AN:
Red panels - used for the [Absolute Choice] and other urgent messages related to it.
Green panels - for achievements like completing a quest or leveling up.
Blue panels - others
"Hello" - normal talking
'Hello' - thoughts
Chapter 4 - Mizuki
It was well past the middle of the night. There were no clouds at all in the sky, the moon bathing the entire village with its silvery light. It was a peaceful sight, seemingly out of a fairy tale, especially if one were to watch it from atop the Hokage Monument.
A few months passed since the day when Naruto slapped Sakura into unconsciousness. Several things have changed since that day and that was one of the reasons why Naruto was currently atop the Hokage Monument, silently contemplating his life instead of sleeping like everyone else.
Suddenly, a blue, translucent panel was popped up in front of his eyes,
《The Jinchuuriki》
Lvl 23 Uzumaki Naruto
He grit his teeth when he looked at the panel.
'I've been working so hard...'
Ever since he slapped Haruno Sakura, the girl has never dared to even look at him in the eyes anymore, always avoiding him. To Naruto, that had been worse than her rejecting him. But with her acting like that around him, he couldn't find it in himself to ask her out anymore. Even with how stubborn he was, Naruto had understood that he would no longer have even a silver of chance at ever wooing her.
Therefore, with nobody distracting his mind like Sakura used to do every day, Naruto buried himself in his training more and more every day. Instead of stalking Sakura around and begging her to go out with him, he trained his aim with shurikens and kunais. Instead of agonizing every day about how Sakura liked Sasuke instead of him, Naruto invested his attention into trying to learn the theory Iruka-sensei was teaching at the Academy.
His grades didn't leap up spectacularly in the past few months, but he no longer was the dead last.
Another blue window popped up in front of him:
Passive skills:
Taijutsu: Lvl 2
Shurikenjutsu: Lvl 2
Stealth: Lvl 5
From the [System]'s FAQ Naruto knew that, generally, the skills' levels varied from 1 to 10:
Lvl 1-3: genins and civilians
Lvl 4-6: chunins
Lvl 7-9: jounins
Lvl 10: kages
Apart from not having an explanation for his Stealth skill that seemed to belong to a chunin, with the hard work during the past few months, Naruto's hand to hand combat skill and his shurikenjutsu reached the middle of the genin stage - all this while he was still a student, a civilian.
'I've worked my ass off every day! I've often trained even during night! Yet...'
"Why?" he asked himself in a whisper.
Naruto never cried. He had learned from a very frail age that he had to stay strong. That's why he had always been smiling despite having been ostracized for his entire life. But now, unknowingly, a lone tear fell from his eye.
It was the 3rd time he failed the Genin exam. He had not been put down too much by the first two failures... but now it was different. He had actually worked so hard for this! He had trained himself to the bone for months! He had even stopped ditching the theory classes and began paying attention to Iruka's lectures. And it wasn't all for naught: although with a low grade, he passed the written exam. He passed with flying colours the obstacle circuit, coming 3rd place after Uchiha Sasuke and - surprisingly for him - Hyuuga Hinata. He also got above average marks for the Bukijutsu exam, managing to hit all the motionless targets in the bullseye and over 70% of the moving targets.
Naruto could still recall how Iruka's face radiated with happiness at his results and how much pride he, himself, felt at his outstanding evolution: from dead last to above the average... yet, when the final exam came...he failed. He had not been able to create a single clone.
More hot tears poured from his eyes as frustration boiled inside of him.
"I've worked so hard, dammit!" he shouted, breaking the serene silence of the night.
It was then that a rustle was heard from the nearby bushes. The boy quickly wiped his face with the sleeve of his blouse and jumped up to his feet:
"Who's there?"
A silhouette appeared from the foliage, its face becoming recognizable for the boy when it stepped into the moonlight.
"Mizuki-sensei? What are you doing here at this hour?"
"That's what I should be asking you, Naruto." the man said with his ever smiling face.
Mizuki went close to the edge of the Hokage Monument and sat down, patting the ground next to him:
"Come, tell me why were you crying."
Naruto sat down next to him not speaking.
"You know," Mizuki broke the silence "Iruka and I have noticed how much you have improved as of late...we both think that it was rather unfair for you to fail only because of a mere bunshin. Therefore, we went to Hokage-sama with your case...and we managed to get you a second chance."
Naruto visibly perked up and looked at Mizuki surprised.
Pleased with the effects his words had had on Naruto, Mizuki smiled and handed Naruto a scroll.
"This is just like a mission that shinobi do. If you managed to accomplish it, Hokage-sama had declared that you would be worthy of becoming a Genin. But if you fail, you will not be allowed to try to become a ninja ever again."
Mizuki flashed a rather sinister smile:
"So what do you say? Do you have the guts to accept it, or not?"
Like it happened for so many times before, the world went still. The colour was sucked out of everything, only the panel that appeared in front of his eyes glowing in a bright red light.
Absolute Choice
[1] Accept the mission.
[2] Reject the mission.
Following that, 2 other windows popped up at the same time next to each other.
[1] Accept the mission
Consequences:
- high risk of getting killed
Rewards:
- Exp: 2000
- increased possibility of becoming a Genin
[2] Reject the mission
Consequences:
- lose the chance to ever become a Genin
Rewards:
- Exp: 100
Just as he finished reading the 2 panels, another red window popped up:
The player has 30 seconds left to make a choice. Unless a choice is made in time, the [System] will automatically choose the first option by default.
Irritation came over Naruto. He didn't care about this countdown when the [Absolute Choice] made him choose between trivial things like stealing an apple and stealing an orange. But now, he had to make a decision that would seriously change his entire life - and that, in only 30 seconds!
His eyes quickly roamed over the 2 red panels a few more times.
'High risk of getting killed?!'
'What the heck, I haven't even read what is the mission about, how can I plunge head first into something when I could get killed?!'
Having played this decision-making 'game' for the past few months has certainly made Naruto more aware of how important it was to know and think about everything before deciding something. That it wasn't to be taken lightly.
But then, his eyes fell again on the [Consequences] of choosing the second option: he would forever be a civilian, his dream of becoming a Hokage always remaining just that: a dream. He felt a node in his neck at what he was about to do. Almost choking, he said, just as the time was about to end:
"I accept the mission."
When his words ended, the world returned to its original appearance. Now that he found out that there was a possibility of him dying during this mission, Naruto could notice how different was Mizuki's smile from how it was normally. Even with how slow to uptake he was sometimes, Naruto could feel that something fishy was going on.
But alas, it was too late to change anything, he had to go with it anyway. The [System] would make sure of that.
"I will do it." Naruto said.
"Good boy." Mizuki grinned. "You have 2 hours to complete the mission. Iruka and I will be waiting you at the outskirts of the Forest of Death." And with puff of smoke, he was gone.
Naruto unfurled the scroll open, his hands trembling in anxiety.
Mission: Steal a scroll and deliver it to the client.
Location: the room next to the Hokage's office in the Hokage's tower.
Location of delivery: at the outskirts of the Forest of Death.
Prerequisite: employ secrecy. In case of being discovered, the mission is failed.
Mizuki went to the trouble of even making the scroll sound like an official document the Hokage would write.
Naruto clenched his fist in determination. He was not going to fail this no matter what.
Scene break
'These masked shinobi gotta be pretty lax if they couldn't spot me at all...or maybe they figuratively closed their eyes in order to let me pass this exam?'
Naruto was a bit confused. Unlike a few months before, when the [System] just appeared in his life, nowadays, he was very familiar with it and understood its perks and concepts. And he knew very well what someone's level said about that person.
All the masked shinobi that were guarding the Hokage tower were above Lvl 70, with the highest being Lvl 79. Reviewing the information about the levels, Naruto said to himself.
'From 1-25 are included civilians and Academy students;
26-40 genins;
41-60 chunins;
61-80 jounins;
80-90 kages... that means that they were elites among jounins, with the strongest of them being almost near the kage's level range...'
In the following months after the [System] appeared in his life, Naruto spent quite a lot of time looking at people's levels in the village and classifying them. For example, the Hokage was not Lvl 100 how he believed when he stumbled upon the existence of levels for the first time - Sarutobi Hiruzen was "only" lvl 89.
On the other hand, Naruto was also dejected to learn that most of their senseis at the Academy were only chunins and rather low skilled at that, Iruka himself included given that none of them were above Lvl 50.
Naruto's eyes narrowed as he thought:
'Mizuki-sensei is Lvl 53 though.'
Glancing at the large scroll in his arms, Naruto made again a double take at how he had been able to slip by those Lvl 70+ masked shinobi without them detecting him.
But then, curiosity got the better of him. Everyone would be curious to see what was written in such a large scroll.
A small blue window popped up in front of his eyes, displaying the time.
"So only 20 minutes passed, huh?"
He had well over an hour until the deadline. With that thought in mind, instead of going directly to the outskirts of the Forest of Death, he stopped in one of the nearby clusters of trees that were part of the forest that surrounded Konoha.
When he unfurled the large scroll over a dozen of blue windows popped up at the same time:
A new skill is available to learn: Kage Bunshin. Would you like to learn it?
[1] Yes
[2] No
A new skill is available to learn: Hari Jizo. Would you like to learn it?
[1] Yes
[2] No
A new skill is available to learn: Kuchiyose. Would you like to learn it?
[1] Yes
[2] No
A new skill is available to learn: Rasengan. Would you like to learn it?
[1] Yes
[2] No
A new skill is available to learn: Hiraishin. Would you like to learn it?
[1] Yes
[2] No
.
.
.
A new skill is available to learn: Edo Tensei. Would you like to learn it?
[1] Yes
[2] No
Naruto could not believe his eyes.
"So many awesome jutsu!" He cried out gushing with excitement.
He didn't think twice before taping with his index finger on all the panels on the [Yes] option.
What Naruto had not realized was that choosing to learn so many techniques meant having all the information about them suddenly dumped into his brain...and that that scroll was not so large only for the looks but because of how much information was written in it.
That being said, when the blue panels disappeared, it was like someone had slammed an iron bar into his head. A terrible headache suddenly assaulted him and the pain had been so acute that he blacked out.
Scene break
He did not know how much time passed, but when his consciousness returned, what met his eyes was not the green foliage of the forest but the dark and murky walls of what looked like the basement of an abandoned factory.
Only a few seconds passed since he opened his eyes when a deep and dark rumble echoed:
"Guess who decided to finally pay me a visit..."
AN: There is a major difference between learning about something and mastering said thing. So if you are worried that Naruto will become Rikudo the Second overnight, don't. Naruto only got the information. It's like the process of getting a game on your computer: Naruto only downloaded the files. He had not installed the game yet. That said, he only knows the theory of those techniques, it will take a long time for Naruto to master them. He will need to train just as hard as the others.
(No beta and I'm not an English native either. Sorry for any mistakes I may have made.)