17 Graduation
"It actually didn't cost us anything at all since the Lord Hokage himself gave it to us after learning we were looking for one. Wrote the seals himself too!" my mom said with a smile.
THAT information made me cautious however as the old man didn't strike me as the sort to just gift things like this for no reason. I opened the scroll and began searching it carefully by comparing it to the one I had looked at previous and there was only a single thing that was off, something was already attached to the contract.
"The old man put something extra in the summoning contract." I said honestly as I showed my parents the mark of something that signed the "summoned" portion of the contract.
"Perhaps it's his own summon Enma?" my dad suggested equally in the dark.
"I'm sure Lord Hokage intended whatever it is as a gift. Why don't you sign the contract and summon whatever it is out in the yard?" my mom said and I reluctantly agreed.
Signing a summoning contract is as simple as cutting your thumb and dropping some blood on a particular part of the seals. The actual signatures are usually only added to a blank part of the scroll to keep track of who all has signed the thing. The jutsu for summoning used the boar, dog, bird, monkey and ram hand signs followed by a blood offering usually made by cutting or biting ones thumb. If done correctly when you slam you palm down on a surface the thing you are summoning will appear. -
I signed the contract and went to the yard before going through the handsigns in a split second I slammed my still bloody palm into the ground and a large puff of smoke appeared as I sent a bunch of chakra into the jutsu. The smoke cleared quickly enough to reveal what I had summoned and it wasn't the monkey king Enma. In the place I had used the jutsu a creature with black fur and white stripes that was easily three meters tall and feline in shape stood proudly, a tiger chakra beast and not a weak one either.-
To my own senses this single beast made Ren and the rest of my beasts look like matches next to a bonfire. A pair of large golden eyes arrogantly looked over the surroundings before finally stopping at my own. The massive head of the feline moved forward to sniff me a bit and I was probably grinning like a lunatic as I reached out and rubbed the side of the head that was easily half as big as myself. There was a loud rumble from the beasts throat as I rubbed on it while it's eyes narrowed in contentment. Yes, I think it's safe to say I am VERY pleased with the old mans gift.-
"Lord Hokage himself must have subdued this chakra beast for you. Make sure to thank him when you see him next." My mom said and the tiger directly disproved her.
"You are mistaken that old man apparently just showed up one day and beat her up before making her sign the contract. In other words he didn't subdue her at all and we all could have been killed if she wasn't slightly curious what was going on." I explained what the tiger which was female if that wasn't clear had told me.-
"Maybe he just believed in your ability to tame it?" my mom said awkwardly since what else could she say?
The Hokage had basically just gambled that a child who technically hadn't even graduated would be able to tame a tiger chakra beast that was close to if not at the high Chunin or low Jonin level. No matter how you look at it that didn't seem like a positive action at all. In fact I am willing to bet my right arm that this was a test he set up to get me to reveal some of my hand. I am not sure how he does it but I know for a fact the old bastard spies on me as I can feel his gaze on me even when I am nowhere near his office.-
It had proven irritating too as I couldn't train properly with him staring at me since I didn't want to show anything at all to him. The exception to that was when I was doing chakra nature training as he was the one who gave me that information to begin with. As for taijutsu, ninjutsu and senjutsu though? Not a chance in hell.-
Showing off my full abilities in those subjects was like asking to get in big trouble. It wasn't illegal to be stronger than you showed normally but it did come with expectations i wanted no part of. Stuff like graduating way too soon and "contributing to the village" by getting stuck doing a bunch of needlessly difficult missions. People being suspicious about how strong you actually are and knowing it just work differently is all. Even now I felt the old bastards gaze on us and thus treated the extraordinarily soft tiger like a very large house cat, take that you old coot!-
The tiger got the name Akasha in the end and was easily my second favorite beast to nap on, Ren took first because of being surprisingly warm and comfortable. After I gave Akasha a whole bunch of sage chakra she even grew stronger and almost had as much chakra as the old man now. You should have seen the look of shock the old man had when he attended my graduation and I summoned her. Akasha even had a really useful ability too as she could teleport short distances and I don't mean like move so fast that it looked like teleportation but the genuine article.-
Still my graduation was just as underwhelming as I thought it would be as I walked to the front of the room and performed the three basic jutsu perfectly. For bonus points I summoned Akasha to make everyone there shit themselves. Obviously that didn't happen but I do know that each and every person in the room got defensive in an instant including the old man. To be fair though I did tell Akasha that the old man would be there so she was blaring bloodthirst when she was summoned.-
They were not amused at the prank at all but I ignored their complaints because I thought it was hilarious. Beyond that however I made a bunch of people very upset in my class since I hadn't told anyone I was graduating early so they were all stuck in the academy for another year. Sasuke looked downright murderous about it and Shikamaru complained. Ino was devastated since this meant she would need at least another year to possibly go on missions with me. Naruto annoyed me about it for the rest of the day since he hoped we would be on the same squad but that was honestly the last thing I wanted to happen.
