Now I'm imagining him summoning a bunch of clones only for them to immediately starting to do (jojo) poses and flexing on people.
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Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Oh my god, that was too much pesky editing work. Thank you for pointing out the errors, I'm terrible at editing— straight up don't do it, completely relying on text editors to weed out my messy drafts. I have edited them here at SV, and will edit the errors in the source word doc in my files— but I don't have the mental fortitude to go to six other platforms and do it again. XD
About the Kakashi point— I actually didn't thought give any thought to adding Copy Ninja as Kakashi's title while writing, but your point make sense. I'll give Takuma projecting his future knowledge more thought, keep it in mind, and do it intentionally. Thx!
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Understandable on the corrections.
Could fix it at some point in the future, though leaving it shouldn'tbe a big deal either. The frequency of typos and such isn't that large.
Probably along the lines of 'someone twice his age'.
In other thoughts: Shadow clones may be easy to distinguish from the real thing, but having a fake finger stabbing at your eye should still provoke an instinctive response.
More generally, there may be ways of turning the intuitive/instinctive way of fighting ninjas use against them, at least in a few select cases.
Could fix it at some point in the future, though leaving it shouldn'tbe a big deal either. The frequency of typos and such isn't that large.
I think this sentence is incomplete.
Probably along the lines of 'someone twice his age'.
In other thoughts: Shadow clones may be easy to distinguish from the real thing, but having a fake finger stabbing at your eye should still provoke an instinctive response.
More generally, there may be ways of turning the intuitive/instinctive way of fighting ninjas use against them, at least in a few select cases.
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CH_22
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Another day rolled in, and like every morning, Takuma found himself in the middle of the field, sitting on the ground, doing the post-training stretches so he could leave the training session and return to get his day started.
"You seem down, young Takuma," Maruboshi, performing the same stretches by the side, asked.
Takuma pursed his lips into a line. "I... I think it'd be better to practice the hand seal combination of two seals before trying to learn Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu)."
Maruboshi looked surprised.
Takuma stretched his torso forward to grab the sole of his outstretched feet with his hands. He repeatedly knocked his forehead on his shin with an inaudible groaning.
It had been a few days since Takuma had begun learning the Henge no Jutsu. Every morning, Maruboshi would set out a quarter of an hour in their time to guide him on the jutsu. Throughout the day, Takuma would try to cast the jutsu in his free time and during the scheduled period during his evening training. But no matter how many times he tried, the chakra rattled out of his control, failing the jutsu invocation.
He couldn't understand. After learning the Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) in three tries, why was Henge no Jutsu taking so much time— he couldn't even get past the first hand seal! It looked like he had lucked out by making clones.
A horrifying thought appeared in Takuma's mind. What if Bunshin no Jutsu was to him what Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu) was to Naruto? The blonde protagonist has learned the highly advanced jutsu quickly, clearly showing an affinity with the jutsu. What if Takuma's special affinity was associated with Bunshin no Jutsu, a useless jutsu that couldn't even be used in the field.
Takuma felt sick in the stomach.
"You must not feel down about the jutsu," Maruboshi said with a kind smile. "It took your classmates much longer than you to perform the Henge no Jutsu than you have been trying. You will be able to perform it one day."
"My classmates were eight-years-old; I'm almost eleven; I should learn the jutsu faster than them." It had taken him seven months, but he had covered nearly four years of academy theoretical material— why should learning jutsu be any different?
Takuma got up and half-heartedly dusted himself. "I will go. Thanks for today," he said to Maruboshi before heading out to the training field.
On the way home, Takuma began thinking about the graduation test; the first attempt was in less than two weeks. Thinking about giving the exam made Takuma's body feel heavy. According to the chatter he had heard from his classmates' conversation, the test was divided into two parts— a theoretical and a practical portion. Both portions were divided into sub-parts. The theoretical portion consisted of a standard pen-and-paper test and a face-to-face oral viva-voce with an invigilator. The practical portion was made up of a taijutsu spar, a weapon handling part, a demonstration of the academy three, and a miscellaneous part in which the invigilator could ask anything that hadn't been asked.
There wasn't a single part of the test he felt he could perform well. He still had one year of academic material left that set him back in the pen-and-paper test. There was nothing to be said about his taijutsu skills, his shurikenjutsu had exceeded the passable grade- but they were nothing spectacular, Bunshin no Jutsu was the only academy three he could perform. He could only hope that he would luck out in the viva-voce questioning and the miscellaneous portion of the practical portion, and the invigilator would ask him something he knew.
Takuma sighed. He didn't have high hopes for his luck helping him; fates hadn't been good to him in a while.
———
.
In the academy classroom, Takuma tapped the back of the pencil against his desk. His time in the academy was dedicated to learning the theoretical material so that he could focus on practical skills after school hours. But today, he couldn't concentrate; the thought of opening the book seemed like a massive downer.
'Ugh, what don't they understand by: silence in the classroom?' Takama frowned deeply, and his pencil tapping became more forceful.
He preferred background noise to pin-drop silence during studying. It helped him concentrate; he regularly used the classroom whispers and Kibe's voice as his background noise. He welcomed them. But today, they seem unbearable to listen to, stroking the fire of irritation he felt.
There was only one time in the militant drill sergeant-like Kibe's lessons that the class dared to talk above whispers. Takuma didn't have to open his eyes to know that Kibe was in front of the classroom, personally guiding one of his classmates with either Henge no Jutsu or Bunshin no Jutsu.
Every day, Kibe would call some of his students, one at a time, and ask them to demonstrate one of the academy three. The demonstration would be followed by a guidance session with Kibe pointing out the discrepancies and providing possible tips.
'Nothing to do with me,' Takuma thought as bitterness grabbed him. Kibe had stopped calling him long ago; after numerous times failing to even produce a faulty clone or transformation, it seemed Kibe had given up. He was delighted when he realized he wasn't being called anymore. He didn't have to embarrass himself in front of the entire classroom anymore, Takuma had thought with delight.
But now... Takuma clicked his tongue. Now that he could mold chakra and even perfectly perform the Bunshin no Jutsu, the sweet delight had turned into burning bile. The realization that he had been given up on and deemed a failure and lost cause brought feelings up from deep within.
"Sensei," an annoying voice cut through the chit chat, "you haven't called Takuma up in months. Why is that?"
Takuma's eyes snapped open, and he lifted his chin from his palm to look around the class to find the source of the voice. He knew who it was before he found Hiji sitting on the other side of the classroom with his posse of friends on the backbenches. The Inuzuka boy smirked at Takuma, showing he knew exactly what he was doing.
Takuma clenched his jaw but kept his expression schooled. I'm unaffected. He repeated the words like a chant in his mind. He couldn't give Hiji the satisfaction of getting any sort of reaction out of him.
"Oh, shut up, Hiji! Do you have no shame?" another voice sounded from another part of the classroom.
Takuma turned to the front of the classroom and saw a brunette girl with shoulder-length cinnamon-brown hair staring up at Hiji with a frown.
Okubo Momoe. Takuma recognized the girl, and his eyes narrowed when he felt a sense of green jealousy burn inside him. He flexed his neck and tensed his body until an intense wave of jealousy passed through him. He let out a deep breath as he relaxed his body.
He held no strong feelings towards Okubo Momoe— but the same couldn't be said about the 'boy,' the original Takuma. After living in the body for half a year, he realized that even though the boy hadn't left behind his memories, he had left something else behind. Takuma had recognized Kibe when he had found himself in the boy; he had found his way home the same day— and similarly, some things brought up the remnants in the form of emotions/sentiments.
Momoe invoked the boy's sharp sense of jealousy. After observing the girl for a week or so, Takuma deduced the reason behind the sentiment.
Among their peers, Momoe placed at the top in terms of academic scores and practical shinobi skills— no matter what it was, from ninjutsu to strategy, Momoe was good at literally everything— a true overachiever, the perfect shinobi candidate. She wasn't as good as Uchiha Izumi when it came to taijutsu or had the chakra control rivaling Inuzuka Hana or raw power compared to Akimichi Hideaki— but whatever it was, if she wasn't number one, she was number two. And at least number two in everything was much more competent than number one at one thing.
She had a natural charisma that attracted people to her, and when combined with her skills, it was only natural that she sat on the top of the social ladder. On top of that, Okubo Momoe came from a civilian background, with her parents owning a business in Leaf village— her detractors couldn't even point out that her skills were cultivated with the help of a shinobi clan.
'She's everything the boy isn't,' was Takuma's theory behind the feeling of jealousy.
The boy was a poor student; Momoe could seemingly do everything. The boy had no friends; Momoe was surrounded by people who wanted to be her friends. The boy was ignored; Momoe was praised. The boy would return home to nobody waiting for him; Momoe would be greeted by a complete family back home.
"What, I was just—"
"We know what you're doing, so stop it, you jerk." Momoe turned to the other Inuzuka in the class and said, "Control your rabid brother, Hana."
Hana narrowed her eyes. "Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it if I don't?" Her three ash-gray ninken jumped up on the table, staring at Momoe.
Hiji snorted in laughter, looking confident with his cousin supporting him. "Know your place, Okube," he said.
"Oh, shut your trap, Hiji," Hana glared at Hiji.
Izumi sitting beside Hana looked at the quarreling parties and tried to abate the situation. "Let's not fight, okay? We can talk about this calmly," she said. But Momoe was already exchanging words with Hiji and Hana.
Takuma observed the situation from his seat. Momoe and the Inuzukas were now fighting with each other, forgetting that he was the initial subject of the discussion, which Takuma preferred.
But it seemed not everyone had forgotten about it.
"Takuma, come up," Kibe sighed.
Takuma could feel the eyes following him as he walked down the classroom steps toward the front. He looked up at Kibe, who had only called him up because he was called out by Hiji. Takuma could see Kibe didn't want to do this, and seeing that look, he felt his mood sour more than before.
"Show me Bushin no Jutsu," Kibe said, his tone giving the impression he wanted to get this over as soon as possible.
Takuma raised a brow. Was luck finally going his way? He straightened up and joined his hands to form the hand seals for the Bunshin no Jutsu.
Ram — Snake — Tiger
Poof! The smoke cleared, and two clone-Takuma stood alongside the real Takuma.
The raucous laughter from Hiji abruptly stopped as the entire classroom went silent. Every pair of eyes were focused on the three Takuma standing in front of the classroom. Takuma could practically hear their thoughts: The only person in the room who couldn't do a jutsu to save his life now had two clones standing with him.
Kibe stared at Takuma and clones with his eyes wide in surprise. Several seconds passed in silence between Kibe and Takuma as they stared at each other.
"Can I go back now?" Takuma asked.
Kibe's eyes widened more. He was looking at the Takuma who stood nearest to him, but the Takuma who had spoken now was the one standing the furthest to him. He reached out his hand to the Takuma next to him, and it passed right through and when he clenched his fist, Takuma disappeared like he never existed. Kibe's eyes didn't move to the real Takuma who had spoken but to the other clone who remained.
Takuma titled his head, confused by the action. 'Maybe he's observing the quality of my clone,' he thought.
"You can go now," Kibe said.
Takuma dispersed the clone and walked back to his seat. He kept his eyes straight ahead. He didn't look at Hiji or Momoe or Izumi or anyone. He sat down on his seat, took out his book, and started reading.
Even though he was no longer irritated and not in the mood to study, he still couldn't concentrate on the words as his eyes cruised over the page. He was too busy keeping the smile off his face.
Today's academy was fun, he felt.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
"You seem down, young Takuma," Maruboshi, performing the same stretches by the side, asked.
Takuma pursed his lips into a line. "I... I think it'd be better to practice the hand seal combination of two seals before trying to learn Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu)."
Maruboshi looked surprised.
Takuma stretched his torso forward to grab the sole of his outstretched feet with his hands. He repeatedly knocked his forehead on his shin with an inaudible groaning.
It had been a few days since Takuma had begun learning the Henge no Jutsu. Every morning, Maruboshi would set out a quarter of an hour in their time to guide him on the jutsu. Throughout the day, Takuma would try to cast the jutsu in his free time and during the scheduled period during his evening training. But no matter how many times he tried, the chakra rattled out of his control, failing the jutsu invocation.
He couldn't understand. After learning the Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) in three tries, why was Henge no Jutsu taking so much time— he couldn't even get past the first hand seal! It looked like he had lucked out by making clones.
A horrifying thought appeared in Takuma's mind. What if Bunshin no Jutsu was to him what Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu) was to Naruto? The blonde protagonist has learned the highly advanced jutsu quickly, clearly showing an affinity with the jutsu. What if Takuma's special affinity was associated with Bunshin no Jutsu, a useless jutsu that couldn't even be used in the field.
Takuma felt sick in the stomach.
"You must not feel down about the jutsu," Maruboshi said with a kind smile. "It took your classmates much longer than you to perform the Henge no Jutsu than you have been trying. You will be able to perform it one day."
"My classmates were eight-years-old; I'm almost eleven; I should learn the jutsu faster than them." It had taken him seven months, but he had covered nearly four years of academy theoretical material— why should learning jutsu be any different?
Takuma got up and half-heartedly dusted himself. "I will go. Thanks for today," he said to Maruboshi before heading out to the training field.
On the way home, Takuma began thinking about the graduation test; the first attempt was in less than two weeks. Thinking about giving the exam made Takuma's body feel heavy. According to the chatter he had heard from his classmates' conversation, the test was divided into two parts— a theoretical and a practical portion. Both portions were divided into sub-parts. The theoretical portion consisted of a standard pen-and-paper test and a face-to-face oral viva-voce with an invigilator. The practical portion was made up of a taijutsu spar, a weapon handling part, a demonstration of the academy three, and a miscellaneous part in which the invigilator could ask anything that hadn't been asked.
There wasn't a single part of the test he felt he could perform well. He still had one year of academic material left that set him back in the pen-and-paper test. There was nothing to be said about his taijutsu skills, his shurikenjutsu had exceeded the passable grade- but they were nothing spectacular, Bunshin no Jutsu was the only academy three he could perform. He could only hope that he would luck out in the viva-voce questioning and the miscellaneous portion of the practical portion, and the invigilator would ask him something he knew.
Takuma sighed. He didn't have high hopes for his luck helping him; fates hadn't been good to him in a while.
———
.
In the academy classroom, Takuma tapped the back of the pencil against his desk. His time in the academy was dedicated to learning the theoretical material so that he could focus on practical skills after school hours. But today, he couldn't concentrate; the thought of opening the book seemed like a massive downer.
'Ugh, what don't they understand by: silence in the classroom?' Takama frowned deeply, and his pencil tapping became more forceful.
He preferred background noise to pin-drop silence during studying. It helped him concentrate; he regularly used the classroom whispers and Kibe's voice as his background noise. He welcomed them. But today, they seem unbearable to listen to, stroking the fire of irritation he felt.
There was only one time in the militant drill sergeant-like Kibe's lessons that the class dared to talk above whispers. Takuma didn't have to open his eyes to know that Kibe was in front of the classroom, personally guiding one of his classmates with either Henge no Jutsu or Bunshin no Jutsu.
Every day, Kibe would call some of his students, one at a time, and ask them to demonstrate one of the academy three. The demonstration would be followed by a guidance session with Kibe pointing out the discrepancies and providing possible tips.
'Nothing to do with me,' Takuma thought as bitterness grabbed him. Kibe had stopped calling him long ago; after numerous times failing to even produce a faulty clone or transformation, it seemed Kibe had given up. He was delighted when he realized he wasn't being called anymore. He didn't have to embarrass himself in front of the entire classroom anymore, Takuma had thought with delight.
But now... Takuma clicked his tongue. Now that he could mold chakra and even perfectly perform the Bunshin no Jutsu, the sweet delight had turned into burning bile. The realization that he had been given up on and deemed a failure and lost cause brought feelings up from deep within.
"Sensei," an annoying voice cut through the chit chat, "you haven't called Takuma up in months. Why is that?"
Takuma's eyes snapped open, and he lifted his chin from his palm to look around the class to find the source of the voice. He knew who it was before he found Hiji sitting on the other side of the classroom with his posse of friends on the backbenches. The Inuzuka boy smirked at Takuma, showing he knew exactly what he was doing.
Takuma clenched his jaw but kept his expression schooled. I'm unaffected. He repeated the words like a chant in his mind. He couldn't give Hiji the satisfaction of getting any sort of reaction out of him.
"Oh, shut up, Hiji! Do you have no shame?" another voice sounded from another part of the classroom.
Takuma turned to the front of the classroom and saw a brunette girl with shoulder-length cinnamon-brown hair staring up at Hiji with a frown.
Okubo Momoe. Takuma recognized the girl, and his eyes narrowed when he felt a sense of green jealousy burn inside him. He flexed his neck and tensed his body until an intense wave of jealousy passed through him. He let out a deep breath as he relaxed his body.
He held no strong feelings towards Okubo Momoe— but the same couldn't be said about the 'boy,' the original Takuma. After living in the body for half a year, he realized that even though the boy hadn't left behind his memories, he had left something else behind. Takuma had recognized Kibe when he had found himself in the boy; he had found his way home the same day— and similarly, some things brought up the remnants in the form of emotions/sentiments.
Momoe invoked the boy's sharp sense of jealousy. After observing the girl for a week or so, Takuma deduced the reason behind the sentiment.
Among their peers, Momoe placed at the top in terms of academic scores and practical shinobi skills— no matter what it was, from ninjutsu to strategy, Momoe was good at literally everything— a true overachiever, the perfect shinobi candidate. She wasn't as good as Uchiha Izumi when it came to taijutsu or had the chakra control rivaling Inuzuka Hana or raw power compared to Akimichi Hideaki— but whatever it was, if she wasn't number one, she was number two. And at least number two in everything was much more competent than number one at one thing.
She had a natural charisma that attracted people to her, and when combined with her skills, it was only natural that she sat on the top of the social ladder. On top of that, Okubo Momoe came from a civilian background, with her parents owning a business in Leaf village— her detractors couldn't even point out that her skills were cultivated with the help of a shinobi clan.
'She's everything the boy isn't,' was Takuma's theory behind the feeling of jealousy.
The boy was a poor student; Momoe could seemingly do everything. The boy had no friends; Momoe was surrounded by people who wanted to be her friends. The boy was ignored; Momoe was praised. The boy would return home to nobody waiting for him; Momoe would be greeted by a complete family back home.
"What, I was just—"
"We know what you're doing, so stop it, you jerk." Momoe turned to the other Inuzuka in the class and said, "Control your rabid brother, Hana."
Hana narrowed her eyes. "Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it if I don't?" Her three ash-gray ninken jumped up on the table, staring at Momoe.
Hiji snorted in laughter, looking confident with his cousin supporting him. "Know your place, Okube," he said.
"Oh, shut your trap, Hiji," Hana glared at Hiji.
Izumi sitting beside Hana looked at the quarreling parties and tried to abate the situation. "Let's not fight, okay? We can talk about this calmly," she said. But Momoe was already exchanging words with Hiji and Hana.
Takuma observed the situation from his seat. Momoe and the Inuzukas were now fighting with each other, forgetting that he was the initial subject of the discussion, which Takuma preferred.
But it seemed not everyone had forgotten about it.
"Takuma, come up," Kibe sighed.
Takuma could feel the eyes following him as he walked down the classroom steps toward the front. He looked up at Kibe, who had only called him up because he was called out by Hiji. Takuma could see Kibe didn't want to do this, and seeing that look, he felt his mood sour more than before.
"Show me Bushin no Jutsu," Kibe said, his tone giving the impression he wanted to get this over as soon as possible.
Takuma raised a brow. Was luck finally going his way? He straightened up and joined his hands to form the hand seals for the Bunshin no Jutsu.
Ram — Snake — Tiger
Poof! The smoke cleared, and two clone-Takuma stood alongside the real Takuma.
The raucous laughter from Hiji abruptly stopped as the entire classroom went silent. Every pair of eyes were focused on the three Takuma standing in front of the classroom. Takuma could practically hear their thoughts: The only person in the room who couldn't do a jutsu to save his life now had two clones standing with him.
Kibe stared at Takuma and clones with his eyes wide in surprise. Several seconds passed in silence between Kibe and Takuma as they stared at each other.
"Can I go back now?" Takuma asked.
Kibe's eyes widened more. He was looking at the Takuma who stood nearest to him, but the Takuma who had spoken now was the one standing the furthest to him. He reached out his hand to the Takuma next to him, and it passed right through and when he clenched his fist, Takuma disappeared like he never existed. Kibe's eyes didn't move to the real Takuma who had spoken but to the other clone who remained.
Takuma titled his head, confused by the action. 'Maybe he's observing the quality of my clone,' he thought.
"You can go now," Kibe said.
Takuma dispersed the clone and walked back to his seat. He kept his eyes straight ahead. He didn't look at Hiji or Momoe or Izumi or anyone. He sat down on his seat, took out his book, and started reading.
Even though he was no longer irritated and not in the mood to study, he still couldn't concentrate on the words as his eyes cruised over the page. He was too busy keeping the smile off his face.
Today's academy was fun, he felt.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
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That was satisfying.
'next' is missing.
The progression honestly feels too slow. Then again, I honestly prefer to read stories where the MC figures out the basic mechanics of their powers within a few months. That could also be why I feel this way.
Anyways, I might hold back on reading this for about a month and see how the story progresses by then.
Anyways, I might hold back on reading this for about a month and see how the story progresses by then.
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- Location
- Center Of The Universe
I'm not used to this slow progress but it seems to fit thr story and has me hooked. I'm hoping that he will have some sort of unique talent or something because reading about a grunt isnt satisfying for me.
CH_23: Graduation Test, 1st Attempt
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Takuma's chin rested on his palms with his fingers cupping his face; his right foot had grown a mind of its own and wouldn't stop fidgeting. His stomach also didn't seem to be doing well from all the gurgling he was hearing from inside.
He restlessly looked around the noisy classroom that matched his nervous energy. His classmates sat in groups around the room, huddled together, discussing among themselves. Only he sat alone in the corner. He wondered what they were talking about and if it could come up in the graduation test that was about to happen.
Time had passed in the blink of an eye, and it had already been over seven months since he had found himself in the fictional world, inhabiting an unknown orphan's body. The seven months were the most challenging times he had ever lived through. Everything from the looming threat of becoming a shinobi with no skills to survive to the immediate financial situation had him look at things he had never done before. His sense of priorities had revised more in these months than in all the years he had lived in his previous life.
"Akimichi Hideaki."
The classroom door slid upon with a rattle; Kibe peeked in and called for the next student in line.
The bulky Akimichi stood up from his desk, where already-eaten packaged food wrappers had piled up. The usually taciturn Hideaki, who rarely showed exaggerated expression on his chubby face, looked visibly unsettled. The back of his red samue was drenched in sweat. Even more shocking was the unopened bag of chips in Hideaki's hands— as long as there was something in his hands, he was eating it, and seeing that the bag remained sealed illustrated how Hideaki was feeling.
Takuma rubbed the side of his palm, stained with blue ink marks. The pen-and-paper part of the theoretical portion was already done first thing in the morning. His performance hadn't been satisfactory. The plan from the start had been to correctly attempt fifty percent of the paper as that was the passing grade for the test. He wanted to at least pass the test on his first attempt and improve in the subsequent attempts.
Takuma clenches his right hand tightly, digging his trimmed nails into the flesh. He had attempted fifty percent of the paper as planned, but those attempts weren't correct. Coming out of the examination hall, Takuma knew how many of his attempts were correct— his answers weren't enough to get him a passing grade.
'I should've focused more on history and tactics,' he thought with regret. His approach to exam preparation was to focus on his strengths and practice them enough to easily answer any related question. The efforts bore fruit; Takuma responded to math, physics, and finance questions with ease. But he had been horrible at tactics and strategy— half of the questions he didn't even know how to answer, the ones he knew he couldn't see through to a final answer. It didn't help that the topics he had learned from Maruboshi were too different from what came in the test. What hurt the most was history, which he considered to be a moderate strength— the questions that came were from topics he had strategically chosen to set aside in order to manage time in preparation. The questions from his strengths didn't have enough weightage in the question sheet to get him to pass. And he knew he hadn't done well enough in other topics to bridge the gap.
The viva-voce was yet to be conducted. Takuma prayed to the fates that the invigilator would ask easy questions, or better, those he knew the answer to.
Every other minute or three, Kibe would step through the door and call for one student. With every student left, the classroom became emptier as those who left didn't return, which displeased all. If the people who went for the test returned, those yet to be called could've calmed their nerves by hearing the account of those already tested.
"Takuma."
He stood up in a rush upon hearing his name. If his chair wasn't a long bench bolted to the floor, Takuma would've knocked it back. He gathered his belongings into the pouches on his person and scuttled out of the room.
Outside the classroom, Kibe led him across the corridor to the testing hall.
"The invigilators will first test your bukijutsu (weapon skills), then ask you two to demonstrate ninjutsu, followed by a taijutsu spar, and end it with something of their choice," Kibe said, breaking the silence.
"Spar against whom?" asked Takuma.
"One of the invigilators."
Takuma narrowed his eyes. He had assumed and preferred that it would be one of his classmates so that he could adjust his plan going into the fight in accordance with their fighting style.
"The invigilators are senior chunin. The aim of the spar isn't to beat them but to show them the full breadth of your skill," said Kibe.
Takuma nodded. He had figured out that much.
The pair reached the testing hall, which Takuma recognized to be an auditorium hall. It was used when the academy needed a large space indoors. He hadn't been inside because their class never needed it, but he knew it was used for the graduation ceremony.
Kibe put his hand on the handle slit in the door but didn't open it right away. He looked at Takuma and asked, "How many of the academy three can you do?"
Takuma was taken aback at the sudden question. Kibe had never expressed any interest in him in any form, making surprise the natural reaction in the situation.
"If you can do all three and your paper is decent, even if you do badly in everything else, there's a real chance you could pass. Pass in this and improve in the next two attempts. You did Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) that day; can you do the other two as well?"
Since the day Takuma had performed the Bunshin no Jutsu in class, Kibe hadn't called him up again. Takuma knew Kibe had long given up on him, and it made him wonder why he was bringing this up now.
'Is he feeling a late sense of responsibility?' Takuma thought— or was it guilt that Kibe was feeling?
Whatever it was, Takuma didn't care. His attention was caught by something else Kibe had said. '— pass in this and improve in the next two attempts—' Did that mean that the final result was an aggregate of the three attempts like he suspected? That didn't bode well for Takuma. After all, he hadn't done decently in his paper; neither could he pull off all academy three.
Takuma pursed his lips and shook his head.
"You—" Kibe sighed and shook his head to himself. "Alright... Just remember to be polite and follow whatever they say to the word." He opened the door and ushered Takuma in.
The auditorium hall had wooden flooring with a raised stage on one end that had large velvety-blue curtains framing it.
The hall had been cleared out for the purpose of today. The floor had seemingly been divided into regions with shinobi in the standard Leaf shinobi gear of green flak jacket over blue interacting with Takuma's classmates. All the shinobi had a clipboard in their hand, making them invigilators. Looking up, there was a corridor with railings that crossed three sides of the hall sans the wall above the stage. The corridor had similarly dressed shinobi looking down at the testing process. These shinobi didn't have clipboards in their hands.
Were they looking out for attempts at cheating? Takuma thought for a moment before walking to the shinobi waving a hand in his direction.
"Are you Takuma?" asked the invigilator. He had buzz-cut hair and a large beard that looked like it had been groomed to give it the proper shape and texture.
The man then asked for id when Takuma nodded. Takuma presented his academy id-card which the man studied along with Takuma for half a minute before returning it.
"Alright, now that's out of the way, I'll be testing your bukijutsu. What all weapons can you use?"
"... Kunai, shuriken, and senbon," said Takuma, feeling something was off about the framing of the question.
"Anything else?"
Takum was taken aback. Was he expected to learn how to wield more weapons? Did that carry some importance? "No," he said. Thinking about that was useless when he didn't have enough mastery of the basic three.
"You see the targets there," the invigilator pointed at the circular bullseye around them. Some were bound to the walls, others sat on the stands, "Hit them with kunai and shuriken. As for senbon... throw them at me."
Takuma curled his brow, but the invigilator didn't seem to be jesting. Kibe's reminder of the invigilators being chunin flashed through Takuma's mind, making him return a nod. He wasn't going to hurt a chunin with his skill.
The invigilator pointed to a nearby table populated with weapons and told him to use those. Takuma counted the number of targets and picked the same number of kunai and shuriken along with four senbon. The table also had swords, daggers, nunchucks, chained weapons, knuckle-based arms, bo-staffs, and various other choices. The variety of weapons present told him the answer to his previous question.
"Hmm?" Takuma observed the weapons in his hands. The weight on them was off; they were either too light or heavy from the standard issue synonymous with every weaponsmith in the Leaf village. A couple kunai that weighed correctly had an off-balance. He glanced at the invigilator and found the man observing him.
Takuma put the weapons into his pouches. Switching them wasn't an option as the kunai had a special wrapping on the handle, the shurikens were engraved, and the senbon had a bronze sheen on them.
"Start," said the invigilator.
Thwip! A kunai struck the farthest target on the wall, missing the red center by a couple centimeters.
Takuma didn't need to cheat by switching.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! One-by-one, all targets had kunai and shuriken sticking out of them.
Faulty weapons weren't a problem to him. All of his personal cache of weapons were bought from scrap boxes full of defective and damaged pieces. Broken tips, chipped edges, bent blades. He had practiced hours upon hours using weapons that had problems. A perfectly weighted and balanced shuriken was predictable; it allowed the user to know exactly how it would react when thrown; faulty weapons would deviate based on their defect. He had simply learned to detect the defect, predict the deviation, and adjust his form.
The result was every throw of his hitting the target. Yes, he missed the bullseyes on most of his throws and had thrown every weapon one at a time. But he wasn't going to pull something beyond his skill to impress the invigilator— that was just inviting failure.
The invigilator scribbled down something on his clipboard. "That leaves senbon," he said.
Takuma threw the four faulty senbon towards the invigilator. The bearded man dodged one, caught another, and made the back of his clipboard become the target of the remaining two.
"I will ask again, can you wield another weapon?"
Takuma shook his head.
"Alright, we are done here." The weapons invigilator looked at Takuma and said, "I hope by the next attempt, you will increase your accuracy more. If you're missing the center here, you will miss the target completely in the field where a dozen things are making aiming difficult for you." He plucked a senbon from his clipboard, "With senbons, you need to target vitals that can be damaged by a thin needle, or you need to study my posture and target places that will be difficult for me to evade or block."
Takuma held back a groan. The advice about accuracy was nothing new, but the senbon part made him want to poke his eyes out with them. He had simply thrown them toward his face and chest without thought— it absolutely made sense to target vitals, but he had been practicing on round target boards or painted circles on trees that he had let the importance of anatomy slip his mind.
This was going to affect his grade. But it was too late to change things, thus the mention of the next attempt.
"You can continue to the next part of the test."
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
He restlessly looked around the noisy classroom that matched his nervous energy. His classmates sat in groups around the room, huddled together, discussing among themselves. Only he sat alone in the corner. He wondered what they were talking about and if it could come up in the graduation test that was about to happen.
Time had passed in the blink of an eye, and it had already been over seven months since he had found himself in the fictional world, inhabiting an unknown orphan's body. The seven months were the most challenging times he had ever lived through. Everything from the looming threat of becoming a shinobi with no skills to survive to the immediate financial situation had him look at things he had never done before. His sense of priorities had revised more in these months than in all the years he had lived in his previous life.
"Akimichi Hideaki."
The classroom door slid upon with a rattle; Kibe peeked in and called for the next student in line.
The bulky Akimichi stood up from his desk, where already-eaten packaged food wrappers had piled up. The usually taciturn Hideaki, who rarely showed exaggerated expression on his chubby face, looked visibly unsettled. The back of his red samue was drenched in sweat. Even more shocking was the unopened bag of chips in Hideaki's hands— as long as there was something in his hands, he was eating it, and seeing that the bag remained sealed illustrated how Hideaki was feeling.
Takuma rubbed the side of his palm, stained with blue ink marks. The pen-and-paper part of the theoretical portion was already done first thing in the morning. His performance hadn't been satisfactory. The plan from the start had been to correctly attempt fifty percent of the paper as that was the passing grade for the test. He wanted to at least pass the test on his first attempt and improve in the subsequent attempts.
Takuma clenches his right hand tightly, digging his trimmed nails into the flesh. He had attempted fifty percent of the paper as planned, but those attempts weren't correct. Coming out of the examination hall, Takuma knew how many of his attempts were correct— his answers weren't enough to get him a passing grade.
'I should've focused more on history and tactics,' he thought with regret. His approach to exam preparation was to focus on his strengths and practice them enough to easily answer any related question. The efforts bore fruit; Takuma responded to math, physics, and finance questions with ease. But he had been horrible at tactics and strategy— half of the questions he didn't even know how to answer, the ones he knew he couldn't see through to a final answer. It didn't help that the topics he had learned from Maruboshi were too different from what came in the test. What hurt the most was history, which he considered to be a moderate strength— the questions that came were from topics he had strategically chosen to set aside in order to manage time in preparation. The questions from his strengths didn't have enough weightage in the question sheet to get him to pass. And he knew he hadn't done well enough in other topics to bridge the gap.
The viva-voce was yet to be conducted. Takuma prayed to the fates that the invigilator would ask easy questions, or better, those he knew the answer to.
Every other minute or three, Kibe would step through the door and call for one student. With every student left, the classroom became emptier as those who left didn't return, which displeased all. If the people who went for the test returned, those yet to be called could've calmed their nerves by hearing the account of those already tested.
"Takuma."
He stood up in a rush upon hearing his name. If his chair wasn't a long bench bolted to the floor, Takuma would've knocked it back. He gathered his belongings into the pouches on his person and scuttled out of the room.
Outside the classroom, Kibe led him across the corridor to the testing hall.
"The invigilators will first test your bukijutsu (weapon skills), then ask you two to demonstrate ninjutsu, followed by a taijutsu spar, and end it with something of their choice," Kibe said, breaking the silence.
"Spar against whom?" asked Takuma.
"One of the invigilators."
Takuma narrowed his eyes. He had assumed and preferred that it would be one of his classmates so that he could adjust his plan going into the fight in accordance with their fighting style.
"The invigilators are senior chunin. The aim of the spar isn't to beat them but to show them the full breadth of your skill," said Kibe.
Takuma nodded. He had figured out that much.
The pair reached the testing hall, which Takuma recognized to be an auditorium hall. It was used when the academy needed a large space indoors. He hadn't been inside because their class never needed it, but he knew it was used for the graduation ceremony.
Kibe put his hand on the handle slit in the door but didn't open it right away. He looked at Takuma and asked, "How many of the academy three can you do?"
Takuma was taken aback at the sudden question. Kibe had never expressed any interest in him in any form, making surprise the natural reaction in the situation.
"If you can do all three and your paper is decent, even if you do badly in everything else, there's a real chance you could pass. Pass in this and improve in the next two attempts. You did Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) that day; can you do the other two as well?"
Since the day Takuma had performed the Bunshin no Jutsu in class, Kibe hadn't called him up again. Takuma knew Kibe had long given up on him, and it made him wonder why he was bringing this up now.
'Is he feeling a late sense of responsibility?' Takuma thought— or was it guilt that Kibe was feeling?
Whatever it was, Takuma didn't care. His attention was caught by something else Kibe had said. '— pass in this and improve in the next two attempts—' Did that mean that the final result was an aggregate of the three attempts like he suspected? That didn't bode well for Takuma. After all, he hadn't done decently in his paper; neither could he pull off all academy three.
Takuma pursed his lips and shook his head.
"You—" Kibe sighed and shook his head to himself. "Alright... Just remember to be polite and follow whatever they say to the word." He opened the door and ushered Takuma in.
The auditorium hall had wooden flooring with a raised stage on one end that had large velvety-blue curtains framing it.
The hall had been cleared out for the purpose of today. The floor had seemingly been divided into regions with shinobi in the standard Leaf shinobi gear of green flak jacket over blue interacting with Takuma's classmates. All the shinobi had a clipboard in their hand, making them invigilators. Looking up, there was a corridor with railings that crossed three sides of the hall sans the wall above the stage. The corridor had similarly dressed shinobi looking down at the testing process. These shinobi didn't have clipboards in their hands.
Were they looking out for attempts at cheating? Takuma thought for a moment before walking to the shinobi waving a hand in his direction.
"Are you Takuma?" asked the invigilator. He had buzz-cut hair and a large beard that looked like it had been groomed to give it the proper shape and texture.
The man then asked for id when Takuma nodded. Takuma presented his academy id-card which the man studied along with Takuma for half a minute before returning it.
"Alright, now that's out of the way, I'll be testing your bukijutsu. What all weapons can you use?"
"... Kunai, shuriken, and senbon," said Takuma, feeling something was off about the framing of the question.
"Anything else?"
Takum was taken aback. Was he expected to learn how to wield more weapons? Did that carry some importance? "No," he said. Thinking about that was useless when he didn't have enough mastery of the basic three.
"You see the targets there," the invigilator pointed at the circular bullseye around them. Some were bound to the walls, others sat on the stands, "Hit them with kunai and shuriken. As for senbon... throw them at me."
Takuma curled his brow, but the invigilator didn't seem to be jesting. Kibe's reminder of the invigilators being chunin flashed through Takuma's mind, making him return a nod. He wasn't going to hurt a chunin with his skill.
The invigilator pointed to a nearby table populated with weapons and told him to use those. Takuma counted the number of targets and picked the same number of kunai and shuriken along with four senbon. The table also had swords, daggers, nunchucks, chained weapons, knuckle-based arms, bo-staffs, and various other choices. The variety of weapons present told him the answer to his previous question.
"Hmm?" Takuma observed the weapons in his hands. The weight on them was off; they were either too light or heavy from the standard issue synonymous with every weaponsmith in the Leaf village. A couple kunai that weighed correctly had an off-balance. He glanced at the invigilator and found the man observing him.
Takuma put the weapons into his pouches. Switching them wasn't an option as the kunai had a special wrapping on the handle, the shurikens were engraved, and the senbon had a bronze sheen on them.
"Start," said the invigilator.
Thwip! A kunai struck the farthest target on the wall, missing the red center by a couple centimeters.
Takuma didn't need to cheat by switching.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! One-by-one, all targets had kunai and shuriken sticking out of them.
Faulty weapons weren't a problem to him. All of his personal cache of weapons were bought from scrap boxes full of defective and damaged pieces. Broken tips, chipped edges, bent blades. He had practiced hours upon hours using weapons that had problems. A perfectly weighted and balanced shuriken was predictable; it allowed the user to know exactly how it would react when thrown; faulty weapons would deviate based on their defect. He had simply learned to detect the defect, predict the deviation, and adjust his form.
The result was every throw of his hitting the target. Yes, he missed the bullseyes on most of his throws and had thrown every weapon one at a time. But he wasn't going to pull something beyond his skill to impress the invigilator— that was just inviting failure.
The invigilator scribbled down something on his clipboard. "That leaves senbon," he said.
Takuma threw the four faulty senbon towards the invigilator. The bearded man dodged one, caught another, and made the back of his clipboard become the target of the remaining two.
"I will ask again, can you wield another weapon?"
Takuma shook his head.
"Alright, we are done here." The weapons invigilator looked at Takuma and said, "I hope by the next attempt, you will increase your accuracy more. If you're missing the center here, you will miss the target completely in the field where a dozen things are making aiming difficult for you." He plucked a senbon from his clipboard, "With senbons, you need to target vitals that can be damaged by a thin needle, or you need to study my posture and target places that will be difficult for me to evade or block."
Takuma held back a groan. The advice about accuracy was nothing new, but the senbon part made him want to poke his eyes out with them. He had simply thrown them toward his face and chest without thought— it absolutely made sense to target vitals, but he had been practicing on round target boards or painted circles on trees that he had let the importance of anatomy slip his mind.
This was going to affect his grade. But it was too late to change things, thus the mention of the next attempt.
"You can continue to the next part of the test."
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
- Location
- Elsewhere
"Dammit, if this little chump passes somehow, he's going to end up dead on his first mission..."
CH_24: 'I do not know'
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
The different parts of the test were placed around the auditorium in a zig-zag manner along the length of the hall. The bukijutsu part was placed near one wall, and to go to the next part, Takuma had to go toward the other wall.
"Good afternoon, child. Are you Takuma?" The next invigilator was a middle-aged woman with thick-gray streaks on either side of her head. She wore unique earrings that looked like miniature explosive tags but instead of paper, they were made from a thin but rigid and glossy material.
"Yes, ma'am," said Takuma instinctively— the woman gave that vibe.
"Good, good, how are you feeling today; nervous?" she asked with a gentle smile. When Takuma nodded, she continued, "It's okay to feel nervous, but there's nothing to be worried about. For this portion of the test, you simply have to show me all of the academy three. Relax and take your time, there's no hurry," she smiled sweetly.
Takuma's stomach felt queasy. He knew this part of the test was going to be bad, and he had prepared himself for it. He was going to put on the best Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) of his life. But the ninjutsu invigilator was so supportive that Takuma felt embarrassed about what he was about to show her.
"Let's start with Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu)," she said and pointed to what seemed like a stuffed leather bag. The way it depressed on the floor made it look heavy— not an ideal substitute to be used in the jutsu.
Takuma stared at the leather bag for a moment. He turned to the invigilator, and with pursed lips, he said: "I can't do it."
The invigilator looked confused for a moment. "It's okay, Takuma. You can take your time to prepare and try; there's no need to rush," she said.
"I can't perform it. I have never performed the jutsu successfully, and I know I can't do it here even if I tried," said Takuma. He tried to be as blunt as possible to avoid more embarrassment.
The invigilator seemed to be at a loss for words. Takuma couldn't blame her; all his classmates could perform the jutsu successfully, even clumsily. Not being able to perform one the academy three only a few months from graduation wasn't expected from a student at his stage.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
Takuma nodded.
The woman looked down at her clipboard and crossed out a box on the form.
"Let's move on to Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu)," she said.
Takuma nodded. Same as Kawarimi no Jutsu, he hadn't executed Henge no Jutsu even once. But unlike the former, Takuma had actually practiced the latter, so he was ready to try it. He melded the two energies to produce chakra and weaved the hand seals with the utmost attention. The chakra moved through the chakra pathway network, pushed by him, and directed by the hand seals.
'Hold control, hold control,' Takuma repeated to himself.
The chakra smoothly passed through the route dictated by the dog seal. Takuma clenched his toes as he proceeded to make the boar seal. The chakra quivered like a speeding car over speed breakers. He summoned all of his control and pushed it forward with a firm grip. The shaking stopped, and the chakra spun through the boar seal route. Now was the time for the final hand seal, and Takuma felt his palm damp from sweat as he made the ram seal. The moment the seal was complete, the chakra seemed to turn into a ram as it suddenly thrashed forward and slammed into the pathway wall, destroying the momentum and Takuma's with it.
There was no puff of smoke or anything. Takuma lowered his hand and raised his eyes to look at the ninjutsu invigilator, biting the inside of his cheek so that pain could cover all the other things he was feeling.
"Would you like to try again?" she asked.
Takuma shook his head. He had already made enough fool out of himself for the day, and the rest of the test was still remaining.
"... Can you do the Bunshin no Jutsu," she asked with pity pooling in her eyes.
'She doesn't think I can do it,' Takuma could immediately tell what the woman was thinking from her eyes. He stiffly nodded and quickly weaved the hand seals to produce four clones.
He didn't try to be smart with the invigilator like he had been with Kibe. He couldn't deceive her into thinking a clone was the real him as the first thing she did was look at his feet to spot the shadow made by the real Takuma, something Kibe had forgotten to do from the surprise of seeing him perform a jutsu and not fail.
She observed the clones thoroughly until she was satisfied, compared each one to the original, and made him move them around to see his control. "Good, very good. Excellent, I say," she smiled brightly. "This is as good as the best Bunshin no Jutsu I have seen, if not better. Well done, Takuma."
It would've felt great if Takuma hadn't seen the pity in her eyes before. Now, all it seemed was her trying to make him feel better about his pathetic performance.
Takuma was asked to move to the next stage. Just when he thought he couldn't feel worse, he remembered the next part of the test was the taijutsu spar against an invigilator.
Unlike the last two parts, the taijutsu part of the test was invigilated by multiple shinobi. A man was fighting Hideaki while another man and woman observed the spar outside the white circle marking the sparring stage. The woman noticed Takuma. She raised her palm, signaling him to stop and wait. Takuma obliged. He was in absolutely no hurry as every step toward the white-marked circle made his heartbeat spike.
He observed the fight. Hideaki fought as he usually did, taking advantage of his large body and heavy weight to overpower his opponents. But this time, Hideaki's opponent wasn't one of his classmates, none bigger than him. The taijutsu invigilator fighting Hideaki had a wiry frame with stickman-like limbs, and yet those thin arms grabbed the bulky Akimichi and threw him over his shoulder. Takuma had long learned that in this world, weight difference stopped mattering in taijutsu when strength didn't come from the muscles but the chakra channeled through them. The thin invigilator could overpower Hideaki because the former could use chakra better than the latter.
Ting! Takuma turned back towards the sound of the sharp sound of weapons clashing. He was right as he saw Okubo Momoe exchanging sword strikes against the bukijutsu invigilator. Momoe swung a straight-blade ninjato while the invigilator wielded the curved-blade katana.
She knows how to use a sword?! Takuma gaped as Momoe parried the invigilator's strike and immediately stuck, but the invigilator didn't miss a beat and raised his parried sword to meet Momoe's strike with the sword hilt.
After being in the same class with Momoe for seven months, it was clear to Takuma that Momoe was just another breed of people, the kind who were simply good at everything. But seeing her wielding a sword against the invigilator and doing it competently hammered the point across even more.
He couldn't remove his eyes from the combat. The way Momoe fought was so different from her fighting style in the taijutsu spars. The Momoe he had observed was a watch-and-chose kind of fighter who would attack less and evade and block more, only to strike at opportune times to do the most damage with maximum efficiency. But the Momoe in front of him was nimble, quick, and aggressive; the sword in her hand seemed weightless, as did her feet, as it looked like she was performing a ferocious sword dance.
It was simply mesmerizing. He even caught a glimpse of the shinobi on the second-floor corridor observing Momoe's fight.
"Takuma."
He jumped at the touch on his shoulder. It was the woman taijutsu invigilators; she had her black hair tied up in a messy bun held together with a bright red hair stick with fingernail-sized seashells on a string hanging on one side.
"I'm sorry, I got distracted," he said, bowing his head in apology.
"It's okay," she smiled, "but let's get you started quickly, can't let a backlog develop."
Takuma was asked to enter the fighting circle, and the other man entered the circle along with him. Unlike the man who had fought Hideaki, the man in front of Takuma had a wider frame with broad shoulders and chest and a toned abdomen that formed a triangular upper body. Not to mention the man had muscular arms and long legs. In short, the man in front of him was a prime physical specimen.
"I will be your opponent, come at me with all you got," said the man in his deep voice.
Outside the circle, the other man chuckled behind his hand. His voice had a feminine flair to it. "You have to say more than that, Takeo," he brushed his curly locks behind his ear. "Takuma, is it? The big lug here will be your opponent. We are going to test your skill in taijutsu and what we want from you is to show us all you can do. So don't hold back or worry about hurting him; he's really really tough— he was dropped on his head when he was a baby."
"...Okay?" said Takuma. Though he had no idea how the last line fit into the rest of what was said.
"Come," said Takeo.
Takuma didn't charge at first, and neither did Takeo, so he took a moment to observe his opponent. Takeo showed no fighting stance and simply stood straight with his arms crossed— the picture of a still statue. Takeo narrowed his eyes before charging at Takeo with a couple punches to his chest. The shinobi uncurled his arms and blocked the punches with his bulging arms. Takuma kicked himself off the floor and tried to plant the back of his heel into the shinobi's face, but Takeo grabbed the foot and pushed it back.
Takuma had to scrap all of his plans and concentrate on landing properly and not make a fool of himself. The moment his foot touched the ground and his knees were bent enough, he slid one foot back and then propelled forward. His target was Takeo's knees— hit anyone, no matter the size, in the knee, and they would crumble.
Takeo suddenly raised one of his feet as if about to kick forward. Takuma's sandals made a screeching sound against the wooden floor as he changed direction on a dime and again raised himself up to jam his foot into the side waist above Takeo's foot. The attack never reached, and Takeo simply grabbed Takuma and threw him away.
He had to roll a couple times to soften his landing before using the momentum to get on his feet and again charging toward Takeo.
He kicked, punched, and even tried to grapple, but Takeo effortlessly dodged or blocked everything Takuma threw at him. Eventually, it became a cycle of Takuma trying to land a single hit only to be thrown away. He tried to attack from the front and back, targeting the legs, torso, and head, he tried to feint and bait— he tried everything, but nothing worked.
"Alright, that's it, stop," said the woman invigilator.
Takuma stopped his attempt to get behind Takeo so that he could kick him in the back of his knee to get him to kneel so that he could go for the throat. Takuma breathed heavily while Takeo still looked like an unchanging statue with his straight stance and folded arms.
"Okay, Takuma. If you make your way through that door, you will find the next invigilator." The woman invigilator pointed at the auditorium door that opened to the outdoors.
That's it? Takuma thought he would get more, but looking at the three invigilators, none seemed to have any plans to give him good feedback.
He stepped out of the circle and walked a few steps before retrieving a hand towel to wipe the sweat. He had pushed the gas pedal for way too long without allowing himself to stabilize his breathing. He glanced back and saw Momoe facing Takeo. He wanted to watch, see how the genius would do things differently, but he had to move on to the next test.
Takuma exited the auditorium and was surprised to see a bald old man dressed in a white and magenta kimono sitting under the shade of a large red umbrella. He sat on a patio chair with another empty one in front of him and had a round single-leg table with a traditional pottery tea set on it.
"Takuma?" asked the old man when Takuma entered his vision.
Takuma nodded and was asked to sit.
There was a spell of silence, a couple of minutes, but under the old man's gaze, Takuma felt it had been like hours. Not knowing what else to do, Takuma stared back.
"I only have one question for you," the old man broke the silence, "it will be used to complete the rest of your test. The last portion of what you did inside and viva-voce both."
Takuma silently gulped. A single question raised the stakes. If he got it correct, he won big, but if he was incorrect, he lost equally as bad.
"The question is quite simple, and anyone in your position would be able to answer it," said the man. There was a pause before the old man posed the question.
"In the auditorium, how many people stood on the second-floor corridor?"
Takuma stopped blinking. His mind went back into the hall, thinking about the shinobi who he thought were observing the testing for any signs of cheating.
This inside of his mouth felt dessert dry as he opened it to speak his response,
"I do not know."
He did not know.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
"Good afternoon, child. Are you Takuma?" The next invigilator was a middle-aged woman with thick-gray streaks on either side of her head. She wore unique earrings that looked like miniature explosive tags but instead of paper, they were made from a thin but rigid and glossy material.
"Yes, ma'am," said Takuma instinctively— the woman gave that vibe.
"Good, good, how are you feeling today; nervous?" she asked with a gentle smile. When Takuma nodded, she continued, "It's okay to feel nervous, but there's nothing to be worried about. For this portion of the test, you simply have to show me all of the academy three. Relax and take your time, there's no hurry," she smiled sweetly.
Takuma's stomach felt queasy. He knew this part of the test was going to be bad, and he had prepared himself for it. He was going to put on the best Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) of his life. But the ninjutsu invigilator was so supportive that Takuma felt embarrassed about what he was about to show her.
"Let's start with Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu)," she said and pointed to what seemed like a stuffed leather bag. The way it depressed on the floor made it look heavy— not an ideal substitute to be used in the jutsu.
Takuma stared at the leather bag for a moment. He turned to the invigilator, and with pursed lips, he said: "I can't do it."
The invigilator looked confused for a moment. "It's okay, Takuma. You can take your time to prepare and try; there's no need to rush," she said.
"I can't perform it. I have never performed the jutsu successfully, and I know I can't do it here even if I tried," said Takuma. He tried to be as blunt as possible to avoid more embarrassment.
The invigilator seemed to be at a loss for words. Takuma couldn't blame her; all his classmates could perform the jutsu successfully, even clumsily. Not being able to perform one the academy three only a few months from graduation wasn't expected from a student at his stage.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
Takuma nodded.
The woman looked down at her clipboard and crossed out a box on the form.
"Let's move on to Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu)," she said.
Takuma nodded. Same as Kawarimi no Jutsu, he hadn't executed Henge no Jutsu even once. But unlike the former, Takuma had actually practiced the latter, so he was ready to try it. He melded the two energies to produce chakra and weaved the hand seals with the utmost attention. The chakra moved through the chakra pathway network, pushed by him, and directed by the hand seals.
'Hold control, hold control,' Takuma repeated to himself.
The chakra smoothly passed through the route dictated by the dog seal. Takuma clenched his toes as he proceeded to make the boar seal. The chakra quivered like a speeding car over speed breakers. He summoned all of his control and pushed it forward with a firm grip. The shaking stopped, and the chakra spun through the boar seal route. Now was the time for the final hand seal, and Takuma felt his palm damp from sweat as he made the ram seal. The moment the seal was complete, the chakra seemed to turn into a ram as it suddenly thrashed forward and slammed into the pathway wall, destroying the momentum and Takuma's with it.
There was no puff of smoke or anything. Takuma lowered his hand and raised his eyes to look at the ninjutsu invigilator, biting the inside of his cheek so that pain could cover all the other things he was feeling.
"Would you like to try again?" she asked.
Takuma shook his head. He had already made enough fool out of himself for the day, and the rest of the test was still remaining.
"... Can you do the Bunshin no Jutsu," she asked with pity pooling in her eyes.
'She doesn't think I can do it,' Takuma could immediately tell what the woman was thinking from her eyes. He stiffly nodded and quickly weaved the hand seals to produce four clones.
He didn't try to be smart with the invigilator like he had been with Kibe. He couldn't deceive her into thinking a clone was the real him as the first thing she did was look at his feet to spot the shadow made by the real Takuma, something Kibe had forgotten to do from the surprise of seeing him perform a jutsu and not fail.
She observed the clones thoroughly until she was satisfied, compared each one to the original, and made him move them around to see his control. "Good, very good. Excellent, I say," she smiled brightly. "This is as good as the best Bunshin no Jutsu I have seen, if not better. Well done, Takuma."
It would've felt great if Takuma hadn't seen the pity in her eyes before. Now, all it seemed was her trying to make him feel better about his pathetic performance.
Takuma was asked to move to the next stage. Just when he thought he couldn't feel worse, he remembered the next part of the test was the taijutsu spar against an invigilator.
Unlike the last two parts, the taijutsu part of the test was invigilated by multiple shinobi. A man was fighting Hideaki while another man and woman observed the spar outside the white circle marking the sparring stage. The woman noticed Takuma. She raised her palm, signaling him to stop and wait. Takuma obliged. He was in absolutely no hurry as every step toward the white-marked circle made his heartbeat spike.
He observed the fight. Hideaki fought as he usually did, taking advantage of his large body and heavy weight to overpower his opponents. But this time, Hideaki's opponent wasn't one of his classmates, none bigger than him. The taijutsu invigilator fighting Hideaki had a wiry frame with stickman-like limbs, and yet those thin arms grabbed the bulky Akimichi and threw him over his shoulder. Takuma had long learned that in this world, weight difference stopped mattering in taijutsu when strength didn't come from the muscles but the chakra channeled through them. The thin invigilator could overpower Hideaki because the former could use chakra better than the latter.
Ting! Takuma turned back towards the sound of the sharp sound of weapons clashing. He was right as he saw Okubo Momoe exchanging sword strikes against the bukijutsu invigilator. Momoe swung a straight-blade ninjato while the invigilator wielded the curved-blade katana.
She knows how to use a sword?! Takuma gaped as Momoe parried the invigilator's strike and immediately stuck, but the invigilator didn't miss a beat and raised his parried sword to meet Momoe's strike with the sword hilt.
After being in the same class with Momoe for seven months, it was clear to Takuma that Momoe was just another breed of people, the kind who were simply good at everything. But seeing her wielding a sword against the invigilator and doing it competently hammered the point across even more.
He couldn't remove his eyes from the combat. The way Momoe fought was so different from her fighting style in the taijutsu spars. The Momoe he had observed was a watch-and-chose kind of fighter who would attack less and evade and block more, only to strike at opportune times to do the most damage with maximum efficiency. But the Momoe in front of him was nimble, quick, and aggressive; the sword in her hand seemed weightless, as did her feet, as it looked like she was performing a ferocious sword dance.
It was simply mesmerizing. He even caught a glimpse of the shinobi on the second-floor corridor observing Momoe's fight.
"Takuma."
He jumped at the touch on his shoulder. It was the woman taijutsu invigilators; she had her black hair tied up in a messy bun held together with a bright red hair stick with fingernail-sized seashells on a string hanging on one side.
"I'm sorry, I got distracted," he said, bowing his head in apology.
"It's okay," she smiled, "but let's get you started quickly, can't let a backlog develop."
Takuma was asked to enter the fighting circle, and the other man entered the circle along with him. Unlike the man who had fought Hideaki, the man in front of Takuma had a wider frame with broad shoulders and chest and a toned abdomen that formed a triangular upper body. Not to mention the man had muscular arms and long legs. In short, the man in front of him was a prime physical specimen.
"I will be your opponent, come at me with all you got," said the man in his deep voice.
Outside the circle, the other man chuckled behind his hand. His voice had a feminine flair to it. "You have to say more than that, Takeo," he brushed his curly locks behind his ear. "Takuma, is it? The big lug here will be your opponent. We are going to test your skill in taijutsu and what we want from you is to show us all you can do. So don't hold back or worry about hurting him; he's really really tough— he was dropped on his head when he was a baby."
"...Okay?" said Takuma. Though he had no idea how the last line fit into the rest of what was said.
"Come," said Takeo.
Takuma didn't charge at first, and neither did Takeo, so he took a moment to observe his opponent. Takeo showed no fighting stance and simply stood straight with his arms crossed— the picture of a still statue. Takeo narrowed his eyes before charging at Takeo with a couple punches to his chest. The shinobi uncurled his arms and blocked the punches with his bulging arms. Takuma kicked himself off the floor and tried to plant the back of his heel into the shinobi's face, but Takeo grabbed the foot and pushed it back.
Takuma had to scrap all of his plans and concentrate on landing properly and not make a fool of himself. The moment his foot touched the ground and his knees were bent enough, he slid one foot back and then propelled forward. His target was Takeo's knees— hit anyone, no matter the size, in the knee, and they would crumble.
Takeo suddenly raised one of his feet as if about to kick forward. Takuma's sandals made a screeching sound against the wooden floor as he changed direction on a dime and again raised himself up to jam his foot into the side waist above Takeo's foot. The attack never reached, and Takeo simply grabbed Takuma and threw him away.
He had to roll a couple times to soften his landing before using the momentum to get on his feet and again charging toward Takeo.
He kicked, punched, and even tried to grapple, but Takeo effortlessly dodged or blocked everything Takuma threw at him. Eventually, it became a cycle of Takuma trying to land a single hit only to be thrown away. He tried to attack from the front and back, targeting the legs, torso, and head, he tried to feint and bait— he tried everything, but nothing worked.
"Alright, that's it, stop," said the woman invigilator.
Takuma stopped his attempt to get behind Takeo so that he could kick him in the back of his knee to get him to kneel so that he could go for the throat. Takuma breathed heavily while Takeo still looked like an unchanging statue with his straight stance and folded arms.
"Okay, Takuma. If you make your way through that door, you will find the next invigilator." The woman invigilator pointed at the auditorium door that opened to the outdoors.
That's it? Takuma thought he would get more, but looking at the three invigilators, none seemed to have any plans to give him good feedback.
He stepped out of the circle and walked a few steps before retrieving a hand towel to wipe the sweat. He had pushed the gas pedal for way too long without allowing himself to stabilize his breathing. He glanced back and saw Momoe facing Takeo. He wanted to watch, see how the genius would do things differently, but he had to move on to the next test.
Takuma exited the auditorium and was surprised to see a bald old man dressed in a white and magenta kimono sitting under the shade of a large red umbrella. He sat on a patio chair with another empty one in front of him and had a round single-leg table with a traditional pottery tea set on it.
"Takuma?" asked the old man when Takuma entered his vision.
Takuma nodded and was asked to sit.
There was a spell of silence, a couple of minutes, but under the old man's gaze, Takuma felt it had been like hours. Not knowing what else to do, Takuma stared back.
"I only have one question for you," the old man broke the silence, "it will be used to complete the rest of your test. The last portion of what you did inside and viva-voce both."
Takuma silently gulped. A single question raised the stakes. If he got it correct, he won big, but if he was incorrect, he lost equally as bad.
"The question is quite simple, and anyone in your position would be able to answer it," said the man. There was a pause before the old man posed the question.
"In the auditorium, how many people stood on the second-floor corridor?"
Takuma stopped blinking. His mind went back into the hall, thinking about the shinobi who he thought were observing the testing for any signs of cheating.
This inside of his mouth felt dessert dry as he opened it to speak his response,
"I do not know."
He did not know.
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Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
CH_25: —Result—
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Takuma stumbled as he avoided Maruboshi's swing. He rolled away to regain his foot, but Maruboshi was on him, and he had to hop backward to survive the shinobi's attack. He pushed off his feet backward and landed on his hands again to push off to put considerable distance between them.
It was strange, but ever since he had unlocked the ability to use chakra, his athleticism had gone through a transformation. He was faster, stronger, more dexterous, and could react faster than before. Movements that would require Olympic-level athletes to train for years to push the limits of the human body to perform came easy to him. The reality-defying movements he had seen in the Naruto fight videos on the internet, which he thought wouldn't be possible even when he began training under Maruboshi, now seemed more plausible.
Despite that, he was still too slow. When compared to Hiji, Izumi, Momoe, and even Hideaki, who excelled in taijutsu, he was a child with underdeveloped motor skills. When they weren't holding back in their fights against him, his classmates moved with an agility that really put the supernatural elements of the world into perspective. He couldn't even imagine comparing himself to someone like the taijutsu invigilator who hadn't moved from his spot during their fight.
"This won't do, young Takuma. You can not always run!" Maruboshi yelled.
Takuma's legs and arms felt numb, heavy like lead, and his head was filled with the end of the spar. He didn't want to run. "I'm waiting for an opening," he lied as Maruboshi pushed him back. He could only dodge and block, as his teacher didn't relent any pressure.
Maruboshi's spars took significant time in their morning training, even though they only sparred for two, at most, three sessions. However, every spar stretched between fifteen to twenty minutes at Maruboshi's discretion. The academy spars lasted a couple minutes, rarely ever going over four minutes at a time, but Maruboshi's marathon squeezed Takuma's endurance like a sponge. He was being forced to manage his exertion and breathing to not gas out before the spar ended.
Everything that he had forgotten to follow during his taijutsu evaluation. He had attacked like an undisciplined barbarian without thought of preserving his energy and had felt out of breath after the short spar.
"If you let the enemy dictate the flow and pace of the fight, you will never win." Maruboshi took one step forward and closed the distance Takuma had created in one gliding step. The old shinobi rotated and planted the back of his foot into his student's raised guard. Takuma yelped and, having the strong force launched upon him, was thrown several meters away, dragging grass and loose soil along the way.
Takuma was on his back, looking at the sky, feeling the burning sensation in his ribs, which surely meant they were bruised; his knuckles, wrists, and shins didn't fare any better. He wondered how long he could just lay there.
"Get up, young Takuma," Maruboshi said.
Not for long, it seemed. He did, slowly and with a gruff groan, get up.
"Come on, try attacking me," Maruboshi held his hands held behind his back.
Takuma narrowed his eyes. A phantom image of the taijutsu invigilator with his hands crossed behind his back appeared beside Maruboshi. Takuma clenched his fist and charged ahead.
The two men battled back and forth on the grassy ground, and Takuma landed a clean hit on Maruboshi every eighth or ninth clean hit on him. It wasn't enough. Maruboshi matched the swiftness of his movements, the strength of his hits, and the speed of his reaction to his level. His classmates were faster and stronger.
He moved through an offensive form as fast as possible, forcing Maruboshi back. Then Takuma caught Maruboshi on the thigh with a glancing strike that would have left a welt if Maruboshi wasn't a chakra-imbued shinobi. The contact encouraged Takuma, and he bought his leg up and around to slam it into Maruboshi's side.
The kick was clean and fast, but Maruboshi was more skilled. The skilled master whipped a ground kick at Takuma's support leg, swinging his ankle up and dropping him in the grass.
Takuma groaned. His head hit the ground, and there were spots blinking in front of his eyes. Beyond the spots was Maruboshi, standing tall, his hands once again held behind his back.
"Can we stop," Takuma said, wishing the spar would end.
"Your mind's not here," said Maruboshi. "You seem to be angry."
Takuma was angry. Seeing that they were not continuing the fight, Takuma continued to lie on the ground. "... You haven't asked how the test went," he said. The morning had started out as every other, with nothing out of place, not even a single mention of the graduation test attempt.
"You did not look like you wanted to talk about it," said Maruboshi, lightly shrugging, "and my asking would have yielded no fruit if you did not wish to tell me about it... would it?"
Takuma pursed his lips. That was his fault; he hadn't been the sharing kind. "It went worse than I had planned," he sighed. "Not one part of the test went as I expected it," he paused, "except the ninjutsu part; it went as expected." He narrated his experience from the paper to the final bit with the bald old man. "I should've known they were of importance," he grabbed his head and groaned loudly. "If I had just thought about it, my grade would've been so different."
He pulled himself up from the ground and squatted with his elbows resting on his knees. The next attempt was in two months; there wasn't nearly enough time to overcome his shortcomings. Just the thought made his heart feel constricted.
"A girl in my class could use a sword. I caught her bukijutsu test. She was phenomenal," Takuma said, recalling Momoe wielding the ninjato. "I couldn't even throw multiple shurikens with decent accuracy." And he knew many of his clan-background classmates who could wield something more as well.
"You already know you can't compare to them," Maruboshi said.
Takuma glanced at his teacher. He still hadn't gotten used to Marubohi's occasional bluntness. "Doesn't mean it frustrates me any less." He let his head hang down, breathing a long sigh. "Two months until I have to do it again. I can't afford to fail again; leaving it to the last chance is too much of a risk."
He needed to get better, and it needed to happen quickly. Takuma closed his eyes— the pity from the ninjutsu invigilator, Hiji's cruel smile before their fight, Kibe's indifference, and the guilty look from Maruboshi when he woke up in the hospital flashed behind his eyelids. He stood up and faced Maruboshi. "I need you to push me, more than now," he said.
"Overworking does more harm than good," Maruboshi shook his head.
"There is no other substitute; I have to try harder if I want to make it as a shinobi." Takuma stepped closer to Maruboshi, "It won't happen again. I won't break down; you don't have to worry about it."
"What?"
"The thing that happened, it won't happen. I can take it; you know I can," said Takuma, hoping his words were communicating his intention.
Maruboshi was taken aback by the words.
"Don't hold back with me. You said you would guide me, but it will be my efforts that decide my success. You said I'm the only one who can guarantee my progress. I am willing to work harder, so I ask you... guide me, for the guarantee of my hard work doesn't seem to hold a meaningful sense now."
"... I will hold you to a shinobi's standard," Maruboshi said after a wordless silence.
"I'm going to be a shinobi; better learn about it early."
"I will treat your training the same as a mission. Prioritize the mission; total commitment; no distractions will be entertained. The only acceptable result is success."
"I couldn't agree more."
Maruboshi gazed down at Takuma, his harsh gaze softened. "You might not like me after this."
"You're the devil I made a deal with; people usually end up disliking the devil in time, nothing special," a chuckle escaped Takuma. How silly must he have sounded when he had said that the first time.
"Then, so be it. We train harder. Starting tomorrow, we meet at four," Maruboshi said before vanishing in a flurry of leaves.
Takuma sucked in his lips as he looked at the sky. Four in the morning?
"The sun isn't even out in the morning..."
———
.
Takuma lugged his fatigued body to the classroom and deposited himself on his usual seat like a seat of potato. His wish had been granted, and Maruboshi had made their training tougher. His muscles felt like they were injected with hot lead after a session an hour longer than usual, harder than usual. The week had been as tougher as the starting days when he had just begun training under Maruboshi.
Muscle pain would follow and persist until he got used to the new load. He had no one but himself to blame. Yet he knew this was the only way forward.
He took out a thick scroll from his person and leaned in to begin reading the small writing. Tired as he was, rest he couldn't. Academy time partitioned off to academic work was as important as Maruboshi's training. If he didn't pass the written paper, he was still failing.
"Take your seats," Kibe announced his arrival, and everyone scurried to the seats.
Takuma kept his head down and continued reading. His ears had already begun to tune the noise out, turning them into hazy background noise that helped him concentrate.
"I have the test results with me," Kibe raised a letter-sized yellow envelope.
That broke whatever concentration and intent to study Takuma had as he raised his head to snap his gaze at Kibe. The rest of the classroom gasped and clamored before the room dipped into a murmuring silence.
"I will call your names, and one at a time, you will collect your result slip from me," Kibe said as he broke the wax seal over the results. "I want all of you to learn from these results and use them to improve your shortcomings by the next test."
Kibe called the first name: "Anno Aimi..."
A petite girl wearing a strappy top and baggy pants nervously walked to the teacher's podium under everyone's following eyes.
"... Pass," Kibe said as he handed Aimi her result.
Takuma froze.
Aimi looked up at Kibe, and so did the rest of the class.
Kibe smiled, "Congratulations, you're going to be a shinobi of the village."
The entire class screamed their cheers. People threw their hands up in celebration; some even jumped off their seats. Aimi's friends got out of their chairs and crowded the girl, exchanging hugs and jumping with each other in congratulations.
The usually stone-faced Kibe watched with a smile, not disturbing the joyous ruckus until he did and sent everyone back to their seat, but not before a quick hug from Aimi.
One-by-one, Kibe called names, and cheers and clappings ensued every time. The entire academy heard the cheers of the final-year students as they got to know they were going to be shinobi.
"Takuma..."
Takuma walked down from his seat. The class was in celebration, everyone congratulating everyone else. Friends formed groups to compare their results among merry laughter.
"... Fail," Kibe said as he placed half of an A4-sized sheet on Takuma's hand.
There were gasps, and the noise died down. No one had failed in the class until then.
Takuma looked at the slip in his hands. He bit his lower lip to stop it from trembling. It had a breakdown of every section of the test, and on the very bottom, stamped in red ink, was large writing in all capitals:
— FAIL —
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Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
It was strange, but ever since he had unlocked the ability to use chakra, his athleticism had gone through a transformation. He was faster, stronger, more dexterous, and could react faster than before. Movements that would require Olympic-level athletes to train for years to push the limits of the human body to perform came easy to him. The reality-defying movements he had seen in the Naruto fight videos on the internet, which he thought wouldn't be possible even when he began training under Maruboshi, now seemed more plausible.
Despite that, he was still too slow. When compared to Hiji, Izumi, Momoe, and even Hideaki, who excelled in taijutsu, he was a child with underdeveloped motor skills. When they weren't holding back in their fights against him, his classmates moved with an agility that really put the supernatural elements of the world into perspective. He couldn't even imagine comparing himself to someone like the taijutsu invigilator who hadn't moved from his spot during their fight.
"This won't do, young Takuma. You can not always run!" Maruboshi yelled.
Takuma's legs and arms felt numb, heavy like lead, and his head was filled with the end of the spar. He didn't want to run. "I'm waiting for an opening," he lied as Maruboshi pushed him back. He could only dodge and block, as his teacher didn't relent any pressure.
Maruboshi's spars took significant time in their morning training, even though they only sparred for two, at most, three sessions. However, every spar stretched between fifteen to twenty minutes at Maruboshi's discretion. The academy spars lasted a couple minutes, rarely ever going over four minutes at a time, but Maruboshi's marathon squeezed Takuma's endurance like a sponge. He was being forced to manage his exertion and breathing to not gas out before the spar ended.
Everything that he had forgotten to follow during his taijutsu evaluation. He had attacked like an undisciplined barbarian without thought of preserving his energy and had felt out of breath after the short spar.
"If you let the enemy dictate the flow and pace of the fight, you will never win." Maruboshi took one step forward and closed the distance Takuma had created in one gliding step. The old shinobi rotated and planted the back of his foot into his student's raised guard. Takuma yelped and, having the strong force launched upon him, was thrown several meters away, dragging grass and loose soil along the way.
Takuma was on his back, looking at the sky, feeling the burning sensation in his ribs, which surely meant they were bruised; his knuckles, wrists, and shins didn't fare any better. He wondered how long he could just lay there.
"Get up, young Takuma," Maruboshi said.
Not for long, it seemed. He did, slowly and with a gruff groan, get up.
"Come on, try attacking me," Maruboshi held his hands held behind his back.
Takuma narrowed his eyes. A phantom image of the taijutsu invigilator with his hands crossed behind his back appeared beside Maruboshi. Takuma clenched his fist and charged ahead.
The two men battled back and forth on the grassy ground, and Takuma landed a clean hit on Maruboshi every eighth or ninth clean hit on him. It wasn't enough. Maruboshi matched the swiftness of his movements, the strength of his hits, and the speed of his reaction to his level. His classmates were faster and stronger.
He moved through an offensive form as fast as possible, forcing Maruboshi back. Then Takuma caught Maruboshi on the thigh with a glancing strike that would have left a welt if Maruboshi wasn't a chakra-imbued shinobi. The contact encouraged Takuma, and he bought his leg up and around to slam it into Maruboshi's side.
The kick was clean and fast, but Maruboshi was more skilled. The skilled master whipped a ground kick at Takuma's support leg, swinging his ankle up and dropping him in the grass.
Takuma groaned. His head hit the ground, and there were spots blinking in front of his eyes. Beyond the spots was Maruboshi, standing tall, his hands once again held behind his back.
"Can we stop," Takuma said, wishing the spar would end.
"Your mind's not here," said Maruboshi. "You seem to be angry."
Takuma was angry. Seeing that they were not continuing the fight, Takuma continued to lie on the ground. "... You haven't asked how the test went," he said. The morning had started out as every other, with nothing out of place, not even a single mention of the graduation test attempt.
"You did not look like you wanted to talk about it," said Maruboshi, lightly shrugging, "and my asking would have yielded no fruit if you did not wish to tell me about it... would it?"
Takuma pursed his lips. That was his fault; he hadn't been the sharing kind. "It went worse than I had planned," he sighed. "Not one part of the test went as I expected it," he paused, "except the ninjutsu part; it went as expected." He narrated his experience from the paper to the final bit with the bald old man. "I should've known they were of importance," he grabbed his head and groaned loudly. "If I had just thought about it, my grade would've been so different."
He pulled himself up from the ground and squatted with his elbows resting on his knees. The next attempt was in two months; there wasn't nearly enough time to overcome his shortcomings. Just the thought made his heart feel constricted.
"A girl in my class could use a sword. I caught her bukijutsu test. She was phenomenal," Takuma said, recalling Momoe wielding the ninjato. "I couldn't even throw multiple shurikens with decent accuracy." And he knew many of his clan-background classmates who could wield something more as well.
"You already know you can't compare to them," Maruboshi said.
Takuma glanced at his teacher. He still hadn't gotten used to Marubohi's occasional bluntness. "Doesn't mean it frustrates me any less." He let his head hang down, breathing a long sigh. "Two months until I have to do it again. I can't afford to fail again; leaving it to the last chance is too much of a risk."
He needed to get better, and it needed to happen quickly. Takuma closed his eyes— the pity from the ninjutsu invigilator, Hiji's cruel smile before their fight, Kibe's indifference, and the guilty look from Maruboshi when he woke up in the hospital flashed behind his eyelids. He stood up and faced Maruboshi. "I need you to push me, more than now," he said.
"Overworking does more harm than good," Maruboshi shook his head.
"There is no other substitute; I have to try harder if I want to make it as a shinobi." Takuma stepped closer to Maruboshi, "It won't happen again. I won't break down; you don't have to worry about it."
"What?"
"The thing that happened, it won't happen. I can take it; you know I can," said Takuma, hoping his words were communicating his intention.
Maruboshi was taken aback by the words.
"Don't hold back with me. You said you would guide me, but it will be my efforts that decide my success. You said I'm the only one who can guarantee my progress. I am willing to work harder, so I ask you... guide me, for the guarantee of my hard work doesn't seem to hold a meaningful sense now."
"... I will hold you to a shinobi's standard," Maruboshi said after a wordless silence.
"I'm going to be a shinobi; better learn about it early."
"I will treat your training the same as a mission. Prioritize the mission; total commitment; no distractions will be entertained. The only acceptable result is success."
"I couldn't agree more."
Maruboshi gazed down at Takuma, his harsh gaze softened. "You might not like me after this."
"You're the devil I made a deal with; people usually end up disliking the devil in time, nothing special," a chuckle escaped Takuma. How silly must he have sounded when he had said that the first time.
"Then, so be it. We train harder. Starting tomorrow, we meet at four," Maruboshi said before vanishing in a flurry of leaves.
Takuma sucked in his lips as he looked at the sky. Four in the morning?
"The sun isn't even out in the morning..."
———
.
Takuma lugged his fatigued body to the classroom and deposited himself on his usual seat like a seat of potato. His wish had been granted, and Maruboshi had made their training tougher. His muscles felt like they were injected with hot lead after a session an hour longer than usual, harder than usual. The week had been as tougher as the starting days when he had just begun training under Maruboshi.
Muscle pain would follow and persist until he got used to the new load. He had no one but himself to blame. Yet he knew this was the only way forward.
He took out a thick scroll from his person and leaned in to begin reading the small writing. Tired as he was, rest he couldn't. Academy time partitioned off to academic work was as important as Maruboshi's training. If he didn't pass the written paper, he was still failing.
"Take your seats," Kibe announced his arrival, and everyone scurried to the seats.
Takuma kept his head down and continued reading. His ears had already begun to tune the noise out, turning them into hazy background noise that helped him concentrate.
"I have the test results with me," Kibe raised a letter-sized yellow envelope.
That broke whatever concentration and intent to study Takuma had as he raised his head to snap his gaze at Kibe. The rest of the classroom gasped and clamored before the room dipped into a murmuring silence.
"I will call your names, and one at a time, you will collect your result slip from me," Kibe said as he broke the wax seal over the results. "I want all of you to learn from these results and use them to improve your shortcomings by the next test."
Kibe called the first name: "Anno Aimi..."
A petite girl wearing a strappy top and baggy pants nervously walked to the teacher's podium under everyone's following eyes.
"... Pass," Kibe said as he handed Aimi her result.
Takuma froze.
Aimi looked up at Kibe, and so did the rest of the class.
Kibe smiled, "Congratulations, you're going to be a shinobi of the village."
The entire class screamed their cheers. People threw their hands up in celebration; some even jumped off their seats. Aimi's friends got out of their chairs and crowded the girl, exchanging hugs and jumping with each other in congratulations.
The usually stone-faced Kibe watched with a smile, not disturbing the joyous ruckus until he did and sent everyone back to their seat, but not before a quick hug from Aimi.
One-by-one, Kibe called names, and cheers and clappings ensued every time. The entire academy heard the cheers of the final-year students as they got to know they were going to be shinobi.
"Takuma..."
Takuma walked down from his seat. The class was in celebration, everyone congratulating everyone else. Friends formed groups to compare their results among merry laughter.
"... Fail," Kibe said as he placed half of an A4-sized sheet on Takuma's hand.
There were gasps, and the noise died down. No one had failed in the class until then.
Takuma looked at the slip in his hands. He bit his lower lip to stop it from trembling. It had a breakdown of every section of the test, and on the very bottom, stamped in red ink, was large writing in all capitals:
— FAIL —
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
CH_26: Imitation Is A Form of Flattery
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
The bustling streets of the Leaf village suited one of a metropolitan in its busy residents traversing them in hordes every day to get to the next task of their fast lives. No one paid attention to the unassuming young child that sat on the roadside bench with a creaky exercise gripper in hand.
Takuma watched the two shops in front of him. One was a mom-and-pop diner, and the other was a branch of the Leaf Postal Services. The sun was at its peak height, with the shade of the building above him as his only shelter. The clock had entered the lunchtime zone.
Meaning rush crunchtime for both businesses. People rushed into the post office in the urgency to have their work done before the tellers placed lunch break signs in front of their counters and disappeared for three-quarters of an hour official break. But Takuma knew for a fact that the employees in the district six branch of Leaf Postal Service took breaks beyond an hour, something against policy. No one punished them; the lazy branch manager never ever arrived before lunch.
As any eatery would, the small diner was busy in the lunchtime zone. It wasn't a place for families or friends to dine out together. The diner's main clientele was the working men and women who wanted an affordable lunch every day without burning a hole in their pockets. Takuma's eyes were drawn to the man who walked into the diner; he recognized the man and knew he would come walking out in a few minutes. As he knew, the man wearing a factory worker's garb walked out of the diner with a packed lunch in his hand. The diner was famous for its takeaway lunch box service and sold many around lunchtime.
Takuma counted. He counted the people who went into the shop. He counted when they entered, how long they stayed, when they left. He watched the post office to see how many people dropped off packages and how many picked something up. For the diner, he measured their lunchbox sales, their dine-in numbers, and how long it took people to eat their food.
And he noted down the points of interest he saw. He didn't know shorthand or any coded language to record information yet, but knowing what to take down and how to do it was important in note taking was a skill in itself that needed polishing (or so Kibe had said in class).
His eyes were drawn to the post office as a group of people exited the building. All of them wore matching baby blue uniforms, the staple color for postal service employees. The group of men and women entered the diner.
Takuma looked toward the storefront beside him at the wall clock and noted the time. It was precisely one o'clock. Now, he had to wait. Takuma took out a packed lunch of his own— it was lunchtime, after all.
The minute hand on the wall clock made its way across the clock face until it reached the end of the post office lunchtime. The employees didn't exit the diner, but the people in need of the service had already started to line up in the store.
Based on his past observations, Takuma knew the post office tellers wouldn't leave the diner before it was at least one hour because if they entered the post office, they would've to work under customer pressure. Takuma cleaned up any mess he had made while eating and waited five more minutes to see if the tellers would return to their job.
He rubbed his knees as he looked between the post office and the diner.
"Alright, let's do this," Takuma said to himself.
He got up and walked into a nearby dark alley. He put his lunch bag to the side and pulled up both of his sleeves to reveal a row of 1-ryu coins each stuck on his arm from his wrists to shoulders. On a closer look, each coin was actually a stack of two coins taped together. A high-risk exercise developed by Takuma to force himself to improve his chakra control. Every ryu was essential to his monthly budget before he got his next allowance, and misplacing money without getting to spend it made his life hell on earth— he would rather spend money on unneeded commodities than unknowingly drop it somewhere. Thus came the risk— to maintain concentration on precise chakra control or lose precious money with the threat of going hungry on the last few days of the month.
The results were worth the constant fear of losing money. He had gone from feather-like leaves to heavy coins. If asked, Takuma would take Maruboshi's sprinting torture over his mental brand of punishment— physical exhaustion was temporary, but money loss was permanent— alas, that was the point.
He pulled up his shorts and pulled off the slanted band of coins circling his thigh, and put his hand up his shirt to get a couple coins off his front and back. More coins, larger risk.
Takuma placed upon his heart and felt its elevated pulse. He breathed in and out to calm his nerves and stared at the post office to reaffirm his conviction. He had to do it. It was the test before the test— a harder one to make the easy one a breeze.
Dog — Boar — Ram
Poof!
Smoke covered Takuma, and when it blew away, a tall man with a gaunt face and oily hair slicked to the side, closely sticking his inverse egg-shaped head, stood in his place. Takuma took out a small mirror from his person to check his new appearance. He was much taller and lean as a skeleton; his faded violet shirt and black shorts were replaced by a baby blue post office uniform.
Maruboshi's two seal combination exercise had paid off. After a long month of intense practice, his chakra no longer ran out of his control while performing the Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu), which was only three hand seals.
Muramoto Teruo. The branch manager of the district six branch. A lazy, incompetent buffoon who had somehow been able to keep his job as a manager, who had allowed those under him to spiral out of discipline. Takuma didn't know if no one in the postal service had noticed the condition of the branch or if they knew and were ignoring it. Whatever it was, he didn't have that information.
But it did make Muramoto Terou a great guilt-free target of imitation.
Takuma touched his new face. He recalled the real Terou's face and judged his replication to be passable. He had seen the man plenty of times to pull off an unsuspicious imitation. As long as no one touched him, they wouldn't outright know he wasn't Muramoto Terou— or at least, that was what he hoped to be true.
Ready to proceed, Takuma flexed all the muscles in his body for a few seconds before loosening up. He then slouched his back and shifted his neck forward a little to give himself a text neck to emulate the real Terou's body posture. He had practiced it in the mirror every night for today.
He took out a white handkerchief and placed it on his mouth before exiting the alleyway and walking towards the post office across the street. He didn't care if people thought the post office manager coming out of a dingy alleyway was strange because no one was going to do anything about it.
The inside of the post office was familiar territory to Takuma. It was scary how easy it was to scout an understaffed place of business during rush hour when the employees had no time to pay attention to a wandering person when they had a horde of customers to take care of. There was no special reason for him to choose the post office. The grocer he shopped for his vegetables had once complained about it when he was shopping, and things had shaped from there.
The moment Takuma entered the post office, the guard on duty hastily stood up. The guard stayed inside the building so he wouldn't need to stay in the hot outside, and he faced inside the building so that he was facing the ceiling fan. If Takuma wanted to knock him out, it would take one swift surprise attack, and the civilian guard would be out cold. The branch had no shinobi presence because of its small size and limited service, thus an ideal testing ground for Takuma.
"M-Manager!" the guard stood up, sputtering.
Takuma gave him a displeased look and then loudly coughed into his handkerchief. He said nothing and moved further in.
The building's customer-facing front was relatively small compared to the similarly-sized building on the street; Takuma assumed the rest of the building was devoted to storage and sorting facilities for mail.
Takuma's postal service uniform was naturally noticed by the customers, and some approached him to complain. Takuma loudly coughed into his handkerchief, making it look as nasty as he could. It had its intended effects, and they backed off.
He cast his eyes towards the teller counters, and they were empty. He frowned angrily and turned to the guard. "Where is everyone," he asked, his voice hoarse and breaking.
Takuma had only heard the Terou's voice once, but even if he wanted to mimic the manager's voice— voice modulation didn't exist in Takuma's skillset. He could only pretend that he had a nasty cough and cold.
"O-Out for lunch," said the guard, gulping. "Miss Tahashi is inside."
"Get her out," Takuma ordered, and the guard scurried into the back. Takuma turned to the customers and said, "I apologize on behalf of my staff. I implore all of you to be patient for a little longer while I get everything into place."
The guard pulled in a plump middle-aged woman with red-rimmed glasses and the most outrageously puffed-up hairstyle he had seen on a woman. The first time he had seen the woman had been an experience.
Takuma didn't give the woman a chance to speak. "Why isn't," he coughed twice, "everyone back already." The woman tried to reply, but Takuma didn't let her speak. "Why aren't you already at the counter?" He bore down at her with a menacing gaze.
The woman shriveled under his gaze. She tried to eek out, "M-Manager, I-I..."
"Can't you see, you're wasting these people's time?" he said loud enough so that everyone could hear. "Why are you still standing here? Go! Go! Do your job, or do you want me to do it for you?"
The terrified woman rushed her chubby legs to her counter and immediately opened it for business.
"I swear, not one of them does their job properly," Takuma grunted. He turned to the guard and scolded him, "What are you doing, standing there like a buffoon? Don't you see all these people waiting? Go and bring everyone back."
The guard rushed out of the building.
Takuma had scolded two of the post office employees while pretending to be their boss. Talked to an entire crowd while pretending to be someone else. As fun as he felt it was— it was now time to leave.
He immediately walked out of the building and saw the guard entering the diner. He dropped the handkerchief over his face and walked back into the alley.
Poof! Takuma went back to his original form. He picked up his lunch bag and exited the alleyway. He watched from beside the roadside bench as the uniformed employees rushed out of the diner and ran into the post office.
Takuma grinned. That was mission accomplished.
'From Lupin to Kaido Kid, screw everyone. I will be the best impersonator, the grandmaster of disguise, north of fantasy,' Takuma thought.
After enjoying the fruit of his labor for a moment, Takuma ducked back into the street. He put the coins back on his body. The day would be perfect if he got home with all the money still on his body.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Takuma watched the two shops in front of him. One was a mom-and-pop diner, and the other was a branch of the Leaf Postal Services. The sun was at its peak height, with the shade of the building above him as his only shelter. The clock had entered the lunchtime zone.
Meaning rush crunchtime for both businesses. People rushed into the post office in the urgency to have their work done before the tellers placed lunch break signs in front of their counters and disappeared for three-quarters of an hour official break. But Takuma knew for a fact that the employees in the district six branch of Leaf Postal Service took breaks beyond an hour, something against policy. No one punished them; the lazy branch manager never ever arrived before lunch.
As any eatery would, the small diner was busy in the lunchtime zone. It wasn't a place for families or friends to dine out together. The diner's main clientele was the working men and women who wanted an affordable lunch every day without burning a hole in their pockets. Takuma's eyes were drawn to the man who walked into the diner; he recognized the man and knew he would come walking out in a few minutes. As he knew, the man wearing a factory worker's garb walked out of the diner with a packed lunch in his hand. The diner was famous for its takeaway lunch box service and sold many around lunchtime.
Takuma counted. He counted the people who went into the shop. He counted when they entered, how long they stayed, when they left. He watched the post office to see how many people dropped off packages and how many picked something up. For the diner, he measured their lunchbox sales, their dine-in numbers, and how long it took people to eat their food.
And he noted down the points of interest he saw. He didn't know shorthand or any coded language to record information yet, but knowing what to take down and how to do it was important in note taking was a skill in itself that needed polishing (or so Kibe had said in class).
His eyes were drawn to the post office as a group of people exited the building. All of them wore matching baby blue uniforms, the staple color for postal service employees. The group of men and women entered the diner.
Takuma looked toward the storefront beside him at the wall clock and noted the time. It was precisely one o'clock. Now, he had to wait. Takuma took out a packed lunch of his own— it was lunchtime, after all.
The minute hand on the wall clock made its way across the clock face until it reached the end of the post office lunchtime. The employees didn't exit the diner, but the people in need of the service had already started to line up in the store.
Based on his past observations, Takuma knew the post office tellers wouldn't leave the diner before it was at least one hour because if they entered the post office, they would've to work under customer pressure. Takuma cleaned up any mess he had made while eating and waited five more minutes to see if the tellers would return to their job.
He rubbed his knees as he looked between the post office and the diner.
"Alright, let's do this," Takuma said to himself.
He got up and walked into a nearby dark alley. He put his lunch bag to the side and pulled up both of his sleeves to reveal a row of 1-ryu coins each stuck on his arm from his wrists to shoulders. On a closer look, each coin was actually a stack of two coins taped together. A high-risk exercise developed by Takuma to force himself to improve his chakra control. Every ryu was essential to his monthly budget before he got his next allowance, and misplacing money without getting to spend it made his life hell on earth— he would rather spend money on unneeded commodities than unknowingly drop it somewhere. Thus came the risk— to maintain concentration on precise chakra control or lose precious money with the threat of going hungry on the last few days of the month.
The results were worth the constant fear of losing money. He had gone from feather-like leaves to heavy coins. If asked, Takuma would take Maruboshi's sprinting torture over his mental brand of punishment— physical exhaustion was temporary, but money loss was permanent— alas, that was the point.
He pulled up his shorts and pulled off the slanted band of coins circling his thigh, and put his hand up his shirt to get a couple coins off his front and back. More coins, larger risk.
Takuma placed upon his heart and felt its elevated pulse. He breathed in and out to calm his nerves and stared at the post office to reaffirm his conviction. He had to do it. It was the test before the test— a harder one to make the easy one a breeze.
Dog — Boar — Ram
Poof!
Smoke covered Takuma, and when it blew away, a tall man with a gaunt face and oily hair slicked to the side, closely sticking his inverse egg-shaped head, stood in his place. Takuma took out a small mirror from his person to check his new appearance. He was much taller and lean as a skeleton; his faded violet shirt and black shorts were replaced by a baby blue post office uniform.
Maruboshi's two seal combination exercise had paid off. After a long month of intense practice, his chakra no longer ran out of his control while performing the Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu), which was only three hand seals.
Muramoto Teruo. The branch manager of the district six branch. A lazy, incompetent buffoon who had somehow been able to keep his job as a manager, who had allowed those under him to spiral out of discipline. Takuma didn't know if no one in the postal service had noticed the condition of the branch or if they knew and were ignoring it. Whatever it was, he didn't have that information.
But it did make Muramoto Terou a great guilt-free target of imitation.
Takuma touched his new face. He recalled the real Terou's face and judged his replication to be passable. He had seen the man plenty of times to pull off an unsuspicious imitation. As long as no one touched him, they wouldn't outright know he wasn't Muramoto Terou— or at least, that was what he hoped to be true.
Ready to proceed, Takuma flexed all the muscles in his body for a few seconds before loosening up. He then slouched his back and shifted his neck forward a little to give himself a text neck to emulate the real Terou's body posture. He had practiced it in the mirror every night for today.
He took out a white handkerchief and placed it on his mouth before exiting the alleyway and walking towards the post office across the street. He didn't care if people thought the post office manager coming out of a dingy alleyway was strange because no one was going to do anything about it.
The inside of the post office was familiar territory to Takuma. It was scary how easy it was to scout an understaffed place of business during rush hour when the employees had no time to pay attention to a wandering person when they had a horde of customers to take care of. There was no special reason for him to choose the post office. The grocer he shopped for his vegetables had once complained about it when he was shopping, and things had shaped from there.
The moment Takuma entered the post office, the guard on duty hastily stood up. The guard stayed inside the building so he wouldn't need to stay in the hot outside, and he faced inside the building so that he was facing the ceiling fan. If Takuma wanted to knock him out, it would take one swift surprise attack, and the civilian guard would be out cold. The branch had no shinobi presence because of its small size and limited service, thus an ideal testing ground for Takuma.
"M-Manager!" the guard stood up, sputtering.
Takuma gave him a displeased look and then loudly coughed into his handkerchief. He said nothing and moved further in.
The building's customer-facing front was relatively small compared to the similarly-sized building on the street; Takuma assumed the rest of the building was devoted to storage and sorting facilities for mail.
Takuma's postal service uniform was naturally noticed by the customers, and some approached him to complain. Takuma loudly coughed into his handkerchief, making it look as nasty as he could. It had its intended effects, and they backed off.
He cast his eyes towards the teller counters, and they were empty. He frowned angrily and turned to the guard. "Where is everyone," he asked, his voice hoarse and breaking.
Takuma had only heard the Terou's voice once, but even if he wanted to mimic the manager's voice— voice modulation didn't exist in Takuma's skillset. He could only pretend that he had a nasty cough and cold.
"O-Out for lunch," said the guard, gulping. "Miss Tahashi is inside."
"Get her out," Takuma ordered, and the guard scurried into the back. Takuma turned to the customers and said, "I apologize on behalf of my staff. I implore all of you to be patient for a little longer while I get everything into place."
The guard pulled in a plump middle-aged woman with red-rimmed glasses and the most outrageously puffed-up hairstyle he had seen on a woman. The first time he had seen the woman had been an experience.
Takuma didn't give the woman a chance to speak. "Why isn't," he coughed twice, "everyone back already." The woman tried to reply, but Takuma didn't let her speak. "Why aren't you already at the counter?" He bore down at her with a menacing gaze.
The woman shriveled under his gaze. She tried to eek out, "M-Manager, I-I..."
"Can't you see, you're wasting these people's time?" he said loud enough so that everyone could hear. "Why are you still standing here? Go! Go! Do your job, or do you want me to do it for you?"
The terrified woman rushed her chubby legs to her counter and immediately opened it for business.
"I swear, not one of them does their job properly," Takuma grunted. He turned to the guard and scolded him, "What are you doing, standing there like a buffoon? Don't you see all these people waiting? Go and bring everyone back."
The guard rushed out of the building.
Takuma had scolded two of the post office employees while pretending to be their boss. Talked to an entire crowd while pretending to be someone else. As fun as he felt it was— it was now time to leave.
He immediately walked out of the building and saw the guard entering the diner. He dropped the handkerchief over his face and walked back into the alley.
Poof! Takuma went back to his original form. He picked up his lunch bag and exited the alleyway. He watched from beside the roadside bench as the uniformed employees rushed out of the diner and ran into the post office.
Takuma grinned. That was mission accomplished.
'From Lupin to Kaido Kid, screw everyone. I will be the best impersonator, the grandmaster of disguise, north of fantasy,' Takuma thought.
After enjoying the fruit of his labor for a moment, Takuma ducked back into the street. He put the coins back on his body. The day would be perfect if he got home with all the money still on his body.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Chapter 24 doesn't have the same font as the others of this story. Probably standard font instead.
Nice intrigue practice!
=>The
Nice intrigue practice!
RighelloDi'Tutti
Ruler of All
- Location
- The speed force
The MC should really have asked his teacher the mentality that went into performing Henge and Kawarimi. It might have helped
Just binged to here, robbing a bank so I can pay you to write full time
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I really like the story so far. Finally a story with realistic results of training for a short period. Even though he is getting top-tier (from an ANBU/Jonin?) training he is still a kid and started from the very beginning, so it makes sense that he is improving rapidly but not yet catching up to all those years of training the other kids did.
I expect he will struggle for some time, probably during his entire Genin time, before he can start to pop off. Or maybe this is a story of struggle? Either way, excellent stuff so far.
I expect he will struggle for some time, probably during his entire Genin time, before he can start to pop off. Or maybe this is a story of struggle? Either way, excellent stuff so far.
CH_27
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Takuma stared at the result of his graduation examination's second attempt with his lips pressed into a white line. The red FAIL stamped on the paper glared at him— a sign of his ineptitude. Despite putting his life into training for the second attempt, he had yet again gained a second FAIL mark.
Takuma brought his hands to rub his eyes which had dark bags developing under them. He straightened his back and flexed his muscles, hoping it would relieve some of the stiffness, but all he got was pain. These days the only time he was comfortable was in his bed at night; even letting the back of chairs take his weight felt like sitting on hard stone.
He sighed. There wasn't a single person beside him who hadn't already passed at least one of the two attempts, thus securing their Leaf headband on graduation. Only his lonesome self remained. A terrifying position to be in. It felt like he was sailing in a small wooden boat in the deep ocean with a roaring storm causing natural disasters around him, just for him.
He felt sympathy for Uzumaki Naruto for being held back from passing because he couldn't perform one academy three— Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) for the whiskered blonde and Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu) for him. Even when his late-night slogs of studying at his table had paid off as a passing grade on the pen-and-paper test— even when the taijutsu invigilator remark on his result had gone from 'slow, weak and unskilled' to 'needs urgent improvement'— even when his viva-voce had gone satisfyingly well (thank god for the absence of the kimono-clad bald old man)— he was still declared a failure because he couldn't perform a useless jutsu.
At the same time, he felt envious and even resentful toward Rock Lee, who had been promoted to genin without being able to do even one of the academy three because he caught the eye of a jonin. Were his own efforts any less strenuous than Rock Lee's? Was he not also pushing himself to the limit every day, pulling himself thin between studying, practicing chakra, learning jutsu, sharpening his close combat skills, and the tens of little things Maruboshi deemed every shinobi should know. Why did Rock Lee get to pass while the blade of a dead-end hovered above his neck?
Takuma folded the half-page and stored it on his person. Looking at the result only made him feel worse— he didn't have the time to feel worse; there was only one more month till the last attempt and the graduation itself.
He pushed everything he was feeling down and took out a chunky brass square padlock and a basic lockpicking kit wrapped in age-worn leather that was falling apart everywhere. Maruboshi had given him one of his old lockpicking sets so that he could practice cracking locks.
He breathed out and forced himself to calm down to focus on the lock in front of him. Maruboshi apparently had an extensive collection of locks he had collected through the years to familiarize himself with the types of locks he could encounter on missions. Maruboshi gave him locks as assignments to figure out and successfully open them, then the lock would be exchanged, and the cycle would continue.
"Oye, Takuma. You failed again, you dumbass."
Takuma had just put the tension tool into the key core when he heard the sneering voice of Hiji mocking him. Takuma wasn't surprised— annoyed, yes, but not surprised as Hiji had done the same when he had failed the first time. The Inuzuka mutt had paraded the fact that Takuma had failed in his face for a week before getting bored. Hiji was easily the most annoying person Takuma had met in both lives, and he genuinely thought the world would be a better place without him barking in everyone's ears, causing noise pollution.
Now, Hiji was back again. Takuma gripped the old yet sturdy and continued on with his silent shtick. If he was being honest, things had gotten much easier than before because Hiji was definitely on the ADHD spectrum— quite easy to get distracted. And after months of meeting the stone-cold wall that he was, Hiji had begun to lose interest, and when he did turn his rabid attention toward him, it didn't last long.
Today, he just hoped Hiji would go away quicker. He was too tired for Inuzuka's crap. From his peripheral vision, Takuma caught Hiji clicking his tongue and turning toward friends. Takuma hid a smile as he dipped his head closer to the lock. Now, it was only time before Hiji left him alone—
"Hiji, are you bothering Takuma again?"
Takuma jammed the rake pick into the back of the key core.
It was Okubo Momoe, the genius girl. The girl had a seemingly overflowing sense of justice, coming to the aid of those who could use her help, willingly providing it whenever needed.
'She thinks you're weak,' said a voice in the back of Takuma's head, making his eye twitch. Being considered weak was an unpleasant thought, and Takuma was no different.
"Didn't I already tell you to stop?" Momoe glared at Hiji with her arms crossed.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said Hiji, making a face at Momoe. "This got boring; let's go somewhere else," he led his friends away, clearly avoiding Momoe.
Takuma gave a sincere nod of thanks to Momoe. She had been a lot of help in dissuading Hiji's annoyance since her presence made him walk away like just now. He then went back to his lockpicking.
"What are you doing there, Takuma?" Momoe asked, curiously peering over the lock in Takuma's hands. "A lock... lockpicking?" she said when she saw the tools in his hands.
Takuma nodded tiredly.
"Why would you learn that?" she asked.
"Uhm... what?" Takuma titled his head. He assumed that since Momoe was the genius girl, she would already know how to pick a lock. He was half-expecting her to help him with how to pick the lock. He asked: "You don't know how to pick a lock?"
Momoe arched her brows. "Should I?" she asked.
He assumed yes. Maruboshi had said that unlocking locks was essential if a shinobi expected to be stealthy on his mission. Every building had doors, and most doors had locks— especially the important ones. It didn't have to be doors; storage containers with complex locks and safety systems had to be picked as any attempt to break the outer container could damage the merchandise inside, or so Maruboshi had said.
"So you don't know how to pick a lock?" he asked again to confirm— that couldn't be; even he could pick poorly made locks; his classmates should know at least that, if not more.
Momoe shook her head.
Takuma was baffled. He couldn't wrap his head around it. Maruboshi had insisted that lock picking was a critical skill in a shinobi's arsenal and that he needed to start learning it as soon as possible so he could be experienced when the time came to use it on the field. And it made complete sense to him: what if he was on an infiltration mission and had to keep his presence hidden— busting down doors from their frames wasn't the way to do it. Why wouldn't a shinobi learn to lockpick?
It had to be important, or why else would Maruboshi ask him to devote time to practice lockpicking when he knew how vital the graduation test was.
"Do you want to learn?" Takuma offered. He thought if he showed her the bare basics, he could use the opportunity to ask her some questions in return. An equivalent exchange, he considered fair.
"No, it's fine," Momoe said. One of Momoe's friends called her, and Momoe turned to leave only to briefly turn back to Takuma to say, "You shouldn't waste your time on such things," she narrowed her eyes at the lock and picking tools. "You've failed twice; the next attempt is your last chance. You should really concentrate on more important things." She left after saying that.
Takuma was taken aback. He looked down at his tools, and the two FAIL results flashed through his mind. A seemingly all-knowing veteran shinobi and a genius girl who could do everything. Takuma shook his head off unnecessary thoughts and went back to lockpicking.
It was probably for the better she refused; he didn't think he had the energy to hold a conversation with someone.
It was going to be okay... he had a month... he was going to pass.
Takuma gripped his tools harder.
———
.
The moon had pulled the dark curtain over the sky, and the wintry winds brought down the cold shower of snow upon the village hidden in the leaves. The village was as cold in winter as it was hot in summer. People had already laden themselves in heavy wool clothing to keep warm, and the streets were emptier than in warm springs.
In a training ground on the village's periphery, a figure dressed in a shirt and shorts stood in front of a thick wooden post. The sturdy post was being tortured by kicks from the figure, who relentlessly, one at a time, drilled the front of his foot into the wood. A steady rhythm sounded in the mum night as a thin layer of snow covered the grass.
Takuma brought down his leg and waited for half a second before kicking the wooden post again. His open-toed shinobi sandals had seen better days as he rammed his foot into the same spot that turned white from the dark bark stripped away from the continuous kicking. But Takuma didn't care. He watched the spot in the wood, and then he watched his foot kicking the spot. And he repeated.
He didn't know what time it was. He didn't care.
Every man, woman, child, shinobi or not, genius or dead last, was given the same time in a day, no more. There wasn't nearly enough time in the day; he could only squeeze out the time he was given.
With every kick, a splatter of water would twist out from every part of his body in motion. Some of it was the water from the falling snow, more of it was his own sweat.
He wanted to stop; he really did. Every nerve in his body felt taut and burning. But keeping his mind on training was the only way to not think about the fact that tomorrow was the last day of the academy. And the day after that was the third and final attempt at the graduation exam.
It was strange. He had been in the foreign world for nearly a year, and he could remember every single day of that year— yet time had passed too quickly. It truly felt that it was only earlier this day when he had found himself in a stranger's body, in a room full of strangers. Time had slipped through his fingers like loose sand.
Why hadn't he trained harder? If he had only been training like he had been in the past month for the entire time, maybe it would've not come to this. Takuma felt his stomach twist into a knot, and his heart paced faster, not because of his physical exertion but of the crossroads he was standing at. He hadn't trained enough for this, he thought as his kick landed a little higher than the target, and a piece of bark splintered.
He raised his leg to kick the post again but found the leg betraying him. He fell down onto snowed on grass and felt a spikey cold against his burning body. He stared at the sky. He was hungry but too tired to muster any eat anything, and an empty stomach wasn't enough to keep him awake— he wanted to sleep in the training ground, buried by the snow.
But he couldn't. Takuma stood up and dragged his body away from the battered post that had taken all of his fears. He had given the last year of his life to this— he was going to see it through, no matter what the result.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Takuma brought his hands to rub his eyes which had dark bags developing under them. He straightened his back and flexed his muscles, hoping it would relieve some of the stiffness, but all he got was pain. These days the only time he was comfortable was in his bed at night; even letting the back of chairs take his weight felt like sitting on hard stone.
He sighed. There wasn't a single person beside him who hadn't already passed at least one of the two attempts, thus securing their Leaf headband on graduation. Only his lonesome self remained. A terrifying position to be in. It felt like he was sailing in a small wooden boat in the deep ocean with a roaring storm causing natural disasters around him, just for him.
He felt sympathy for Uzumaki Naruto for being held back from passing because he couldn't perform one academy three— Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) for the whiskered blonde and Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu) for him. Even when his late-night slogs of studying at his table had paid off as a passing grade on the pen-and-paper test— even when the taijutsu invigilator remark on his result had gone from 'slow, weak and unskilled' to 'needs urgent improvement'— even when his viva-voce had gone satisfyingly well (thank god for the absence of the kimono-clad bald old man)— he was still declared a failure because he couldn't perform a useless jutsu.
At the same time, he felt envious and even resentful toward Rock Lee, who had been promoted to genin without being able to do even one of the academy three because he caught the eye of a jonin. Were his own efforts any less strenuous than Rock Lee's? Was he not also pushing himself to the limit every day, pulling himself thin between studying, practicing chakra, learning jutsu, sharpening his close combat skills, and the tens of little things Maruboshi deemed every shinobi should know. Why did Rock Lee get to pass while the blade of a dead-end hovered above his neck?
Takuma folded the half-page and stored it on his person. Looking at the result only made him feel worse— he didn't have the time to feel worse; there was only one more month till the last attempt and the graduation itself.
He pushed everything he was feeling down and took out a chunky brass square padlock and a basic lockpicking kit wrapped in age-worn leather that was falling apart everywhere. Maruboshi had given him one of his old lockpicking sets so that he could practice cracking locks.
He breathed out and forced himself to calm down to focus on the lock in front of him. Maruboshi apparently had an extensive collection of locks he had collected through the years to familiarize himself with the types of locks he could encounter on missions. Maruboshi gave him locks as assignments to figure out and successfully open them, then the lock would be exchanged, and the cycle would continue.
"Oye, Takuma. You failed again, you dumbass."
Takuma had just put the tension tool into the key core when he heard the sneering voice of Hiji mocking him. Takuma wasn't surprised— annoyed, yes, but not surprised as Hiji had done the same when he had failed the first time. The Inuzuka mutt had paraded the fact that Takuma had failed in his face for a week before getting bored. Hiji was easily the most annoying person Takuma had met in both lives, and he genuinely thought the world would be a better place without him barking in everyone's ears, causing noise pollution.
Now, Hiji was back again. Takuma gripped the old yet sturdy and continued on with his silent shtick. If he was being honest, things had gotten much easier than before because Hiji was definitely on the ADHD spectrum— quite easy to get distracted. And after months of meeting the stone-cold wall that he was, Hiji had begun to lose interest, and when he did turn his rabid attention toward him, it didn't last long.
Today, he just hoped Hiji would go away quicker. He was too tired for Inuzuka's crap. From his peripheral vision, Takuma caught Hiji clicking his tongue and turning toward friends. Takuma hid a smile as he dipped his head closer to the lock. Now, it was only time before Hiji left him alone—
"Hiji, are you bothering Takuma again?"
Takuma jammed the rake pick into the back of the key core.
It was Okubo Momoe, the genius girl. The girl had a seemingly overflowing sense of justice, coming to the aid of those who could use her help, willingly providing it whenever needed.
'She thinks you're weak,' said a voice in the back of Takuma's head, making his eye twitch. Being considered weak was an unpleasant thought, and Takuma was no different.
"Didn't I already tell you to stop?" Momoe glared at Hiji with her arms crossed.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said Hiji, making a face at Momoe. "This got boring; let's go somewhere else," he led his friends away, clearly avoiding Momoe.
Takuma gave a sincere nod of thanks to Momoe. She had been a lot of help in dissuading Hiji's annoyance since her presence made him walk away like just now. He then went back to his lockpicking.
"What are you doing there, Takuma?" Momoe asked, curiously peering over the lock in Takuma's hands. "A lock... lockpicking?" she said when she saw the tools in his hands.
Takuma nodded tiredly.
"Why would you learn that?" she asked.
"Uhm... what?" Takuma titled his head. He assumed that since Momoe was the genius girl, she would already know how to pick a lock. He was half-expecting her to help him with how to pick the lock. He asked: "You don't know how to pick a lock?"
Momoe arched her brows. "Should I?" she asked.
He assumed yes. Maruboshi had said that unlocking locks was essential if a shinobi expected to be stealthy on his mission. Every building had doors, and most doors had locks— especially the important ones. It didn't have to be doors; storage containers with complex locks and safety systems had to be picked as any attempt to break the outer container could damage the merchandise inside, or so Maruboshi had said.
"So you don't know how to pick a lock?" he asked again to confirm— that couldn't be; even he could pick poorly made locks; his classmates should know at least that, if not more.
Momoe shook her head.
Takuma was baffled. He couldn't wrap his head around it. Maruboshi had insisted that lock picking was a critical skill in a shinobi's arsenal and that he needed to start learning it as soon as possible so he could be experienced when the time came to use it on the field. And it made complete sense to him: what if he was on an infiltration mission and had to keep his presence hidden— busting down doors from their frames wasn't the way to do it. Why wouldn't a shinobi learn to lockpick?
It had to be important, or why else would Maruboshi ask him to devote time to practice lockpicking when he knew how vital the graduation test was.
"Do you want to learn?" Takuma offered. He thought if he showed her the bare basics, he could use the opportunity to ask her some questions in return. An equivalent exchange, he considered fair.
"No, it's fine," Momoe said. One of Momoe's friends called her, and Momoe turned to leave only to briefly turn back to Takuma to say, "You shouldn't waste your time on such things," she narrowed her eyes at the lock and picking tools. "You've failed twice; the next attempt is your last chance. You should really concentrate on more important things." She left after saying that.
Takuma was taken aback. He looked down at his tools, and the two FAIL results flashed through his mind. A seemingly all-knowing veteran shinobi and a genius girl who could do everything. Takuma shook his head off unnecessary thoughts and went back to lockpicking.
It was probably for the better she refused; he didn't think he had the energy to hold a conversation with someone.
It was going to be okay... he had a month... he was going to pass.
Takuma gripped his tools harder.
———
.
The moon had pulled the dark curtain over the sky, and the wintry winds brought down the cold shower of snow upon the village hidden in the leaves. The village was as cold in winter as it was hot in summer. People had already laden themselves in heavy wool clothing to keep warm, and the streets were emptier than in warm springs.
In a training ground on the village's periphery, a figure dressed in a shirt and shorts stood in front of a thick wooden post. The sturdy post was being tortured by kicks from the figure, who relentlessly, one at a time, drilled the front of his foot into the wood. A steady rhythm sounded in the mum night as a thin layer of snow covered the grass.
Takuma brought down his leg and waited for half a second before kicking the wooden post again. His open-toed shinobi sandals had seen better days as he rammed his foot into the same spot that turned white from the dark bark stripped away from the continuous kicking. But Takuma didn't care. He watched the spot in the wood, and then he watched his foot kicking the spot. And he repeated.
He didn't know what time it was. He didn't care.
Every man, woman, child, shinobi or not, genius or dead last, was given the same time in a day, no more. There wasn't nearly enough time in the day; he could only squeeze out the time he was given.
With every kick, a splatter of water would twist out from every part of his body in motion. Some of it was the water from the falling snow, more of it was his own sweat.
He wanted to stop; he really did. Every nerve in his body felt taut and burning. But keeping his mind on training was the only way to not think about the fact that tomorrow was the last day of the academy. And the day after that was the third and final attempt at the graduation exam.
It was strange. He had been in the foreign world for nearly a year, and he could remember every single day of that year— yet time had passed too quickly. It truly felt that it was only earlier this day when he had found himself in a stranger's body, in a room full of strangers. Time had slipped through his fingers like loose sand.
Why hadn't he trained harder? If he had only been training like he had been in the past month for the entire time, maybe it would've not come to this. Takuma felt his stomach twist into a knot, and his heart paced faster, not because of his physical exertion but of the crossroads he was standing at. He hadn't trained enough for this, he thought as his kick landed a little higher than the target, and a piece of bark splintered.
He raised his leg to kick the post again but found the leg betraying him. He fell down onto snowed on grass and felt a spikey cold against his burning body. He stared at the sky. He was hungry but too tired to muster any eat anything, and an empty stomach wasn't enough to keep him awake— he wanted to sleep in the training ground, buried by the snow.
But he couldn't. Takuma stood up and dragged his body away from the battered post that had taken all of his fears. He had given the last year of his life to this— he was going to see it through, no matter what the result.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
CH_28: Win
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Kibe gazed at his students sitting in a circle on the academy training grounds. They were chattering away as usual, like someone would sew their mouth if they didn't keep talking. He didn't stop them like he usually would— it was their last day as academy classmates after all. He was sure they were excited to leave the academy and finally gain their forehead protector, marking them as shinobi of the village hidden in the leaves. But he knew they would look back at their academy days with a past yearning, hoping they would have cherished the simpler times more, and enjoyed living in this time more.
Next week, they would receive their graduation scrolls along with their forehead protectors and their assignment details. Kibe wondered how his class would be divided into teams. He had given his recommendations and reports, but the decision wasn't in his hands. The selection committee from the Leaf Genin Resource Command would finalize the assignments.
Ah, how long had it been since he had last met his teammates? They were inseparable once, staying together the entire day— training, missions, eating, laughing, playing, crying, they did everything together. But then one of them got promoted, and the four-man cell became three people. They were still an official team on record, they still met regularly and even went on missions, but it wasn't like before. Then they started to go on missions with other teams that had one member promoted. A four-man cell wasn't a standard for just any reason. That split them every more. More promotions followed, and time spent apart increased further. And it ended with their sensei officially disbanding their team, as it happened to every jonin-led team that began right after the academy. After that, they were a team only in spirit or when their exact configuration suited a mission.
Now, it had been years since they had been on a joint mission. Not after he had taken the instructor position at the academy, away from active field duty. He didn't think he would return to active duty until it was mandated— his girlfriend wouldn't like it if he did. Neither was he going to remain as an academy instructor; he would move on eventually; the rules would make him. Academy instructors had to be younger than a specific age limit so they could be closer in their age to their students; when that age gap increased, it was time for a younger instructor who could connect to the young children to step in. He, himself, had already started to prepare for interviews for administrative departments that he would attempt in a couple years.
He raised his clipboard with sparring plans he had drawn for the week. It was the last day, and the kids had complained, but it was to be done. He scrolled his eyes over the list and found that only two names remained. It was going to be the last spar of the final year class.
Kibe narrowed his eyes as he called the names: "Aimi and... Takuma, come up."
Aimi, the ball of never-ending energy, skipped to the center of the sparring circle; no weather could slow her down. On the other hand, Takuma was opposite in his trudge from his spot, dragging his feet through the snow.
Kibe examined Takuma. His weakest student looked worse for wear; he had looked so for the past couple of weeks. Dark circles under the eyes, unkempt hair, and a general feeling of fatigue. He didn't know the reason, he hadn't asked, but he could guess— after two fails, he would look like Takuma, if not worse.
Two fails, Kibe sighed. Takuma had never been a bright student; calling him an average student would be an over-exaggeration, for he had consistently been in last place from year one. But this year, Takuma had taken a dive for the worse. If he was bad before, he was the worst now. Not a single thing about him expressed a shinobi academy student.
Things changed through the year. Takuma had shown progress on all fronts, consistently performing better than before. He could hit targets now, last in spars for much longer, and even perform jutsu— something that had shocked him the first time (and the only time) he had seen it, through a look at his graduation test results showed the ability to perform Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu) and Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu). It also showed an above-average performance in theoretical knowledge.
'He should be able to pass if he can just do Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu),' Kibe thought. The result wouldn't be spectacular, but it would still be a pass— that should be enough for Takuma.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yes!" said Aimi. Takuma simply raised his hand to form the seal of confrontation.
"Start," Kibe declared, and Aimi immediately ran forward.
It took her no time to cross the distance, and she swung for Takuma's head. Takuma leapt back to evade, but Aimi was faster, and it was already too late to dodge. Aimi's fist closed in, but her blow crashed against Takuma's raised block at the last moment.
Takuma was on the defensive and had to dance backward to avoid getting clobbered. Aimi was a slender girl but fast. Her follow-up attacks pushed all the way to the edge of the ring, close to forcing him out.
Kibe got ready to end the fight; getting out of the circle was an instant loss. Even the kids behind Takuma got ready for him to be pushed out by Aimi as they moved aside to clear the way.
But then, like a quick snake, Takuma struck Aimi's arms and shoulders in succession, breaking any upper body momentum and balance she had. It happened fast as Takuma lurched his arms forward to grab Aimi's clothes and then roughly pulled her forward as he used his feet to pivot out of the way, sending an out of balance Aimi stumbling towards the edge of the fighting circle.
Kibe's lips parted, and his eyes widened a fraction. He had just seen Takuma baiting Aimi in an effort to push her out of the circle when she thought she was doing it to him. Unfortunately, Takuma was hasty in his move as the nimble Aimi regained her balance, albeit on the very edge of the boundary. She immediately put herself a distance from the edge, all the while shooting a startled look at Takuma.
Takuma lowered his body as he leaned forward and mimicked Aimi's steps as she moved in the circle, shortening the distance between them a bit with every step.
'... He's going on offense,' the thought struck Kibe like a bucket of water on a sleeping man. It shouldn't have been surprising, but he had never seen Takuma on offense, not once. The poor boy spent his time in spars running, dodging, and blocking. It would continue until Takuma's opponent had him surrender.
On cue, Takuma launched an attack of his own. He thrust at Aimi, and the girl turned, avoiding the strike. Takuma darted forward, whipping his leg into a side-sweeping swing that would crash into Aimi's exposed back, but she whirled, blocking the strike, and with her near arm she threw an elbow toward Takuma's temple.
Takuma reeled back, disengaging at his quickest, and skipped out of Aimi's range.
Aimi gave herself a moment to catch herself before pushing forward, attacking Takuma's shoulder, leg, and arm. Takuma blocked each attack while moving in circles.
Kibe thinned his lips. Aimi was one of his agile students; she was nimble, flexible, and quick on her feet, allowing her to run circles around her opponents, getting in quick hits that annoyed them, causing them to act brashly, which Aimi would then exploit. But the girl's skill in taijutsu didn't allow her to effectively use her gifts. Her choices of targets were poor and often poorly timed, wasting away precious opportunities and opening her to counter offense.
Aimi lurched into a lopping attack. Takuma blocked. His arm was inside Aimi's arm and Takuma lifted up and away, moving Aimi's arm out of position, leaving her unable to defend as Takuma brought his fist down on her shoulder. Aimi cried out and darted back, but not before Takuma attacked again, smashing his kick into Aimi's upper arm.
Aimi yelped and jumped several paces back. Takuma followed immediately, stabbing his first that would gut her, but Aimi pushed herself out of reach. She was faster, after all.
Kibe glanced at Takuma to see if he was frustrated at the opportunity to finish Aimi off, but the boy had his dark eyes trained on his opponent. It was a look of sheer focus.
Aimi growled, her face all bunched up, and launched herself forward with every intent to attack.
Takuma held his ground, his eyes hadn't Aimi since the start of the fight. He pulled his leg back and kicked the ground, sending a pile of snow toward Aimi.
"Sensei!" one of the students yelled.
"Shut up!" Kibe silenced, his eyes stuck to the fight.
Aimi eeped, bringing her face up to her face. Takuma moved. He drilled a low kick into Aimi's knee, causing her to cry and lean down. He grabbed the smaller Aimi and threw her over his shoulder, thrashing her into the ground. Aimi tried to roll away, but Takuma planted a kick into her stomach. He then stood over and leaned down with raised first to pummel where she lay.
Kibe saw Aimi curl up into a ball and knew it was the end. He called.
"Stop!"
Takuma stopped and then staggered back. His heavy breaths fogged the air as he looked down at Aimi with wide eyes.
Kibe looked at the weakest student in his class and said, "Winner... Takuma." He had said that for the first time, and it indeed felt strange.
There were no cheers in support or clapping that happened at the end of every spar. There wasn't a peep from the students as all of them watched the result in front of them. Takuma standing, his opponent on the ground— not the other way around.
Kibe stepped forward. "Get up, Aimi," he said.
The girl got up but kept her eyes down at her feet, not daring to look up. Perhaps too ashamed to have lost against Takuma.
"Seal of Reconciliation," Kibe ordered.
Aimi, with her head down, raised her hand with her index and middle finger out. But Takuma's hand didn't come. She snapped her head up, anger twisting her expression.
"You—!"
She didn't continue with her eyes widening. Takuma had his head raised up, his palms covering his eyes. His shoulders shook silently.
Aimi's face went from anger to surprise to concern. She joined her hands in front of her chest and stepped closer to Takum.
"H-Hey, are you alright—"
Aimi couldn't complete her sentence as she was suddenly pulled into a hug by Takuma. The taller boy completely enveloped the smaller girl as she eeped in shock.
Kibe looked at the weakest student in his class... who, on his last fight, on his class' last fight... had secured his first victory.
"H-H-Hey, you won, you know," Aimi's muffled voice sounded out from Takuma's chest as her arms stroked Takuma's back. "I know I'm great, but you shouldn't cry about it."
A chuckle escaped him.
Kibe looked at the.... He looked at Takuma and hoped the boy would show a similar performance tomorrow when it truly mattered.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Next week, they would receive their graduation scrolls along with their forehead protectors and their assignment details. Kibe wondered how his class would be divided into teams. He had given his recommendations and reports, but the decision wasn't in his hands. The selection committee from the Leaf Genin Resource Command would finalize the assignments.
Ah, how long had it been since he had last met his teammates? They were inseparable once, staying together the entire day— training, missions, eating, laughing, playing, crying, they did everything together. But then one of them got promoted, and the four-man cell became three people. They were still an official team on record, they still met regularly and even went on missions, but it wasn't like before. Then they started to go on missions with other teams that had one member promoted. A four-man cell wasn't a standard for just any reason. That split them every more. More promotions followed, and time spent apart increased further. And it ended with their sensei officially disbanding their team, as it happened to every jonin-led team that began right after the academy. After that, they were a team only in spirit or when their exact configuration suited a mission.
Now, it had been years since they had been on a joint mission. Not after he had taken the instructor position at the academy, away from active field duty. He didn't think he would return to active duty until it was mandated— his girlfriend wouldn't like it if he did. Neither was he going to remain as an academy instructor; he would move on eventually; the rules would make him. Academy instructors had to be younger than a specific age limit so they could be closer in their age to their students; when that age gap increased, it was time for a younger instructor who could connect to the young children to step in. He, himself, had already started to prepare for interviews for administrative departments that he would attempt in a couple years.
He raised his clipboard with sparring plans he had drawn for the week. It was the last day, and the kids had complained, but it was to be done. He scrolled his eyes over the list and found that only two names remained. It was going to be the last spar of the final year class.
Kibe narrowed his eyes as he called the names: "Aimi and... Takuma, come up."
Aimi, the ball of never-ending energy, skipped to the center of the sparring circle; no weather could slow her down. On the other hand, Takuma was opposite in his trudge from his spot, dragging his feet through the snow.
Kibe examined Takuma. His weakest student looked worse for wear; he had looked so for the past couple of weeks. Dark circles under the eyes, unkempt hair, and a general feeling of fatigue. He didn't know the reason, he hadn't asked, but he could guess— after two fails, he would look like Takuma, if not worse.
Two fails, Kibe sighed. Takuma had never been a bright student; calling him an average student would be an over-exaggeration, for he had consistently been in last place from year one. But this year, Takuma had taken a dive for the worse. If he was bad before, he was the worst now. Not a single thing about him expressed a shinobi academy student.
Things changed through the year. Takuma had shown progress on all fronts, consistently performing better than before. He could hit targets now, last in spars for much longer, and even perform jutsu— something that had shocked him the first time (and the only time) he had seen it, through a look at his graduation test results showed the ability to perform Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu) and Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu). It also showed an above-average performance in theoretical knowledge.
'He should be able to pass if he can just do Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu),' Kibe thought. The result wouldn't be spectacular, but it would still be a pass— that should be enough for Takuma.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yes!" said Aimi. Takuma simply raised his hand to form the seal of confrontation.
"Start," Kibe declared, and Aimi immediately ran forward.
It took her no time to cross the distance, and she swung for Takuma's head. Takuma leapt back to evade, but Aimi was faster, and it was already too late to dodge. Aimi's fist closed in, but her blow crashed against Takuma's raised block at the last moment.
Takuma was on the defensive and had to dance backward to avoid getting clobbered. Aimi was a slender girl but fast. Her follow-up attacks pushed all the way to the edge of the ring, close to forcing him out.
Kibe got ready to end the fight; getting out of the circle was an instant loss. Even the kids behind Takuma got ready for him to be pushed out by Aimi as they moved aside to clear the way.
But then, like a quick snake, Takuma struck Aimi's arms and shoulders in succession, breaking any upper body momentum and balance she had. It happened fast as Takuma lurched his arms forward to grab Aimi's clothes and then roughly pulled her forward as he used his feet to pivot out of the way, sending an out of balance Aimi stumbling towards the edge of the fighting circle.
Kibe's lips parted, and his eyes widened a fraction. He had just seen Takuma baiting Aimi in an effort to push her out of the circle when she thought she was doing it to him. Unfortunately, Takuma was hasty in his move as the nimble Aimi regained her balance, albeit on the very edge of the boundary. She immediately put herself a distance from the edge, all the while shooting a startled look at Takuma.
Takuma lowered his body as he leaned forward and mimicked Aimi's steps as she moved in the circle, shortening the distance between them a bit with every step.
'... He's going on offense,' the thought struck Kibe like a bucket of water on a sleeping man. It shouldn't have been surprising, but he had never seen Takuma on offense, not once. The poor boy spent his time in spars running, dodging, and blocking. It would continue until Takuma's opponent had him surrender.
On cue, Takuma launched an attack of his own. He thrust at Aimi, and the girl turned, avoiding the strike. Takuma darted forward, whipping his leg into a side-sweeping swing that would crash into Aimi's exposed back, but she whirled, blocking the strike, and with her near arm she threw an elbow toward Takuma's temple.
Takuma reeled back, disengaging at his quickest, and skipped out of Aimi's range.
Aimi gave herself a moment to catch herself before pushing forward, attacking Takuma's shoulder, leg, and arm. Takuma blocked each attack while moving in circles.
Kibe thinned his lips. Aimi was one of his agile students; she was nimble, flexible, and quick on her feet, allowing her to run circles around her opponents, getting in quick hits that annoyed them, causing them to act brashly, which Aimi would then exploit. But the girl's skill in taijutsu didn't allow her to effectively use her gifts. Her choices of targets were poor and often poorly timed, wasting away precious opportunities and opening her to counter offense.
Aimi lurched into a lopping attack. Takuma blocked. His arm was inside Aimi's arm and Takuma lifted up and away, moving Aimi's arm out of position, leaving her unable to defend as Takuma brought his fist down on her shoulder. Aimi cried out and darted back, but not before Takuma attacked again, smashing his kick into Aimi's upper arm.
Aimi yelped and jumped several paces back. Takuma followed immediately, stabbing his first that would gut her, but Aimi pushed herself out of reach. She was faster, after all.
Kibe glanced at Takuma to see if he was frustrated at the opportunity to finish Aimi off, but the boy had his dark eyes trained on his opponent. It was a look of sheer focus.
Aimi growled, her face all bunched up, and launched herself forward with every intent to attack.
Takuma held his ground, his eyes hadn't Aimi since the start of the fight. He pulled his leg back and kicked the ground, sending a pile of snow toward Aimi.
"Sensei!" one of the students yelled.
"Shut up!" Kibe silenced, his eyes stuck to the fight.
Aimi eeped, bringing her face up to her face. Takuma moved. He drilled a low kick into Aimi's knee, causing her to cry and lean down. He grabbed the smaller Aimi and threw her over his shoulder, thrashing her into the ground. Aimi tried to roll away, but Takuma planted a kick into her stomach. He then stood over and leaned down with raised first to pummel where she lay.
Kibe saw Aimi curl up into a ball and knew it was the end. He called.
"Stop!"
Takuma stopped and then staggered back. His heavy breaths fogged the air as he looked down at Aimi with wide eyes.
Kibe looked at the weakest student in his class and said, "Winner... Takuma." He had said that for the first time, and it indeed felt strange.
There were no cheers in support or clapping that happened at the end of every spar. There wasn't a peep from the students as all of them watched the result in front of them. Takuma standing, his opponent on the ground— not the other way around.
Kibe stepped forward. "Get up, Aimi," he said.
The girl got up but kept her eyes down at her feet, not daring to look up. Perhaps too ashamed to have lost against Takuma.
"Seal of Reconciliation," Kibe ordered.
Aimi, with her head down, raised her hand with her index and middle finger out. But Takuma's hand didn't come. She snapped her head up, anger twisting her expression.
"You—!"
She didn't continue with her eyes widening. Takuma had his head raised up, his palms covering his eyes. His shoulders shook silently.
Aimi's face went from anger to surprise to concern. She joined her hands in front of her chest and stepped closer to Takum.
"H-Hey, are you alright—"
Aimi couldn't complete her sentence as she was suddenly pulled into a hug by Takuma. The taller boy completely enveloped the smaller girl as she eeped in shock.
Kibe looked at the weakest student in his class... who, on his last fight, on his class' last fight... had secured his first victory.
"H-H-Hey, you won, you know," Aimi's muffled voice sounded out from Takuma's chest as her arms stroked Takuma's back. "I know I'm great, but you shouldn't cry about it."
A chuckle escaped him.
Kibe looked at the.... He looked at Takuma and hoped the boy would show a similar performance tomorrow when it truly mattered.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
CH_29: Graduation Test, 3rd Attempt
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
"You look rested," Maruboshi said to Takuma, who no longer had any dark circles under his skin, vampiric pale skin, and slouched shoulders that he had for most of the last month.
"I slept twelve hours straight; I couldn't be more rested," said Takuma. Yesterday, he had won his first spar ever, yet embarrassed himself in front of the class by crying. When he reached his house after, it took barely over a minute for him to get from the front door to his bed.
"Good, good," Maruboshi looked relieved, and Takuma felt guilty. They had multiple conversations about Takuma's downhill condition, but Takuma had brushed off Maruboshi's concerns. "How are you feeling about today?"
The last attempt at the graduation test was due in a little over an hour.
Takuma shrugged. "I don't want to give the test, wish I had more time to prepare... but at the same time, I just want to get this over with. Finally, rest for a change," he sighed.
He had a privileged upbringing. A harmonious family with loving parents who provided for him, nothing lavish, but he never allowed to feel a lack of anything. He attended good private schools with relatively good teachers and a wonderful group of friends at every stage of his life. Some of them who he considered his friends for life. Even when he entered college, he was a day scholar and commuted right from his family home and never had to adjust to dorm life. And he never had to participate in job search as it was still a couple years in the future.
It was now that he realized that he had never really faced any hardships. Not a single life event had him seek his independence. He didn't have to worry about his finances, food, housekeeping, and a looming bleak future— in his second life, he had faced everything all simultaneously. The wild identity crisis was the cherry on top.
He was tired. He wasn't even at the starting line and was already tired.
"I will give it my best," Takuma smiled shallowly, "if I pass, good for me; if I don't, I'll leave it to the fates," he pointed to the sky. He drew from a certain green-haired three-point basketball sniper— man proposes, god disposes... do everything humanly possible, and then let the fates decide.
Maruboshi gazed down at Takuma with a peculiar gaze.
"What?"
The old shinobi shook his head lightly. A light smile wrinkled his face as he said, "You are going to make a splendid shinobi, young Takuma."
"You're only saying that because you taught me everything I know," Takuma said, but he had a big grin.
———
.
Takuma sat in the classroom turned waiting room for the graduation test in the auditorium. He had his eyes closed, trying to tune out the cacophony of his classmates' voices in the room. The first time, the classroom had been a blanket of hushed conversations, with everyone worried about their performance; on the second attempt, everyone opened up a bit and participated in discussions with each other on their predictions and supposed best tactics to ace the practical portion of the testing.
Both those times, there had been tension in the room. They were going into the unknown the first time, and the second time, they were aiming to improve over their first performance. However, this time... the room lacked any strain of tension. No one seemed to be worried about the ongoing testing, and even though the discussions revolved around it, the mood was casual.
Takuma couldn't blame them. Everyone had passed in the room; they had passed twice over. And Kibe's insistent talks about not pulling the foot from the gas pedal had eventually lost steam. Everyone in the room was already a shinobi, and going through the same thing twice was enough for them to be confident.
Everyone except him. Takuma felt his morning's words spoken a little too early. The pre-test jitters were hitting him as hard as any other day. He tried to meditate (something Maruboshi was an avid promoter of)— but he wasn't very good at meditation, and it didn't seem to be working now.
Takuma suddenly had an idea, and he pulled out a 1-ryo coin and slapped it on his arm. He didn't care if it felt like he was a nicotine addict trying to feed into his craving with a nicotine patch. Concentrating on the Leaf Concentration Practice ver coin kept him focused on his chakra control rather than his errant thoughts.
If someone told him that he was using the Leaf Concentration Practice to calm his nerves down a few months back, Takuma would have laughed first and then slapped them hard for even joking about it, as that sounded absolutely masochistic. Maruboshi had forever ruined any positive association with the exercise for him.
"Takuma."
He opened his eyes and saw Kibe at the door. It was finally his turn. He got up from the last bench and walked down the steps. He practiced a breathing exercise to keep his dancing heartbeat down.
"Going for another fail, Takuma! Best of luck; I'm rooting for you!" Hiji shouted snarkily over from his seat on the other side of the classroom.
"Shut it, Hiji!" Kibe scolded immediately.
Takuma looked at No.1 on his most disliked list and thought— yesterday was the last day of the academy; today was after that. 'Huh, I guess that's right.'
He raised his arm towards Hiji and flicked his middle finger up.
"Fuck off, mutt."
The many pairs of eyes accompanied by a few gasps turned to Takuma and then toward the shocked Hiji, who opened his mouth to say something but closed it, his eyes looking at the class.
Takuma passed by Hana, seated in the front rows. "No offense," he said.
Before anyone could say anything, Takuma was already out of the classroom, and Kibe had already closed the door behind them.
Like the last two times, Kibe led him across the corridor to the testing hall.
"How did your paper go?" asked Kibe.
"I will pass," said Takuma shortly. It had gone well, exceeding his expectations— the question set had been in his favor this time, and he was sure he would score at least an 80% grade. If he was being optimistic about the grading, he could sniff the 90% ceiling.
Silence fell between the teacher and the student. It wasn't surprising; they didn't talk much. If they were in a big college class, Takuma would be a student of whom Kibe didn't know the name.
Kibe broke the silence and started, "If your paper is decent—"
"Even if I do badly in everything else, there's a real chance I could pass. I just need to successfully perform academy three. I know; you have told me before," said Takuma without looking at Kibe.
"... I see," said Kibe. There was another pause. "Can you... can you do all three?"
They reached the auditorium entrance. Takuma grabbed the handle and slid the door open. He stared inside but didn't immediately enter; instead, he said, "You'll know when you get my result," and without sparing a glance to Kibe, Takuma slipped inside.
The inside of the auditorium was the same as Takuma had seen the last two times. The length of the hall had been dived up to different portions of the testing. His eyes automatically went to the second-floor corridor from where multiple shinobi peered down the testing floor. He gave each of them a hard look, memorizing as much detail as he could. There were ten of them.
He waited for the bukijutsu invigilator to call him up. Despite having given the test twice, the invigilator had him listen to the instructors again, going through everything in clear detail.
"Understood?"
Takuma nodded and headed towards the weapons table. He picked up the only three weapons he knew how to wield— kunai, shuriken, and senbon. The weapons were still off-balance, and the exercise targets were similar to the last two times. The difference came from Takuma's performance; he still threw his weapons one at a time, but he was much quicker in his successive throws, and the consistency and accuracy couldn't be compared to his first attempt. Almost all of his throws hit the red bullseyes.
The instructor nodded as he blocked the senbon. Takuma had learned his lesson and had aimed at vital spots.
This invigilator was different from the last two times, and this one didn't give advice like the bukijutsu invigilator from the first attempt did.
Takuma moved on to the next portion of the testing, arguably the most important part of it— at least for him.
"Ah," the sound unintentionally came out of Takuma.
The ninjutsu invigilator looked up. The middle-aged woman with grey streaks in her hair had the same red-trimmed explosion tag-styled earrings as before that dangled when she moved her head. Her eyes flashed, and Takuma knew she recognized him. She looked down at her clipboard before speaking.
"Takuma?"
Takuma nodded, and the woman repeated the instructions for the ninjutsu test. She showed no sign of recognition, which made him wonder if she was pretending to not recognize him.
"Let's start with Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu)," she said. Takuma weaved the hands seals, and six clones stood around the real him. They moved, changed expressions, and did various things. The invigilator's eyes shined before she noted something on her clipboard and asked him to proceed with Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu).
She gave no imitation target, so Takuma transformed into one of the shinobi on the second-floor corridor. His appearance was fresh in his mind, and he knew that transforming into the ninjutsu invigilator was the wrong choice— even if she was supposed to be objective in her grading, there was a chance she would be offended by something in his imitation. He didn't want that.
Finally, it was time for Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu). It was the jutsu he had least practiced, as it was the last academy three he had picked up. From the get-go, Takuma had come to know that Maruboshi didn't like Kawarimi no Jutsu as it was a completely useless jutsu. The jutsu required the user to substitute an object in their place to take an attack, followed by getting out of the enemy's sight. It was essentially pulling up a shield to block an attack and then ditching said shield before running away. It was the running part that Maruboshi had a problem with, even though the hand seals for the jutsu were exclusively used during the running part. According to Maruboshi, the running and hiding part was inefficient as it only worked when the surrounding environment allowed it. The jutsu would work splendidly in a forest but miserably fail in a grassland. Moreover, the user needed to weave hand seals quickly for the jutsu to work seamlessly. It also failed when the attack was faster than the user's ability to procure the substitute.
The only reason Kawarimi no Jutsu was taught in the academy was because the chakra movement caused by the hand seals granted the user a short burst of linear speed, which allowed them to hide quickly (it would be useless if the enemy's sight could catch the fast movement). And that chakra movement was six points similar to Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Jutsu)— a high-speed movement technique that allowed the user to move linear distance at speeds untraceable by the untrained eye. Shunshin no Jutsu was a necessary jutsu that every shinobi needed to know, and thus the academy used Kawarimi no Jutsu to lay the foundation.
Kawarimi no Jutsu wasn't supposed to be used in the field as it was only a training tool, but for some reason no one told the students that. Well, he knew because Maruboshi had told him.
The invigilator pointed to a sandbag and asked to use it as the substitute, something Takuma was thankful for as he didn't want to use one of his precious and very limited storage sealing scrolls that had something he could use as a substitute. The invigilator threw a dulled kunai at Takuma, who stood several meters away. There was a puff of smoke, and the kunai was embedded into the sandbag, with Takuma standing a few feet away from it.
"Excellent!" the invigilator clapped her hands. "You performed all three splendidly. You have improved so much!"
'I knew it,' thought Takuma— the invigilator did recognize him. But he didn't say anything about it and simply moved away to the next part of testing— the taijutsu portion.
The taijutsu invigilator didn't call him up immediately, and Takuma was glad about it. If he had been called, Takuma didn't know if his legs would've held up as they were trembling uncontrollably.
He had passed. Third time's the charm. After two failures, he passed the hardest thing he had done in his life. Takuma felt a boulder's weight lift above his head. He tried to keep some tension in his body as the testing wasn't over, but when he knew that he was going to pass no matter what, it was tough to feel anything other than utter and complete relief.
He wanted to leave the academy grounds and run to find Maruboshi so that he could tell his teacher, his one and only supporter, his rock, that he had done it. A year of struggle, ten months of training, countless sleepless nights— his time hadn't been a waste. He had done it. He couldn't describe it, but he had never ever felt it. It was a sense of accomplishment— but it was nothing like he had ever experienced. All of his previous achievements seemed pointless in the face of what he felt right now.
Takuma didn't have the time to dwell as the taijutsu invigilator called him up. It wasn't anything special. When facing someone far superior in skill, the performance of the lesser didn't reflect any difference even when they got better. Takuma, who had just yesterday won his first spar, his performance didn't seem any different from the last time. As for what went into the clipboard, Takuma would only know when he got the result.
"You can exit through that door for the next part," said the taijutsu invigilator afterward, pointing to the outdoor exit of the auditorium.
Takuma nodded and walked to the exit, but before he stepped out, he looked back at the auditorium and took a moment to take in the entirety of the auditorium hall. He wanted to remember it for now and for the future.
When he stepped out, his eyes widened when he found himself looking at a bald old man dressed in a kimono sitting under a big umbrella with a coal brazier lit near his feet. The entire yard was covered with snow, but a circular area around the old man was void of snow and even any moisture on the ground.
"Sit down," said the old man.
Takuma sat down in front of the old man. The entire scene invoked a strong sense of deja-vu in him. The same events from the first attempt were repeating again. He was sitting in front of the same bald old man who was again staring at him in silence, but this time with a small smile.
Takuma found the tension he had lost before returning— something about the old man unnerved him.
"I only have one question for you, Takuma," said the old man, still smiling.
Takuma leaned forward in his chair slightly. He was ready; no matter what the old man threw at him, he was going to answer; he was prepared this time.
"How many people stood in the auditorium's second-floor corridor?"
Takuma was taken aback. The same question? He was sure there would be another question. He leaned back into this chair and took a moment to contemplate.
"... Nine of them," he said— one person was sitting.
The old man's small smile bloomed into a full-blown one. "Smart child," he said and stood up from his seat.
Takuma felt a hot breeze tickling him under his ear. He frowned but didn't raise his hand to scratch the itch as he was in front of the invigilator. It went away on its own.
The old man who had stood up frowned as he looked at him. Takuma was confused at the sudden change in expression but didn't say anything. Maybe the old man was experiencing pains that came with old age.
The old man's expression eased, and he stepped away from his chair, and Takuma's eyes widened when he saw an identical old man sitting in the chair— it was as if the old man had left an afterimage behind him.
How? Takuma looked between the identical old men— one sitting and one standing. He glanced at both of their feet and saw that both had shadows. 'Not Bunshin no Jutsu... Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)?' he thought. But there were no hand seals or the puff of smoke. The puff of smoke could be eliminated, but what about the hand seal? How did the old man make a clone appear in his chair so seamlessly?
As Takuma's mind raced to find an answer, the standing old man saw Takuma's eyes going between him and his chair. His expression once again faltered.
"... You can see through it... already?" said the standing old man with surprise.
"Huh? I-I mean, yes. I can see the clone," said Takuma, confused. Was he not supposed to see the clone?
"... That's not a clone," the old man pointed at his chair.
Takuma's confusion deepened. His brows arched together as he gazed at the old man in the chair. If it wasn't a clone, then what was it—... the answer clicked like the last piece of a puzzle.
"Genjutsu," he gasped. Takuma's hand made a tiger hand seal and immediately dispelled the genjutsu cast upon him. Maruboshi hadn't taught him to cast genjutsu (it wasn't even on the table), but he had taught him how to dispel one— it was easy.
The old man in the chair disappeared like a mirage, leaving only the standing old man behind.
Takuma breathed a sigh of relief, but confusion still plagued him. With a little thinking, it was clear that the old man was planning to fool him through a genjutsu. Under the guise of illusion, he would get up, leaving behind an illusion of him still sitting, making it so that Takuma would think nothing had changed. But why was he able to see the standing old man, who he wasn't supposed to see, when the genjutsu had clearly been cast successfully.
Had the old man made a mistake?
Takuma didn't get an answer that day. The old man didn't say anything else before sending him away.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
"I slept twelve hours straight; I couldn't be more rested," said Takuma. Yesterday, he had won his first spar ever, yet embarrassed himself in front of the class by crying. When he reached his house after, it took barely over a minute for him to get from the front door to his bed.
"Good, good," Maruboshi looked relieved, and Takuma felt guilty. They had multiple conversations about Takuma's downhill condition, but Takuma had brushed off Maruboshi's concerns. "How are you feeling about today?"
The last attempt at the graduation test was due in a little over an hour.
Takuma shrugged. "I don't want to give the test, wish I had more time to prepare... but at the same time, I just want to get this over with. Finally, rest for a change," he sighed.
He had a privileged upbringing. A harmonious family with loving parents who provided for him, nothing lavish, but he never allowed to feel a lack of anything. He attended good private schools with relatively good teachers and a wonderful group of friends at every stage of his life. Some of them who he considered his friends for life. Even when he entered college, he was a day scholar and commuted right from his family home and never had to adjust to dorm life. And he never had to participate in job search as it was still a couple years in the future.
It was now that he realized that he had never really faced any hardships. Not a single life event had him seek his independence. He didn't have to worry about his finances, food, housekeeping, and a looming bleak future— in his second life, he had faced everything all simultaneously. The wild identity crisis was the cherry on top.
He was tired. He wasn't even at the starting line and was already tired.
"I will give it my best," Takuma smiled shallowly, "if I pass, good for me; if I don't, I'll leave it to the fates," he pointed to the sky. He drew from a certain green-haired three-point basketball sniper— man proposes, god disposes... do everything humanly possible, and then let the fates decide.
Maruboshi gazed down at Takuma with a peculiar gaze.
"What?"
The old shinobi shook his head lightly. A light smile wrinkled his face as he said, "You are going to make a splendid shinobi, young Takuma."
"You're only saying that because you taught me everything I know," Takuma said, but he had a big grin.
———
.
Takuma sat in the classroom turned waiting room for the graduation test in the auditorium. He had his eyes closed, trying to tune out the cacophony of his classmates' voices in the room. The first time, the classroom had been a blanket of hushed conversations, with everyone worried about their performance; on the second attempt, everyone opened up a bit and participated in discussions with each other on their predictions and supposed best tactics to ace the practical portion of the testing.
Both those times, there had been tension in the room. They were going into the unknown the first time, and the second time, they were aiming to improve over their first performance. However, this time... the room lacked any strain of tension. No one seemed to be worried about the ongoing testing, and even though the discussions revolved around it, the mood was casual.
Takuma couldn't blame them. Everyone had passed in the room; they had passed twice over. And Kibe's insistent talks about not pulling the foot from the gas pedal had eventually lost steam. Everyone in the room was already a shinobi, and going through the same thing twice was enough for them to be confident.
Everyone except him. Takuma felt his morning's words spoken a little too early. The pre-test jitters were hitting him as hard as any other day. He tried to meditate (something Maruboshi was an avid promoter of)— but he wasn't very good at meditation, and it didn't seem to be working now.
Takuma suddenly had an idea, and he pulled out a 1-ryo coin and slapped it on his arm. He didn't care if it felt like he was a nicotine addict trying to feed into his craving with a nicotine patch. Concentrating on the Leaf Concentration Practice ver coin kept him focused on his chakra control rather than his errant thoughts.
If someone told him that he was using the Leaf Concentration Practice to calm his nerves down a few months back, Takuma would have laughed first and then slapped them hard for even joking about it, as that sounded absolutely masochistic. Maruboshi had forever ruined any positive association with the exercise for him.
"Takuma."
He opened his eyes and saw Kibe at the door. It was finally his turn. He got up from the last bench and walked down the steps. He practiced a breathing exercise to keep his dancing heartbeat down.
"Going for another fail, Takuma! Best of luck; I'm rooting for you!" Hiji shouted snarkily over from his seat on the other side of the classroom.
"Shut it, Hiji!" Kibe scolded immediately.
Takuma looked at No.1 on his most disliked list and thought— yesterday was the last day of the academy; today was after that. 'Huh, I guess that's right.'
He raised his arm towards Hiji and flicked his middle finger up.
"Fuck off, mutt."
The many pairs of eyes accompanied by a few gasps turned to Takuma and then toward the shocked Hiji, who opened his mouth to say something but closed it, his eyes looking at the class.
Takuma passed by Hana, seated in the front rows. "No offense," he said.
Before anyone could say anything, Takuma was already out of the classroom, and Kibe had already closed the door behind them.
Like the last two times, Kibe led him across the corridor to the testing hall.
"How did your paper go?" asked Kibe.
"I will pass," said Takuma shortly. It had gone well, exceeding his expectations— the question set had been in his favor this time, and he was sure he would score at least an 80% grade. If he was being optimistic about the grading, he could sniff the 90% ceiling.
Silence fell between the teacher and the student. It wasn't surprising; they didn't talk much. If they were in a big college class, Takuma would be a student of whom Kibe didn't know the name.
Kibe broke the silence and started, "If your paper is decent—"
"Even if I do badly in everything else, there's a real chance I could pass. I just need to successfully perform academy three. I know; you have told me before," said Takuma without looking at Kibe.
"... I see," said Kibe. There was another pause. "Can you... can you do all three?"
They reached the auditorium entrance. Takuma grabbed the handle and slid the door open. He stared inside but didn't immediately enter; instead, he said, "You'll know when you get my result," and without sparing a glance to Kibe, Takuma slipped inside.
The inside of the auditorium was the same as Takuma had seen the last two times. The length of the hall had been dived up to different portions of the testing. His eyes automatically went to the second-floor corridor from where multiple shinobi peered down the testing floor. He gave each of them a hard look, memorizing as much detail as he could. There were ten of them.
He waited for the bukijutsu invigilator to call him up. Despite having given the test twice, the invigilator had him listen to the instructors again, going through everything in clear detail.
"Understood?"
Takuma nodded and headed towards the weapons table. He picked up the only three weapons he knew how to wield— kunai, shuriken, and senbon. The weapons were still off-balance, and the exercise targets were similar to the last two times. The difference came from Takuma's performance; he still threw his weapons one at a time, but he was much quicker in his successive throws, and the consistency and accuracy couldn't be compared to his first attempt. Almost all of his throws hit the red bullseyes.
The instructor nodded as he blocked the senbon. Takuma had learned his lesson and had aimed at vital spots.
This invigilator was different from the last two times, and this one didn't give advice like the bukijutsu invigilator from the first attempt did.
Takuma moved on to the next portion of the testing, arguably the most important part of it— at least for him.
"Ah," the sound unintentionally came out of Takuma.
The ninjutsu invigilator looked up. The middle-aged woman with grey streaks in her hair had the same red-trimmed explosion tag-styled earrings as before that dangled when she moved her head. Her eyes flashed, and Takuma knew she recognized him. She looked down at her clipboard before speaking.
"Takuma?"
Takuma nodded, and the woman repeated the instructions for the ninjutsu test. She showed no sign of recognition, which made him wonder if she was pretending to not recognize him.
"Let's start with Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu)," she said. Takuma weaved the hands seals, and six clones stood around the real him. They moved, changed expressions, and did various things. The invigilator's eyes shined before she noted something on her clipboard and asked him to proceed with Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu).
She gave no imitation target, so Takuma transformed into one of the shinobi on the second-floor corridor. His appearance was fresh in his mind, and he knew that transforming into the ninjutsu invigilator was the wrong choice— even if she was supposed to be objective in her grading, there was a chance she would be offended by something in his imitation. He didn't want that.
Finally, it was time for Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu). It was the jutsu he had least practiced, as it was the last academy three he had picked up. From the get-go, Takuma had come to know that Maruboshi didn't like Kawarimi no Jutsu as it was a completely useless jutsu. The jutsu required the user to substitute an object in their place to take an attack, followed by getting out of the enemy's sight. It was essentially pulling up a shield to block an attack and then ditching said shield before running away. It was the running part that Maruboshi had a problem with, even though the hand seals for the jutsu were exclusively used during the running part. According to Maruboshi, the running and hiding part was inefficient as it only worked when the surrounding environment allowed it. The jutsu would work splendidly in a forest but miserably fail in a grassland. Moreover, the user needed to weave hand seals quickly for the jutsu to work seamlessly. It also failed when the attack was faster than the user's ability to procure the substitute.
The only reason Kawarimi no Jutsu was taught in the academy was because the chakra movement caused by the hand seals granted the user a short burst of linear speed, which allowed them to hide quickly (it would be useless if the enemy's sight could catch the fast movement). And that chakra movement was six points similar to Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Jutsu)— a high-speed movement technique that allowed the user to move linear distance at speeds untraceable by the untrained eye. Shunshin no Jutsu was a necessary jutsu that every shinobi needed to know, and thus the academy used Kawarimi no Jutsu to lay the foundation.
Kawarimi no Jutsu wasn't supposed to be used in the field as it was only a training tool, but for some reason no one told the students that. Well, he knew because Maruboshi had told him.
The invigilator pointed to a sandbag and asked to use it as the substitute, something Takuma was thankful for as he didn't want to use one of his precious and very limited storage sealing scrolls that had something he could use as a substitute. The invigilator threw a dulled kunai at Takuma, who stood several meters away. There was a puff of smoke, and the kunai was embedded into the sandbag, with Takuma standing a few feet away from it.
"Excellent!" the invigilator clapped her hands. "You performed all three splendidly. You have improved so much!"
'I knew it,' thought Takuma— the invigilator did recognize him. But he didn't say anything about it and simply moved away to the next part of testing— the taijutsu portion.
The taijutsu invigilator didn't call him up immediately, and Takuma was glad about it. If he had been called, Takuma didn't know if his legs would've held up as they were trembling uncontrollably.
He had passed. Third time's the charm. After two failures, he passed the hardest thing he had done in his life. Takuma felt a boulder's weight lift above his head. He tried to keep some tension in his body as the testing wasn't over, but when he knew that he was going to pass no matter what, it was tough to feel anything other than utter and complete relief.
He wanted to leave the academy grounds and run to find Maruboshi so that he could tell his teacher, his one and only supporter, his rock, that he had done it. A year of struggle, ten months of training, countless sleepless nights— his time hadn't been a waste. He had done it. He couldn't describe it, but he had never ever felt it. It was a sense of accomplishment— but it was nothing like he had ever experienced. All of his previous achievements seemed pointless in the face of what he felt right now.
Takuma didn't have the time to dwell as the taijutsu invigilator called him up. It wasn't anything special. When facing someone far superior in skill, the performance of the lesser didn't reflect any difference even when they got better. Takuma, who had just yesterday won his first spar, his performance didn't seem any different from the last time. As for what went into the clipboard, Takuma would only know when he got the result.
"You can exit through that door for the next part," said the taijutsu invigilator afterward, pointing to the outdoor exit of the auditorium.
Takuma nodded and walked to the exit, but before he stepped out, he looked back at the auditorium and took a moment to take in the entirety of the auditorium hall. He wanted to remember it for now and for the future.
When he stepped out, his eyes widened when he found himself looking at a bald old man dressed in a kimono sitting under a big umbrella with a coal brazier lit near his feet. The entire yard was covered with snow, but a circular area around the old man was void of snow and even any moisture on the ground.
"Sit down," said the old man.
Takuma sat down in front of the old man. The entire scene invoked a strong sense of deja-vu in him. The same events from the first attempt were repeating again. He was sitting in front of the same bald old man who was again staring at him in silence, but this time with a small smile.
Takuma found the tension he had lost before returning— something about the old man unnerved him.
"I only have one question for you, Takuma," said the old man, still smiling.
Takuma leaned forward in his chair slightly. He was ready; no matter what the old man threw at him, he was going to answer; he was prepared this time.
"How many people stood in the auditorium's second-floor corridor?"
Takuma was taken aback. The same question? He was sure there would be another question. He leaned back into this chair and took a moment to contemplate.
"... Nine of them," he said— one person was sitting.
The old man's small smile bloomed into a full-blown one. "Smart child," he said and stood up from his seat.
Takuma felt a hot breeze tickling him under his ear. He frowned but didn't raise his hand to scratch the itch as he was in front of the invigilator. It went away on its own.
The old man who had stood up frowned as he looked at him. Takuma was confused at the sudden change in expression but didn't say anything. Maybe the old man was experiencing pains that came with old age.
The old man's expression eased, and he stepped away from his chair, and Takuma's eyes widened when he saw an identical old man sitting in the chair— it was as if the old man had left an afterimage behind him.
How? Takuma looked between the identical old men— one sitting and one standing. He glanced at both of their feet and saw that both had shadows. 'Not Bunshin no Jutsu... Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)?' he thought. But there were no hand seals or the puff of smoke. The puff of smoke could be eliminated, but what about the hand seal? How did the old man make a clone appear in his chair so seamlessly?
As Takuma's mind raced to find an answer, the standing old man saw Takuma's eyes going between him and his chair. His expression once again faltered.
"... You can see through it... already?" said the standing old man with surprise.
"Huh? I-I mean, yes. I can see the clone," said Takuma, confused. Was he not supposed to see the clone?
"... That's not a clone," the old man pointed at his chair.
Takuma's confusion deepened. His brows arched together as he gazed at the old man in the chair. If it wasn't a clone, then what was it—... the answer clicked like the last piece of a puzzle.
"Genjutsu," he gasped. Takuma's hand made a tiger hand seal and immediately dispelled the genjutsu cast upon him. Maruboshi hadn't taught him to cast genjutsu (it wasn't even on the table), but he had taught him how to dispel one— it was easy.
The old man in the chair disappeared like a mirage, leaving only the standing old man behind.
Takuma breathed a sigh of relief, but confusion still plagued him. With a little thinking, it was clear that the old man was planning to fool him through a genjutsu. Under the guise of illusion, he would get up, leaving behind an illusion of him still sitting, making it so that Takuma would think nothing had changed. But why was he able to see the standing old man, who he wasn't supposed to see, when the genjutsu had clearly been cast successfully.
Had the old man made a mistake?
Takuma didn't get an answer that day. The old man didn't say anything else before sending him away.
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Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
- Location
- Madness realms
I'm happy for Takuma, finally saw his improvements pay off.
