The Problematic Child, Mazui

The giant yellow sun peered over the sky, its warm rays of light permeated through the clouds that towered over a village right below them.

The village had different structures that potruded out of the sides of mountains; each being connected to multiple roads and a large platform.

Inside of the ninja academy, a large body of young students occupied the courtyard while accompanied by a teacher.

"Alright class, today we will be holding taijutsu sparring tournament. I will match each of you with your corresponding class ranking."

"I'll start with the lowest first. Kawamaru and Abiru, go ahead and step on the battle platform."

A young boy with light tanned skin, and dark hair, accompanied by another boy with white skin and orange hair, entered the stone arena.

The young boy with darker skin, Kawamaru, had a greater physique than the other boy, Abiru, so not many people were expecting much of this match.

"Begin!" The teacher announced the start of the match, and they instantly began moving afterwards.

The one to make the first move was Kawamaru. He sprinted towards Abiru while forming two fists, ready to throw a punch. Abiru having the disadvantage in strength, chose to evade the attacks rather than block them.

Even though his attacks were not hitting, Kawamaru's onslaught of fists was relentless and did not stop. By now, Abiru had grown exhausted from expanding too much stamina. His movements slugged, and that was the moment where Kawamaru connected his fist to Abiru's face.

"Aarggh!"

A direct hit to his face. Abiru struggled to keep moving after the attack, and quickly stumbled down.

"Stop! The winner is Kawamaru!"

The boy in name had a smirk on his face. But, the other classmates did not react to this match. They've been classmates for seven years already, they know each other's weaknesses quite well.

Kawamaru's weakness in particular was his slow speed and short stamina. Abiru on the other hand, was weak in almost every aspect except for speed. It was clearly a bad match up, but they were the two lowest ranking in the class.

"Alright, next..."

...

After countless more bouts, the final spar was about to be held, a very special one.

The students were not very enthusiastic about the previous matches, but now they were even more grim.

The teacher checked his lost, and called out the last two names, "The last match will be Darui against Mazui. Come on up!"

A boy with dark skin and blonde hair entered the arena. This was Darui. Unlike the rest of the students who were the same age, around 12 years old, he was only 8. This is barely his third year in the ninja academy, yet he was already one of the top students in the class.

That was why the other students wore grim faces. They knew how strong Darui and Mazui were, yet they were much younger than them. It made them feel bitter and weak.

Darui waited for his opponent to appear, but he never did. The whole class waited, and waited, and waited, yet he showed no signs of appearing.

The teacher looked agitated, but also helpless: "Not this again! Don't tell me he's late yet again!?"

Darui and the rest of the students sighed. Of course, this was a natural occurrence in their class. The number one student in the roster, did not show up to class. This happened almost everyday, that's why he gained the name Mazui.

Why? Well, it's pretty obvious; He was a renown troublemaker!

Besides not showing up to class, he would always vandalize the village structures by destroying them. There's even some instances where he was accused of sexually harassing older women!

Mazui was the most infamous student in Kumogakure because of his troublesome attitude. But, he could make up for it with his outstanding talent.

Not even after a month had passed when he first entered the academy, and he was already superior in terms of academic knowledge and physical prowess. Not to mention his chakra reserves were larger than most of the students.

So, they elevated him to the seventh year's classes. Even then, he quickly rose up in the class roster and took the number one spot.

Yet, even though he was at the top of the academy, he did not sign up to become a genin yet. No one knows why, but all they do know is that he must not like attending the academy.

The teacher furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance and spoke, "I'll be back."

In an instant, he disappeared without any trace. The students became accustomed to this scene multiple times.

After a few minutes of waiting, the teacher came back with a boy to his side. The boy's skin was pale white. His hair was a very light brown, while his eyes were hazel colored. The most peculiar thing about him was the black strip of tape that spanned across the mid-section of his face. This was the problematic genius, Mazui.

The teacher almost seemed like he was forcing Mazui to class... well, he was. Mazui's face was riddled with annoyance and boredom.

The teacher on the other hand was furious. "Enough is enough! This has gone for weeks and weeks on instances where you are skipping class, do you want to get expelled?!"

Mazui looked at his teacher and spoke straightforwardly, "No. Also, I don't want to come to class since there is nothing else for me to learn. I would've graduated to a genin already, but I was waiting on something. Plus, we've already had this conversation numerous times already. You should know my answer by now."

The look of fury on the teacher's face, was replaced with one of hopelessness, "Ah, it's no use trying to talk some sense into you... Whatever just get into the arena already, we've wasted plenty of time!"

"Yes, sir~"

Mazui walked to the arena, and faced Darui.

"Yo, Darui! I guess it's time we find out whose stronger between the two of us, right?"

Darui's face was lazy, but his eyes had a serious glint to them, "Mhm!"

They both got into a taijustsu stance, awaiting for the match to start.

"Begin!"

The first to move was Mazui. He instantly shortened the distance between himself and Darui's. Without delay, he threw a feint towards Darui, which was followed up by a low sweep kick. Darui barely managed to block the kick, but was still in a disadvantage.

Mazui stood up on his hands, and used his feet to send kicks. Darui had no choice but to block and wait for an opportunity to attack. But before he could, Mazui switched his stance, and continued to attack with a barrage of fists.

Darui could only block so much, it was evident that many hits had landed on him. Mazui was truly ruthless in his attacks, he did not even let Darui counterattack!

Darui let himself get hit with a fist, but quickly attacked after in order to turn the situation over.

Mazui predicted the incoming kick, and evaded Darui's knee kick. In that slight opening, Mazui threw a palm at Darui's stomach.

The result was as expected. Mazui used quite a bit too much force on his palm, which led to Darui hurling over and vomiting his breakfast.

"The winner is Mazui!"

The kids did not look so grim anymore, their faces eased up a little. That might be because Mazui did not go overboard today.

Usually, when Mazui spars, it leads to twisted limbs or broken bones; not a great sight to see.

All in all, Mazui had a satisfactory look on his face. Not because he easily beat his opponent, but because he was thinking of something else.

'I guess it's time to finally take the graduation exam.'

As a matter of fact, Mazui did not need to linger around the ninja academy anymore. But, he insisted. His purpose was to gauge Darui's strength.

Why? Well, it's sort of complicated.

"Mazui! Where are you going!" The teacher noticed Mazui's exit of the training grounds.

Without looking back, he responded: "Need to take a crap."

"Don't lie! Last time you said that, you never came back!" The teacher was ready to grab Mazui, but he was stopped by his following statement.

"I don't recommend you following me, unless you wanna be seen as the teacher who likes watching kids poop."

He was shocked beyond belief. Not one ounce of the training he had could have prepared him for that sort of remark. He had no choice but to let him go.

"Y-you better not take longer than 30 minutes!"

The veins on his neck and forehead were bulging to an outstanding degree.

"That'll be quite difficult."

Without any further speaking, Mazui left the school towards the "bathroom". In reality, Mazui just left the school premises.

He ran down along the village, and entered the outskirts of the village. Of course, he was cautious around these parts. Being around here was prohibited and it could get him into some sticky situations, but here he was.

He treaded along a cliff on the side of a mountain. There it was obvious why he was named 'Mazui'. The mountain walls were cracked with holes of small fists.

These fist indentations spread across for a few meters before stopping at a single place. Instead of having a punch mark, the mountain wall took the shape of a small door that was covered up with rocks.

Mazui peered inside one of the small spaces the rocks made, and looked inside to find a narrow cave where rocks were laying at.

Mazui stepped back and began doing handsigns. Tiger, Boar, Ox, Dog, and Snake.

At the final hand sign, he opened his eyes and blurted out loud: "Substitution Jutsu!"

Immediately after, Mazui disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and was replaced by one of the rocks inside of the narrow cave. Inside of the narrow cave, a dimly lit passage appeared a few yards away from the entrance.

He followed down the passage; the farther he walked, the more lighter and clearer it got. Not by any torches, but by sunlight.

At the end of the passage, another cave lay, but not an ordinary one. Inside of this cave, a forest appeared!

It's rare to find forests inside of underground caves, but Mazui found one. Of, course by complete coincidence.

Almost every day, he would train his chakra control by imbuing his fists with chakra and to try to control the strength as much as possible. That explains the broken mountainside.

Until one day where he punched a shallow piece of the mountain where the small entrance formed. Initially, he was going to repair the gaping hole, but heard the sounds of small droplets of water hitting the stone floor.

Out of curiosity, he checked it out, but was instead surprised by the visage of a small forest. There was soil to keep the grass and trees alive, and a small lake to the nearside of it.

A small hole on the roof on the cave made it so that sunlight was able to penetrate through and nourish the plants here.

It had been months since he found this little haven, and he naturally made it his go-to spot.

There were wooden boards to practice shrunken and kunai throwing, and dummies to practice taijutsu. Almost everyday, he would come here and practice his skills.

But that wasn't all, beside the lake a small wooden hut was situated at, big enough to hold basic accommodations.

He entered the wooden hut, and sat down on a table. On the table, a small book was placed. Mazui grabbed the book and opened it.

The title of the book: "The Timeline of Naruto"

He flipped through a few pages and stopped at a particular one, "The 3rd Great Ninja War: It was ensued by tension between Iwagakure and Konohagakure; later involving the other villages which led to the start of a war between the five nations. Years before Naruto is born: 2-3 years."

How strange.

He flipped to another page, "The Hyuga Affair: After the war, Kumogakure coveted the byakugan. In order to get what they wanted, they disguised it with a peace treaty between the two villages. Ultimately, the plan fails and it soils the relationships between Konohagakure. Years after Naruto is born: 4-5 years."

Without any further inspection, Mazui closed the book, and placed it down on the surface of the table.

"Two very important events are coming up... I can't slack off anymore than I currently am.:

How does an 8 year old child know about the future events? Well...

"Still, out of all places, to think I ended up reincarnating into this forsaken world. Well, it's not like it's much different from my previous one."

That's because Mazui is not your average child; he's a reincarnated individual.

"I should hurry up, or else I'll get chewed up."

Like that, Mazui exited the cave, and made it back to the academy. But, he did not have the same carefree attitude as before.

"Almost... it's almost here."