Chapter 3
"…and as the Land of Water is made of a majority of islands and lakes, water walking is a skill all Kirigakure Shinobi must possess. Now, onto the geography of the northern Land of Water. The northern Land of Water has colder temperatures, it was once the home of the now-extinct Yuki clan and their Ice Release Kekkei Genkai…"
The teacher continued to drone his lecture while everybody listened intently, absorbing the information like a sponge in water. Knowledge about the geography of the Land of Water, while it may seem completely useless, could very well save your life in a mission and was generally the inverse, something extremely useful.
It was the opposite as in the Naruto story, people actually listened to the teacher here, nobody dozed off during class. After all, you needed to kill one of your classmates to graduate, you wanted to be as ready as you could, especially in time of war, where you would be sent to the frontlines soon after graduation.
I had noticed that after a week into the Academy, people here were serious and put the effort into becoming stronger, they weren't like in Naruto where you waited until you had a Jonin instructor before starting to seriously train. Most Genin did not even have a four-man team like in the manga.
Also, yes, it had been two weeks since the start of the Academy, and I was surprised by the quality of the teachings, I guess Kiri went to quality of quantity, they did produce a lot of highly skilled shinobi, but killed the other half.
During this time, I had also learned something else, I could only obtain EXP once for defeating someone.
Well, not exactly. To be precise, whenever I defeated someone, I obtained an amount of EXP equal to the difference between what they were worth (in EXP) and what I had already received from defeating them. So if I had never beaten them, I would receive all of the EXP, but if I had already vanquished them, I would only receive EXP if they had improved.
Speaking of defeating people, the students in the second year, especially in the best class, they didn't mess around, they were all minimally as strong as the girl that had hit me with the Thousand Flying Water Needles of Death jutsu and some of them had kicked my ass in the beginning, they had trained for longer than I have; they were all at least eight years old. Still, that meant that they gave a lot of EXP, I had levelled up another time.
But the fact that I was losing also meant that I would improve fast, there was nothing more motivating than getting your but destroyed in a spar. And when jutsu were allowed, it sometimes happened, my loss, that is. I was incontestably the best in taijutsu, but I was a dunce in ninjutsu, a lack of experience and techniques being my downfall. And don't get me started in genjutsu…
Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I resumed my note taking, trying to memorize what he was saying; while I was pretty good at fighting and generally had excellent instincts, I wasn't the most academically skilled kid there was. I was better than average, sure, and my adult mind helped a lot, but I knew that, as people got older, they would surpass me in that area. I did not mind it that much, but studying would be a good habit to have.
After a boring, but instructive hour of lessons on the geography of the land of water, the teacher made us fight, we were to be shinobi, winning was the most important thing. And winning most of the time necessitates skill. So, we fought to improve our skills. Our opponents were, as always, random.
I read the names on the board, hoping that I would have a strong opponent; I wouldn't ever improve if I didn't fight with people stronger than me. My wish came true, a bit too true to my liking, I was against the resident genius, Mei Terumi. I had heard a lot about her, she was from and important and influent clan, was the heiress, so she was very very rich. She struck me as haughty the few times I had interacted with her.
Well, shit.
"First start with taijutsu only spar, then you add jutsu, almost all of you have bad taijutsu. Improve it or you'll get killed," the teacher ordered, not mincing his words.
Brutal honesty was the motto of the Academy, they worked tirelessly do destroy any remnant of ego one might have.
"Go! Be back in one hour!"
I, along with my opponent, went into one of the many training rooms, those were designed to resist most jutsu, as long as one did not make them too strong. It should be able to endure what most Academy students could do.
I entered the room, it was a large, square room with brick walls and a high ceiling, nothing particularly noteworthy.
We both took position without a word, we were ready to start fighting, there was nothing to say, we didn't really know each other, she was from the first caste, I was from the third. We lived in different worlds. She was a princess, a spoiled, rich princess. I was a poor orphan.
Of course, I knew who she was from my knowledge of the future, she would become the Fifth Mizukage in the future, mastering Lava and Boil release. Her talent had already shown, she was only eight years old, but was the strongest in class.
Suddenly, she took off without warning , coming at me fearlessly, her stance focused on mobility and speed, eyes focused, serious.
I took a step back, waiting to assess her talent in taijutsu before deciding my next course of action, so I did the standard stance for my taijutsu style, which was the main leg forward and two armed raised, ready to defend and counterattack. The basis of the style was to be overwhelming, both in offence and defence, like an immovable object and unstoppable force at the same time. I had found it in the library, in a dusty tome. It had been pure luck honestly. But it was awesome, perfectly suited for me.
I easily blocked her first jab with my forearm, replicating my one of my own. She graciously dodged, sliding out of my range, following with a high kick. I parried again, taking her leg in my arm and twisting it.
She tweezed out herself from my grasp, with much difficulty. I let her, I could've probably forced her to put more effort into it, but it wasn't my goal. I was evaluating her.
She was good, her mouvements were fluid, well practiced, efficient. Against anybody else, that would've been enough, but I was not anybody. She also wasn't tired or exhausted, if she had been, it would've seriously disapoitned me, this was not even warm up.
After a small stare-off, the duel restarted, she became aggressive, trying to get past my guard with speed, precise strikes relentlessly coming. I let her again, she wasn't that physically strong, the couple of hits I took would not do me anything. She seemed to get frustrated, nothing she tried worked, the unmovable object.
I smiled, it was time to get serious.
I started a flurry of punches, moving in a way ressembling a machine, automatically, wasting zero mouvements. I was the unstoppable force and also faster than she was. I pushed her back, attempting to hit her, even it was only once, I was stronger than most people thought me to be. She was having difficulty keeping up, her eyes wide in surprise, but holdign herself well enough.. How the tables have turned…
I continued like this, increasing my pace each time she was starting to get confortable, I wanted to exhaust her, she would make a mistake before I would, I was certain of that, this was the advantage of my style and of an high END stat; though it was mostly because of my natural talent at taijutsu.
She started to pant, overwhelmed, stuck on the passive, the defensive, only to avoid taking too serious hits. Her mouvements were sluggish, slower, not as sharp as before, it was only a question of time before I won, but I was not satisfied. I increased my speed again, pushing myself more than I should, my strikes only a blur, with a flesh-hitting sound echoing at times, when I hit her, no doubt those would be painful bruises. She could not keep up. My grin turned bloodthirsty, I loved a good match.
I hit her once in the stomach, her face contorted in pain, I striked hard. She recoiled, trying to get away to catch her breath, to regain control.
I didn't let her.
I hit her twice in the arms, weakening them, I didn't strike at random, but on specific points that would disadvantage her.
She was beginning to having difficulty blocking, she resorted to doing, but it wasn't enough, she was slow, makign rookie mistakes, and she had to work on her reaction time.
I hit her thrice in the legs, finishing with a swipe of my leg, tripping her. The next instant, I had her in an armlock, her face against the ground. She started to struggle, trying to extricate herself from my grasp. It wouldn't work. I was unmovable.
"Yield," I demanded, increasing the pressure on her arms.
She thrashed around a bit more, with less and less energy, resigning herself to her loss. Good, it was useless to try something here, she would only waster her energy.
"I yield," she bitterly gasped, out of breath, she wasn't happy.
I immediately let her go, helping her to her feet, I wasn't cruel. She accepted my help, she didn't seem to be mad against me, but more against herself.
"How do you do it? How are you so good, how do you beat me, what were my mistakes?" the girl with fiery hair asked me, confused and frustrated. Her temper was seemingly matching her hair.
"Well, you are skilled, I admit that, but you lack physical strength, you couldn't do any damage to me. So, train that. But even with poor strength, you can still do some damage if you hit the right spots, but you didn't even try, you struck at random. Like, when I hit your arms, they lost strength, it was not a coincidence, those were not random strikes. But yours were, I could take all of your strikes for the whole period and be fine."
She listened, easily understanding what I was trying to tell her.
"And the main reason I beat you is that I practised my taijutsu a lot, there are no shortcuts. And also work on your reflesxes, they could use a bit of improvement."
Normally I wouldn't help others that much, especially a spoiled princess from the first caste, as maybe I would have to fight one of them to the death at the end of the year, but since she would become the Kage one day (if I didn't change anything, but I planned one changing things), she would be a useful person to have a good relationship with, a good ally. The chances that I ended up against her at the graduation exam were abysmal anyways.
"Thank you, let's do another spar." She was polite, formal, but was warming up a bit to me.
And so, we did. For the next half an hour, we sparred, taijutsu only, with me giving her tips and advice. Her talent showed, she was visibly better than before, but she still didn't win, I was a monster at taijutsu, my stamina was unreal. It was my best skill at the moment. And it probably would be in the future.
We had discussed a bit, I had got to know her a bit better. Blowing my expectations to the wind, she was quite a pleasant person once you got past her initial shield, I had misjudged her. She also tirelessly pushed herself every day to be better, like me. We were a lot like each other in this regard, but while I enjoyed fighting and winning, she trained to become better, to protect those she loved and her village.
After another defeat, she seemed to grow more and more frustrated by her repeated losses, she decided it was time for a change.
"Alright, let's do another spar, with jutsu this time, I want to hurt you," she said, no venom in her voice, but with a slight bloodthirsty smile.
This will be fun. But not for me.
We both readied ourselves, but I knew that jutsu were not my specialty, I simply did not know enough of them, even as I had learned the body flicker and the Water Weapon jutsu, my arsenal was still pitiful.
Since I would be at a disadvantage the further away I was from her, I ran toward her as fast as I could, my hands blurring through hand seals.
"Water release: Water Weapon."
A greatsword made of water appeared in my hand, surprisingly light since it was made out of water, albeit very condensed water.
But Mei was not helpless meanwhile, even faster than me, she finished her hand seals in a blink and mist invaded the room.
I sharpened my sense, focusing on my hearing to try and find her. Unfortunately for me, she was in her natural habitat, in the mist, she was used to fighting like this.
I narrowly dodged a pressurized stream of water coming for me, realizing she could do her jutsu silently.
But I also could.
I flickered where the water jet had come from, in didn't take a genius to know that she must've also been there. I appeared near her only for her to turn around, wide-eyed, but transparent, translucent.
It was a water clone, I destroyed it in an instant with a downward slash, slicing through even the ground. It dispersed in a pool of water, splashing everything around not loudly, but not quietly either. Knowing she now knew where I was, I replaced myself away.
I was right in my prediction, I felt a dozen water needles where I was a mere second ago and heard them impacting the stony floor.
It was once again a stalemate, I silently walked, navigating through the thick mist, we were both trying to locate the other.
A footstep.
Two meters behind me.
I quickly formed a water kunai and launched it there.
I heard another sound, two meters to my left now, she had probably replaced herself there, so I flickered there, after her. As I appeared, I caught a glimpse of red hair, before the space was once again.
For a few minutes, we continued so play this cat and mouse game, with her reinforcing the mist once in every while, making it thicker, darker, more potent and always targeting me with more jutsu. She had the advantage, a single mistake on my part and I would be done by a deadly water jutsu while she could just lead me by my nose with clones as long as she wanted.
But I had more stamina and I was tough and at this rate, she would burn through her reserves before I'd fall. I could tell she was not serious, she hadn't even used anything other than water release. She had two Kekkei Genkai God dammit!
Even if I eventually won, it was not the fight I wanted.
"Get serious, this is boring! I know you have your Kekkei Genkai. Two of them in fact! You won't ever improve if you don't give you all!" I shouted, I was bored, I wanted a challenge, I wanted to fight the real Mei Terumi. Not the image of her she projected to the outside world.
"Wait how do you know that? But if it's really what you want…" she gasped, finally turning serious.
"Fucking finally! And I found out at the library and did one plus one, it doesn't take the Second Hokage to figure that one out."
Of course, that was a lie, I simply knew, but she didn't need to know that. And I had no time for that at the moment, the fight was turning serious.
"Boil release: Skilled Mist Technique."
She actually said the technique's name out loud, I was scared. But I was also thrilled, immensely so. My blood boiled hotter than her mist, adrenaline pumped and filled my veins, this was why I lived.
A dangerous mist replaced the previous one, it was different, but I couldn't tell exactly how before I felt it. It definitely was an upgrade.
As it turns out, I should be careful with what I wish, because being inside a highly acidic cloud of mist isn't the most pleasant of experiences. It is in fact, very painful. Surprising, no?
My skin started to burn, turning red, I looked as if I was melting. At that moment, I was thankful for my immense durability, otherwise I would've had a really bad time. Fortunately, my clothes did not fail me, they seemed unaffected by it, I did want to have to explain why I had ruined another set of clothing to the matrons, even if it was bland, loose and ugly clothes.
I suppressed a groan and flickered at her immediately after she finished her jutsu, but she was already gone.
"Lava release: Boilign Earth."
The name of this one sounded unpleasant, the effects were even worse, the floor turned into lava. It started to get real hot, like playing the floor is lava, except the floor was actually lava. And I was in an enclosed room. That was unfair, not that it mattered, the world wasn't fair.
I tiptoed as best as I could, having the least contact as humanly possible with the soon-to-be melting stone.
Fuck.
I couldn't win, I didn't have access to anything able to counter her at the moment in my pitiful inventory of jutsu.
My bare feet turned red, and I was immensely thankful for her low mastery over her techniques, the lava wasn't that hot. Still too hot for my liking. I pushed through the pain and everything else by pure willpower, and a good dose a pride. It would be shameful to lose now. Using the water weapon technique, I made a water shield and placed it underneath my feet, it would buy me some precious seconds.
I heard laboured breathing to my right, those jutsu were evidently exhausting her, nothing astonishing. In a moment, my fist was aimed at her, I had used my only other technique to get close, the trustworthy body flicker. She exploded in a cloud of mist. Acidic mist.
Fuck.
And now my bare feet stood on lava, surrounded by gaseous acid. The pain was also catching up, there was a limit to even my mental endurance and ego. I had lost.
"Alright I yield! Now stop those techniques, I don't want to turn into a fucking snowman under the sun!" I shouted pleading, it was really fucking hot, burning.
"Ah, we were just starting to have fun, are you sure you don't want to continue," was her playful reply, but she did stop her jutsu.
"It's fucking impossible to fight you in an enclosed space, it's fucking unfair!"
"The world isn't fair. We're shinobi, cheating is our thing."
"I know…fine, you win. Happy?"
"Yes, extremely. You don't imagine how satisfied I am right now, after being kicked around for half an hour straight."
"Understandable..."
"Thanks, it was a good match. Now, do you want a rematch, I promise I won't use those techniques, it'll be a bit fairer."
"Fine, let's do another spar, I'll have my revenge.
I didn't. I got my ass kicked. It turns out, fighting someone with lava and boil release inside a closed-off room is a really fucking bad idea. Like, in the top ten situations you don't want to end up in.
But at least I had learned something…I tended to curse when I was angry.
And Mei and myself really hit off, opposite attract what do you want me to say. She was a fun person, despite the fact that she was a noble and from the first caste, she was kind and that was an invaluable quality, especially in those times. I was not kind. My earlier assessment had maybe been a tad-bit prejudiced, but most nobles really were like that. I should've expected her to be different, though, as in the anime she had been pleasant for the most part. Thankfully, I had realized my mistake soon enough.
Mei and I ended up staying after class a bit, enraptured in a discussion on water chakra theory, it was fairly advanced and I could clearly see Mei's intelligence as she explained the concepts to me. She had accepted to help me with jutsus since I was helping her in taijutsu, a fair trade.
"…yes, you mustn't only imagine your chakra as water, it needs to become water. The hand seals will help, but they are mostly to mould and shape it, if you can't properly transform it, your jutsu will be weak and consume too much chakra for it to be efficient," she explained, while I listened intently.
My chakra control was good, but I had missed a lot of teachings on the theory itself, I was making up to my lateness.
"Thanks, I'll work on that, must've been why my water weapons weren't as efficient as I hoped them to be. Wanna spar again, sometime, I'm sure both of us could benefit from it."
"I don't see why not, tomorrow on training ground seven?"
I nodded.
"Good, maybe my taijutsu will finally improve….Oh and," she turned deadly serious, "don't tell anyone about my Kekkei Genkai, it's kind of supposed to be a secret, most people don't exactly see people like me in a good light. But then again, most people don't see people like you, from the third cast, in a good light either, so we're kind of similar in that manner.
"Yeah, I heard some of the stories…And it's even worse in times of war…it turns to shit. The system is shit."
"Yeah, it's bad. It should change…"
"We should. Well, I'll certainly try."
The only reason I was telling her that much is that I knew that she would agree with me, she would change the system in the future, but it had been way too late, multiple clans had been annihilated, most Kekkei Genkai holders were dead and there had been rebellions. I wanted to do it…soon.
After a moment of silence, she spoke again.
"How? You know it's not gonna change in a day, you should just wait until the Fourth die, it'll be easier at that moment. But if you try, I'll help."
"The Fourth is like…twenty-five, I don't want to wait another thirty years. But anyways, for now it's just an idle wish. Maybe in the future…"
"Maybe…"
The following months passed quickly, too quickly. The war still raging, shinobi were dying daily, tension and fear were high. Nothing changed. Not even the life in the slums, each passing day made me hate the Mizukage, protector of the people even more. And the rest of the village, while far from as bad, were not innocent in my eyes either, they acted as if we did not exist or, even worse, treated us as lower, inferior. I had lost count of the number of murders, kidnappings, hostages, and so on I had witnessed. But those were not the worse, there were some things a child's eye should never be exposed to…
It was disgusting.
On a happier note,I had turned seven not long ago, Mei had turned nine years old a bit before. We had celebrated, but nobody really was in the mood to feast these days.
Mei and I had become friends, good friends, it didn't really surprise anyone, it was normal that the two genius bond together, we were the only one that could afford to make friends, as we would almost certainly survive graduation, something that was not a given for a lot of students. We were thinking more and more about what it would take to change the village. We disagreed on a point, though.
I thought it would take a civil war, the corruption was encroached in the roots of the village, something radical was necessary. Bye-bye the caste, the gradation exams and the barbaric practices. And everyone who agreed with those would need to change their minds or go too.
Ever the kind heart, Mei thought negotiations were the key, that bloodshed was avoidable, that it was possible to find zones of agreement between the different parties involved.
In a sense, I knew we were both a bit right, she was too hopeful, I was too radical, we were a voice of reason to the other. She reminded me that violence didn't solve all problems, it merely created more and I reminded her that it wasn't possible to save everyone, some people needed to go.
Another thing our friendship brought was that we were pushing each other to become stronger, to our absolute limits. Mei was still keeping up me with, but that was partly due to her genius and the fact that EXP was harder and harder to obtain, I had beaten everyone in class multiple time and missions were rare, non-existent even.
So, to obtain a bit of that sweet, sweet EXP, I had to ask to practise against multiple people of lower classes at the same time, like I was doing right now. It also had the benefit of teaching me how to fight against multiple people at the same time.
But this one was easy, so easy that I had time to get lost in my thoughts. I don't know who the unlucky blokes that had ended up against me were, but it wasn't their best day.
I ignored some fire release techniques that I knew couldn't hurt me anyways and riposted with my own technique.
"Water release: Big Wave."
The name of the technique was ridiculously lame, but the jutsu was not. A gigantic wave a water rose behind me and proceeded to sweep them all the ground, then dispersed into nothingness. Well, the better ones stayed on their feet.
I automatically flickered near the fallen ones and ensured they stayed down with a solid hit on their head or back. An instant later, there were only two of them remaining.
Glaring at me, they simultaneously charged toward me, maybe thinking that my taijutsu was bad since I only used jutsu so far. It was the opposite.
I quickly made two water whips with a few hand seals and, using a trick that Mei often used against me, much to my frustration, I wrapped the whips around my opponents. Effectively restraining them. They struggled in vain, trying to free themselves, but it was futile.
To finish this once and for all, I created two more whips, using all of my concentration to control them adequately, I'm sure Gamer's Mind helped but I couldn't know for a fact. Maybe it was my END stat, I had learned that it also affected mental resistance and resilience.
Anyways, it was more than enough, after being thrashed around for a minute, they both finally lost consciousness, the usual bell ringing sound with them.
Four Academy students defeated. 1600 EXP received.
Level up!
+1 to every stat
+3 free stat points
You must assign your free stat points within twenty-four hours of receiving them or they will be randomly distributed.
Unsurprisingly, I assigned them to END, for the same reason as before, it was the hardest stat to improve. Also, it made me ridiculously resistant, which was becoming quite handy.
Status.
Hakuno Reikoku
Age: 7
Title: Academy Student
Level: 9
EXP: [300/10 000]
Health: 2450 Stamina: 1650 Chakra: 1300
STR: 22 END: 40 ENG: 26 DEX: 19
Talents:
Gamer's Mind.
Gamer's Body.
Water Affinity
Oh wow, I was at forty END, it was starting to get absurd, it was now quite clear that the system put me a notch above the others, my resistance was becoming frankly unbeatable for most of my opponents. I also augmented this specific stat for a simple, even evident reason; I did not want to die.
I wouldn't complain about that. In fact, it was starting to become my specialty, the toughest student there was. While Mei was recognized for her mastery over a lot of jutsu and her overall talent.
There was also a final student whose making people here about him, though he was a year older than us, Kisame. He apparently had a monstrous chakra capacity as well as being incredibly strong. Of course, I knew who he was, a future member of Akatsuki, but he was also part of a prominent clan, I couldn't anything against him…yet.
I exited the Academy, immediately noticing Mei, waiting for me, it was time for our daily spar. Nowadays I won most of the time, especially if we were fighting in more open areas.
Our skill in the ninja arts were similarly matched, I was better in Taijutsu, she was better in Ninjutsu and had a twin Kekkei Genkai. But my high END and better stat in General meant that, while we were as skilled as each other, I won most of the time by simply resisting or overwhelming her.
As I approached her, I noticed she had an unusual scowl decorating her face. As soon as she saw me, though, her face light-up as she joined me. I smiled as well.
"Had a bad day?" I asked.
"Yeah, I went against that guy from 3-A, you know Kisame…" she replied, grimacing again.
"Oh…and? You fought? Hope you kicked his ass," I lightly teased, but I was curious, Kisame was the best of the third years.
"Yeah, I did, but he wasn't fun to fight at all, he was annoying with his sword and all, almost as bad as fighting you when you decided that you're suddenly resistant to half of my jutsu…but it turns out he can't swim in fire, so there's that," she mischievously grinned. Poor Kisame.
"Oh, I'm sure he had as much fun as you."
"Oh…" she was thoughtful for a moment. "I kind of vented my frustrations on him…you know, with my family. Maybe I went a bit too hard on him. I nearly turned him into shark fin soup."
"He should be fine…maybe. Not that it matters, he was always a bit of a jerk, I'm sure he deserved it."
"Oh yeah…"
"Anyways, you coming? The graduation exam is soon, we can't afford to miss a practice."
"Always."
We went onto our way, into a training ground, ready to destroy it once more, as we often did. They repaired automatically, so it didn't matter.
Life was good.
But I knew it was only temporary.
We would be thrown out of the Academy and into the war in two weeks, there was no time to spare.
One could only hope, and train more.