebration for?" Yoshio asked as he got up with the baton in hand. "Genin Takuma, you do remember I said that the challenge would only be considered successful when you scaled and climbed down the wall without using your hands."

Takuma straightened up, assuming proper. He looked forward in the distance, not meeting Yoshio's eyes. "Sir, I remember, sir!" he said loudly.

"Then what was that you just did?"

"Sir, as you said, chakra is notoriously difficult to gather near the feet. However, it's the easiest to gather chakra in hands. I used my hands to familiarize myself with the process so that I'd be able to progress faster when I switch to feet, sir!" said Takuma.

Yoshio couldn't find words for a moment. The logic made sense. Because people used their hands so much in their daily lives, it was instinctively easier to gather chakra in their hands, as opposed to legs, which, while people regularly used a lot, were the furthest from the heart where chakra was produced.

He decided to throw a hypothetical at Takuma. "Do you not fear embarrassment that everyone will learn the technique when you are still floundering with your strange hand climbing, left behind alone?"

Takuma didn't look fazed at all. "Sir, I intend to win the mission points, sir!" he said.

Yoshio scoffed as any respectable instructor would do. "You need all of your team to complete the challenge before any other team. As it stands, you're the furthest behind everyone, which places your team behind everyone else."

But he could appreciate the effort and sentiment.

He decided to not punish the brat for making zero official progress.




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[Fiction]

"What are you doing today?"

Takuma raised his head from his feet to his three migrant teammates, who were looking at them with curious(or dubious) looks.

"Training for the tree-walking practice?" said Takuma, his tone twisting in the end. It was the second day after Yoshio adjusted their training regiment to add one and a half hours of tree-walking(which they did on a wall).

"It has 'practice' in the name, you know," Ai made air quotes. "It's the training exercise to improve our chakra control and walk on any surface... People don't train for a training exercise; that doesn't make sense."

Takuma raised a finger as he said, "Actually, that's not true. People who can't do a pushup can be taught to do the pushup motion against the flat wall, then at a slight angle, then on the floor with bent knees, basically making incremental progressions to the actual pushups. It works with a lot of exercises. I'm doing the same here."

"That's not the same! What you mentioned is raising the difficulty..."

Nenro noticed Ai fold her arm and step forward, her expression turning sharper. He intervened by placing his arm between Takuma and Ai. "What Ai is trying to say is if training for tree-climbing will involve some actual climbing?" Nenro asked.

"Huh? I climbed yesterday. Got to the top and down," Takuma had scuffed his hand badly by all the slipping and dragging his hands against the grainy concrete— nothing the shady guy couldn't fix, but still pretty painful after an hour and a half of dragging his hand against hard concrete.

"With legs, you dummy," said the usually cutesy girl of the group.

Nenro rubbed the top of Ai's head, squishing her neck down a bit. He said to Takuma, "You did something so different yesterday and somehow completed the challenge on your hands. It was startling. So when we saw you doing something else again, we got interested. Maybe it would help us complete the challenge quicker?"

"Teach us!" Masaaki's voice in the short distance rattled the other's ears.

Takuma shrugged. He had no qualms about telling them. They were his teammates, and if he wanted to win the mission points, he needed his team to be the first to complete the challenge.

"Okay, so listen, yesterday after training—"

"Wait, let me get Taro," Ai interrupted and ran off to get their last teammate. She returned with Taro in tow, who flailed his limbs frantically as he was dragged on the ground.

Masaaki threw his head back in laughter. Nenro sighed and shook his head. "You could've politely asked him to come with you," he said.

"I did."

"No, you didn't, you wild woman!" Taro raised his protest.

"I asked you once, but you started grumbling. I didn't want to waste time because I knew there would be no end to it. We only get ninety minutes of practice for this exercise. You left me no choice."

"No choice? No choiCE?! You—"

Takuma didn't need to listen more to decide he was siding with Ai. In the few weeks of working closely with Taro, and what he knew from the time before, Takuma knew there was no one more lazy than his ex-classmate. Taro was lazy incarnate. He didn't outright slack off and not complete the tasks assigned to him— only he tread the thin rope by merely doing the minimum amount to get by without pulling himself into trouble. And he was very good at it.

"Alright, both of you fight later," Takuma clapped his hand to get their attention to him. "I already told you about the sticky-hand climbing yesterday." The moment he returned from his successful climb, everyone crowded him about what he was doing. He had been polite and told the gist of his approach so as to not burn any bridges with the group because even though they were separated into teams, a lot of the time was spent together with the group. Afterward, he took his group aside to share some details.

No one had given the sticky-hand climbing approach a try, though, not even his teammates. He didn't blame them; he technically was with the least amount of progress.

"Today, I'm doing a simpler version of the tree-climbing practice," Takuma continued. "Like the pushup example," Ai furrowed her brows, "I'm doing what you guys are doing but on a less complicated surface, which is flat ground," he pointed down.

He had yet to climb the wall using the standard tree-walking style. Instead, after thinking about it for a day, he came up with another step to make progress more painless as possible.

"... By walking on the ground, you can take your time to apply the grip with chakra, eliminating the complexity that comes with a vertical surface," Taro, who was still on the ground, said while staring at Takuma's feet with his brows furrowed ever so slightly. "You don't have to worry about falling to the ground while you regulate the chakra between your soles as you take a step forward."

"Exactly!" Takuma pointed at Taro as that was precisely the crux of the simpler version. "I can do it slowly as gravity isn't hungry to pull me back down to the ground"— as the saying went, what goes up eventually comes down— "and I can take it as slow as I want while everyone else is trying to sprint up." He continued and pointed at his feet. "I'm trying to make every step stick to the ground without... this... happening!"

Takuma pushed the chakra to the sole of his front foot. The topsoil burst under his foot, and at the same time, he was thrown back onto the ground, unable to retain any semblance of balance.

He sat up with a groan. The feeling of being thrown back was annoying. "This exercise is perfect for getting a sense of how weight and force distributes between the two legs as you walk. If you can do it on the ground, you would have an infinitely easier time doing it on the steepest of walls."

"It makes sense," Taro nodded.

"Right?" Takuma smiled. "Start with both feet sticking to the ground, then release one foot and raise it up while adjusting chakra for the increased weight on the backfoot. Plant the forefoot on the ground, secure it with chakra, and only release the backfoot when you have affirmed the grip on the forefoot... and then repeat the process."

"Let's give this a try," said Ai. Nenro and Masaaki quickly agreed. All of them opted to do the 'ground-walking' without trying the hand climb like Takuma. Nenro even said that directly doing it with feet made more sense and involving hands seemed like an additional unnecessary step.

Takuma didn't agree, but he also didn't argue. Who was he to tell them how to do things? The hands exercise worked with him; who knows if it would work for everyone.

"Hey, where are you going?" Masaaki called when he noticed Taro walking away. Everyone looked to see Taro going back to his original spot.

"Back to the wall," Taro jutted his chin to the tall concrete structure.

"You're not doing Takuma's thing?"

"No, you guys go ahead; I'll stick to the normal method," Taro said.

"What the hell?" Masaaki frowned heavily, sounding upset and confused. "Didn't you say that Takuma made sense? Why're you not doing it then?"

Taro stopped and turned. He looked disinterested in the conversation with his lidded eyes and hands slipped into his pant pockets. "I did say it made sense, but never did I say it was correct...."

"Huh?"

"No one has tested Takuma's approach before. Hell, even he himself hasn't tested it before. He just came up with it after yesterday's session, who knows if it would work. The logic made sense, but a lot of things make sense on the surface, but not all of them actually work. I would rather try out an approach everyone knows works than try something whipped up by a rookie genin with less than a day's worth of thought."

Taro glanced at Takuma. "No offense, but given your past performance, we both know you aren't exactly reliable regarding this stuff."

"You! How can you say that?" Masaaki sounded upset but looked more confused. Even Nenro and Ai looked uncomfortable with the confrontation.

"Everyone, let's not fight," Nenro stepped forward, the mediator in any conflict in the team and group, "let's talk about it peacefully."

"He's right," Takuma suddenly said. The trio looked at him in surprise. "Everything Taro said is right. We don't know how well my progress on the ground would translate on the wall. Even if it does work, who can say it is worth it from a time standpoint. What if just grinding it out on the wall from start to finish is faster than my approach of gradually increasing difficulty."

It upset him. Taro's words about his reliability hit a place he didn't want to admit hurt. He might be on the same rank as every one of his peers in basic training, but his reputation remained the same. He was still Takuma, the genin who had failed two graduation attempts, the genin who despite being a graduate of the Konoha shinobi academy wasn't given a chance to test against a jonin, the same person who had lost all fights but one, the genin who had barely inched into genin rookie... he was still all of those things... none of them had disappeared.

Takuma clenched his fist until he was white knuckling and looked up at Taro. "Still, I will continue on with my approach," he said.

"You do you," Taro shrugged before walking away.

Takuma closed his eyes for a moment to calm his emotions down before opening them to look at his feet. He summoned the two energies in his body and melded them together to create chakra that flowed from his feet to the farthest part, the soles of his feet.

"Hey, Takuma..."

He looked up at Nenro and winced when the chakra that reached his feet didn't create a strong enough sticking grip and fizzled out.

"Yes," he sighed.

"... I think we're going through the normal route," Nenro said with pursed lips. His shining confident charm seemed to be dull in the moment as he matched eyes with Takuma.

Takuma nodded. Who was he to tell them how to do things.

Nenro walked away with Ai, who looked regretful as she followed her boyfriend. Masaaki looked conflicted as he looked between Takuma and Nenro and Ai; in the end, he walked after his academy friends with his head hung down as if he was guilty.

Takuma looked down at his feet and tried to mold chakra, but a hollowing feel stopped him. He knew what it was; he had felt it a lot in the past year. He was used to it. It shouldn't have bothered him. But who knew that after a few weeks in the company of a team with whom he spent most of his days, being all alone again would sting so much.

'Don't waste your time,' said a voice, 'remember you're trying to get stronger to survive— to thrive— you can't waste time worrying about others when you know how this world is and what's to come.'

He was right. Takuma had no time to waste. He had no special talents to rely upon or a clan to support him. He needed to do it on his own, and there was only one way to attain his goals— to work more than everyone else, and better than anyone else.

'—only you can guarantee your success—'

And thus, he molded his chakra.




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[Fiction]

Yoshio stretched his legs as he got up from his outside chair and pocketed the scroll he was working on. Keeping the tree-walking practice at the end of every training session worked very well for him. He got one hour of free time that he used to complete work other than training the brats, which allowed him to call it a day immediately after the training ended.

As intended, he had already completed the day's work. For the last thirty minutes, he would observe his group to gauge their progress.

He weaved the hand seals for the Body Flicker Jutsu(Shunshin no Jutsu), and a moment later, he was on the other side of the wall, in a place a distance away from his genins, so they wouldn't notice him. Even if they had guessed when the training ended, thirty minutes was enough time to observe them in hiding to see if they were actually working or just pretending in the last few moments.

It was a real problem. Yoshio knew it was because he had done it when he was a genin(though he was in a jonin-lead three-man cell). His sensei had found out about it and whooped his ass into the ground— he saw no reason why his genin should be any different.

It was already the fourth day after his tree-climbing practice announcement. Yoshio expected that most, if not everyone, would be able to gain decent proficiency by the end of the third week, enough to scale up and down the wall. Though, he expected those more efficient with their chakra and those from shinobi clans to start making significant progress by the end of the first week— after that, it would take them three to five days to complete the exercise. Generally, clanless kids with shinobi parents followed soon after and would be done by the end of the second week with a day or two of leeway. The remains would then complete theirs all over in the third week.

'Let's see how much they have improved today,' Yoshio took out a small notebook upon which he had noted everyone's maximum height from yesterday. Tree-walking improved gradually but consistently until the moment the 'sense' for it kicked in, and then it was easy to improve it to a decent level.

His group was still in the gradual progress stage.

He checked the teams one by one, and as expected, they seemed to be following the norms. Clan kids were doing well, those with shinobi parentage seemed to be competing, and civilian-born seemed to follow along nicely at their own pace.

Yoshio arrived at the last team, Team-5. His eyes first went to the group leader, pretty boy Nenro. The kid had talent, even though he was a recruit from outside Konoha— and not from one of the major cities which had 'respectable' academies, but from a small-town academy— Nenro was competing with some of the clan kids. His skill set was balanced and refined, which meant he would have many choices in the future. Yoshio liked him. He worked hard enough, knew how to communicate with others, and was well-liked— if the cards were played right, he could see a potential chunin in the making. The chunin position traditionally valued leadership more than anything else and the boy's natural charisma would do wonders for him in that regard.

After noting down the progress, Yoshio moved on to Ai, the girl from the same town as Nenro. If he was being honest, she had a lot of things she could improve upon. Ai could perform the general rookie genin skillset learned in the academy as well as anyone else, but they could be raised to another level if she polished her basics. He decided to push her more during the drills and force her to improve. Surprisingly, Ai was higher on the wall than even Nenro. Her chakra control seemed to be great— girls tended to be better at chakra control— but she was doing phenomenally. Yoshio noted the observation for his end of basic training report that he needed to formulate for the counselor. He looked forward to seeing if she would be one of the first to complete the challenge.

It was then time for the third brat from the same academy. Yoshio took pride in his responsibility as an instructor, and he had broken down many genin to be made better in his career. But Masaaki was one of those tough cookies who was either super mental strength or dense as a brick because the boy didn't break down even a little bit. Yoshio had tried to make the boy be a little more serious or at least put on a serious front, but the boy was as outwardly jovial as he was when he arrived. At the same time, he liked the people of Masaaki's type— they were simple and straightforward and turned out to be generally nice people, and he enjoyed working with nice people. Plus, the boy could hit hard— no one in his group hit as hard as Masaaki— the boy would've gone far if he was born Akimichi.

The next one gave Yoshio some headaches. Through his career, he had learned that it was the lazy yet intelligent ones that did well. If they were the right type of laziness, they would take action and choose choices that would make their time easier. And they were the types who ended up in important leadership positions. But basic training was his domain, Yoshio didn't care for laziness, be it the wrong or right type— he wanted everyone to be working themselves to the bone so that he could say they had done all they could have. But the damned brat did just enough to avoid his baton. Yoshio saw a potential he could beat out, but he was held back because the brat was being tricky.

'I will get him,' Yoshio thought. There were plans for the future that would force Taro to act with more initiative.

'Now, how's the weird kid doing today?' Yoshio's eyes went to the final member of the team.

Yoshio didn't care what method anyone used as long as they got the job done, so he ignored Takuma's unorthodox approach and even looked upon it with interest. But it had been two days since Takuma had done anything but take strolls in the field. Yoshio wasn't a fool and saw what Takuma was trying to do from the blown-up spots littered around where Takuma practiced. However, Takuma had not shown any real progress, which was worrying.

Every day in basic training was precious. There was a lot to learn, but not enough time to beat it in. The genin already had five years of training; the state couldn't hold them in training anymore. The more time Takuma spent showing nothing on the wall, the less time he would've to catch up with everyone else.

'I should talk to him today... or should I give him one more day,' Yoshio was thinking when he saw Takuma walk towards the wall. Was Takuma going to try climbing the wall?

Takuma walked to the wall and touched it for a few seconds before moving a few steps away from it.

He's going to run, Yoshio could tell.

And that Takuma did. He ran to the wall and placed one foot on the wall, then the second. He leaned forward as he pushed his feet against the wall, and the first step quickly followed, then second, third, and fourth— before he suddenly pivoted his entire body to face sideways and came to a skidding stop.

But Takuma didn't fall. He stood perfectly perpendicular to the wall with his feet firmly planted on the vertical surface.

Yoshio moved closer. None of his other genin had been able to stop themselves on the wall. They would hurriedly climb until they could no longer.... No, he was wrong. Takuma had been able to stay on the wall, only it was with his hands.

The other twenty-four pairs of genin eyes were now also staring at Takuma. Yoshi could sense their thoughts right now. The weird kid had been able to do something none of them could yet do.

'Well done,' Yoshio thought. Takuma had shown progress, substantial progress, and that was enough. Yoshio was about to mark Takuma's progress when he twisted his feet face upward along with his entire body.

It couldn't have been more clear what he wanted to do, but before Yoshio could even look up from his little notebook to complete the thought, Takuma had taken off.

He ran. One step at a time, Takuma ran up the wall with cheers following up from the ground. The entire wall was empty, sans the one person who continued to scale the wall without hands.

One meter... two... three... five... ten...!

Takuma had already crossed three-quarters of the distance when his feet skidded. The grip from the chakra disappeared in an instant, and Takuma lost balance.

'So close,' Yoshio narrowed his eyes. For a moment, he thought Takuma would make it all the way to the top in one run, but it seemed that he was wishing for too much. However, this was enough, more than enough. Takuma's performance would set a fire under his and even other groups and make them play catchup.

With lost grip, the fall started, and Takuma began to plummet. But out of nowhere, Takuma slapped his gloved hands on the wall as he slid down. The next moment, the sole below the toes of his shinobi boots were skidding against the wall.

It was like someone decreased the playback speed on Takuma as his fall slowed down until he was mid-way through the wall with the tip of his fingers and the toes of his feet tethering him to the surface. Takuma shifted his feet until the soles of his feet were wholly pressed against the surface. He then slowly released his hand from the surface and straightened him, for a moment, he flailed around, eliciting gasps from the audience, but Takuma steadied himself and was again standing on the wall.

He shifted his head to glance down at the ground for a moment before looking back up. One step... second... third... fourth... fifth... Soon Takuma was already past his highest point, and then beyond.

On the top of the wall, two hands with frayed gloves grabbed the edge before Takuma pulled himself up and sat down on the top with his shoulders gently heaving. He looked down at all the people who were looking up at him. For a moment, he stared at them. Then he stood up, his eyes still on them. He raised one hand and began beating his chest as he let out the loudest yell that reached the bottom without getting any quieter.

With his notebook and pen in still hands, Yoshio looked atop the wall with surprise in his eyes. The climb was in no way perfect. Takuma had slipped once, and even with the miraculous recovery, it was still considered a broken run. Not to mention, coming down from the wall with tree-walking was the harder part.

Clap. Clap. Clap. But Yoshio had to give it to the boy. In four days, the kid had scaled up the wall. Faster than even the one-week - ten-day estimate he had set for clan kids. It went against his image, but he clapped. The kid deserved it.

Taking his lead, the entire group began to clap for the solitary person standing above them as they looked up at him.





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[Fiction]

As the winter warmed, biting winds turned into cool breezes, which Taro appreciated greatly. If he was to struggle under the sun all day long, then it would very well be with gentle currents keeping him nice and fresh, something that was difficult to maintain with most of his time spent in the gruesome basic training inflicted upon him by the musclebound gorilla of an instructor, Chunin Yoshio.

He wanted to sit, if not lay down on the grass and enjoy the pleasant weather, but the fear of Yoshio's beating kept him standing— the madman broke bones first and thought about it later.

But he had come to appreciate the time spent staring at the large wall as his groupmates tried to run up the wall using only their legs and chakra to scale the wall to complete the tree-walking practice challenge set by Yoshio.

He would prefer if he had a book in hand to read because watching them put in so much effort and struggle to make it just a few steps higher on the wall than before was honestly exhausting. Alas, reading time outside was limited to when he was patrolling the beat or during lunchtime if he was luckily left alone.

However, things had changed on the wall. Back at the start, every person in Yoshio's group would be boosting up the wall, falling down, and then trying again. Repeating the process until the time was over, and they could return to their sweet homes. But for the last few days, the wall had turned empty.

He looked at the ground between him and the wall and a dozen people awkwardly walking around, pulling up grass and bursting the ground with their insufficient chakra control. Every step was slow as they took time to apply the chakra grip and then detach it before taking the next step and repeating the process over and over in hopes that it would allow them to scale the wall better and faster.

'Idiots,' he thought.

Hadn't they seen how Takuma had done it while practicing on the ground? His awkwardness had lasted less than fifteen minutes before reassuming a natural gait. It wasn't that Takuma had learned something they hadn't— he still blew up the ground under his feet plenty of times on the first day. Takuma's 'easier' ground exercise was to eliminate the vertical complexity̦— and made them understand the natural motion of the foot when someone walked.

In the backfoot, the heel rose first, putting the weight and pressure on the front half, making it so that the chakra going to the entirety of the sole's surface needed to be redirected to only the tenketsu present in the ball and toes to counteract the shift in surface area. The same action happened in the forefoot but the opposite— the grip needed to be established the moment the heel made contact before the chakra was evenly distributed to the entire sole when the whole foot was planted on the surface.

By not walking naturally, they were wasting most of the benefits derived from the exercise. Taro silently shook his head. Making all that effort only to waste it because they weren't putting it in a proper manner.

He glanced at his teammates. At least there was someone who wasn't wasting their efforts altogether. Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki clearly had some additional pointers from Takuma as they walked naturally when walking on the ground. Smart of Takuma to leave the finer detail to only his team and let the others struggle their way to the realization— it paid off as Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki had already moved onto the wall and were scaling up to good heights.

Takuma's ground-walking exercise had swept over the group like wildfire after he had successfully scaled the wall in four days, faster than anyone— much, much faster. So much so that it was already the sixth day, and no one else had made it atop the wall. That had swayed more than half of the group to follow in his footsteps. He glanced up at the wall; some still followed the traditional method, those who had a shinobi background in their family or clan like him.

Maybe the other guys didn't want to admit that Takuma, the dead last orphan from the academy, could be better than him. Or perhaps they simply were getting the hang of tree-walking through the traditional approach and didn't want to go the other route.

'Or maybe their mom forces them to practice tree-walking at home after they're run ragged from a long day of harsh training,' Taro thought. The time dedicated to tree-climbing practice in the training regiment was his time to rest. After making sure Yoshio was actually not keeping an eye on them, Taro had found that as long as he practiced in the last half hour, Yoshio wouldn't break his legs. His mom made him practice tree-walking for an hour at home, so he worked the same ninety minutes as everyone else— and he really didn't want to work more than that.

In his opinion, it was a win-win for everyone.

A rackety scream followed by a loud "FUCK!" sent birds in the trees flying away with their flapping wings echoing in the field. Taro's eyes twitched— it had happened a couple times a day, but he hadn't gotten used to it.

Everyone looked at the wall, or to be precise, tried to imagine the scene behind the wall. The front side of the wall was for climbing up, but only those who had scaled up to the top could go on the other side to practice coming down. And out of twenty-five members of Yoshio's group, only one had reached the top and thus practiced scaling down on the other side.

Takuma cursed when he was frustrated; he had done so since they were in the academy and had gotten in trouble for it. Taro had heard Takuma curse more than speak when they were in the academy, but that was because Takuma pretty much never talked to anyone when they were in the academy. Even now, Takuma mostly spoke when he was spoken to.

There was another loud scream, and Taro's eyes automatically moved to the left of the wall. After half a minute, Takuma came into view with his hand holding his opposite shoulder as he limped to the Iryo-nin sitting in the distance under a carousel umbrella. Yoshio didn't appreciate cursing while in the presence of a superior-ranked shinobi, and the madman had no qualms about hurting the offenders to get his point across. Takuma was a fool to not understand after having a kunai slice his ear the first time around.

"Oooh!"

Taro turned his attention away from Takuma to the wall and found himself looking at Ai running up the wall. She rose up, and in a couple seconds, Ai was in the lead, leaving everyone else on the wall was left behind. Ai didn't stop and seemingly had gotten the key to chakra control as she only stopped when she reached the top of the wall.

The second person in the group to reach the top wasn't from a shinobi clan, he wasn't even from the Leaf village. That was going to sting many people. Taro glanced at the 'proud' members of Leaf's shinobi clan.

'Good for them,' Taro was happy for his teammate's success.

And he was happy with the breeze on his face.


———
.


"Taro, you need to practice more."

Apparently, others weren't happy with his happiness, which wasn't surprising to him as other people seemed to think to make his business their business and poke their noses where he didn't ask them to. It was quite annoying if he was being honest.

Taro gazed at his teammates standing in front of him. Usually, they would practice at the wall, but today they seemed to have gained an unwanted interest in him.

"May I ask why?" he said. "I'm doing well enough." He wasn't last in the group because Yoshio punished the people lacking behind, so he had kept himself in the middle of the pack, where it was safe.

"Because you're going to make us lose," said Takuma standing a step behind others with his arms crossed.

It was the first time since Taro had turned away Takuma's approach that he said a word to him. Takuma had clearly taken some offense to that. They were still civil, but just not on talking terms.

"What he means to say is that we want our team to be the first to complete the challenge," Nenro interjected and said with a disarming smile. Taro had to say Okubo Momoe had nothing on Nenro when it came to popularity; his teammate was disgustingly popular among their rookie batch. Mister Sunshine seemingly could get along with anyone thrown at him.

"Is it really important for us to come first?" Taro sighed.

"It absolutely is," Ai said. "I want to win the prize."

'Ah,' Taro forgot Ai's obsession with coming on top of the weekly leaderboard. They had to do it. But it seemed she was more interested in the prize than coming first.

''Well, to be honest, I'm not interested in coming first," he shrugged.

"Eh, why?!" Masaaki sounded confused. "If we win, we get mission points. We can buy jutsu from that, you know. How cool it would be to learn cool jutsu! So, come on, let's come first— we can even brag about it. It'll be fun."

'Too bright,' Taro sighed. It was like Masaaki had an IV drip of sugar solution attached to him, keeping him hyper every second of the day.

"Na, I'm fine," he said.

Mission points were the internal currency prevalent in the Leaf shinobi organization. They had many uses and could purchase everything from everyday groceries to vacation packages. But one of the most pervasive uses was to access jutsu from the official jutsu archives maintained by the state. With enough mission points, any shinobi could purchase a jutsu scroll and increase their military strength. It was the primary way for shinobi to gain access to the jutsu of their choice— and similar systems existed in the other four major shinobi organizations.

However, Taro wasn't in dire need of mission points. It was true that he was a rookie genin who needed to learn more practical jutsu to use them on the field, and mission points would be vital for him to not only keep himself safe but also grow as a shinobi... would be... but for him, he didn't need to slog for hours to get few measly points.

After all, he could just ask his—

"Oh, you pathetic piece of shit!" said Takuma, his brows hooked and mouth pursed in anger.

"Takuma, that was rude!" Ai was shocked as she scolded Takuma.

"No, that was warranted." Takuma pointed at Taro, "He's a spoiled piece of shit who doesn't want to work to gain things. He doesn't care about coming first in the weekly leaderboards or winning the challenge because it doesn't matter to him! Does it, Taro? Tell me I'm wrong."

Taro narrowed his eyes. He didn't appreciate the tone Takuma had taken with him.

"What?" said Nenro.

Takuma snorted, a strange expression on the usually calm and silent guy. "He doesn't care for mission points because they don't matter to him. He doesn't need to work for them because his parents are shinobi who can use their mission points to buy any jutsu scroll he wants. He told me his mom is a chunin, and what's a simple D-rank jutsu to a chunin, she could probably dump any amount for her pathetic son."

That was an exaggeration, and what was the repeated use of pathetic to describe him?

"Takuma, calm down," Nenro placed his hand on Takuma's shoulder.

Takuma shrugged it off and grabbed Taro's collar to pull him up. "Not all of us are as coddled and sheltered as you are, who can beg mommy and daddy to get them new toys whenever they want. Some of us have to work for our own shit and not be a mass of utterly useless with no redeeming quality. You're the laziest motherf—"

Before Takuma could continue, Nenro and Masaaki pulled him away from Taro and made him stop talking.

"Alright, alright, I'm stopping," Takuma pushed them off and walked a few steps away from them.

"Hey, Taro, come on, let's try," Ai said, her usually upbeat tone mellowed down with a pleading in her eyes.

Ai was cute, and for a moment, Taro contemplated agreeing. The charm of girls was dangerous, Taro thought. Instead, he said, "Takuma's right. I don't need the mission points," at least not for a while, "everyone from shinobi clans or those who have shinobi parents get help, and so will I. There's no need for me or anyone else like me to win the challenge or come first in the weekly rankings."

Takuma, who was facing away, turned to face Taro. "You know, I thought you were a smart guy. I once told you that," he said, shaking his head. "But it seems I had judged wrong. You're the most idiotic person I know. Kids with shinobi parents don't have to come first? Yeah, sure, that might be true, and they might not care about coming first or winning," Takuma pointed at the wall, "but at least they're fucking trying out there, trying to get better and improve themselves. You, on the other hand, are not only wasting your time but also screwing us along." Takuma scoffed, "Why stay in the Genin Corps, you said that to me. That if you have to be a genin, there are many other options. You had said that so nonchalantly. But you know what I think? You're going to be a career genin because no one will take a useless, lazy piece of shit like you because you're a mommy's boy who can't do anything by themselves. Who would like to hire someone like you? Go screw yourself."

Saying that, Takuma walked away in a huff. Masaaki threw Taro a look before running after Takuma.

"I don't want to agree with what Takuma said, but as you're acting now, I can't help but agree with him," said Nenro before walking away with Ai.

Taro watched them before sighing. He had simply told the truth. People with shinobi children had a clear advantage against civilian-born shinobi. There was a reason why so many Jonin came from shinobi clans— they had the resources and connections that allowed them to allow talented members to rise to the top.

'—You're the most idiotic person I know—'

He disagreed with that. Instead, he was being smart. He was doing what was expected of him, nothing more, nothing less.

'—You're going to be a career genin because no one will take a useless, lazy piece of shit like you because you're a mommy's boy who can't do anything by themselves. Who will like to hire someone like you?—'

Taro flicked his neck. He was an efficient person. Doing above and beyond what was mandated wasn't slacking off. He did not desire to be the best at anything because that would only attract more work. He preferred the middle because it was the coziest and most hassle-free.

'—but as you're acting now, I can't help but agree with him—'

Taro's eyes twitched as he recalled how Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki had looked at him. He covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"Shit..."

He dropped his hand to his waist and hung his head with squinted eyes.

"Shit."

He had to do it now, didn't he? He couldn't take being insulted by the dead last to his face. What would people say if they heard it? They would come to him and laugh and bother him. That sounded totally annoying. What if he scaled the wall before them— then they wouldn't be able to say anything because they were below the guy who got insulted by the dead last.

'Yeah, let's go with that,' he thought.

And with that, Taro took a step towards the wall.




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[Fiction]

"Come on, you lazy bastard, you can do it!"

Takuma yelled at the top of his lungs with his hands framing his mouth as he looked up at the wall with three people on the other side of the concrete wall. Standing alongside with him were Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki, along with another three genin from another team standing in the distance, yelling to the two genin on the wall beside Taro. There were more genin who observed, but none of them were vocal in their support.

Taro, on the wall, clicked his tongue at the sound of Takuma's voice. He glanced at his competition, both in different lanes than him— one was standing a few steps below him, while the other was barely a foot above him. He clenched his jaw, looked directly at the ground, and took a step forward that turned into a couple of quick steps until he was at the same height as the guy previously in front of him. He stepped on the brakes and used both his legs to grip the wall to stop the gravity from pulling him to the ground.

The front foot's grip proved insufficient, and it slid a few inches. His team on the ground gasped. Only the solid grip on the back foot kept Taro on the wall as he hurriedly fixed the grip and stopped himself from plummeting to the ground. Taro bent his knees, placing his hands on the wall, and tucked his head down as his shoulders rose and fell.

"Sir, that counts as a disqualification!" said Cho, a teammate of the two guys competing against Taro, to Yoshio sitting behind the crowd on his foldable chair.

"Bullshit! He's still on the wall. Are you blind?" Ai said viciously and glared at Cho threateningly.

Yoshio looked up from his newspaper to eye Ai. "I don't appreciate the crass language in front of me, Ai. Drop down and give me forty immediately, you filthy maggot," he said.

Ai growled in frustration as she got down to do her pushups. Cho looked ecstatic with glee and stuck her tongue at Ai.

Yoshio glanced up at the wall. "Taro's still on the wall; his run continues," he said to Cho's chagrin.

On the wall, Taro's competition both moved forward, immediately pushing him into third place and crossing three-quarters way down from the top.

"He's not going to make it," Masaaki bit on his thumb's nail as he stared intently at Taro. "He always falls after crossing the halfway mark."

"I believe in him," Nenro said, one hand clutching his blonde hair.

Takuma breathed out. He felt jumpy watching Taro competing on the wall. It was day nine of the tree-climbing challenge, and half the people had already made it to the top of the wall. Out of them, he, Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki had already completed the climbing down part of the challenge, leaving only Taro behind them— putting them on top as the favorites to win the tree-walking practice challenge.

But they had competition. Another team had three members who had completed the challenge and had two members attempting to successfully climb down without falling down. Making it Taro versus two others for the mission point prize.

Takuma wished he was in Taro's position. He would rather it be him in the clutch to bring the prize home than pin hopes on someone else, even if it meant he had to shoulder the blame if he failed. Unfortunately, somehow his dead-last status had betrayed him the one time he actually needed it, and now he had to watch Taro struggle on the last stretch. He could tell that today was going to be the deciding day as compared to yesterday the three had cut down their failure rate by huge margins. They were still falling but much further into their walk down.

'Why couldn't I have been dumped into a Yamanaka?' Takuma lamented. It would've been so much easier if he could've just taken control of Taro's body and won the challenge.

'You wouldn't have been able to cast the needed jutsu, you dumbass,' his voice mocking him in his head. Takuma sighed. Indeed, that would've been the scenario.

Taro got up from his crouching position and started walking, taking heavy thumping steps, moving closer to the ground. He passed the other two but didn't stop moving or even slow down and kept walking.

"Don't fall!" Takuma yelled.

A vein twitched on Taro's forehead. "You don't think I know that?!" he yelled.

"Shut up!" Ai yelled at Takuma.

Masaaki's nail biting got aggressive.

Nenro's other hand was now clutching his neck.

Taro made the bold move and started running, which was infinitely more complex. Takuma screamed inside his mind, which continued until Taro reached the bottom, stopped near the very bottom, and then smoothly stepped on the grass.

Takuma raised his hand, yelled in celebration, and jumped on Taro, with Masaaki and Ai joining the pile.

"Getuf me!" Taro waved his arms and legs on the bottom of the pile as Takuma and others laughed atop of him. After they untangled, Taro turned to Takuma and said, "I'm going to get out of Genin Corps before you. Mark that."

A comeback response formed in his mind, but Takuma chose to simply smile. He was just thrilled at the moment. The team had grabbed the number one position, which meant he was going to get his first mission points as the reward.

Yoshio relieved the flimsy-looking chair from bearing his large frame and got up. "That marks the end of the tree-walking practice challenge," he said. "I can't believe that the team with the two-time failure got first place. I fear for the future of Leaf shinobi."

Takuma didn't mind. He had gotten used to Yoshio's verbal abuse. It would feel strange if he didn't hear Yoshio berate in some way at least once every day.

Yoshio ordered them to gather up front, where he addressed everyone in his group.

"You all have been part of basic training for nearly a month now and have shown varying levels of improvement, disappointing mostly, but improvements nevertheless, and I'm sure a lot of you're feeling good about yourself," Yoshio said as he walked between the five-by-five grid of at-attention genin standing in perfect posture.

Takuma was indeed feeling good about himself. So much so that he was going to buy some of that expensive meat he saw at the butcher to make himself a scrumptious meal tonight.

"If you think you have figured it out, think again because what we were doing till now was what my grandma can do, and she's been dead twenty years," Yoshio yelled at them. "From tomorrow, we're going to do some real shinobi training, so enjoy today because you're not going to do it tomorrow."

Takuma would've rolled his eyes after hearing such threats day after day, but when the person who said it held no hesitation to beat the crap out of them for practically any offense, Takuma just couldn't ignore the threat as nothing.

"As the final tournament is a month away, and I want to win so that I can rub it in my friend's face, from tomorrow, the restrictions on sparring will be lifted," said Yoshio. Takuma moved his eyes to see if others knew what Yoshio was talking about. "From tomorrow, usage of ninjutsu and genjutsu is permitted. Weapons of your choice are now allowed. Smoke bombs and explosive tags are fair game. Anything that you think you can use to kill your opponent, bring it from tomorrow because I'm going to allow it to be used."

Yoshio's words echoed in Takuma's ears. Their spars had been restricted to taijutsu and the standard shinobi weapons like they had been in the academy. Even in his spars against Maruboshi, the rules had been the same. An unrestricted spar was unknown territory for him.

"Every spar you're going to be part of from here on out will be unrestricted, as that's what real life is like. The spars are going to teach you how to incorporate other skills into your fighting skill which I suppose for many of you is nothing but taijutsu."

Takuma raised his hand. "Sir, what if we don't know any ninjutsu other than the academy three?" he asked.

Yoshio's hearty laughter sounded sinister to Takuma. "Then you better use those mission points to buy some jutsu because I'm sure many of your friends here already have jutsu in their arsenal, prepared to be used." Yoshio came by Takuma and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "And I'm going to make you spar with each other every day. They're going to use those jutsu on you every chance they get, and while I'll make sure you don't die, there's only so much I can do about the pain... I'm sure you understand, right, Takuma?"

Takuma stood rigid as Yoshio's hand left his body, but he could still feel it weighing down on his shoulder. He glanced around the grid and saw the others looking at him; some had a hint of smiles on their faces. Cho had an especially nasty grin on her face.

He wasn't looking forward to tomorrow.


———
.


"What're you going to buy?" Masaaki asked as they walked home together after training ended. Nenro and Ai had taken off together, and Takuma's place was in the opposite direction. "Are you going to buy a jutsu?"

"It doesn't make sense to save the mission points in this situation," said Takuma. "We can only get mission points if we rank number one in the weekly leaderboard, and spars are a big part of it. With ninjutsu included, competition is going to get tough; if we don't learn jutsu of our own, we're definitely going to be left behind." He was no Rock Lee who could make a career out of taijutsu— he needed supernatural weapons of destruction to help him. "And I really don't want to get thrashed in every spar... believe me, I tried that, I'm over it— not fun at all."

Plus, he was sure these new spars would hurt a lot.

In their group, not a single group had ranked number one multiple times. And while their group hadn't placed number one, they had been number two twice because of Nenro and Masaaki's sparring and because they were never messed up in the drills. With the unrestricted spars, their positioning was yet again at risk.

"I have no idea what I'm going to get," Takuma said. He didn't even know what jutsu was there in the library and if there were any good ones he could buy with his mission points. He just hoped there was some variety. "What about you?" he asked.

Masaaki shrugged. "I'll talk with Nenro and Ai... Do you want to come with us tomorrow?"

Takuma shook his head. He was going to consult with Maruboshi, the wisest person he knew, about which jutsu he should choose. It was an important choice because, with his track record, it could take anywhere from one day to two months to learn this jutsu, and if he was going to get his ass kicked into the dirt while he worked hard to learn this jutsu— so it better be good and worth the pain and effort.

Even though he could see the hard days in front of him, he couldn't help but feel excited about learning a new jutsu. This was going to be his first 'practical' jutsu— a significant addition to his toolbox that would define his combat style.

Takuma said goodbye to Masaaki before heading toward Maruboshi's home to visit his teacher, whom he hadn't seen in a month since he had started basic training.




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