A/N
Fun fact, the next chapter is gonna be a 10k special. It'll also be special because my total word count over all my stories will hit 150k.
Another fun fact, I actually can't tell if Konoha has a legit postal service or not, or if they would even have mailboxes vs mail slots or something else. So, they have mailboxes. The final ruling, I'm pedantic but not that pedantic that I'm spending any longer than necessary trying to see if anyone got mail in the series sent from inside Konoha to a Konoha resident and not delivered by Hawk.
One Month into the School Year.
The Third Hokage, both affectionately and fearfully - depending on who was asked - regarded as the 'Kami no Shinobi', was enjoying a small break before his next meeting.
He was standing facing the window, puffing his pipe as he watched the midday bustle of the village. It was something of a tradition for him to do, although many days of late he found he couldn't spare the time from all the wartime reports and orders he had to work through. Not to mention that many even minor changes or construction in the village needed his express approval before starting.
A knock on his door signaled the start of his next meeting, though he had been aware of the approaching chakra signature long before. With a heavy sigh, Hiruzen moves back towards his rather full desk and takes a seat.
"Enter," Hiruzen says in a strong voice that belies his exhaustion, sedately smoking his pipe still. The door opens after a moment, revealing the bandaged chunin waiting on the other side.
"Sandaime-sama," Goko says in greeting, dropping to one knee despite his injuries.
"Ah, Goko-sensei. Is it really that time of the year already?" Hiruzen asked rhetorically, motioning for Goko to stand. "How are the Academy students faring? I hope your injuries are healing well."
Goko uses one crutch as leverage to haul himself to his feet without a grimace. "According to my colleagues' reports, the second and third-year classes are progressing as planned and a slightly above average crop of Genin are expected to graduate this year."
"Are any of them standing out?"
"Sakibara-sensei claims that Maito Gai is likely to meet graduation requirements early. Unfortunately, at the current expected pass rate he may find himself without a team," Goko replies. "In line with past reports, he is abysmal at Ninjutsu and Genjutsu, but his Taijutsu is leagues ahead of even the third-year classes. So much so they may waive those portions of the exam."
"Mm. Not enough openings for Hatake-kun this year either if that's the case," Hiruzen says with a frown. "I notice you haven't mentioned your class year, how are they adapting?"
"I have multiple students that I am keeping an eye on. Notably, Uchiha Tora is far ahead of his peers. He will likely graduate by the end of his second year, provided his clan approves of it," Goko says in a neutral tone. "It is unlikely he will meet requirements this year, however."
"Hmm… Do you think he is predisposed to joining the Police Force after graduation? Or will he join a team under a Jounin sensei?" Hiruzen asks after a few thoughtful puffs of smoke. A worrying amount of Uchiha was joining the Police after graduating rather than entering more general circulation.
And with how the fronts were developing this time around…
"I am unsure at this point, but I will attempt to steer him towards joining under a Jounin sensei."
"You said there were multiple students?" Hiruzen probed lightly, setting down his pipe for a moment and pulling a surprisingly thick file folder from inside a desk drawer. He knew this folder would thin out as the years went on and more and more students were deemed unfit, but for now, they had a large number of students.
It was a lesser-known fact that the first year of the Academy had more than twice the students of the two other years combined. It was a mix of nationalism and pragmatism that caused this. The Nationalism aspect was easily explained considering Konoha was in the middle of a continent-spanning war.
However, the Village would 'subsidize' orphans to join the academy and pay their living costs as long as they were enrolled. This caused a large percentage of Konoha's orphaned population to at least make an effort at being a ninja, and resulted in enough bodies to fill in the gaps.
"Yes, Hokage-sama. The rest of the clan students are progressing well, although the Nara is especially unmotivated and the Inuzuka twins are exceedingly rambunctious," Goko explains.
"And among the non-clan shinobi-born and civilian-born?" He asks, flipping open the folder and perusing the files.
"Most are within the expected margin, and none are standing out positively. I have three students that have accepted my challenge. So far none of them have been spotted in the library or taking outside lessons, so I have little hope any of them will succeed," Goko replies with a wry grin.
"Ah, yes, your infamous test. And would Utazane-kun be a member of your test takers?" Hiruzen asks knowingly, stopping on Ken's file.
"In my opinion as a Chunin-sensei, we can't currently afford to look after someone like him," Goko says bluntly. "Although… he has shown more improvement than I expected," Goko cautiously continues. "He occasionally wins spars against some of the civilian-born. With increasing frequency too."
Hiruzen doesn't respond beyond a small noise of interest, looking at a rather damning portion of Ken's file.
'Official recommendation is to deny entrance to the Academy.' it reads in bold print at the bottom of the page, citing medical reasons left completely vague. For those outside the know, of course. As Hokage and Sensei, they were more than aware of the specifics.
"Who knows, maybe he will manage to mirror Maito-kun's success? After all, it was a result of Maito-kun's successful first year that we allowed him entry."
"I have a concern, Hokage-sama. I've seen Utazane-san successfully molding and utilizing Chakra independently without adverse effects in a calm situation."
"Oh?"
LINE BREAK
Ken stifled a curse as he tossed his backpack from his shoulder, forced to appreciate just how batshit insane Gai and Lee were in canon. Stretching his arms, Ken pulled up a couple of windows with a thought.
He learned something very very bad for his challenge. Goko was doing his normal droning earlier today, going on about whatever shinobi rule they were to emulate in whatever scenario, and Ken was doing his normal attempt at not just sleeping.
If Ken were brutally honest, and most of the time he was, he literally couldn't give a fuck less about the so-called "Shinobi Rules". In his opinion, if this world's version of Jesus-kun can be a rambunctious little troublemaker who emotionally bonds with everyone he fucking meets in some way then those rules were absolute bullshit.
But it wasn't like he could voice this opinion in full without having to answer some very pointed questions to the nice Yamanaka who'd visit him in his padded cell.
So Ken settled on doing the only thing he could about it. Learn the rules only so he can quote them back verbatim at the future dressing downs he's sure to earn. And to quote them the moment anyone that annoyed him broke one of them.
Or to get out of doing things he doesn't want to do.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Ken and malicious compliance is thy code.
This means that Ken was finally paying a modicum of attention to his class when Goko was discussing what to do in the event of an invasion or other similar emergency. Mainly, to determine what sector you are in and take any civilians you find to the nearest emergency
Konoha was fucking large. Not just large, it was a city-state as large as a goddamn small country by old world standards. It was honestly deceptively small in the show. If it wasn't for super-fast ninja travel and civilians being much hardier in this world, it would be impossible to live here.
To put it in perspective, the Forest of Death was firmly inside Konoha's walls. That's right, the 10km radius of the training ground was inside of Konoha and it didn't even take up enough space to warrant clearing out. Instead, the large tract of land was seen as better used for adverse environment training.
The scale of the Elemental Nations is crazy. It was something Ken had to admit he didn't appreciate before he was forced to live here. It was a wonder it only took 3 days for Naruto to sprint to Suna.
And bringing this back to Gai and Lee being fucking insane, they promise to run around what would constitute a small country 10 times on their hands in case they fail to do something. Ken was fairly sure he constituted as crazy on multiple levels given his goals, but he wasn't batshit insane thank-you-very-much.
So, Ken did some trial runs earlier in the month to gauge his current level of readiness. Starting from one end of the wall close to the Hokage Mountain, he took a steady long-distance run speed. Mainly, he found out by trial and error that he could maintain a set speed for extended periods without burning himself out.
He made it a good halfway around Konoha's walls before his right calf cramped into a charley horse and sent him stumbling into a nearby tree, cursing colorfully enough to make a sailor proud through his clenched teeth.
He had called it there, with a promise to properly stretch the next attempt beforehand since there was no way he was going to be able to make it all the way around multiple times while limping.
This is the big downside of not getting the full gamut of powers. Oh sure, physically exhausting myself is a 30-minute timer to resolve but I can still cramp and be sore the next day, Ken thought as he remembered some choice days when he was completely ruined after training.
Sure, the exhaustion status effect purged itself after a 30-minute wait and no longer crippled his ability to move, but his muscles still ached. He hadn't noticed much in the first week because he wasn't working out for long enough to truly make his muscles sore. That started to change when the weights came into effect, but it wasn't much even then.
What really broke the camel's back was when he decided to take a page out of the source material and whack a training stump all night to grind up some skills. Or more accurately, stab it with a kunai and then punch it.
He did a jab with his right hand, then quickly followed it up with a stab from his kunai-wielding left. A notification quickly popped up on the side of his vision and Ken assumed it was some sort of bladed weapon skill, considering he just stabbed something for the first time instead of throwing the damn thing.
A quick swipe proved him correct, and a small burst of something he wasn't sure of shot through him.
He felt rather good about it actually. It had been a little bit since he got a new skill, having gone into a daily routine of practicing the same things over and over in an attempt to get stronger. Unfortunately, it turns out that if you don't have a fully abstracted body it's a horrible idea.
Sure, the first few strikes were nothing. But then his lack of grip strength started to loosen his hold on his kunai, making getting a clean strike difficult. Then he messed up on aligning a punch and cracked his knuckles against the unforgiving wood.
His arms began to ache from the force of hitting the stump, quickly losing a large portion of his already low strength as the blowback sapped it. He kept going until he hit the target with a kunai stab and felt his hand go completely slack, the kunai forced out of his hand by Newton's 3rd law.
His breaths were only slightly labored, but the shaking in his hands and the lack of strength in his arms were enough for him to admit defeat temporarily and focus on cardio instead.
And cue the next morning when it felt like his arms were on fire, causing every movement to be accompanied by an ache. It didn't stop him from practicing his calligraphy, but it certainly put a damper on his joy of gaining a STR point from the fiasco after a little while.
And that was another thing, he found out that stat point gains can be delayed. In his humble and unbiased opinion, Ken thought that whoever designed that awful mechanic deserved to be shot and then hanged. Possibly drawn and quartered if satisfaction wasn't met after that.
After all, being told that he gained stat points after his arms fully finished healing was a bit cruel. Just because that's how getting stronger worked for people didn't excuse the fact that it made his life exponentially harder in his opinion. It ruined all his efforts of tracking what exercises got him the most stat growth. After all, now he knew that there could be delayed results that made him question why exactly certain points were accrued when they were.
It took longer than Ken was willing to admit to figure out that he was gaining STR because he was learning how to exert force better and building up some muscle memory for common actions, and not that he was increasing the amount of pure muscle he had available. That made sense, but it still collapsed the house of cards he built his small pride of stat growth on.
It does raise the question of what exactly happens when I use points though. Is it a mix? Does it go straight into improving my muscle mass? If it's the latter it'd be sorely tempting to just point dump and get a lot stronger… Ken thought to himself, daydreaming about the possible improvement if that was the case.
"At least my VIT growth is real," Ken mumbled as he moved towards the kitchen and pulled out a to-go cup of Ichiraku from his fridge, heating it up in the microwave. As much of endurance and vitality is learning how to pace yourself as it is being a physical juggernaut.
And speaking of physical juggernauts… I really need to figure something out about Gai… Ken thought, knowing that he can't exactly do anything to cheat this even on a technicality.
It doesn't help that his rate of VIT gain over the past few weeks has slowed dramatically from his initial burst of it. It certainly made Ken think he made the right decision to not burn his points to start with, but he wasn't sure what exactly to do. Currently VIT-wise, he was already just below the Clan Kids, having far outstripped the other kids in the class.
He was still matched against Tora more than his fair share of times, which had the added effect of Tora learning how Ken tended to play dirty and no longer falling for anything major anymore. Occasionally Ken still got some dirt and dust into the eyes, a memorable moment where he had purposefully flung his sandal at the Uchiha, etc.
And as much as Ken enjoyed the chance to see a wary look in the Uchiha's eyes when they got matched, it irked him to know he was being used as a sacrifice by his teacher.
Tora had started taking everyone more seriously in spars, wary of them even as he methodically broke down their defenses and picked them apart in spars. The Tora of a month ago would never have taken a weaker opponent seriously, especially in the middle of crushing them, which is what tipped Ken off.
Goko was setting him against Tora so much to teach the kid to be wary of everyone he fought.
Which is a fair strategy if you're a teacher, but it sucked for Ken because at least half his spars revolved around getting demolished by someone he couldn't beat with barely-leveled Street Brawler's Taijutsu.
What Ken didn't realize was that the spars were helping him immensely too, as getting picked apart by Tora killed off multiple bad habits in his stance and guard by sheer frustration and pain avoidance.
Getting hit in the same place the same way was painful in more ways than one after all. There was the physical pain of being wailed on, the emotional pain of not being able to stop something you know is coming, and the mental pain of losing to someone that did the same thing over and over.
So, the holes in Ken's defenses were patched up one by one. His form was by no means good, but he was able to at least contest hits. This means his Blocking skill and his Street Brawler's Style steadily increased as he started to perform more consistently in fights.
He just attributed the easier time he was having in his other spars to people not being near as used to his tricks rather than just being much better at not allowing clean hits. Or at least, not allowing them without gaining something in return.
Ken was absolutely one for trading blows when he could. He admits it's something of a guilty pleasure, but that didn't mean he was going to stop right now. Sure he'd get hit in the side, but what if taking it allowed him to land another kick to the outside of their knee he had been hammering for the spar?
Unsurprisingly, he was still considered one of the least desirable people to fight in the class, only matched by Tora in terms of avoidance. After all, what was worse? Fighting someone you knew would beat you no matter what or fighting someone that made you feel like you lost even if you win?
Because that was Ken's goal in his fights. Make sure that his opponent went through hell and highwater dealing with him.
Starting the day by waking up at 4:30 am on a Saturday wasn't the most pleasant thing that Ken had ever done, though it was a familiar enough experience that he was able to drag himself out of bed and into the shower.
Normally if he had to get up this early, he just wouldn't sleep, but he decided to catch some shut-eye last night. He didn't want to get hit with the Sleep Exhaustion debuff part way through the run after all. It's going to be a painful enough experience as it is.
The whole situation was a bit dire for him, considering that he did a trial run or five and they didn't go the best.
Turns out, running around the entirety of Konoha was a legitimately hard thing to do, much less so many times. Maintaining a good speed through the forest floor required good balance and reaction time, there was a large uphill portion up the side of the Hokage Mountain, a steep downhill down the other side where you had to slow yourself down if you didn't have Tree Walking down pat.
And that's completely ignoring the pure distance he had to cover. A comfortable pace was just not going to be possible if he wanted to go the distance. So instead, his focus was on finding a pace where he could hold it even as his lungs burned and his heart complained.
He finally found it, and it was just too slow to make it.
Which left him with his decision made at the start of this whole challenge.
So, it was with a heavy heart and his stomach dropping that Ken pulled up his character sheet and stared at his wonderful 20 unused Stat Points.
Name: Utazane Ken
Title: Academy Student
Level: 1 (87.30%)
Exp: 8730/10000
HP: 750/750
Ckr: 140/140 [25]
Sta: 290/290
Stats:
Str: 27
Vit: 28
Dex: 18
Int: 1
Wis: 12
Luk: 1
Points: 20
Skills:
Bluff - Lvl 3 (57.6%)
Block - Lvl 7 (96.4%)
Bukijutsu - Lvl 2 (58.4%)
Calligraphy - Lvl 11 (16.3%)
Chakra Control - Lvl 6 (74.2%)
Chakra Enhancement - Lvl 1 (34.1%)
Detect Killing Intent - Lvl 1 (61.7%)
Dirty Tactics - Lvl 12 (38.7%)
Dodge - Lvl 4 (65.2%)
Leaf Sticking - Lvl 8 (14.9%)
Observe - Lvl 6 (12.3%)
Physical Damage Resistance - Lvl 5 (48.7%)
Resist Killing Intent - Lvl 1 (71.8%)
Sprint - Lvl 15 (52.0%)
Street Brawler's Taijutsu - Lvl 8 (6.7%)
Utazane Ken is a 6-year-old clanless orphan whose parents were killed in a routine border patrol turned skirmish at the outbreak of the 3rd Shinobi World War. A year later, he has now finally received approval to attend the Academy after petitioning every month for the past year. Many speculate this is entirely due to hatred of the paperwork he was causing rather than any natural ability he has as a Shinobi. Widely considered absolutely useless.
It's such a waste. I could surprise Goko with sudden improvement in my eventual attempt. I could use these before my first battlefield deployment. So many things… Ken mourns, reaching forward to his sheet. A decision like this deserves a finger press.
Pressing his finger against the plus sign, Ken dumps all of his 20 points into Vit, having to let out a breath before confirming.
HP: 1250/1250
Ckr: 240/240 [39.5]
Sta: 490/490
Ken desperately tries to suck in a breath of air as his body feels like he just had a fist crush into his solar plexus, doubling over as no air enters. Suddenly, the feeling clears and so does the blockage, resulting in perhaps the clearest breath Ken's ever taken filling his body like the mountain air.
"Whatthefuck?" Ken gasps, patting over his body as he suddenly feels like he could run for days. Logic told him that he wasn't doing that specific feat for a long time, but the sudden stark difference certainly made a good argument for itself.
Ken absently noted all of his breaths being both deeper and smoother, feeling morbid curiosity about what would have happened if he had point dumped any of his other stats.
Well, too late to back down now, Ken thinks as he grabs out some new bandages to tape down his three-quarter pants. I still can't believe the main fashion for shinobi in this world is to wear fucking capris.
Shaking down his body, Ken cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders, grabbing the upside-down milk crate from its spot on the floor. Taking it into his bathroom, he set it up so he can reach the top of his sink and, more importantly, his mirror.
Poking and prodding at his own face, Ken sighs as the unfamiliar visage stares back. I know I looked average before, but I got rather attached to it… Ken thinks as he runs his hand through his blue hair, pulling on a lock of his slightly messy hair.
"No use getting sentimental when there's so much work to do, Ken. Speaking of…" Ken mumbles as he puts on a pair of cleaning gloves, pulling a few letters out of his inventory and straightening them out. It took far more work than he expected, but he had a final draft ready of multiple versions.
More importantly, none of them were in Ken's handwriting. Oh, sure, he wrote them. But none of them were in his handwriting. Leveling up his Calligraphy skill meant he had a lot more control over how his hand was moving when he wrote, so he took advantage of that.
He now has a total of three different handwriting styles, including his main one. Comparing the papers with a combing eye, he eventually selects one of the papers and shoves the others back into his Inventory. Taking his final selection, Ken carefully folds it into an envelope without sealing it. Pulling out his calligraphy brush and setting the envelope down, Ken cautiously addresses the letter to a one "Hatake Sakumo" at the Hatake Clan House.
Turns out addressing a letter to an officially recognized clan is laughably easy in Konoha. Due to some original stipulations made by Senju Hashirama himself, any letter may be sent from a Konoha Citizen to a recognized clan for free. Something about "fostering good relations by removing barriers to internal diplomacy" by the way it was explained to him.
If you asked Ken, it seemed much more likely it was just to avoid making actual paperwork related to the price of postal stamps on internal delivery. Not that it mattered, since there was no way he was delivering this through the official channels of Konoha. There were easier ways of committing suicide in this world, as his letter recipient could attest to in canon.
Picking up his now finished letter, Ken throws it back into his inventory with a grin. He'd personally be delivering mail on his way to the gates, and the Hatake House was almost directly on the way. A road cut right past their house, and they had a street access mailbox nice and away from the house's interior. Normally this is to stop any sort of attack through the mail that could affect the main house, but in this case, it works out in Ken's favor.
Time to deliver a letter.
Sakumo was a miserable man. He may be powerful, famous, prestigious, and all the similar descriptors, but none of them did to alleviate his melancholy. Jounin? Doesn't go on missions anymore, not after… that one. High rank in Bingo Book? Just even more people who know that he deserves to die.
The only reason he even did anything was for his son. And it was the very reason his thoughts had started to turn to how he could remove the stain his failure caused his son. He heard the whispers and the rumors, about how Kakashi was such a brilliant boy and wasn't let onto a team because of him.
One option was always…
No… No.
He couldn't do that. There was still a chance he could undo his mistake and put an end to the war he had so foolishly started. But to do that, he'd have to leave the house for more than groceries and the occasional mandatory Jounin meeting. Not that he said anything in the meetings or that his opinion was ever asked for, but he felt obligated to attend the meeting to hear the death toll and progress of the war.
He was always in uniform, in case he ever worked up the nerve to go outside and finally do something to fix his mistake… but it never happened. The disgusted faces that filled his vision made him feel sick for hours every time he walked outside.
But… he could at least get the mail, couldn't he? Not like he had slept during the night anyway. He hadn't retrieved the mail in days, and the sun hasn't come up yet. It was for the better, fewer people would be disgusted by his presence.
Hauling himself to his feet, he took a few moments to get the feeling back into his legs before moving to the door. Walking outside, Sakumo immediately had a familiar smell fill his nose. Was that…bleach?
Scanning around for the cause, Sakumo quickly pinpoints his mailbox as the source of the smell. Walking over to it, he could still see signs of the chemical coating his mailbox. He didn't blame any sort of vandalism, it was what he deserved, but it was still rare. And to dump bleach onto his mailbox…?
Sharpening his senses with sluggish chakra, a feeling he hadn't had in a long time, Sakumo prepares for a bomb or attack just in case as he opens the door to the mailbox and jumps back. But… there's no hiss of an explosive tag or anything of the sort. Just days of uncollected letters stuffed inside the box.
Feeling even worse, Sakumo quietly gathers up the letters and closes the mailbox with a small squeak, chakra slipping away to lie dormant for who knows how long this time.
Walking inside, Sakumo sits down at his living room table with a slump as he turns on a small lamp so he can read. Pulling the top letter off of the pile and pulling out a kunai with a practiced flick, he finds that the letter is completely unsealed. Furrowing his brows, he pulls the letter out and holds it close to the light so he can read.
And something he didn't think possible happened with every line he read. Even as his heart sunk, he felt something besides guilt and anguish. Rage.
To The "Illustrious" White Fang,
You and your bloodline are a disgrace. To us, your cursed family should have stayed in the fields your clan crest symbolizes, never to ruin our lives as you have. Not to worry, my associates and I plan on rectifying this mistake in history by ensuring your son is returned to the fields you have sown. Mark my words, he will die on the fields of blood you brought to harvest, and it won't be to some Iwa Dog or Kiri Barbarian you and your son are undoubtedly working with.
Do us all a favor and remove your stain on history by ensuring you can never make the same mistake again, preferably with that sword you and your ancestors loved so much. It can finally spill the blood of one last traitor before it's thrown into the mud where it belongs. Maybe before that last part, I can borrow it to show it off to your son and have him do the same in case you botched the job like you did the last one.
Otherwise, we will do it for you Hatake. Preferably before your eyes, so you can watch your son die like we are watching ours.
A/N
Yep, Ken never had any intention of trying to talk down a clinically depressed soldier with a survivor complex and extreme guilt from the suicide he was going to commit sooner rather than later. Just imagine an orphan whose parents died in the war he caused saying "I don't blame you Sakumo!"
He would go home and fall on his chakra saber with all the guilt he carries around.
Instead, how about threatening the last thing he cares about to motivate his continual survival? Like, say, his son.
So, general update on my status. Hiatus is over, obviously, and I'm back to writing. Next chapter, as mentioned above, is a 10k word chapter, but it should be out in about a week, maybe two if work is particularly harsh.
