Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve
CH_30: Convocation Day
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Takuma peered inside the auditorium hall. Last week he was here giving his graduation test; the place looked spacious back then, spacious enough to test bukijutsu, ninjutsu, and taijutsu all under the same roof without interfering with each other. Today, the same hall was decorated for a formal event, jam-packed with chairs; even the raised stage in the front had a podium setup on it. All of the preparation for the convocation ceremony
Seeing so many adults in the academy made the sight seem even stranger. He looked down at his clothes; he had dressed his best for the formal event— saying that, labeling a light blue shirt and black pants as formal wear was stretching it. But it was the only option he had. The rest of his wardrobe was made up of easy-to-move-in active wear. The thought of renting a kimono for the event had crossed his mind, only to cross out the idea as overdoing it (plus not renting/buying saved him money)— but it seems he was wrong. The hall had plenty of men and women wearing kimonos and hakamas for their children's convocation. He even spotted his classmates dressed up nicely for the day.
'Too late now,' thought Takuma as he smoothed out his shirt before stepping inside the auditorium and making a beeline towards his seating appointment he had gotten at the academy gates.
His seat was at the end of one of the middle rows. He looked to the seat beside him and sighed. Everyone else was accompanied by their parents; only he was alone.
'—I will be there—'
He was the only 'orphan' in his class. It was a wild coincidence, given how many lives had been lost in the Kyuubi attack, but most of his classmates had at least one of their parents alive, and those who had lost both their parents were in the care of their relatives. He was the only parentless orphanage orphan.
Unlike any other school in the Leaf village, the shinobi academy had zero tuition as everything was paid by the state— it was only fair when the students were trained to become child soldiers. Free schooling meant no expense on education, which tend to be the biggest expense in raising a child. His thoughts were pessimistic, but after pinching pennies for a year, his views could be summarized well— 'Money couldn't buy happiness, but no happiness would live without the support of money.'
Soon the crowd began to come together in a neat congregation. The adults were mostly shinobi, accustomed to discipline, so the ceremony proceeded smoothly. The headmaster (there was one) addressed the crowd with a winding speech that Takuma eventually tuned out in favor of gazing at the parents to see if he could see the similarities between them and his classmates. All Inuzukas had the red fang marking on their face. Hana's mother looked much wilder than her. Izumi looked a lot like her mother, especially her eyes, except for the hair— the mother had black hair unlike Izumi's brown. The Akimichi father and son duo looked like a pair of dumplings, one small and the other big. Momoe's parents looked uber-wealthy with their composure and clothing— the Okubo parents and child looked like the perfect family set.
"... and so, I humbly welcome Lord Hokage," said the headmaster.
Everyone in the room stood up, and Takuma hurriedly followed their lead. Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage of the Leaf village, stepped into the auditorium with three shinobi in standard Leaf shinobi gear accompanying him. The Hokage was dressed in his traditional Hokage haori over a full-length red kimono and the wide-brimmed red Hokage hat to complete the set.
His eyes went to the second-floor corridor, and he blinked in surprise to see multiple fully hooded people that weren't there before looking down at the event. He narrowed his eyes to look when he caught a glimpse of a white mask under the light tan robes. They were ANBU— Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai (Special Assassination and Tactical Squad). As Takuma looked at one of them, the ANBU operative looked at him.
'Shit, he caught me,' Takuma turned his head immediately. He didn't look back at them.
The Third Hokage spoke some words about the children being the village's future and how this day, officiating the beginning careers of a full batch of new genin, was one of the events he looked forward to every year. This speech, Takuma listened with wide-open ears.
The convocation ceremony began soon after. One by one, children were called by name to come forward with their parents to receive their graduation scroll. Those graduating with ordinary scores went first. Some had parents who were shinobi, and others were born to civilians. Takuma was thankful that the ordinary score list wasn't by scores, or he would've been called first— or maybe that would've been better.
Takuma glanced beside him. Some parent sat beside him. He had been asked if he wanted to bring someone, the orphanage matron maybe, but he had refused. He looked around the hall, only to sigh.
"...Takuma," the headmaster's voice sounded.
Takuma stood up and made his way to the front, feeling nervous under a hundred pairs of eyes. He told himself that even if most were looking, they weren't paying attention as he hadn't been when others went to the stage. It helped, but only a little. He climbed the steps of the stage alone and stepped towards the Third Hokage to receive his graduation scroll.
"Takuma," the Hokage smiled down upon him, "Kusoke's pupil. I see that you are doing well this time around."
Gazing up at him this close, Takuma could see the same crinkles around the Hokage's eyes, the sagging skin, and the graying hair. He was at least as old as Maruboshi. It's rare, he knew, for shinobi to survive so long. At once, Takum was struck with the realization that he was standing before someone who was really, truly strong.
"I know you will become a great shinobi one day. Word hard and never doubt that this village is very proud of you."
Takuma stiffly nodded and focused on making sure his toes that were visible in his open-toed shinobi sandals (he really needed to buy new shoes) weren't wiggling. He didn't know how else to respond and stuck to the nod.
The Hokage turned and picked up a forehead protector with a blue headband and the Leaf insignia engraved on a metal plate. Takuma received the forehead and looked down at the gleaming metal to see his own reflection in it. The symbol of his status— that he was now a genin, a shinobi of the Leaf.
He looked at the Hokage and bowed to him. As he turned to walk away, Takuma looked around the hall, his eyes scanning the faces, looking for one particular one. He didn't find it in the seating area. As he was about to stop looking and get off the stage, Takuma looked near the back of the auditorium.
Near the far wall of the hall stood Maruboshi. He was dressed as he always did in his mesh armor shirt under a short, brown, sleeveless kimono with a pair of grey pants. Maruboshi smiled when he saw Takuma looking at him.
Takuma's throat closed up. He clenched his jaw to keep his eyes in control. Clutching the graduation scroll to his chest, he raised his forehead protector over his head. He had done it; he was a shinobi now. And it was only because of the man standing in the back.
He got down the stage, skipped his chair in the seating area, and made a bee-line towards the back where Maruboshi stood.
"You came," he said.
"I said I would come," Maruboshi was smiling widely.
Takuma showed his forehead protector. "I got one now," he said.
"It shines," Maruboshi pushed the folds of the cloth belt that tied his kimono to reveal his forehead protector. The engraved metal plate had hundreds of micro scratches that had stolen away all of the metal's shine.
"Your's is old," Takuma said. The state of the forehead protector told Takuma the difference between them as people and life experiences.
"After this, we should go eat out to celebrate. I shall pay; I insist," said Maruboshi."
Takuma smiled brightly. Today, he felt he wasn't going to refuse anything.
He returned to his chair soon after, and Maruboshi left the auditorium. Takuma had already received his forehead protector; there was no sense in Maruboshi staying. They decided to meet at the restaurant Maruboshi chose for lunch.
By the time Takuma returned to his seat, they had already begun with students graduating with honors. Inuzuka Hana and Uchiha Izumi. Hana was accompanied by her gruff-looking mother with her sharp face, glinting eyes, and spiky hair. The red-fang markings on her face made it look like she was a warrior about to go into guerrilla warfare. For Izumi, her mother seemed gentle and demure-type, much unlike her peppy daughter.
"And lastly, obtaining the highest honor in her class, Okubo Momoe," the headmaster announced with a hearty smile.
In the crowd, Momoe stood up and walked to the stage with her parents walking behind her. They didn't smile, but they did look proud. If Takuma had to put their expression into words, it would be: 'Momoe topping her class was simply expected.'
'Expectations... must be tough,' he thought.
———
.
After the ceremony ended, Takuma made his way to the decided restaurant, where Marubsohi was waiting for him. The hostess led him to the table, and Takuma was nervous because the restaurant was a fancy one.
"I see you have not worn your forehead protector," were Maruboshi's first words when he saw Takuma.
"I thought it would look tacky," Takuma said after returning the hostess' bow. He did want to flaunt the headband, though— it was like a medical student wanting to wear a doctor's white coat after graduating.
"I had worn mine the moment I got it," Maruboshi laughed. "Didn't even wait till getting back to my seat."
Takuma put his graduation scroll to the side and sat across Maruboshi. "Between you and the Hokage, who's older?" he asked.
Maruboshi tilted his head with an amused expression. "Lord Third is a few years older than me. Why do you ask?"
"Nothing special," Takuma grinned. "Just wanted to know who's the oldest shinobi in the Leaf."
Maruboshi sighed with a smile on his lips.
They ordered food (Maruboshi did for both of them), and after a year, Takuma enjoyed a meal he hadn't made. The food was much better than his home cooking. In the past year, it wasn't his shinobi skills that had improved the most; that award went to his cooking. He had gone from boiling eggs and cooking instant noodles to whipping up three nutritious meals a day.
"I have a present for you, young— no, Genin Takuma," smiled Maruboshi. He slid a wrapped package across the table.
"Oh! You didn't have to," said Takuma, genuinely surprised. "Can I open it?"
Maruboshi nodded, and Takuma tore into it. He would've carefully unwrapped it if he was frequently gifting people things, but that wasn't part of his life.
"This..." Maruboshi's gift was clothes. There were two identical packages in the gift, and Takuma recognized the color as a very particular shade of blue, iconic in the Leaf village. It was the blue that the majority of Leaf shinobi wore as part of the standard Leaf shinobi gear. The gift was the standard Leaf shinobi gear without the flak jacket.
"You are now a shinobi, and I thought you would appreciate something practical and immediately usable," said Maruboshi.
Takuma rubbed his finger over the red spiral symbol present stitched on both sides of the vest. "Thank you," he smiled softly. He did appreciate the gift.
"Tell me about your teammates," asked Maruboshi. "Do they tell you about your team leader nowadays? In my time, they didn't tell us that during graduation."
Takuma looked up from the gift, confused. "No one told me about teammates; they just told us to assemble at the academy the day after tomorrow," he said. Was there a meeting after the convocation he was supposed to be at?
"It should be along with your graduation scroll," said Maruboshi looking at the scroll lying on the side of the table. "You haven't opened it yet?" The seal was still on it.
"Ah no, I didn't," Takuma picked up the scroll— he was too engrossed by the forehead protector.
Takuma gently clipped the wax seal over the scroll and unrolled it. There was another length of paper rolled along with the main scroll. Takuma pulled it out, and one side had printed words on it.
But as he read the words, Takuma's excitement turned into confusion. He gave the paper to Maruboshi. "What does this mean?" he asked.
Maruboshi looked at the paper. His eyes widened, and his lips parted as he read the words on the scroll.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Seeing so many adults in the academy made the sight seem even stranger. He looked down at his clothes; he had dressed his best for the formal event— saying that, labeling a light blue shirt and black pants as formal wear was stretching it. But it was the only option he had. The rest of his wardrobe was made up of easy-to-move-in active wear. The thought of renting a kimono for the event had crossed his mind, only to cross out the idea as overdoing it (plus not renting/buying saved him money)— but it seems he was wrong. The hall had plenty of men and women wearing kimonos and hakamas for their children's convocation. He even spotted his classmates dressed up nicely for the day.
'Too late now,' thought Takuma as he smoothed out his shirt before stepping inside the auditorium and making a beeline towards his seating appointment he had gotten at the academy gates.
His seat was at the end of one of the middle rows. He looked to the seat beside him and sighed. Everyone else was accompanied by their parents; only he was alone.
'—I will be there—'
He was the only 'orphan' in his class. It was a wild coincidence, given how many lives had been lost in the Kyuubi attack, but most of his classmates had at least one of their parents alive, and those who had lost both their parents were in the care of their relatives. He was the only parentless orphanage orphan.
Unlike any other school in the Leaf village, the shinobi academy had zero tuition as everything was paid by the state— it was only fair when the students were trained to become child soldiers. Free schooling meant no expense on education, which tend to be the biggest expense in raising a child. His thoughts were pessimistic, but after pinching pennies for a year, his views could be summarized well— 'Money couldn't buy happiness, but no happiness would live without the support of money.'
Soon the crowd began to come together in a neat congregation. The adults were mostly shinobi, accustomed to discipline, so the ceremony proceeded smoothly. The headmaster (there was one) addressed the crowd with a winding speech that Takuma eventually tuned out in favor of gazing at the parents to see if he could see the similarities between them and his classmates. All Inuzukas had the red fang marking on their face. Hana's mother looked much wilder than her. Izumi looked a lot like her mother, especially her eyes, except for the hair— the mother had black hair unlike Izumi's brown. The Akimichi father and son duo looked like a pair of dumplings, one small and the other big. Momoe's parents looked uber-wealthy with their composure and clothing— the Okubo parents and child looked like the perfect family set.
"... and so, I humbly welcome Lord Hokage," said the headmaster.
Everyone in the room stood up, and Takuma hurriedly followed their lead. Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage of the Leaf village, stepped into the auditorium with three shinobi in standard Leaf shinobi gear accompanying him. The Hokage was dressed in his traditional Hokage haori over a full-length red kimono and the wide-brimmed red Hokage hat to complete the set.
His eyes went to the second-floor corridor, and he blinked in surprise to see multiple fully hooded people that weren't there before looking down at the event. He narrowed his eyes to look when he caught a glimpse of a white mask under the light tan robes. They were ANBU— Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai (Special Assassination and Tactical Squad). As Takuma looked at one of them, the ANBU operative looked at him.
'Shit, he caught me,' Takuma turned his head immediately. He didn't look back at them.
The Third Hokage spoke some words about the children being the village's future and how this day, officiating the beginning careers of a full batch of new genin, was one of the events he looked forward to every year. This speech, Takuma listened with wide-open ears.
The convocation ceremony began soon after. One by one, children were called by name to come forward with their parents to receive their graduation scroll. Those graduating with ordinary scores went first. Some had parents who were shinobi, and others were born to civilians. Takuma was thankful that the ordinary score list wasn't by scores, or he would've been called first— or maybe that would've been better.
Takuma glanced beside him. Some parent sat beside him. He had been asked if he wanted to bring someone, the orphanage matron maybe, but he had refused. He looked around the hall, only to sigh.
"...Takuma," the headmaster's voice sounded.
Takuma stood up and made his way to the front, feeling nervous under a hundred pairs of eyes. He told himself that even if most were looking, they weren't paying attention as he hadn't been when others went to the stage. It helped, but only a little. He climbed the steps of the stage alone and stepped towards the Third Hokage to receive his graduation scroll.
"Takuma," the Hokage smiled down upon him, "Kusoke's pupil. I see that you are doing well this time around."
Gazing up at him this close, Takuma could see the same crinkles around the Hokage's eyes, the sagging skin, and the graying hair. He was at least as old as Maruboshi. It's rare, he knew, for shinobi to survive so long. At once, Takum was struck with the realization that he was standing before someone who was really, truly strong.
"I know you will become a great shinobi one day. Word hard and never doubt that this village is very proud of you."
Takuma stiffly nodded and focused on making sure his toes that were visible in his open-toed shinobi sandals (he really needed to buy new shoes) weren't wiggling. He didn't know how else to respond and stuck to the nod.
The Hokage turned and picked up a forehead protector with a blue headband and the Leaf insignia engraved on a metal plate. Takuma received the forehead and looked down at the gleaming metal to see his own reflection in it. The symbol of his status— that he was now a genin, a shinobi of the Leaf.
He looked at the Hokage and bowed to him. As he turned to walk away, Takuma looked around the hall, his eyes scanning the faces, looking for one particular one. He didn't find it in the seating area. As he was about to stop looking and get off the stage, Takuma looked near the back of the auditorium.
Near the far wall of the hall stood Maruboshi. He was dressed as he always did in his mesh armor shirt under a short, brown, sleeveless kimono with a pair of grey pants. Maruboshi smiled when he saw Takuma looking at him.
Takuma's throat closed up. He clenched his jaw to keep his eyes in control. Clutching the graduation scroll to his chest, he raised his forehead protector over his head. He had done it; he was a shinobi now. And it was only because of the man standing in the back.
He got down the stage, skipped his chair in the seating area, and made a bee-line towards the back where Maruboshi stood.
"You came," he said.
"I said I would come," Maruboshi was smiling widely.
Takuma showed his forehead protector. "I got one now," he said.
"It shines," Maruboshi pushed the folds of the cloth belt that tied his kimono to reveal his forehead protector. The engraved metal plate had hundreds of micro scratches that had stolen away all of the metal's shine.
"Your's is old," Takuma said. The state of the forehead protector told Takuma the difference between them as people and life experiences.
"After this, we should go eat out to celebrate. I shall pay; I insist," said Maruboshi."
Takuma smiled brightly. Today, he felt he wasn't going to refuse anything.
He returned to his chair soon after, and Maruboshi left the auditorium. Takuma had already received his forehead protector; there was no sense in Maruboshi staying. They decided to meet at the restaurant Maruboshi chose for lunch.
By the time Takuma returned to his seat, they had already begun with students graduating with honors. Inuzuka Hana and Uchiha Izumi. Hana was accompanied by her gruff-looking mother with her sharp face, glinting eyes, and spiky hair. The red-fang markings on her face made it look like she was a warrior about to go into guerrilla warfare. For Izumi, her mother seemed gentle and demure-type, much unlike her peppy daughter.
"And lastly, obtaining the highest honor in her class, Okubo Momoe," the headmaster announced with a hearty smile.
In the crowd, Momoe stood up and walked to the stage with her parents walking behind her. They didn't smile, but they did look proud. If Takuma had to put their expression into words, it would be: 'Momoe topping her class was simply expected.'
'Expectations... must be tough,' he thought.
———
.
After the ceremony ended, Takuma made his way to the decided restaurant, where Marubsohi was waiting for him. The hostess led him to the table, and Takuma was nervous because the restaurant was a fancy one.
"I see you have not worn your forehead protector," were Maruboshi's first words when he saw Takuma.
"I thought it would look tacky," Takuma said after returning the hostess' bow. He did want to flaunt the headband, though— it was like a medical student wanting to wear a doctor's white coat after graduating.
"I had worn mine the moment I got it," Maruboshi laughed. "Didn't even wait till getting back to my seat."
Takuma put his graduation scroll to the side and sat across Maruboshi. "Between you and the Hokage, who's older?" he asked.
Maruboshi tilted his head with an amused expression. "Lord Third is a few years older than me. Why do you ask?"
"Nothing special," Takuma grinned. "Just wanted to know who's the oldest shinobi in the Leaf."
Maruboshi sighed with a smile on his lips.
They ordered food (Maruboshi did for both of them), and after a year, Takuma enjoyed a meal he hadn't made. The food was much better than his home cooking. In the past year, it wasn't his shinobi skills that had improved the most; that award went to his cooking. He had gone from boiling eggs and cooking instant noodles to whipping up three nutritious meals a day.
"I have a present for you, young— no, Genin Takuma," smiled Maruboshi. He slid a wrapped package across the table.
"Oh! You didn't have to," said Takuma, genuinely surprised. "Can I open it?"
Maruboshi nodded, and Takuma tore into it. He would've carefully unwrapped it if he was frequently gifting people things, but that wasn't part of his life.
"This..." Maruboshi's gift was clothes. There were two identical packages in the gift, and Takuma recognized the color as a very particular shade of blue, iconic in the Leaf village. It was the blue that the majority of Leaf shinobi wore as part of the standard Leaf shinobi gear. The gift was the standard Leaf shinobi gear without the flak jacket.
"You are now a shinobi, and I thought you would appreciate something practical and immediately usable," said Maruboshi.
Takuma rubbed his finger over the red spiral symbol present stitched on both sides of the vest. "Thank you," he smiled softly. He did appreciate the gift.
"Tell me about your teammates," asked Maruboshi. "Do they tell you about your team leader nowadays? In my time, they didn't tell us that during graduation."
Takuma looked up from the gift, confused. "No one told me about teammates; they just told us to assemble at the academy the day after tomorrow," he said. Was there a meeting after the convocation he was supposed to be at?
"It should be along with your graduation scroll," said Maruboshi looking at the scroll lying on the side of the table. "You haven't opened it yet?" The seal was still on it.
"Ah no, I didn't," Takuma picked up the scroll— he was too engrossed by the forehead protector.
Takuma gently clipped the wax seal over the scroll and unrolled it. There was another length of paper rolled along with the main scroll. Takuma pulled it out, and one side had printed words on it.
But as he read the words, Takuma's excitement turned into confusion. He gave the paper to Maruboshi. "What does this mean?" he asked.
Maruboshi looked at the paper. His eyes widened, and his lips parted as he read the words on the scroll.
Name: Takuma
Rank: Genin
.
.
.
Assignment: Genin Corps
Rank: Genin
.
.
.
Assignment: Genin Corps
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Interlude_1.1: Raven's Report
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
.
— After the events of Chapter 12 —
.
— After the events of Chapter 12 —
.
The Hokage's Office was part of an administrative building. Situated on a floor heavily guarded by shinobi in-charge of Hokage's protection. The entire floor was only accessible to those with certain security clearance, and every outside visitor was noted at the entrance and designated an escort to keep on with their movements.
On that floor existed another entry point that worked both as a second emergency exit and an entrance for those who wanted to enter the floor without being seen.
A man with dark blonde hair tied in a ponytail resting over his shoulder walked into an empty dine-in takoyaki deli with no signs outside. The building was narrow and short, with a counter stretched from one end to the other with only four barstool-styled chairs for customers. A short middle-aged woman with a mean look dressed in white sat behind the counter reading a fashion magazine.
When she heard the door chime, she glared at the ponytailed man.
"Three-and-half plate to go. Make 'em crispy and zingy," said the man.
"175-ryo," said the woman, her voice gruff.
"Wasn't it 140 before?" he asked.
"Do you want it or not?"
The man sighed, "Make it quick. I will be using the bathroom."
The woman followed with her eyes until he disappeared into the back of the restaurant. She opened her magazine and started to read again.
The back of the restaurant had two doors. The blue one had the lavatory sign, while the other was painted gray. The man faced the restaurant door and pulled it by the doorknob before pushing it down and turning it to open the door. The room's inside was a storage unit with all sorts of things stuffed into it. The man made his way to a wooden cabinet and pulled it open to reveal a set of stairs stretching underground. The stairs led to an underground tunnel with rough excavated walls with wooden supports, illuminated by yellow light bulbs hanging off the top. They shed just enough light to make the path barely visible enough for safely walking.
At the end of the tunnel, the man found a figure wearing a white porcelain mask with a boar design and red markings sitting on a stool beside a steel gate.
"Hand, before, room, white, arm, thick," the ponytailed man said to the masked man and wondered if he should've put on his own.
The masked man stood up and patted the ponytailed man on the side of his arm. The hand stayed for a moment before the masked man stepped back and nodded. The man turned his back while the masked figure turned to the steel door and swung the large circular wheel on it in a specific pattern to unlock it.
The man nodded to the masked figure and stepped through the door that closed behind him. The door opened to another stretch of stairs that led to an empty room, opening up through a large floor tile.
The man knew that even though the room looked bare, three people were watching him at that very moment. He didn't try to discern their position and simply walked out of the room and tread the familiar corridors until he was standing in front of a door.
He knocked on the door in a specific way and then waited.
A few seconds later, he heard, "Come in."
The man straightened his clothes before stepping inside the room. The room was large, somewhat oval, and filled with stacks of unfinished paperwork. There was a desk with large windows overlooking the village behind it.
"Lord Hokage," the man knelt down and greeted the man sitting behind the desk.
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up from his paperwork and asked the man to get up. "How was he, Raven? Anything of concern?" he asked before bringing his smoking pipe to his mouth.
"Nothing out of order, Lord Hokage," said Raven. "The subject suffered a panic attack that put him into a coma..."
"A panic attack?" the Hokage lowered his smoking pipe. "He's but a child. What was the cause?"
Raven shook his head. "It was as the report stated— the subject's mind is muddled, and with the intense emotional distress behind the panic attack, I couldn't find the exact cause. If I could get some time and assistance, I believe I can get that information."
The Hokage had assigned him a mission to pose as a doctor and use his clan's abilities to inspect the subject's mind. Takuma was the child's name. At first, he was confused about why the Hokage had asked him to infiltrate a child's mind. But after reading the report on the subject, he understood why the Hokage had been concerned by the subject suddenly ending up in the hospital. To think a child, who hadn't even graduated from the academy, would have such a past. It saddened him greatly when he saw the scars mentioned in the report present on the boy's body. The boy would carry them throughout his life.
The Hokage shook his head. "We have already tried to get more. It didn't work back then." He sighed, "I thought his mind would heal with time, but I believe it is still the same?"
Raven nodded. The boy's mind was protecting him by repressing the memories of the past. And as it protected the boy from himself, it also protected him from his clan's jutsu. He couldn't pass through the blockages created by the mind— if he tried to force it, he would damage the boy's mind. If he had assistance from his clan members, he could peer through the natural blockages and get more information... but the risk of damaging the boy's mind wouldn't go away. Raven glanced up at the Hokage— he could tell the Hokage didn't want to go through with that.
"What about the update you were provided?" the Hokage asked. "Were they confirmed?"
Raven nodded. Even if he encountered the blockages in the boy's mind, it didn't mean he came out empty handed. He was handpicked as part of the masks for a reason.
"According to the subject's memories, Maruboshi Kosuke has been teaching him for the last few months. The subject isn't performing well at the academy and has been training under Maruboshi Kosuke to resolve his grades. They meet every day as long as Maruboshi Kosuke doesn't have a mission that renders him unable to attend— even on those days, the subject goes to their meeting location and trains on his own."
The broken memories, covered with dark haze, had provided him enough to confidently support his claims.
"Do you wish for us to investigate Maruboshi Kosuke?" asked Raven.
"That won't be needed," the Hokage shook his head. "I have known Kosuke for long. There's no one more loyal. If nothing showed up on the preliminary search, there's no need to investigate him more." He then asked, "Could his condition be the cause behind the panic attack?"
Raven didn't offer an answer immediately. He thought about it and recalled what he had experienced in the boy's mind. "I can't deny the possibility. The subject's mind is repressing memories to protect him, but the mind is as fragile as it is strong. Given a strong enough stimulus, something could've escaped the bindings that caused the boy to experience heightened levels of stress that triggered the attack. The subject was defensive when I revealed my identity..."
"Most people would be," said the Hokage.
Raven nodded. His clan's ability came with a stigma. "... and refused to talk about what caused the panic attack, but that doesn't tell us that it was his past that caused the attack. It could've very well been something recent that caused it. The subject has been very worried about his academy performance."
"But to suffer a panic attack..." the Hokage tapped his wrinkly finger on his table. "Very well, if the condition of his mind hasn't changed, there is no use in pursuing this any longer." He looked at Raven, "Add your findings into the report and close this case."
"Should we add surveillance on the boy?" Raven asked.
"No. Thank you, Raven. You may take your leave."
Raven bowed and turned to leave when he stopped and doubled back. "One more thing," he said.
"Yes?" the Hokage said as he browsed the paperwork on his desk.
Raven pursed his lips. When he was in the boy's mind, he felt jumpy. It wasn't uncommon. The human mind was a complex puzzle yet to be solved; even after the generations of his clan discovering its secrets, there was so much they didn't know about. He had felt all kinds of sensations when he was inside people's minds— every brain reacted to his infiltrating presence in its unique way.
The Hokage looked up when he didn't speak. "Raven?" he asked.
"... No, Lord Hokage... It's nothing. I will take my leave," he decided not to say. It must've been because of the boy's past, all that he had gone through, that had led his mind to repress his memories.
"Very well," said the Hokage and returned to his seemingly never-ending piles of paperwork.
Raven bowed and turned to leave. By the time he was out of the door, he felt confident in his reasoning. Even if he was ANBU, the Hokage didn't need to know the functioning of his clan's jutsu.
... It was just that the sensation this time was the strongest he had ever felt.
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First !
Calling it now. The MC was a subject of orochimarus experiments before he left the village. Probably has wood release or some other bloodline limit. That or he was a test to see if a soul can fit into an empty vessel.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Isn't the regular clone just a poor genjutsu? Couldn't his bloodline/experiment's done on him just have something to do with genjutsu period?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If I'm remembering the fandom vs canon argument right then no because genjutsu works by using the senses to connect your chakra to the enemies and basically seems to use their chakra against them. That's why the way to break most genjutsu just requires you to do something that disrupts your chakra briefly. Now that I think about it could help explain why he had so much trouble with the replacement jutsu. If the replacement jutsu is one of those that requires smooth control of chakra and his chakra is naturally chaotic then it explains why he needs significantly more control training than most genin to get it working.
Of course, I could be entirely wrong because Fiction might be using entirely different theories for this story.
Daonexus
Seeker of the true Dao of waifus
- Location
- Hyderabad, India
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think the bloodline limit is of Kurama clan. Seeing that the clone jutsu is a genjutsu type and he can see through genjutsu easily, i feel that he is an experimental product of kurama clan. Or a member of the kurama clan that repressed his memories due to Yakumo Kurama's rampage
CH_2.1 (032): ARC-02!!!
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
STATUS UPDATE
[Complete] ARC-01: The Sakura-Colored Days of Shinobi Academy
Chapters: 30(+1 Interlude)
Word Count: 67,975
[Complete] ARC-01: The Sakura-Colored Days of Shinobi Academy
Chapters: 30(+1 Interlude)
Word Count: 67,975
[Ongoing] ARC-02: Untitled (I had twenty days to name it... couldn't come up with anything)
Sitting on a bench outside an administrative office wasn't how Takuma thought he would start his shinobi career, but the reality of the situation was more different than anything he had imagined. He leaned against the bench and thought about how all of his expectations had been subverted by a single line on a slip of paper.
It had been a week since his convocation ceremony. He didn't know how to feel when he didn't see the names of two of his classmates, and instead, his assignment had said two words: Genin Corps. Takuma had no idea what that meant— something like that didn't exist in the manga he had read, or at least, he didn't remember reading about it.
What he knew was that his two fails were the reason he was assigned to the Genin Corps.
'—It's not as good as being assigned under a Jonin team leader, but if you want, it can be as good, even better—'
Maruboshi's words had been contradictory. How could it be not as good but still better? There was a flash of regret on Maruboshi's face that he wasn't part of a three-man cell led by a jonin, but that look had quickly turned into an expression of seriousness. The old shinobi had told him that as long as he put his nose down and put in the work, his efforts would be rewarded.
Those words had only served to confuse Takuma more because he still didn't know what the Genin Corps was. Maruboshi had simply defined it as the general pool of Leaf genins. But Takuma knew he was holding back something... something Takuma hadn't been able to draw out of him. So, he went to search on his own.
He couldn't whip out his phone and pull up a search engine to get the information he wanted, so he could turn to the next best source— a library. His official shinobi documentation had yet to be issued, so he could only go to the civilian library for answers. Fortunately for him, he found information about the shinobi military organization in case the civilians wanted to know more about their shinobi counterparts. Unfortunately for him, the records told him the same thing as Maruboshi and were directly led by the Leaf Genin Resource Command.
The first break had come from an unexpected source.
-.-.-
Takuma sat outside an administrative office with an application for his official shinobi documentation and a folder of required documents in his hands, waiting to be called in, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head to see a familiar face standing beside him.
"Taro..."
Oishi Taro was a classmate of his. Takuma didn't think he had talked to him in the past year. They had sparred numerous times, and Taro had beaten Takuma every time, but they had no contact other than that.
"Yo," Taro raised his hand in greeting. "I heard you got directly shipped to Genin Corps."
"How did you know that?" Takuma hadn't told anyone, and he doubted Maruboshi was talking to any of his classmates.
"You weren't there when the Jonin sensei came to fetch us," said the boy with a man bun. "Everyone except you was there. Hiji laughed that they must've failed you, but Kibe-sensei shut him down and told us that you were somewhere else. My mom told me later that you must've been directly assigned to the Genin Corps."
"Ah..." Taro's parents were shinobi; they weren't from shinobi clans. From what Takuma remembered, his mother was a Chunin. He didn't know about the father.
"I guess we are in the same boat then," said Taro, sitting beside him.
"You're in the Genin Corps?" Takuma shifted to face Taro, surprise spreading on his face.
Taro slumped against the bench like he was sitting on a couch in front of his TV. "Uh-huh, the Jonin-sensei failed me."
Takuma frowned. "Aren't they supposed to send you back to the academy; why did they send you to Genin Corps."
"That's something they tell to scare us," Taro scoffed. "If you fail your jonin sensei test, you get sent to the Genin Corps. Our year had twelve teams— eight of them were failed by their jonin."
"Eight!" Takuma breathed in sharply— that was a two-thirds fail rate.
"It's normal, mom told me," Taro shrugged. "Elie jonin don't grow on trees, and taking a three-genin team is a four-year commitment from the jonin's side. They just don't accept anyone."
Takuma's mouth turned into an O-ring. He didn't know much of that. But just after a moment's thought, it made sense that the failure rate would be so high.
He wet his lips before asking, "Hey, what do you think about the Genin Corps? I heard it's not a good place."
Taro hummed in thought as he sunk even lower into the wood bench. "It's not the best place to be. The best place would be training under a jonin sensei in a three-man cell. Those guys have personalized training, fast-track on missions, and better pay. And most importantly, they have the backing of a jonin— a jonin's word means a lot in the village. In the Genin Corps, you have no choice for your mission, the training isn't that good, the pay is lower— and of course, we don't have the backing of jonin... So yeah, not a great place."
"...You don't seem to be stressed about being in the Genin Corps, though," asked Takuma doubtfully.
"My mom said this: Genin Corps is the place where the shinobi career went to die..." That didn't sound ominous at all, Takuma gulped. "... that is if you stay there."
"W-What do you mean?"
"Eight out of twelve teams failed, which means twenty-four out thirty-six of us failed— twenty-five if we count you. More failed than passed, so ending up in Genin Corps is more common than ending up in a three-man cell. Even those who passed might end up in Genin Corp if they don't get promoted by the end of the four-year commitment by the jonin. So, most genin end up in the Genin Corps one way or another. It's the norm. The problem is when you stay in the Genin Corps for too long. You either—"
Taro was interrupted by the sudden sharp ring of a desk bell from inside the administrative office, followed by a shrill: "Next!" Then a person pushed the salon doors and walked out of the office.
"It's your turn," said Taro.
'What was this timing?!' Takuma yelled to himself as he got up and went into the office to face an annoyed shinobi who snatched the document out of his hands when he tried to offer them. Then the shinobi complained about the application and documents for ten minutes before accepting them and sending Takuma out of the office. The entire time, Takuma's mind was on the conversation he was having with Taro.
'Back to the talk,' he thought as he pushed past the salon doors. But then he heard a bell ring with: "Next!"
Taro stood up from the bench and walked inside the office, leaving Takuma alone to sit on the bench, feeling restless to resume the conversation with Taro.
"Let's get out of here," said Taro. They left the building, and Taro led them to a tea shop where he ordered a plate of dango sticks. "Do you want some?" he asked.
"No, thank you," said Takuma. He could now afford to splurge a little as the base salary of a Leaf genin was higher than the allowance he got from the state. That was not counting the per-mission pay he would earn upon completing missions. An average Leaf genin could live an above-average lavish life as a single person with no other commitments; they could even support an additional person if they live a smart affordable lifestyle. Moreover, there were concessions for various commodities provided to shinobi, making the cost of living even cheaper.
He just didn't want to spend money.
"The man in the office, he was a genin from the Genin Corps," Taro said after eating a couple dango. "Every clerk, pen-pusher, desk jockey, and building guard who's old— like twenty— is from the Genin Corps. That's a fact."
Takuma sweatdropped. Twenty was barely an 'adult' adult. The worldview of a genuine eleven year old was frightening.
"If you stay in the Genin Corps for long without progress, there's an opportunity to get into clerical positions and get off active duty— but it also means you'll never go anywhere else," Taro continued as he bit off another dango.
"A non-combatant position doesn't sound bad, though," Takuma said. Shinobi was a dangerous occupation, and getting away from the field must sound great to many people.
"But you don't have to be in the Genin Corps to avoid field duty," Taro said as he licked the dango stick.
"What do you mean? If you can't get promoted to chunin, you can't go anywhere else," Takuma asked in confusion.
"There are more ways to get out of Genin Corps, you know.... Oh, you don't know," Taro said after looking at Takuma's expression. Takuma really didn't know. "You can test for the Engineer's exam to join the Engineering school and later join one of the Engineering Divisions. Similarly, you can join the Medical Corps by becoming an Iryo-nin(medical shinobi)— it's tough, though, dad failed the interviews three times before they let him in. Then there are intelligence analysts, lawyers, boring research... my uncle is a beu-beuri-beauricrut?"
"Bureaucrat?"
"Yeah, that! Whatever that is. You can do a lot after spending the thirty months of mandatory active duty. Why stay in the Genin Corps?" Taro shrugged, "Or you can retire when you're old."
Takuma did know the last part. A Leaf shinobi could leave after ten years of duty and return to their civilian status and choose to pursue something else. You had to put in twenty years at least to get the minimum amount pension, though. And again, the early twenties weren't old.
"What about you? What do you want to do?" Takuma asked Taro.
Taro shrugged. "I wanted to get on the jonin team, but that's not happening now. My dad wants me to study for the Medical Corps, and my mom wants me to become a lawyer. I don't know what I want to do. Not thinking about it, will think about it later. My mum's a chunin, so I'll be fine... so whatever."
'Having connections like that close to you is definitely useful,' thought Takuma. Could he consider Maruboshi as his connection? Yeah, he could. What was Maruboshi's shinobi rank?
"You're pretty smart, huh, Taro," said Takuma in praise.
"Hmm? Na, you just stupid for not knowing it."
Takuma's eye twitched at the blunt insult. He said, "Did Hiji pass?"
"He did. With Aimi and Sho."
"So you must be stupider than the mutt."
That made a hit. Takuma could tell from the way Taro's eyes narrowed that he had made a hit.
"I'm just a... what do they say... a late bloomer," said Taro.
Kids these days were quicker than he was at their age, Takuma thought as he said: "I could be a late bloomer as well."
"Na, you just stupid."
"Does your insult vocabulary only have stupid in it?"
"My mom says not to use curse words."
-.-.-
Takuma sighed, remembering his conversation with Taro a couple of days back. It wasn't the best place, but it wasn't the dead ditch he had initially feared. Maruboshi's words about putting in the effort made sense after hearing that genins could get away from Genin Corps and get into other divisions to improve their career.
But did he want that? Takuma furrowed his brows. The reason he had been aiming to become a shinobi wasn't that he wanted career progression and better pay— yes, those perks were great— but the main reason had been something else.
"Next!"
Takuma stepped into the office and faced another desk genin. He handed her a slip and told his name. The woman got up from her desk and walked to a cabinet before returning to him and giving him a sealed envelope. She asked him to check it and then sign a collection form.
He tore the envelope and titled it to drop a laminated id-card onto his palm.
———
Leaf Shinobi Identification Card
Name: Takuma
Shinobi Registration: 055-0037
Rank: Genin
Status: Active
Pay Grade: GN1
———
Leaf Shinobi Identification Card
Name: Takuma
Shinobi Registration: 055-0037
Rank: Genin
Status: Active
Pay Grade: GN1
———
Takuma stared at his picture on the card. It was a bad picture, on the level of a driving license ugly. He knew it would stick until the id-card's expiration date before he would need to renew it or when there was a need for a change.
He hadn't chosen to become a shinobi to have a career progression and nice pay. He had chosen because he knew what was waiting for him out there— he didn't even need to cross the village walls— the dangers lurked in the supposed safe village.
He had chosen to become a shinobi because he didn't have a choice.
He had chosen it because it was essential.
Takuma gripped the card harder. He was going to see to it that the rank of the card would someday say jonin on it— the elite, someone harder to kill off.
Because it was essential for his survival.
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CH_2.2 (033): Genin Corps
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
The next day, Takuma found himself in a large field. Unlike the grassy fields with Maruboshi, every step on these yellow fields would kick up dust. Situated in one of the shinobi cantonments of the Leaf village, the field was the site for the first meeting of the newly minted rookies joining the Genin Corps. After completing his morning training, Takuma arrived early on the field to be safe on his first day.
So here he was, waiting for the other rookie genins to arrive. His classmates began to arrive in groups as if they had decided to meet somewhere else before coming to the meeting site. He didn't greet them and stood by the side, watching them mingle and taking note of everyone who had failed the jonin test to end up in the same position. They may have acted like they were better than him in the academy, but now they were on the same level as him. He did wave to Taro, who gave him a 'sup' nod. Unlike the day they had met, his messy man bun was made tight and clean. Even he, himself, had cut and combed his hair, clipped his nails, and had his clothes ironed, all to make an excellent first impression.
Takuma noticed someone he didn't recognize walking into the field. He immediately straightened up, thinking it was someone senior from the Genin Corps, only to notice that the person was young. The new arrival looked about the same age as him. Soon after, more young people began trickling into the field, and Takuma recognized none of them. They all looked to be his age, and all of them had shiny plates on their forehead protectors.
"Hello," one of the strangers walked to him and greeted him with a smile with a gap between the front two incisors. "Where are you from?"
Takuma furrowed his brows a smudge. The person spoke in an accent he had never heard before— he had only one accent in the Leaf village, which was the one he spoke in, but this one was different. He did understand it, though it took a second to process.
"My name's Takuma. Who might you be?" he introduced.
"Oh! Nice to meet you, Takuma! I'm Ando Masaaki!" said the boy as he shook Takuma's hand with both his hands. "I came from Inaho," he said with a grin.
"You're from, where, again?"
"Inaho, it's down south, beyond the Kaikyo-en, near the Shuen fields," Masaaki rattled off the words like a Gatling gun.
Takuma took a moment to separate the joint sentence into individual words. Land of Fire's political landscape with its various regions, provinces, and cities had been part of the academy curriculum. He didn't know Inaho, but he did know Kaikyo-en, it was one of the two great mountain ranges that ran through the Land of Fire. The Hidden Leaf village, itself, was located two hundred kilometers from the Kaikyo-en range's mountains. He also knew about the Shuen fields, the rice bowl of the Land of Fire— as much as seventy percent of the nation's rice came from Shuen fields.
"So, you're not from the Leaf village?" Takuma looked at Masaaki's forehead protector wrapped around his head. "You are a rookie, right?"
"Gave the exam back at home, passed last month. Came here last week with my pops, he went back home yesterday," said Masaaki, his hundred-watt smile dimmed a little bit.
Takuma digested the information in his mind. He wanted to ask the obvious question but decided to bite it back and went with: "So, how was the academy back at home?"
"Hmm? We didn't have one back in Inaho. Kiwanishi had one. Inaho, Kiwanishi, and three other villages shared that one academy."
He knew it! Takuma had no idea that there were shinobi academies outside the Hidden Leaf village but from Masaaki's words, he had one near his home. And it was safe to assume that similar shinobi academies existed across the Land of Fire to recruit more people as shinobi. It made sense, didn't it— why only use children from one village/city when you have an entire nation's youth to choose from.
Takuma felt he had learned something important. He wet his lip before posing his second question, "Did you give the jonin test?"
If Masaaki had dog ears, they would droop down. "Yeah, me, Ai, and Nenro gave the test, but she failed us," he said, sounding.
'Of course, or else you wouldn't be here,' thought Takuma.
"... The others back home will make fun of us even though we bragged so much."
"Others, fun? What do you mean?"
Then Masaaki told Takuma something that made him realize how privileged his classmates— not him— were by attending the shinobi academy in the Leaf village. According to Masaaki, every year, only the top three to six of the academy graduates, the very best, would be selected to travel to the Leaf village to be tested by a jonin to be part of a three-man cell— the rest of them would be directly conscripted to the Genin Corps, and serve around the regions near their academy, they didn't even get to come to the Leaf village.
'No, I'm privileged as well,' thought Takuma. Even though he didn't get a chance to test for the jonin-led three-man cell, he was at least in the Leaf village and not in some remote place.
"So, you're from here, huh," Masaaki said.
"Hmm?" Takuma, who had been lost in thought, focused back on his new companion. "Yeah, I'm from Leaf village. Why?"
Masaaki looked towards the only large group in the field. It was made up of Takuma's classmates. "You're not standing with them or not dressed like that, so I thought you'd be the same as me," he said.
Takuma peered at his classmates, and all of them were wearing their own clothes— unlike Takuma and Masaaki, who wore the standard blue vest and pants. In fact, Takuma's classmates, along with a couple more, were the only ones not wearing the standard gear— everyone else was dressed in the same blue attire.
"Did they tell you to dress in uniform?" asked Takuma. He was wearing one of the sets Maruboshi had gifted him. He was also issued two extra pairs yesterday after getting his id-card. Though, Maruboshi's gifts were of higher quality fabric.
"Isaki-sensei, the chunin who came with us, told us to wear the standard gear to put a good impression because we're not from here," said Masaaki, still staring at Takuma's classmates. "You don't get along with them?"
Takuma shrugged. "Can't say I do. They're not bad people, though. If you want to make friends, go ahead," he said before asking: "What about your other two friends? I don't see them; you didn't come with them?"
"Oh no, they're there," Masaaki pointed to a pair standing on the other side of the field. The boy and girl were, similarly, dressed in the standard gear and stood awfully close to each other, and upon a longer look, they were holding hands.
"Oh my, are they..."
"Yuck," Masaaki stuck out his tongue in disgust, "they're always like that. One day, I swear, they will merge into one blob."
Takuma laughed. He didn't know if it was natural physiology or because of chakra, but the children in this world were more mature than the children back in his world. It was good that they matured quicker because being a child soldier wasn't nothing to sneeze at.
After a while, there were around a hundred genins gathered in the field in small groups (with Takuma's classmates forming the largest group). Soon after, two older men dressed in the standard shinobi gear with flak jackets strolled into the field. One of them looked like a bodybuilder with a buzz cut, while the other looked shady with his dark shades and forehead protector covering his entire head.
"Get into a ten-by-ten grid now," said the bulky man in a naturally loud, gruff voice. "There should be ninety-seven of you here."
"Quickly!" said the shady man in a breathy voice.
The rookie genin followed the orders and formed a ten-by-ten grid with the last three places empty.
The bulky shinobi waited until everyone was silent and looked at them and then raised one of his hands to reveal an analog stopwatch. "It took you two minutes and seventeen seconds to stand properly," he stared down the genin in front of him before sneering. "Pathetic!"
Takuma narrowed his eyes at the venom in the bulky man's voice. He glanced around, and others were showing varied expressions reflecting the same emotion.
"At least all of you're on time," the shady guy snickered.
"All of you, whatever filth you crawled from, are here because you were deemed unfit by an elite jonin of their time and guidance, in other words, they marked you as useless garbage. Due to that, you were conscripted to the Genin Corps because this is the only place that would take you in," the bulky guy said apathetically. Takuma could feel the tension rise around him. He could see Masaaki beside him clench his fist— recalling what he had told him, Masaaki was sent to the Leaf village for being the best in his class, and now, he was being told that he was useless— he could understand the reaction.
"I am Chunin Ueda Yoshio," said the bulky man. "But you don't call me that. Call me by name, and I'll make you regret being born. If you want to address me, do it by sir. As a matter of fact, any shit that comes out of your mouth should be followed by a sir. Does everybody understand?"
There was an unchorused mumble of "Yes, sir" from the genins.
"You guys can't even respond properly," the shady guy shouted at them. "I have perfect hearing, and I didn't hear it. DO— YOU— UNDERSTAND?"
This time, the group chorused with a loud "YES, SIR!"
"We will see about that," Yoshi glared at everyone. "I don't know what I did, but I was unfortunate enough to be handed the duty to whip you failures into shape so that you won't embarrass Leaf shinobi... no, all shinobi across the lands... in front of our patrons. I will try to accomplish this task, no matter how unlikely I think it is, because those are my orders— and every word that comes out of my mouth will be your orders. Understood?"
"YES, SIR!"
"Good, now tell me which one of you is the shitstain named Takuma."
Takuma, who had been staring straight ahead like in a military movie, flinched. "Me, sir!" he hesitantly raised his hand.
Yoshio walked through the grid until he was standing uncomfortably close to Takuma, who could feel his warm breath over his face and smell the scent of deodorant that the larger man had worn. Takuma didn't blink or look at Yoshio and simply started ahead in the back of the skull of the person standing in front of him.
"Listen, everyone, dear boy Takuma here failed his graduation test twice before he somehow lucked out on the third try. I don't know how he passed the third time, and if the invigilator weren't chunin, who is not even on the same planet as him, I would've thought he cheated. I think he still did something fishy to pass because there's no way this stupid twig could be a shinobi. He was so bad that, unlike all of you, they didn't even let him test for a three-man cell," hearing Yoshio's voice this close rattled Takuma's heart in his chest. Yoshio leaned forward, his nose almost touching Takuma's temple. "I don't know whose ass you licked to get that headband, but make one stupid mistake, and I swear to god that there will be no luck helping you here."
"Yes, sir!" Takuma said loudly, his eyes trained straight. He had taken the judging eyes of his classmates until they had grown desensitized and had grown to see it as normal. A little bit of yelling in his face, while new, didn't really affect him. He was prepared for it. The announcement of his failure to people who didn't know did get to him, even though he knew the rumor would leak his result through his classmates.
Yoshio, who was leaning away from Takuma, froze when he heard the shout and stared at Takuma with a hard stare that only broke because someone in the assembly scoffed.
It was one of Takuma's classmates, and while Yoshio missed it, the shady guy caught it. He briskly walked to the guy and yelled into his face. "Is there something funny, genin?! Tell everyone so they can also laugh. Do you think you're better than him? Do you?! At least he wore his uniform; you didn't even have that common sense! We gave you the gears for a reason. God damn wear them!"
The classmate who had laughed flinched and looked down at his feet.
"Everyone who didn't wear the provided uniform will stay back today," said Yoshio.
He walked to the front of the group before addressing them again. "You're hereby part of the Genin Corp basic training. If I do my job properly, you'll enjoy hell after you die."
Takuma straightened and up clenched his fists. If life was going to be hard, then so was he.
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So here he was, waiting for the other rookie genins to arrive. His classmates began to arrive in groups as if they had decided to meet somewhere else before coming to the meeting site. He didn't greet them and stood by the side, watching them mingle and taking note of everyone who had failed the jonin test to end up in the same position. They may have acted like they were better than him in the academy, but now they were on the same level as him. He did wave to Taro, who gave him a 'sup' nod. Unlike the day they had met, his messy man bun was made tight and clean. Even he, himself, had cut and combed his hair, clipped his nails, and had his clothes ironed, all to make an excellent first impression.
Takuma noticed someone he didn't recognize walking into the field. He immediately straightened up, thinking it was someone senior from the Genin Corps, only to notice that the person was young. The new arrival looked about the same age as him. Soon after, more young people began trickling into the field, and Takuma recognized none of them. They all looked to be his age, and all of them had shiny plates on their forehead protectors.
"Hello," one of the strangers walked to him and greeted him with a smile with a gap between the front two incisors. "Where are you from?"
Takuma furrowed his brows a smudge. The person spoke in an accent he had never heard before— he had only one accent in the Leaf village, which was the one he spoke in, but this one was different. He did understand it, though it took a second to process.
"My name's Takuma. Who might you be?" he introduced.
"Oh! Nice to meet you, Takuma! I'm Ando Masaaki!" said the boy as he shook Takuma's hand with both his hands. "I came from Inaho," he said with a grin.
"You're from, where, again?"
"Inaho, it's down south, beyond the Kaikyo-en, near the Shuen fields," Masaaki rattled off the words like a Gatling gun.
Takuma took a moment to separate the joint sentence into individual words. Land of Fire's political landscape with its various regions, provinces, and cities had been part of the academy curriculum. He didn't know Inaho, but he did know Kaikyo-en, it was one of the two great mountain ranges that ran through the Land of Fire. The Hidden Leaf village, itself, was located two hundred kilometers from the Kaikyo-en range's mountains. He also knew about the Shuen fields, the rice bowl of the Land of Fire— as much as seventy percent of the nation's rice came from Shuen fields.
"So, you're not from the Leaf village?" Takuma looked at Masaaki's forehead protector wrapped around his head. "You are a rookie, right?"
"Gave the exam back at home, passed last month. Came here last week with my pops, he went back home yesterday," said Masaaki, his hundred-watt smile dimmed a little bit.
Takuma digested the information in his mind. He wanted to ask the obvious question but decided to bite it back and went with: "So, how was the academy back at home?"
"Hmm? We didn't have one back in Inaho. Kiwanishi had one. Inaho, Kiwanishi, and three other villages shared that one academy."
He knew it! Takuma had no idea that there were shinobi academies outside the Hidden Leaf village but from Masaaki's words, he had one near his home. And it was safe to assume that similar shinobi academies existed across the Land of Fire to recruit more people as shinobi. It made sense, didn't it— why only use children from one village/city when you have an entire nation's youth to choose from.
Takuma felt he had learned something important. He wet his lip before posing his second question, "Did you give the jonin test?"
If Masaaki had dog ears, they would droop down. "Yeah, me, Ai, and Nenro gave the test, but she failed us," he said, sounding.
'Of course, or else you wouldn't be here,' thought Takuma.
"... The others back home will make fun of us even though we bragged so much."
"Others, fun? What do you mean?"
Then Masaaki told Takuma something that made him realize how privileged his classmates— not him— were by attending the shinobi academy in the Leaf village. According to Masaaki, every year, only the top three to six of the academy graduates, the very best, would be selected to travel to the Leaf village to be tested by a jonin to be part of a three-man cell— the rest of them would be directly conscripted to the Genin Corps, and serve around the regions near their academy, they didn't even get to come to the Leaf village.
'No, I'm privileged as well,' thought Takuma. Even though he didn't get a chance to test for the jonin-led three-man cell, he was at least in the Leaf village and not in some remote place.
"So, you're from here, huh," Masaaki said.
"Hmm?" Takuma, who had been lost in thought, focused back on his new companion. "Yeah, I'm from Leaf village. Why?"
Masaaki looked towards the only large group in the field. It was made up of Takuma's classmates. "You're not standing with them or not dressed like that, so I thought you'd be the same as me," he said.
Takuma peered at his classmates, and all of them were wearing their own clothes— unlike Takuma and Masaaki, who wore the standard blue vest and pants. In fact, Takuma's classmates, along with a couple more, were the only ones not wearing the standard gear— everyone else was dressed in the same blue attire.
"Did they tell you to dress in uniform?" asked Takuma. He was wearing one of the sets Maruboshi had gifted him. He was also issued two extra pairs yesterday after getting his id-card. Though, Maruboshi's gifts were of higher quality fabric.
"Isaki-sensei, the chunin who came with us, told us to wear the standard gear to put a good impression because we're not from here," said Masaaki, still staring at Takuma's classmates. "You don't get along with them?"
Takuma shrugged. "Can't say I do. They're not bad people, though. If you want to make friends, go ahead," he said before asking: "What about your other two friends? I don't see them; you didn't come with them?"
"Oh no, they're there," Masaaki pointed to a pair standing on the other side of the field. The boy and girl were, similarly, dressed in the standard gear and stood awfully close to each other, and upon a longer look, they were holding hands.
"Oh my, are they..."
"Yuck," Masaaki stuck out his tongue in disgust, "they're always like that. One day, I swear, they will merge into one blob."
Takuma laughed. He didn't know if it was natural physiology or because of chakra, but the children in this world were more mature than the children back in his world. It was good that they matured quicker because being a child soldier wasn't nothing to sneeze at.
After a while, there were around a hundred genins gathered in the field in small groups (with Takuma's classmates forming the largest group). Soon after, two older men dressed in the standard shinobi gear with flak jackets strolled into the field. One of them looked like a bodybuilder with a buzz cut, while the other looked shady with his dark shades and forehead protector covering his entire head.
"Get into a ten-by-ten grid now," said the bulky man in a naturally loud, gruff voice. "There should be ninety-seven of you here."
"Quickly!" said the shady man in a breathy voice.
The rookie genin followed the orders and formed a ten-by-ten grid with the last three places empty.
The bulky shinobi waited until everyone was silent and looked at them and then raised one of his hands to reveal an analog stopwatch. "It took you two minutes and seventeen seconds to stand properly," he stared down the genin in front of him before sneering. "Pathetic!"
Takuma narrowed his eyes at the venom in the bulky man's voice. He glanced around, and others were showing varied expressions reflecting the same emotion.
"At least all of you're on time," the shady guy snickered.
"All of you, whatever filth you crawled from, are here because you were deemed unfit by an elite jonin of their time and guidance, in other words, they marked you as useless garbage. Due to that, you were conscripted to the Genin Corps because this is the only place that would take you in," the bulky guy said apathetically. Takuma could feel the tension rise around him. He could see Masaaki beside him clench his fist— recalling what he had told him, Masaaki was sent to the Leaf village for being the best in his class, and now, he was being told that he was useless— he could understand the reaction.
"I am Chunin Ueda Yoshio," said the bulky man. "But you don't call me that. Call me by name, and I'll make you regret being born. If you want to address me, do it by sir. As a matter of fact, any shit that comes out of your mouth should be followed by a sir. Does everybody understand?"
There was an unchorused mumble of "Yes, sir" from the genins.
"You guys can't even respond properly," the shady guy shouted at them. "I have perfect hearing, and I didn't hear it. DO— YOU— UNDERSTAND?"
This time, the group chorused with a loud "YES, SIR!"
"We will see about that," Yoshi glared at everyone. "I don't know what I did, but I was unfortunate enough to be handed the duty to whip you failures into shape so that you won't embarrass Leaf shinobi... no, all shinobi across the lands... in front of our patrons. I will try to accomplish this task, no matter how unlikely I think it is, because those are my orders— and every word that comes out of my mouth will be your orders. Understood?"
"YES, SIR!"
"Good, now tell me which one of you is the shitstain named Takuma."
Takuma, who had been staring straight ahead like in a military movie, flinched. "Me, sir!" he hesitantly raised his hand.
Yoshio walked through the grid until he was standing uncomfortably close to Takuma, who could feel his warm breath over his face and smell the scent of deodorant that the larger man had worn. Takuma didn't blink or look at Yoshio and simply started ahead in the back of the skull of the person standing in front of him.
"Listen, everyone, dear boy Takuma here failed his graduation test twice before he somehow lucked out on the third try. I don't know how he passed the third time, and if the invigilator weren't chunin, who is not even on the same planet as him, I would've thought he cheated. I think he still did something fishy to pass because there's no way this stupid twig could be a shinobi. He was so bad that, unlike all of you, they didn't even let him test for a three-man cell," hearing Yoshio's voice this close rattled Takuma's heart in his chest. Yoshio leaned forward, his nose almost touching Takuma's temple. "I don't know whose ass you licked to get that headband, but make one stupid mistake, and I swear to god that there will be no luck helping you here."
"Yes, sir!" Takuma said loudly, his eyes trained straight. He had taken the judging eyes of his classmates until they had grown desensitized and had grown to see it as normal. A little bit of yelling in his face, while new, didn't really affect him. He was prepared for it. The announcement of his failure to people who didn't know did get to him, even though he knew the rumor would leak his result through his classmates.
Yoshio, who was leaning away from Takuma, froze when he heard the shout and stared at Takuma with a hard stare that only broke because someone in the assembly scoffed.
It was one of Takuma's classmates, and while Yoshio missed it, the shady guy caught it. He briskly walked to the guy and yelled into his face. "Is there something funny, genin?! Tell everyone so they can also laugh. Do you think you're better than him? Do you?! At least he wore his uniform; you didn't even have that common sense! We gave you the gears for a reason. God damn wear them!"
The classmate who had laughed flinched and looked down at his feet.
"Everyone who didn't wear the provided uniform will stay back today," said Yoshio.
He walked to the front of the group before addressing them again. "You're hereby part of the Genin Corp basic training. If I do my job properly, you'll enjoy hell after you die."
Takuma straightened and up clenched his fists. If life was going to be hard, then so was he.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ugh, years of classes followed by basic training. It's like an ROTC program. *shudder* Poor guy.
Jiopaba
Eat Lightning; Crap Success.
Given how far his dedication drove him, getting reincarnated into this guy so late is just a ripoff. If he'd even had two years like he initially thought, he'd probably have been one of the better genin in his class by sheer hard work.
I do hope that we don't have another 27 straight chapters of this guy getting shit on before he manages to accomplish anything, though. I get the feeling he might do better under harsh military-style discipline than his peers by dint of maturity but not getting smoked every ten seconds in boot camp isn't a terribly exciting achievement compared to "I've got the power of God and Anime on my side" bullshit.
I do hope that we don't have another 27 straight chapters of this guy getting shit on before he manages to accomplish anything, though. I get the feeling he might do better under harsh military-style discipline than his peers by dint of maturity but not getting smoked every ten seconds in boot camp isn't a terribly exciting achievement compared to "I've got the power of God and Anime on my side" bullshit.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I get the feeling that the Drill Instructor may start to warm up to the MC. He has to be a hard-ass drill seargent but it the MC keeps improving the instructor may use him as an example. A sort of "Look at this guy who went from sucking to being able to kick your asses, how have you improved here?" Also the MC has the support/tutelage of the Eternal Genin which probably counts for a bit if people need a dude from the Genin Corps.
Also is that second Chunin Hayate Gekko or am I reading too far into things?
Also is that second Chunin Hayate Gekko or am I reading too far into things?
Last edited:
CH_2.3 (034): New Team
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Takuma could hear his breathing inside his head as he observed his team in various states of exertion. On the first day, the rookie genins had been apportioned into teams of five each. Any group activity was to be done with the team.
His new team... was interesting, to say the least.
"You... You're a monster, Masaaki," said the girl with the bub cut and a lock of hair braided a violet ribbon just in front of the ear. She was huffing heavily with her hands on her knees as she looked up at Masaaki.
She wasn't wrong. After sprinting for the better part of half an hour, Masaaki looked like he could do it for another hour without breaking a sweat.
Masaaki's laugh was boisterous. "You don't train enough, Ai," he said with his arms crossed over his chest.
"I train enough! You're the deviant one!"
Masaaki laughed more.
"Ai's right, Masaaki. You're just something else," said the guy standing beside Ai with his hands resting on his waist as he caught his breathing.
Takuma could confidently say that he hadn't seen a more handsome eleven year old in both of his lives. Nenro, Masaaki's classmate from the academy, was strikingly good-looking with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and tall stature. Takuma had noticed many interested eyes from girls in the rookies lingering at Nenro, and many had even come to talk to him over—the number would've been higher if Ai hadn't staked her claim in public. Takuma wondered if it was a coincidence or deliberate that Masaaki, Ai, and Nenro were placed together on the team.
That left the last member of his team. Takuma turned to look at the ground behind him, where Taro wheezed on the ground as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the world.
"... I never noticed you have such low stamina," Takuma said to Taro.
Taro stared up at him and looked like he wanted to say something but closed his eyes.
"Takuma, you also seem to be doing well," Nenro's voice made Takuma turn towards the handsome blonde and chuckle.
"... I run a lot," he smiled wryly.
"I'm sorry, should I've not asked?" Nenro asked with a worried look on his face.
"Eh? Ah, no, no, it's nothing," Takuma waved him off— it was more like he was forced to run by Maruboshi during the Leaf/Coin Concentration Practice. He wasn't as sunny as Masaaki, but he had already caught his breath and could go again. "How's the search for the apartment going?" he asked.
Ai perked up as a starry look appeared in her eyes. "We found the perfect place! It's only a couple streets away from the main road. The market and bathhouse are like five minutes away. And you won't believe how nice the apartment is— it's better than my home back in Kiwanishi!" she said in glowing praise.
"We're going to finalize the lease today," Nenro smiled softly.
"Well, congratulations on finding someplace you like."
"We're going to have a housewarming party or something when we get some time. Come visit us then," said Masaaki.
Takuma nodded. He still lived in the same place. The state previously rented the place, and the rent was paid directly by them without Takuma needing to do it himself. But after Takuma graduated, that stopped like the allowance. The landlord had come asking the very first day if Takuma wanted to rent, and he had agreed. Even though his house was nowhere near the main streets or the market— the apartment was excellent in shape and had twenty-four hours of electricity and water, and even though the neighborhood didn't house great characters, it was quiet, something Takuma appreciated. Plus, he was comfortable with his place, and that's what mattered most. And it wasn't like he could afford a place in a nicer area like the trio— even they could only afford it because they were splitting the rent three ways. The landlord had drawn a new lease after a long round of negotiation in which Takuma dragged the price down as much as he could. On the downside, he had to give three months' rent in advance, which had put a dent in his savings.
"Though, I'm surprised that we found the place so quickly. The landlord didn't even try to negotiate the price much and looked happy to rent the place to us," said Nenro with concern, "I fear that there must be something wrong with the place."
"Don't jinx it, Nenro," Ai lightly kicked Nenro on his leg.
"Shinobi make great tenants..." Everyone turned to Taro, who had now sat on the ground. "... or to be precise, genin makes for great tenants. Shinobi are paid more handsomely than most professions out there, and genin are only assigned D- and C-rank missions where the risk of dying is lower than the higher-grade missions that aren't assigned to genins. There's rarely any downside to renting out to genins. Chunin and Jonin, on the other hand, are a completely different story. B-rank missions anticipate combat with other shinobi, and the risk of casualty spikes up like a mountain; I don't even need to speak about A-rank assignments. And owners don't really prefer tenants who can die one random day, leaving them responsible for cleaning out the place, contacting the next of kin, and doing additional paperwork— thus making chunin and jonin terrible tenants. My dad said that he and mum were forced to take out a loan to buy our house because they couldn't find a good place to rent."
That made sense. Takuma didn't know how much his status as genin contributed to his landlord from keeping the apartment for the ever-reliable state to renting out his property to an eleven-year-old. The landlord had visited the apartment for regular check-ups and had never complained about anything as Takuma kept his place clean, and he never had any complaints from his neighbors as he wasn't at home for most of the day. Maybe that contributed as well, he thought.
"Gather up!"
Yoshio's voice boomed in the field. No one wasted one movement and hurried to gather in front of the instructor as if the last one would be strung up dead. In less than half a minute, twenty-five genins had placed themselves in a neat five-by-five grid that they had learned to form in the past two weeks. The ninety-seven genins had been quartered into three groups of twenty-five(one of twenty-two) made up of teams of five(or four). Takuma's group had the fortune(or ill fortune, as Taro put it) to be taught by Yoshio, while some other chunins took the other groups.
"To be tired by running a few steps. Pathetic," said Yoshio as he walked the ample space between each genin. He had a baton in his hand to strike them whenever someone did something he didn't appreciate. Yoshio walked behind Taro and smacked him on his back to make him stand in rod-like attention— or whenever he found even the slightest of mistakes.
"As you losers are right now, you're going to be mauled by drunkards and filthy bandits, and while I don't mind that happening, the higher-ups don't want to see the money spent stitching your uniforms go to waste— I warned them not to pay you little shits, but they didn't listen— so I have to make sure you don't die in some random ditch while on missions."
Takuma felt insulted at the remark. He didn't know about a bandit, as he hadn't met one, but he could wipe the floor with the drunkards he had said in his neighborhood. He glanced at his taijutsu-proficient classmates, and they looked more displeased than him.
"We're going to remedy that, but before that, I need a volunteer." A mocking smirk surfaced on his face, "Which one of you sorry doormats think they can take me on? Anyone who thinks they're better than me?"
A hand was immediately raised, and Takuma recognized it was one of his classmates, one with higher taijutsu proficiency. "Sir! I think I can do that, sir!" he said loudly.
Yoshio grinned and threw the baton away. He beckoned the guy forward. The genin walked out of the grid with an angry look on his face and immediately darted toward Yoshio without warning. The chunin instructor's grin widened as he effortlessly caught a kick from the genin. Yoshio's muscles bulged under his vest as he used the caught leg to swing the genin and thrash him into the ground face first. There was a sickening "gah" from Takuma's classmate.
Yoshio raised his foot and stomped it down on the guy's calf. Even though it wasn't audible, Takuma could hear the bone crack in his mind. His breath caught for a second.
"Are you alright, genin?" Yoshio asked, unbothered by what he had just done.
Takuma's classmate was holding his leg and shaking. His body had shrunk slightly into a fetal position. He said in a croaky voice, "Sir! Yes... sir! H-However, I-I think I broke my foot, s-sir!"
"Nothing serious then," smiled Yoshio. He then yelled, "Medic!"
In the middle of the large field shared by all five groups, the shady guy with dark glasses, who had accompanied Yoshio on the first day, sat on a foldable chair under a beach umbrella. He put down whatever book he was reading and teleported from there to beside Yoshio using Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Jutsu).
He knelt down beside the cowering genin. He pulled the pant sleeve and observed the injury while the genin hissed, groaned, and yelled in pain when he was poked or his leg was was moved. The shady guy weaved hand seals before holding the leg with one hand and placing his other hand over the point of breakage for an iridescent green glow of Iryo-jutsu to appear.
"You see, I was pissed when they forced me to teach you a lot that I decided. I couldn't do anything as they were my orders, but I decided to make it a little fun. So, I proposed a harmless bet to the instructors. All four of us train our groups, and at the end of the basic training, one team for each group will participate in a tournament to decide a winner," said Yoshio.
Takuma narrowed his eyes. The shitty instructor was using them for fun and games. This was definitely some sort of new rookie hazing— pitting them against each other like animals in a fight club and enjoying as they beat each other up.
"Of course, we understand the need for some motivation for you lazy lot," Yoshio continued. "The four teams that participate in the tournament will not be participating as teams; they will participate as individuals, meaning there will be one winner," the chunin instructor raised one finger. "As a reward, the winner will get a C-rank jutsu scroll."
Takuma's eyes widened as he heard gasps around him. The academy three were E-rank jutsu. Rookie genins like them were allowed access to a library of D-rank jutsu. C-rank jutsu was beyond that. Takuma didn't know if genins were allowed access to C-rank jutsu, but from the gasps around him, he could infer that even if they were, he wasn't going to get his hands on one for a long time.
"For my group, that's you guys; there will be a leaderboard that will be updated every week. Every week, the team on the top will be exempted from some punishment everyone else will have to face," Yoshio's face was the perfect expression of evil.
"The team on the top of the leaderboard at the end of the basic training will participate in the final tournament."
Takuma clenched his grip on his other wrist behind his back. He could feel his heartbeat through the pulse on his wrist. A C-rank jutsu. For an orphan like him who wasn't part of a jonin-led three-man cell, or from a shinobi clan, or had close relatives in the shinobi organization, a C-rank jutsu was more precious than gold.
He had to get it.
He was going to get it...
... No matter what it took.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
His new team... was interesting, to say the least.
"You... You're a monster, Masaaki," said the girl with the bub cut and a lock of hair braided a violet ribbon just in front of the ear. She was huffing heavily with her hands on her knees as she looked up at Masaaki.
She wasn't wrong. After sprinting for the better part of half an hour, Masaaki looked like he could do it for another hour without breaking a sweat.
Masaaki's laugh was boisterous. "You don't train enough, Ai," he said with his arms crossed over his chest.
"I train enough! You're the deviant one!"
Masaaki laughed more.
"Ai's right, Masaaki. You're just something else," said the guy standing beside Ai with his hands resting on his waist as he caught his breathing.
Takuma could confidently say that he hadn't seen a more handsome eleven year old in both of his lives. Nenro, Masaaki's classmate from the academy, was strikingly good-looking with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and tall stature. Takuma had noticed many interested eyes from girls in the rookies lingering at Nenro, and many had even come to talk to him over—the number would've been higher if Ai hadn't staked her claim in public. Takuma wondered if it was a coincidence or deliberate that Masaaki, Ai, and Nenro were placed together on the team.
That left the last member of his team. Takuma turned to look at the ground behind him, where Taro wheezed on the ground as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the world.
"... I never noticed you have such low stamina," Takuma said to Taro.
Taro stared up at him and looked like he wanted to say something but closed his eyes.
"Takuma, you also seem to be doing well," Nenro's voice made Takuma turn towards the handsome blonde and chuckle.
"... I run a lot," he smiled wryly.
"I'm sorry, should I've not asked?" Nenro asked with a worried look on his face.
"Eh? Ah, no, no, it's nothing," Takuma waved him off— it was more like he was forced to run by Maruboshi during the Leaf/Coin Concentration Practice. He wasn't as sunny as Masaaki, but he had already caught his breath and could go again. "How's the search for the apartment going?" he asked.
Ai perked up as a starry look appeared in her eyes. "We found the perfect place! It's only a couple streets away from the main road. The market and bathhouse are like five minutes away. And you won't believe how nice the apartment is— it's better than my home back in Kiwanishi!" she said in glowing praise.
"We're going to finalize the lease today," Nenro smiled softly.
"Well, congratulations on finding someplace you like."
"We're going to have a housewarming party or something when we get some time. Come visit us then," said Masaaki.
Takuma nodded. He still lived in the same place. The state previously rented the place, and the rent was paid directly by them without Takuma needing to do it himself. But after Takuma graduated, that stopped like the allowance. The landlord had come asking the very first day if Takuma wanted to rent, and he had agreed. Even though his house was nowhere near the main streets or the market— the apartment was excellent in shape and had twenty-four hours of electricity and water, and even though the neighborhood didn't house great characters, it was quiet, something Takuma appreciated. Plus, he was comfortable with his place, and that's what mattered most. And it wasn't like he could afford a place in a nicer area like the trio— even they could only afford it because they were splitting the rent three ways. The landlord had drawn a new lease after a long round of negotiation in which Takuma dragged the price down as much as he could. On the downside, he had to give three months' rent in advance, which had put a dent in his savings.
"Though, I'm surprised that we found the place so quickly. The landlord didn't even try to negotiate the price much and looked happy to rent the place to us," said Nenro with concern, "I fear that there must be something wrong with the place."
"Don't jinx it, Nenro," Ai lightly kicked Nenro on his leg.
"Shinobi make great tenants..." Everyone turned to Taro, who had now sat on the ground. "... or to be precise, genin makes for great tenants. Shinobi are paid more handsomely than most professions out there, and genin are only assigned D- and C-rank missions where the risk of dying is lower than the higher-grade missions that aren't assigned to genins. There's rarely any downside to renting out to genins. Chunin and Jonin, on the other hand, are a completely different story. B-rank missions anticipate combat with other shinobi, and the risk of casualty spikes up like a mountain; I don't even need to speak about A-rank assignments. And owners don't really prefer tenants who can die one random day, leaving them responsible for cleaning out the place, contacting the next of kin, and doing additional paperwork— thus making chunin and jonin terrible tenants. My dad said that he and mum were forced to take out a loan to buy our house because they couldn't find a good place to rent."
That made sense. Takuma didn't know how much his status as genin contributed to his landlord from keeping the apartment for the ever-reliable state to renting out his property to an eleven-year-old. The landlord had visited the apartment for regular check-ups and had never complained about anything as Takuma kept his place clean, and he never had any complaints from his neighbors as he wasn't at home for most of the day. Maybe that contributed as well, he thought.
"Gather up!"
Yoshio's voice boomed in the field. No one wasted one movement and hurried to gather in front of the instructor as if the last one would be strung up dead. In less than half a minute, twenty-five genins had placed themselves in a neat five-by-five grid that they had learned to form in the past two weeks. The ninety-seven genins had been quartered into three groups of twenty-five(one of twenty-two) made up of teams of five(or four). Takuma's group had the fortune(or ill fortune, as Taro put it) to be taught by Yoshio, while some other chunins took the other groups.
"To be tired by running a few steps. Pathetic," said Yoshio as he walked the ample space between each genin. He had a baton in his hand to strike them whenever someone did something he didn't appreciate. Yoshio walked behind Taro and smacked him on his back to make him stand in rod-like attention— or whenever he found even the slightest of mistakes.
"As you losers are right now, you're going to be mauled by drunkards and filthy bandits, and while I don't mind that happening, the higher-ups don't want to see the money spent stitching your uniforms go to waste— I warned them not to pay you little shits, but they didn't listen— so I have to make sure you don't die in some random ditch while on missions."
Takuma felt insulted at the remark. He didn't know about a bandit, as he hadn't met one, but he could wipe the floor with the drunkards he had said in his neighborhood. He glanced at his taijutsu-proficient classmates, and they looked more displeased than him.
"We're going to remedy that, but before that, I need a volunteer." A mocking smirk surfaced on his face, "Which one of you sorry doormats think they can take me on? Anyone who thinks they're better than me?"
A hand was immediately raised, and Takuma recognized it was one of his classmates, one with higher taijutsu proficiency. "Sir! I think I can do that, sir!" he said loudly.
Yoshio grinned and threw the baton away. He beckoned the guy forward. The genin walked out of the grid with an angry look on his face and immediately darted toward Yoshio without warning. The chunin instructor's grin widened as he effortlessly caught a kick from the genin. Yoshio's muscles bulged under his vest as he used the caught leg to swing the genin and thrash him into the ground face first. There was a sickening "gah" from Takuma's classmate.
Yoshio raised his foot and stomped it down on the guy's calf. Even though it wasn't audible, Takuma could hear the bone crack in his mind. His breath caught for a second.
"Are you alright, genin?" Yoshio asked, unbothered by what he had just done.
Takuma's classmate was holding his leg and shaking. His body had shrunk slightly into a fetal position. He said in a croaky voice, "Sir! Yes... sir! H-However, I-I think I broke my foot, s-sir!"
"Nothing serious then," smiled Yoshio. He then yelled, "Medic!"
In the middle of the large field shared by all five groups, the shady guy with dark glasses, who had accompanied Yoshio on the first day, sat on a foldable chair under a beach umbrella. He put down whatever book he was reading and teleported from there to beside Yoshio using Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Jutsu).
He knelt down beside the cowering genin. He pulled the pant sleeve and observed the injury while the genin hissed, groaned, and yelled in pain when he was poked or his leg was was moved. The shady guy weaved hand seals before holding the leg with one hand and placing his other hand over the point of breakage for an iridescent green glow of Iryo-jutsu to appear.
"You see, I was pissed when they forced me to teach you a lot that I decided. I couldn't do anything as they were my orders, but I decided to make it a little fun. So, I proposed a harmless bet to the instructors. All four of us train our groups, and at the end of the basic training, one team for each group will participate in a tournament to decide a winner," said Yoshio.
Takuma narrowed his eyes. The shitty instructor was using them for fun and games. This was definitely some sort of new rookie hazing— pitting them against each other like animals in a fight club and enjoying as they beat each other up.
"Of course, we understand the need for some motivation for you lazy lot," Yoshio continued. "The four teams that participate in the tournament will not be participating as teams; they will participate as individuals, meaning there will be one winner," the chunin instructor raised one finger. "As a reward, the winner will get a C-rank jutsu scroll."
Takuma's eyes widened as he heard gasps around him. The academy three were E-rank jutsu. Rookie genins like them were allowed access to a library of D-rank jutsu. C-rank jutsu was beyond that. Takuma didn't know if genins were allowed access to C-rank jutsu, but from the gasps around him, he could infer that even if they were, he wasn't going to get his hands on one for a long time.
"For my group, that's you guys; there will be a leaderboard that will be updated every week. Every week, the team on the top will be exempted from some punishment everyone else will have to face," Yoshio's face was the perfect expression of evil.
"The team on the top of the leaderboard at the end of the basic training will participate in the final tournament."
Takuma clenched his grip on his other wrist behind his back. He could feel his heartbeat through the pulse on his wrist. A C-rank jutsu. For an orphan like him who wasn't part of a jonin-led three-man cell, or from a shinobi clan, or had close relatives in the shinobi organization, a C-rank jutsu was more precious than gold.
He had to get it.
He was going to get it...
... No matter what it took.
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TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
I'm enjoying the fic generally, but channeling the drill instructor scene from Starship Troopers feels a bit out of place.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, starship troopers is about military fascism. Konoha being a military dictatorship, it is right up their alley. Though generally, cultivation settings like Naruto where survival and time means power generally are careful about offending and abusing those weaker than you lest they take revenge when they surpass you. This instructor is kinda courting death here.
Just binged this, Pretty enjoyable. I read that some didn't like the suffering to reward ratio but I think it's alright.
This is one of the downsides of serial writing, when taken as whole things seem okey but when you have to wait between chapter's (even a short wait of a few days) things seem more then they might actually be.
Since when was Naruto a cultivation setting?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Xianxia - Wikipedia
The use of chakra. Improving chakra use through meditative visualization. The soldier pills to boost chakra. The use of Tai Chi and Kung Fu. The monkey king. The structure of old warriors being very powerful. Immortals (the Akatsuki).
It's not only Chinese elements, there's lots of traditional Japanese elements as well.
However, that's no reason to deny the Xianxia portion.
Additional supporting arguments:
Kaguya left for a world where cultivation was not established yet
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