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—-
—MPGTOI—
By PaladinKaladin
Chapter Five: I'm screwed, aren't I?
I whistled a curious tune as he wandered along Konoha, looking for some random routes throughout the town. It was rather fun to explore the area, and compared to human architecture back in the United States, this place was a lot more unique and interesting to look at. I was currently just trying to waste time until noon, where I would have to go to Choji's house to hang out with the others.
The past few weeks were eventless, and mostly just a competitive streak between Sasuke and I that prevented me from truly enjoying the week before the final exams.
Dududuuduuuu…Ah.
My eyes wandered around the buildings surrounding me, before finally coming up on a certain building.
Yamanaka Flowers.
Shrugging, I decided to enter. I had some remaining pocket money to buy some stuff, anyway. It was nice to take a break from training every once in a while.
I entered the building, a bright, shiny yellow construction filled with the smell of rosy, fresh flowers from the entrance itself.
"Welcome to Yamanaka Flowers, we have—"
I stared at Ino with a small smirk on my face. "What do you have?" I asked innocently.
"S-Shinji?" Ino stuttered. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm sorry, am I not allowed to buy some flowers?" I asked innocently, bringing out some money. "What can I buy for this much?"
Ino still looked slightly shocked, but slowly calmed down when she saw the money out. "That's a bit too much for flowers. Why are you spending so much—wait, don't tell me—it's for a girl?!"
How the hell did she come to that conclusion?
"No, it's for my mother," I deadpanned.
Ino squealed. "Oh my god, it is for a girl! Don't tell me Hina—oops, wasn't supposed to say that, haha. Who's the lucky girl?"
I just ignored her. "Like I said, my mother."
The blonde groaned. "Eh, boring. Well, let me bring you a set from the back, they're usually fresher."
She disappeared to the back, making me wait for the flowers.
And soon after, came another woman.
Brown hair, reddish, wisdom-filled eyes, pale skin—she looked absolutely nothing like Ino. But I could just tell that she was somehow Ino's mother.
"Ah, you must be Shinji-san?" Ino's mother asked. "I'm Yasumi Yamanaka, Ino's mother."
I bowed politely. "Good morning, ma'am."
"Ahhh—you're too polite! Call me Yasumi-san, please. Ino and the others talk about you on some occasions, though they usually talk about Sasuke-san the most."
I blinked.
I really didn't need to know that.
"Excuse me—excuse me!" Ino wailed, entering the fight. "Here are your flowers, please, please exit now."
"That's quite the rude way to treat your customers," I claimed with a mockingly hurt expression.
Yasumi glared at her daughter, who had the decency to feel a bit ashamed.
I chuckled. "Just kidding. It's obvious you're uncomfortable, I'll be making my leave, thank you for the wonderful flowers. I'll see you in class on Monday!"
Ah. Life was fun.
Well, back to training I suppose. I could do better with my schedule right now, but this was as good as it gets with my current motivations and abilities. The system had been silent for the past day after the barrage of advantages it gave me after my win over the Uchiha, which was surprising.
[The System says it's not quiet, but that you're simply being useless.]
For once, I actually agreed with the thing.
I needed to get back into the desperate grind that I was forced into with the looming cloud being the race for Rookie of the Year against Sasuke Uchiha right above me. After my famous win against the Uchiha, I've been getting overconfident and it was obvious. When someone was confident, their entire body language changed. Sasuke, who used to be the one that was overconfident, was now a completely different person.
He was always bored before, his eyes impassive and lacking any emotions, but now it seemed to always light with some kind of anger whenever he saw me. Anger, annoyance, and sometimes respect. I didn't really blame him. I was a completely random Genin from a prominent clan until some weeks ago, after all. Having someone like me suddenly snatch the leading position for Rookie of the Year wouldn't have been feeling good.
And during my process of thoughts, I forgot to watch where I was going.
"Agh!" A feminine voice yelled out in response.
I fell down, my head dazed.
I brought myself back up with a frown, before looking down at who I had accidentally stepped into.
Brown buns of hair, pale face, round eyes, almost Chinese-looking clothing…this had to be Tenten, right? I looked at the seals which were present in her hand, and the other seals which were dropped to the floor. Yeah, it was Tenten.
"Watch where you're going, brat!" Tenten exclaimed annoyedly.
I was about to apologize for tripping up the girl before I looked more closely at the seals which were spread on the floor.
I felt my hand moving on its own for the long threads of paper, which Tenten had unfortunately assumed that I was giving a hand to her to help her up. It was an incredibly embarrassing situation for her, and me, to some extent.
"Hey, what are you doing—" Tenten protested as she saw me reach for her scrolls.
I gently put a hand over her mouth, shutting her up immediately.
I pulled out the seal from her hands.
A standard weapons seal, but it seemed to be much larger in capacity to house multiple weapons, huh? It looked good from afar, but seeing it in a closer degree…
This is…
"This is horrible," I said frankly.
Tenten looked shocked. "Huh?"
"Basic transmutation seals plastered everywhere, connected in the direct opposite of a concise pattern, the absolute lack of any combining seals regardless of the fact that you're trying to host multiple weapons…who made this?" I asked seriously.
"I did!" Tenten answered hotly.
Well, that made sense.
"You're an amateur at Fuinjutsu, aren't you? Well, whatever."
I brought out my brush and immediately dipped it into the small bucket of ink that I carried around my belt at all times.
"I don't think I can completely override the seals considering you've already set the main seals…but I can make this a lot more efficient."
Immediately I began drawing. My hands moved on their own, filling the free space in each of the papers. My left hand and right hand individually drew different seals, each with the same speed. At one point I stopped using the brush all together.
Tenten just watched in shock, as if she couldn't believe this was happening to her. "Hey, hey!" She managed to break out of her stupor. "You can't just take my seals like that—"
I handed her back the seals with an impassive expression plastered onto my face. "Here, it's done."
Tenten took her seals back with a blank expression, before she immediately noticed a few things. "It's lighter."
"Yeah, I added a small weightless seal for you. Pump a small amount of chakra into it and the weight decreases. But that's not the main improvement—you could probably add a few more weapons into each of those seals," I said briskly.
"Wh—what?"
I didn't understand why she was so surprised. Anyone who had a certain basic understanding of weapons seals could've done that, but I guess not everyone practiced the weapons seal as much as me. To most people, practicing the literal first seal you learn for such a long time was completely useless, and to some degree, they were right.
I bowed. "I'll take my leave now, Tenten-san."
"You know my name?" She asked confusedly.
I smirked.
My life was good indeed.
—MPGTOI—
The Finals.
I let out a deep sigh as I put my pen down, finally glad to have finished the end of my exam. If I were to rank the things I hated most in the world, exams would definitely be in the top five. However, I was sure I did well. Probably not Sakura-well, but somewhat similar to the school Sasuke would get.
The Rookie of the Year was the person who got the highest average among each and every aspect of the exams, which included both practical and theoretical portions. Even if Sakura got the highest score in the exam papers, it wouldn't mean she would be the Rookie of the Year, which was obvious from canon. However, if someone were to only score well in the practical portions and totally bombed the theoretical part, they also wouldn't become Rookie of the Year.
You had to do good in both.
Studying wasn't particularly hard, but it was definitely tedious to do.
Right now, my main competition was either Hinata or Sasuke. I had done better in practicals than Hinata for the past few weeks, but she was certainly better than me at exams. If I were to somehow mess up in the theory, there was a chance she got ahead of me. Sasuke and I were at a dangerous, similar range and the Uchiha was only behind me by a very small thread that I refused to let go of.
Iruka sensei gathered the papers with a particular look in his eye when he reached mine, which I dutifully ignored. I really didn't want to know what he was thinking, to be honest.
He walked over to the main stage once he gathered everyone's papers and announced, "Congratulations for finishing the theory exam! We'll be starting the practicals in five minutes."
"Whew!" Naruto shouted out, stretching his arms wide from beside me.
"How did you do?" I asked curiously, mostly knowing the answer but wanting to see if Naruto would surprise me.
"Horrible!" Naruto said cheerfully.
I paused. "Uh…"
Naruto shrugged. "Yeah, I didn't do so well. It doesn't really matter that much, though. I focused more on the practicals this time around. Iruka sensei said that as long as I manage to do the required jutsus and pass the theory exam, I can graduate."
"So you're passing?" I asked doubtfully.
Naruto smirked. "Yep."
"I wouldn't be so confident about that," Shikamaru interrupted with a grin.
I turned to Shikamaru. "Yo. How did you do?"
My brother turned towards me lazily. "Eh. I left out some of the longer questions. I really didn't want to undergo the pain of long division."
Shikamaru would easily be the highest scorer for the theory exam if he weren't so lazy. I couldn't really blame him though, I also equally hated long division.
"I thought the paper was pretty hard," Choji said with a frown. "Hopefully it doesn't affect my placements too much."
Poor Choji. He doesn't know that won't have any effect. Unless you were the Rookie of the Year, the dead last, or the theory topper.
"Everyone please line up here!" Iruka instructed.
"Well, see you guys on the other side," I motioned to Naruto, Shikamaru, and Choji, who I had no doubts in the fact that they would pass. I made sure Naruto would pass this time considering the fact that I made him do the clone jutsu in front of me a thousand times.
This would also mean that Naruto wouldn't learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu. I would worry about the implications of that in a future date.
I looked at my stats with a frown.
Name: Shinji Nara
Title: "Practical Shinobi"
Occupation: Academy Student
Level: LV9
Chakra: 70/70
MP: 100/100
STR: 9
VIT: 8
DEX: 7
INT: 8
Taijutsu: D+
Ninjutsu: D-
Genjutsu: N/A
Fuinjutsu: C+
Nindo—
Shinji Nara: "If winning is possible, there's simply no other option. I'll win, regardless of the pain I have to endure to do so."
I needed to improve more. Much more.
I reached the end of my line with a serious expression on my face, before immediately conducting the clone jutsu in front of Iruka sensei, who was as impassive as ever before me. I didn't really expect anything else, to be honest.
He marked something on his paper before signaling for me to leave.
It was ridiculous just how easy qualifying was. Maybe that was the main reason why we had to undergo another Jonin test after this. Thinking back on it, it actually made sense why the Jonin test took place. As a kid, I would sympathize with Naruto in the anime, thinking it was unfair that they needed to take a test after already passing one.
Now I know the real reason why there was a second test.
They needed to weed out the weak.
It was jarring to view children as chess pieces for the village, but it was something they had to do.
I took a deep breath of relief, glad that exams were finallyover. Hopefully my performance for the past month was enough to get me Rookie of the Year…
I really needed that EXP.
—MPGTOI—
I went home that day and immediately jumped onto the bed, only getting up to eat dinner, before sleeping once more. It was a well deserved break, in my personal opinion, even though maybe I should have worked on my newest project a little bit more.
Whatever, it's not like I would have any time after I got assigned to a team.
I spent the night wondering which team I would be assigned to. If I got Rookie of the Year, I would have to be in the same team as the dead last, which was probably Naruto. Don't get me wrong, he definitely improved, but his theory scores wouldn't be enough.
And that would mean I would be replacing Sasuke in the original Team Seven from the anime.
I winced.
I hated the thought of that.
Not only was Team Seven the center of attention most of the time, they probably lost most of the time. All of the shit they went through in the anime (filler or not) was honestly too much to handle.
It didn't help that Kakashi was an average as hell teacher.
Based on what I know, anyways. He didn't really teach Naruto, and instead focused on Sasuke a lot more. Don't get me started on what he taught Sakura. It wouldn't really take a long time to talk about that.
Safely assuming that I wouldn't be Rookie of the Year, I wondered which team I could get into.
Shikamaru's team wouldn't be too bad, but since they wouldn't keep two Nara's in the same team, I might be replacing Shikamaru on the classic team they had. Asuma definitely wouldn't be a bad sensei.
The next morning, I was filled with nerves.
Today was the day.
Shikamaru looked as indifferent as ever, but I could tell even he was excited to see which team he would land in. If I wasn't there, he would quite reliably know that he would be in the same team as Choji and Ino, but considering we both had the Nara special techniques, we weren't as certain.
I made my way towards the Academy after eating breakfast, walking alongside Shikamaru.
"You think you got it?" He asked curiously.
"Maybe," I said, shrugging.
"Eh. It doesn't really matter too much anyways. Being Rookie of the Year doesn't really help a lot either way."
I shook my head. "Wrong. The Rookie of the Year always gets placed into a certain team. He or she will have their entire career decided by such a title."
"What do you mean?" Shikamaru inquired. "Aren't the team random if a team wasn't made specifically by the Hokage?"
I snorted. "Every single Genin is placed into a team for a reason, Shikamaru. The Rookie of the Year, however, is placed into a specific team, a tradition to be more specific. If I get into the team that I think I'll get into…things won't head well for the future. Whatever, you'll see today."
I could tell Shikamaru was slightly confused by my ominous words, but I couldn't really explain more. What was I supposed to say? Oh, my dear little brother, there's an Apocalypse coming after us in a few years! Don't worry, a lot of people will die, I mean a lot, but it will all end well. Yeah, he'd think I was insane.
The funny thing was, this wasn't purely canon. I wasn't sure how exactly everything would run along this time around. Would the Akatsuki be weaker? Or would they be stronger? No one really knows.
We went inside the school after that, knowing that it would literally be our last day in that building. I personally didn't have much connection with the Academy as I had only been there for a quarter, but I could see why someone like Shikamaru, who had been learning there for years would be emotional.
I looked over at Shikamaru's stone-cold face and sweatdropped.
Some people just didn't care.
The class was packed and lively as everyone waited for Iruka sensei to come inside. I quickly made way to the corner where I usually sat, and plopped down. Shikamaru took his seat behind me, and I found myself next to a certain Uzumaki who was currently asleep on the desk.
I poked his neck swiftly, making the blond groan as he woke up.
"You didn't have to do that!" Naruto whined.
"But I did," I responded, shrugging. "You shouldn't be sleeping on the last day of school as well. Even Shikamaru isn't sleeping for God's sake!"
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that?"
I looked back to see my brother fast asleep on his own desk, snoring slightly.
I groaned as Naruto began to laugh loudly, followed by Choji chuckling in the back.
I snarled. "I give up."
Five more minutes went by with them just passing time with small talk, everyone just waiting for the teacher to arrive.
"Shinji-san."
I whipped my head back, hearing the familiar voice and finding myself looking straight into the pale eyes of Hinata Hyūga.
I raised an eyebrow. "Yo."
Hinata continued, not caring that Naruto and the others were closely looking. "I believe we both know that you, Sasuke, and I are the main contenders for the position of Rookie of the Year. I simply came here to say that may the best shinobi win."
I nodded. "Thank you—I would like to say the same."
Hinata suddenly flushed. "While it may be prudent to say so early on…I do hope we end up in the same team."
"Uh…likewise."
Hinata left a second later, spending no time delaying her escape.
I could only chuckle at her comedic reactions, before I looked at the rest of my friends and groaned. The knowing looks in their eyes were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Iruka sensei, who had a proud, beaming smile on his face as he entered the class.
Everyone stood up at once to wish their sensei, and Iruka just chuckled sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head.
"As you very well know, all ten of you have passed the Genin exams!" Iruka exclaimed brightly. "It is with no small amount of pride that I say I know that every single one of you will become a wonderful shinobi, and I can't wait to see the change you bring to the world. This year was a very special one, and however sad it is to see you guys go, know that I will always be here as support. Now, onto the official team selections!"
The class immediately went silent as Iruka got out a scroll from his bag, which obviously contained the team listings. I felt my heart rate increase as well. This was crucial. Even Sasuke, the normally dull kid, was listening intently with a frown on his face.
Wait.
Did he just say ten?
Aren't teams of three the official standard?
"Under the tutelage of Kurenai Yuchi, we have Team Eight which consists of Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka, and Hinata Hyūga!" Iruka announced.
The class applauded the team as they walked forwards. I could see the look of disappointment on Hinata's face from here, which was saying something from the normally ice-cold girl.
"Under the tutelage of Asuma Sarutobi, we have Team Ten consisting of Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka, and Choji Akimichi!"
I could hear Choji holler in excitement as he was placed in his best friend's team.
Shikamaru snorted. "Expected."
My mind was still reeling.
Four students were left.
He still hasn't mentioned the Rookie of the Year.
Something incredibly fishy was going on.
"Under the tutelage of Kakashi Hatake…"
I felt my heart clench.
"We have Team Seven, consisting of Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha!"
Naruto cheered as he realized he was in the same team as Sakura, though he was slightly annoyed by Sasuke's presence.
I just stood, frozen.
Iruka finally looked at me, as if realizing my confusion, and smiled. "The Rookie of the Year, Shinji Nara, will be directly trained by Tokubetsu Jonin, Ibiki Morino."
The class went silent.
My eyes widened. "What the fu—"
-end-
Yo!
Cliffhanger I know, *chuckles slowly* things are going to get wild.
I didn't choose Ibiki Morino just so it could be different from everyone else who usually chose Anko, there will be genuine reasons. Let's say Shinji's character is going to go down a much…darker route than other OCs. That's what happens when a torture specialist is your teacher, eh?
If you really want to read the next chapter of this fic and my two other fics right now, shameless plug time, check out my Pa treon. It's a cheap way to support me and get some chapters early on. Please don't feel any pressure to do so lads! My pa treon—search my username or Pa / PaladinKaladin
Question of the day!
Question 1: Who is the true waifu of Naruto?
Question 2: We were debating this on the discord server, who wins between Itachi and Madara (both prime)? Most of us were saying Madara.
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Cya' next chapter,