CHAPTER 2
Uzumaki is at level 11 to my level 3. I hate my life.
I had plenty of time to look at his stats because I was being punished with him. Iruka-sensei had found us, covered in paint and fighting like street rats. We were clearing out one of the Academy's storage rooms. Everything had to be dusted. Boxes that had been closed for God knows how long needed to be opened up to check if anything worthwhile was in them.
I slipped the crowbar in my hand in the crack in the crate and pried it open. Dust shifted into a cloud that I breathed in. The sounds of my hacking and coughing brought over Iruka-sensei.
"Are you alright, Kensuke? I told you to cover your mouth and nose before dusting," he scolded.
"I'm," I coughed, "fine."
Iruka shook his head and peeked into the crate. "Well, looks like you found some very old training materials." He dipped his hand in and pulled out what looked like a vest.
[A weighted vest, used to train the body's strength and speed by putting it under constant pressure.] My 'Observe' ability told me as I stared at it. Iruka was saying much the same.
[Quest: Convince Iruka-sensei to let you keep the old training equipment. Reward: 100XP.]
"Ne, Sensei, if no one is using this junk, can I keep it?"
Iruka frowns at me and asks, "Why do you want this, Kensuke?"
"I'm trying to get stronger, you know I was working on the obstacle course yesterday to get better. I'm so weak, anything would help," I begged.
"This is a really old and outdated mode of training. It also takes a lot of willpower," Iruka warned.
"I'll do it!"
Iruka sighed and then smiled. "Well, it's good to see you so motivated. Keep writing down everything you find on the inventory sheet and ask me before you take anything. You can have the weight suit. In fact, I'm sure there's a scroll around here that has instructions on how to use it."
"Thanks, sensei," I said with honest earnestness.
Iruka waved off my thanks as he left to monitor Uzumaki. Quietly I closed the screen telling me of my successful quest and XP gain.
I hefted the dark gray vest and put it in my inventory. It was something I discovered the night before when I was trying to see how game-like my life had become. Along with quests and stats, I also had an inventory that appeared like a gridded blue rectangle.
As I rummaged through the crate I found other pieces of the suit and all the weights that went with it. They were incredibly heavy, so it took me a half hour to load them into my inventory. I found a scroll on "Ninja Conditioning Using Weight Suits" which luckily I had the minimum stats to learn. Seeing as the boxes forming a low wall around me would hide me from prying eyes, I decided to put on the suit with the lowest weights.
When I hovered my fingers over the suit icon a window popped up asking me if I wanted to 'equip' the suit. I said yes and the suit appeared underneath my clothes automatically. Then when I hovered my fingers over the weights, a window asked me how much weight I wanted to equip. I made my selection and instantly felt my legs, torso, and arms being dragged down. Man, it was the lowest setting and I already felt it was too much.
With a sigh I went back to dusting off boxes and crates, while opening them to inventory what was inside. I found trap-making, taijutsu, and knife-fighting scrolls that they used in the old days, but since I had the current versions of those scrolls, they were useless to me.
Two hours later I was thoroughly bored and exhausted when I came upon the last crate in my section. It had been buried under everything, including old training posts, target boards, and weight machines. Since it was the last box in my area I was excited to inventory it and report to Iruka. A nice bit of XP was waiting for me too.
The box was filled with scrolls and had one smaller box inside it. All the scrolls had a cloth tie around them with a symbol I see every day on the flak jackets of chunnin and jounin. Picking up one I used 'observe' on it: [Beginner Whirlpool Temple Style Qi Gong. Qi Gong is the art of cultivating life-energy that connects everything in the universe and applying it to spiritual, martial, and healing practices. Requires 50 INT and WIS to learn, gives positive modifiers to INT, WIS, STR, VIT, & DEX.]
[Alert: By chance you have stumbled upon a powerful technique. Your LUK stat has increased from '0' to '8']
"Holy Shit!" I gasped out loud. Just finding this thing increased my luck?! And look at the technique! So many positive modifiers at just the basic level. I used observe on the other scrolls, many were copies but I found the Intermediate level scroll of the skill, it required 150 INT and WIS to learn. Hurriedly I hid two copies each of the beginner and intermediate level into my inventory. I figured that I would end up turning one to dust when I got around to having the stats to learn it but I wanted to have one as a back up, just in case.
Unable to contain my excitement and curiosity, I opened the small box. The inside of the box was covered in some soft velvety cloth. Two scrolls were in the box.
[You have found Advanced Whirlpool Temple Qi Gong. 300 INT & WIS required to learn. Only someone of Uzumaki blood can unseal this scroll.]
[You have found Divine Whirlpool Temple Qi Gong. 500 INT & WIS required to learn. Only someone of Uzumaki blood can unseal this scroll.]
[You have stumbled upon legendary level techniques. Your LUK increases by 20 points.]
My hands trembled as I put away the small box with the two scrolls into my inventory. This is the sort of thing that kids dream of, that they read in comics, or watch on cartoons: of finding a secret super power. For the moment I didn't even consider that I had something that I couldn't even use, that even if I somehow raised my INT and WIS to 500, I wouldn't be an Uzumaki and could not unseal the scrolls.
"KENSUKE! ARE YOU DONE YET! IRUKA-SENSEI IS GONNA BUY US LUNCH!" Uzumaki's voice tore me away from my reverie. Before I could reply he bounded into my corner and stopped to stare at me.
"Oi, what's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost," Uzumaki said. He suddenly paled. "You haven't really seen a ghost have you?"
"No," I said and shook my head. It was strange thinking that boy in front of me was the only one who could unlock the legendary scrolls in my possession. "I found something really cool, an awesome technique. Look, that box is filled with scrolls on it."
"Really! Awesome!" Uzumaki turned away from me and half dove into the box to grab at the scrolls.
Quickly I withdrew the two legendary scrolls from my inventory. "Hey, Uzumaki-"
"Damn it, why do you keep calling me Uzumaki, Naruto is finem dattebayo," he said without looking away from the Basic Qi Gong scroll he had open now.
"Right, sorry, Naruto. Since you're so much stronger than me, can you help me out?"
[You have created the Deception skill] Go away stupid skill window.
Naruto was blushing. Eugh. I pushed on, "So can you put a little bit of your chakra in these scrolls. You have a lot more chakra than I do."
"You got it, Kensuke! Hey you're not really that bad." Naruto put his hand on top of the two scrolls I was holding out. With a burst chakra left his palm and covered the scrolls. The paper seals wrapped around the scrolls broke. I tried to unfurl the scrolls and they opened without problem.
"Thanks!" I slipped the two in my pocket as he went back to squinting at the basic Whirlpool Temple Qi Gong scroll in his hands.
"Boys, what are you up to?" Iruka came around the corner.
I let Naruto gush at Iruka about my discovery and tried to calm my racing heart. It was a good thing that Naruto was so gullible and trusting. He hadn't even asked to look at the scrolls he opened for me.
"Good job, Kensuke. You've found a rare piece of the Academy's history." Iruka patted me on the head after looking at the box. "A long time ago monks from Whirlpool village had taught at the Academy. It was a sign of the friendship between our two villages. I'm sure Sandaime-sama will be glad that we still have so many instructional scrolls from back then." He picked up a basic scroll and handed it to me.
"Thanks, sensei." I bowed.
Iruka smiled at me and turned to Naruto. "You too, Naruto, good job. You should learn as much as you can from that scroll. After all it's from your clan's village."
Naruto looked dumbfounded. "I have a clan? Why didn't you tell me?"
Iruka smacked his head. "Idiot, I've taught you the history of Whirlpool village and the Uzumaki clan at least three times."
I ignored their ritual of abuse and friendship. Everyone knew Naruto was Iruka's favorite. I followed them as we made our way to the ramen stand while I dreamed of all I would be capable of with the scrolls in my inventory.
(oOo)
Lunch was good, surprisingly. I've never been to the ramen stand before so I didn't know there was such a cute girl who worked there. She treated Naruto and me like we were little boys, which we are, damn it all. That doesn't mean I couldn't enjoy the view. I have a feeling the ramen stand and Ayame are going to become a favorite haunt of mine.
"Alright, boys, I better see you on time tomorrow. You meet your new classmates. And, Naruto, try and be more like Kensuke this year, you see how hard he's working and how motivated he is?" Iruka said as we were parting after lunch.
"Hey! I work hard!" Naruto pointed his finger at Iruka. "I'm tons better than this lazy jerk."
I cursed under my breath. Sensei, don't compliment me in front of Naruto. That will just make him prank me to prove his superiority over me. They way Naruto is glaring at me means he's forgotten our moment of camaraderie in the storage room.
"Looks to me like he's working harder and he might surpass you on your spars," Iruka said. All I heard was nails in my coffin, slamming home.
"Ma, I'm sure Naruto will surprise you, Iruka-sensei. Well, I better be going, have to train," I said.
"See what I mean?" Iruka said as he waved goodbye.
"I'll show you…" I ignored whatever else Naruto was going to say. I know Iruka is trying to motivate Naruto by comparing him to me, but honestly that's not how Naruto works. He would rather mess up my things, beat the crap out of me in taijutsu to prove he's better, than to study and work hard.
I guess I will be paying for Iruka's good intentions at some point in the near future. I would have to be careful in class tomorrow; I wonder how the new kids will be. If I'm not wrong, Naruto has a crush on a girl in that class. I've seen him get clobbered more than a few times after classes by the girl in the year behind us. I smile to myself, that's one girl I want to make friends with. Anyone who puts Uzumaki in his place is a friend of mine.
oOo
Back at the Academy training grounds I bring up my stats to see what all has changed:
Kensuke
Academy Student
Age: 13
LVL 3
STR 6
DEX 6
VIT 6
INT 27
WIS 35
LUK 28
PTS 0
Well my physical stats are better than yesterday. Still not good by any definition, especially because Naruto's physical stats are in the double digits. Given that he wasn't even a higher ranked student in class means that the others are going to be even better.
My vastly improved luck makes me happy though. As for the rest, all I can do is put in the work. The weight suit has been dragging me down, I don't think I'm going to run the obstacle course with this thing on. Maybe I will try that in a few days. Until then I have to grind skills I've gained from several new scrolls. After raising my physical stats the day before I was able to absorb the beginners taijutsu, thrown weapons, and Academy ninjutsu scrolls.
I used the running track to go through the new exercises I had learned from the weight-suit conditioning scroll. In fifteen minutes I was out of health points and had to rest half an hour before I could continue. Then I walked over to the target range and practiced throwing kunai and shuriken, I laughed in delight when I struck the target more times than I ever had before. No bull's eyes yet but it was only a matter of grinding.
The low vitality really got in the way of training because I became tired so quickly. After thrown weapons I worked on taijutsu drills, which were murder with the suit. Again, I had to rest for half an hour. I started making good use of my rest periods soon by looking through the Beginners Whirlpool Temple Qi Gong scroll. Sure, I didn't have the 50 INT and WIS I needed to simply absorb the scroll, but I figured I could learn something just by reading it the old fashioned way.
After reading the same three paragraphs in my fourth rest period a new skill alert came up [Through diligent study you have created the Novice Meditation skill. This skill increases chakra and health regeneration and adds positive modifiers to INT and WIS]
Yes! Now I have something I can really grind while I'm resting.
The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent in the same way. I cycled through the main academy disciplines of taijutsu, ninjutsu, weapons, and my new skills, the weight-suit conditioning work and meditation. My physical stats went up by 2 points each and my mental stats by 1 point each.
I was satisfied, the sun had just set, and I was wondering if it would be too weird to go back to the ramen stand for dinner.
[The sun has set and you have entered an Illusionary Dimension between the living and the dead. The regret and rage of souls that died at the Academy has transformed into zombies. You will not be able to leave until you kill them.]
"What the fuck!" I swore at the blue screen. The night sky suddenly became a roiling black and red, there was a palpable sense of danger and bloodlust in the air, I felt the same pressure on my mind as when Dai-san had been about to kill me.
And the smell…God…it was like rotten fish and offal and everything nasty you could think of. I covered my nose and mouth with a piece of cloth. Looking around I saw there were kids in the Academy classrooms looking out at me from the windows. Someone broke the window and tumbled out of it. It was only the first floor so it wasn't really a fall.
It was a kid, an Academy student, from the looks of it maybe a year or two younger than me. My observe skill told me more about him:
[Unnamed Academy Student
Lvl 4
An academy student who died in the Kyuubi attack. His fear and regret have combined with the remains of the Kyuubi chakra to make him into an undead creature of hate. He cares nothing for who he was in life and morality. All he knows is terrible hate for the living and equally terrible hunger for flesh.]
It felt like someone else was moving my body, but in reality it was just me, as I launched a kunai at the kid's head. It sank straight in the middle of his forehead, snapping his neck back. I saw the red health bar over his head drop a third of the way to zero. Quickly I launched two more kunai. One hit, the other missed, but the zombie kid didn't wait for me to attack anymore.
He screamed and it made my heart skip a beat at how lonely and animalistic it sounded. Then he ran at me with speed I wouldn't expect. I barely got my kunai up to guard my neck as he snapped his teeth at me. They gnawed at my kunai and his saliva dripped on my arm. My clothes and skin burned from the chakra that surrounded him.
I kicked him away and shot the kunai at him. It struck his heart and the red health bar fell to zero, which made him explode into dust and vanish. There was something left on the ground where he had fallen but I didn't wait to see. Three more academy student-zombies had made their way out of the classroom and were running at me in a weird loping and broken way.
"I'm not dying today!" I shouted and readied myself for their attack.
oOo
AN: If anyone is curious: this is not a bashing fic. I'm just trying to show what Naruto may look like from a civilian academy student's point of view. We all know Naruto was an obnoxious kid. Most adults saw his annoying traits as 'lovable' eventually. But what about those who were weaker and closer to the same age as Naruto? Would they find a pranking Naruto who was the Sandaime's favorite orphan lovable?
Kensuke is someone who watched Naruto anime in his old life but he doesn't have all his memories. So he doesn't know about Naruto's special circumstances. If he succeeds in becoming a genin he will have his memories back. And won't it be interesting when he finds out that he has been shunning the ninja world's messiah? ;)