When you were limited to exactly three options in terms of ninja magic, you tended to think about what exactly to do with those three options more.

Honestly, you could give enemies hell with just the Basic Three.

You know that cheesy thing in movies when a character has an evil clone and both of them are like, "I'm the real one!" "No me!"

It was like that. Except all the time.

"Hideo, what the hell!"

"That ain't me, man!"

"Ah, fuckin' ninja!"

If you get hit with something but burst into smoke, turn into a log with a weapon embedded into it, and reappear elsewhere, that's a Kawarimi, right?

Or maybe you had just Henge'd into a log with a kunai and made a Bunshin next to the enemy, and while they fought 'you,' the real you was sneaking up on them, kunai in hand, lunging for their throats, and by the time they turned around, you were already at their throats, their life leaking out of them in carmine splatters.

I tried not to think too much about what I was doing.

I could weep later.

I jumped backwards, avoiding a bandits' blade. My short blue hair ruffled a bit, shaking out tiny crimson droplets. I grimaced, as I saw it, rapidly putting my hands together in a series of hand seals.

Bunshin

Even though the Bunshin weren't solid, as long as the enemy didn't have a magic eyeball, it was difficult to tell if they were an illusion or the real thing. Sure, the clones had no shadows, made no noise, and couldn't interact with their environments, but it was still trippy seeing about a dozen of the same guy rushing at you.

I had seen this before once, a while ago. It had been, god... twelve years? It was in a video. Someone was asked to catch a ball. They could do it the first time. Then they added a bunch of other people, all of them throwing balls around. Even though the extra balls weren't thrown directly to the catcher, they ended up losing their concentration. And when the actual ball that they were told to catch was thrown, they missed the ball.

Hey, catch.

Shink!

I drew two shuriken, one in each hand. Kunai were easier to handle than shuriken. You threw kunai straight, and that was that. Shuriken could be thrown straight, but they could also be thrown in parabolic arcs, which were confusing to someone who, before, hadn't ever even seen a real shuriken. But I had to learn how to handle them quickly.

My life depended on it.

Shuriken were difficult to handle, and especially so when handling two at the same time. But frantic training for fear of death had been rather handy in becoming proficient with the weapons.

The shuriken travelled in their arcs, and I saw the bandits' eyes follow the shards of metal, jumping back to dodge the shuriken. In that time, I drew a short, straight, single-edged sword. I had been learning how to use it in the past few months. Mimura-sensei would've been rather disappointed if he didn't get to pass on his kenjutsu skills to at least one of his genin.

And that sword found its way into a bandit's neck.

"Alright! That looks like all of them. Good work, team."

Covered in blood and exhausted, I looked at the other two genin on my team, who both looked to be in similar states.

I threw up.

. . .

We had a team dinner that night if you could call it that.

It mostly consisted of the three of us genin sobbing while trying to choke down these cardboard-tasting ration bars.

I was a grown-ass man in a child's body. It felt weird to be crying alongside these children.

But I had just killed.

Mimura-sensei spoke up, "Alright, that's enough of that."

Aiko, one of my teammates, looked up. Her shoulder-length brown hair was matted and still had dried blood tangled in it, "But sensei, we just-"

Mimura-sensei gave her a harsh look, "Aiko, I fought in the Third Shinobi War. My entire battalion was reduced to just four ninja. Do you know what that difference is? The difference between killing, and watching your allies, your friends get slaughtered, right in front of you? It's kill or be killed out here. And you signed up for this. Pull yourselves together. All of you."

I gave Aiko a gentle pat on the back. I met the eye of my other teammate, Eisuke. Even after a month of knowing the guy, I still found his bright orange hair a bit strange. Not that you could really tell that it was orange, what with all the grime in it.

Mimura-sensei was right. We had chosen this, and we had to pull ourselves together.

I got up, falling into the makeshift sleeping arrangements we had prepared, settling into a tumultuous slumber.

A/N: So, this story's actually on Spacebattles, I'll be putting the rest of it up as I get it done there. Probably a day or two after I upload them on Spacebattles so that I can get feedback and make adjustments or whatever.