Chapter 8
"Why are you here?"
Staring at the mask of the man before her, Sora tilted her head to the side. "To learn how to be a-" Before she could finish her sentence, the man's arm whipped out and struck her in the face with a fist, sending her sprawling backwards and taking away 20 hitpoints in one blow. Her eyes narrowed as she brought a hand up to touch her jaw, her other arm in a ready position, before she dropped them both and moved back into place, quickly understanding what was going on.
He wasn't looking for a direct answer, he was looking for the answer that he wanted to hear, the idea that he wanted to plant in her head. She racked her brain for an answer to his question that would satisfy him, only opening her mouth when she was relatively confident. "To serve the village in whatever way I must." Inwardly, she was hoping to see a flicker of surprise or confusion in his body language, but was disappointed when he simply stood there implacably.
After a few moments, he shook his head slowly, his body still motionless. "An acceptable answer, but severely lacking in depth. What can you bring to the Hunter-nin that we could not get elsewhere?" Sora stared for a few more moments, thinking through every word carefully. What was unique about her that couldn't be gotten elsewhere? Her Byakugan was rare, but it was most definitely not a unique thing. Her system was unique as far as she was aware but it was solely a support system, and she couldn't exactly admit its existence.
Eventually, she shook her head. "I don't know." She was ready for it that time, but being ready for being slugged in the face and not being ready for it made no difference in the face of a master. She stumbled back just a step then forward again, ignoring the throbbing pain from her face as she stared forwards. Ingenuity, strength, talent, all of those were utterly meaningless and definitely not the answer that he was looking for. Admitting her ignorance wasn't the answer either apparently, so she had to think of something.
Apparently she had taken too long for his liking if the sudden kick to her side was any indication, sending her rolling across the floor and cracking two of her ribs. Sora took a moment to curse him out in her head before rising and moving back into position. "You can bring nothing to the Hunter-nin? Then I ask again, why are you here?" While she tried to think of a good answer, she inwardly worried about being hit too much. She only regenerated health at 7 points a minute, so if he kept up his current pace, he would kill her before they got anything done!
Finally, she settled on an answer, sharpening her gaze and baring her teeth as she spoke. "To put down anyone who tries to betray Kiri." Sora then firmed herself up and kept what was almost a glare at the man before her, waiting for his response. After a few moments, he sighed and turned, exiting the room without a word or even a change in bodily expression, leaving her alone and just the tiniest bit perplexed.
Waiting for a few seconds, she frowned, using her Mystical Palm Technique to heal up the 75 points of health damage he had inflicted upon her with just two punches and a kick. Sora then opened her status and spent all ten points she had available, four into Strength and six into Vitality. Attack speed would be awesome, but she would become a glass cannon if she kept putting points into Agility, whilst the same issue existed for her other traits.
To get the most out of her points it would be best to split them, since 15 multiplied by 15 would be 225, but 20 multiplied by 10 would only be 200, despite having the same amount of trait points. In that regard, she ended up with 340 hitpoints, a slightly bigger strength gap which would give her more leeway to survive any abuse thrown at her. She wanted to also start whittling away at how much sleep she needed every day, since if she got into the Hunter-nin, being able to operate without sleep would be literally essential. Typical training to withstand it wouldn't work on her since her body wouldn't change like that, though...shouldn't training still give her experience to make it less useless?
+2 Wisdom Points for an accurate deduction, training experience unlocked
Blinking at the lettering that appeared in her vision, Sora bit her lip and resisted the urge to get pissed off. She'd already done a lot of training since she had first woken up, and hadn't gotten a single point of experience, yet now as soon as she addressed it the system added it as a feature? Smelled like bullshit to her, but considering she was literally just the dancing monkey for some fucking stupidly powerful being, what the fuck else was she meant to do? So, devoid of any other options, Sora shook her head and simply accepted it, grateful at least with the knowledge that she wouldn't have to farm fucking rats for experience anymore.
What was truly uncomfortable for her though was that the room she was in was isolated. She couldn't see beyond the door or the walls, though she was aware of everything that was inside of it. Similarly, she couldn't read the facial expressions of the man who was in front of her because behind the mask was like a blank slate, she couldn't see it. It made her curious as to why Karatachi-san's mask didn't hide her face despite her undoubtedly knowing that Sora had a Byakugan and would be able to see her face.
After a few minutes during which she healed the extra health points she now had available and was able to recover at least some of her expended Chakra, the door opened to admit another masked figure. They were different though, this one was slightly taller and had a scratch on their mask. Their face was similarly blank to her vision, though she'd already gotten used to it and was expecting it. "Follow."
Without another word he turned and went straight back out the door, leaving her to quickly hop into action and catch up to them, walking behind him as they walked through what she assumed was an underground corridor. She hadn't actually had anything explained to her, after that one Hunter-nin had pressed her for answers they had put her to sleep and then she woke up in that room, undoubtedly to protect the location of their base, even if it was probably just a training camp and not their main base.
After at least five minutes of walking interspersed with turns, even ascending and descending staircases a few times, they entered a tiny room, about as big as a small bathroom. Within was a stone slab jutting out of the wall upon which was a single pillow, and that was the only normal part of the room. Bafflingly enough, there was a small fish tank atop a second stone slab which was filled with fish that were lazily swimming around.
"This shall be your room whilst you are here. You are to use the provided fish for medical practice. If all the fish are dead, you will be punished." He spoke concisely and firmly, revealing a bit of malicious pleasure when he said that she would be punished. Evidently, he wasn't the most well-adjusted of people, but she supposed that if they had to constantly kill people who were strong enough to think they could abandon the village, being unhinged was acceptable.
Seeing that she was unphased, he took out a scroll and made it puff in white smoke which she wasn't able to see through. After a moment, it cleared to reveal a uniform which he dumped onto the slab. "Put this on, then follow me." With that, he vacated the room and stood against the wall, pointedly facing towards her room, making it clear that he was going to be a prick about things.
Rolling her eyes at his stupid attempt to mess with her, Sora utterly ignored his presence as she picked at the clothing she'd been given, looking it all over with surprise and approval, then efficiently stripped off and changed into her new gear. It even came with fingerless gloves, complete with back-of-palm plates and forearm guards. She was honestly expecting something way shabbier, but in reality, her equipment barely differed from the gear of the shitstick outside of her room. The only difference in all of the gear was the mask. Her mask was pure white and had only a single eye-slit whilst his had both eyes obviously as well as a wave pattern over the mouth, though both prominently featured the Kirigakure symbol on their foreheads.
Twisting her wrists to properly settle her gloves, she flexed a little then nodded to herself, kicking her pile of clothes underneath the slab then turning to face him. She would have raised her eyebrow, but the mask on her face made sure that such an action would be fucking useless. So instead she simply stepped out of the room and folded her arms as she waited for him. What she did not quite expect was for him to suddenly lash out at her with a fist, smacking her left arm into her stomach and breaking her ulna and radius at the same time with the force.
Growling, she cradled her arm and looked at him, only to see him marching away. After a few steps, he turned to look back at her. "Follow." He said casually as if he hadn't just broken her left fucking arm. Gritting her teeth, she followed behind him whilst using her fingers to push her bone fragments back into vaguely the right place. As she was about to then heal her arm, having assumed he was annoyed at having not affected her, he spoke up without looking. "Heal your arm and I'll shatter both of them."
She was almost tempted to do it just because he pissed her off, but she wasn't quite that emotional yet. Besides, the punch he had given her did a full hundred points of health damage. If he broke both her arms at the same time, she'd be dangerously close to dying outright. Though when she thought about it, maybe going to zero health wasn't actually a death, it would just put her in a near-death of some kind. That seemed likely considering how easily she could be killed right now.
+2 Intelligence for an intelligent theory
So, since he'd told her not to heal herself and she suspected he wasn't just doing it because he was annoyed at her, she quickly made sure that her body wouldn't heal the fractured bones automatically. Instead, she fixated her eyes on his back, making a mental note of everything about him that she could, from the way he walked, his height, how his head barely shifted from side to side or up and down when walking forwards, a little bit like an owl.
The reason was that when she had the chance she'd be able to pay him back threefold for breaking her arm and perving on her. Sure, she wasn't exactly body-conscious, she knew she had small breasts and was probably destined to be as short in this life as she was in her past life, and she also knew that she didn't give a fuck about either of those facts, but that didn't mean she was an exhibitionist, it still rankled her to be watched like that.
Then a quest popped up in her vision, dispelling her anger as amusement and excitement replaced it.
Quest Received!
What Goes Around Comes Around
Objective: Get revenge on the masked Hunter-nin who broke your arm
Reward: 15,000 Experience, Fine Naginata
Bonus Objective: Do so before becoming a Lieutenant
Bonus Reward: 60,000 Experience, 2 Random Jutsu Books, 3 Random Skill Books
Out of surprise, Sora very nearly tripped over her own feet.
But then, her mind went to work analysing the quest properly. A Lieutenant likely referred to a Hunter-nin rank, which meant she had to get revenge earlier than she should typically, meaning more challenge. And the rewards, well, they sounded amazing, and that was likely the point. The basic reward was just that, basic, but the bonus reward very likely reflected the difficulty of the bonus objective. It was regarded as four times as hard if the increased experience reward was any indication, not even counting the Jutsu and Skill books.
At her current power level, she was outclassed in both speed and strength by miles, so trying to fight him would be like trying to swim up a waterfall. Then she realized upon closer inspection that nowhere did it say she had to fight him. All she had to do was get revenge on him, which was a hell of a lot easier. He broke her arm, so making him slip and spill a drink wouldn't make up for it, the revenge would likely need to be a measured amount of retaliation.
So, for now, she put it into the back of her mind and instead just focused on walking. The size of the base was honestly impressive to her, since they'd walked for a fairly long time beforehand, and they'd even now been walking for another few minutes. While they walked she wondered whether she'd get her Naginata back. Sure, completing the quest would give her a Fine Naginata, but she had grown somewhat attached to her own one.
After a few more minutes of silent walking, interspersed by a single small group of masked Hunter-nin heading past them, they entered another room. This one was larger, about the size of a running track. Within there were a few figures all doing various activities. Some were running around the room following a trail on the ground whilst others were sparring, doing pushups, squats and other forms of exercise.
What was most interesting and simultaneously irritating is that she could clearly see that she was shorter than them all by at least a foot, and she was already mentally prepared to be shoved around just by virtue of being small. Though if she couldn't even handle that she would probably be better off taking a Kunai and slitting her own throat right then and there, since she definitely wouldn't be able to handle being a Hunter-nin.
"This will be where you train every day. Every week all Hunter-nin recruits are tested. When you are deemed necessary you'll be placed into a team and will undergo missions to hunt down Missing-nin. An instructor will arrive to train you in necessary aspects of being a Hunter-nin." With those few sentences, he turned and left the room, leaving her surprised and just the tiniest bit murderous.
With a growl, she formed the hand seals for the Mystical Palm Technique, undoing her selection to retain her broken bones and cuts, then healing her arm back to pristine condition. Sora flexed her arm to test it, then looked around the room curiously only to see that they had all stopped what they were doing to look at her. "What?" She asked lowly, glancing across them all before shaking her head and moving to the side of the room, stretching her arms across herself.
When she came to a stop, she picked out a random kata in her mind to go through and began to perform it, ignoring the looks that she could see the others giving her. Whether they were going to haze her or not she didn't know, maybe the other Hunter-nin recruits wouldn't be so stupid as to do that, or maybe they would think she was a pushover. If push came to shove she had some weapons stored in her inventory that nobody knew about, and while it'd definitely raise some dangerous questions, she'd rather stab someone and deal with that than get treated like shit. She was willing to put up with it, sure, as long as it didn't go too far.
It wasn't like she really cared what they thought about her anyway.
After what she guessed was roughly an hour, another masked figure entered the room.
Immediately all the others stopped what they were doing, and so Sora mimicked them, including turning towards the figure and standing at attention. She lagged behind by a brief moment which was unavoidable, though she wasn't surprised when the figure approached her and backhanded her. "Next time you will be as fast as the others." There was no question and no relent in her tone, nor any hesitation as she then turned and walked into the middle of the room.
With a gesture, all the others gathered up in a horizontal line before them, which Sora attached herself to the end of just as quickly. "Today will be Jutsu training. 3, 7, 8, step forwards." When she spoke, the aforementioned three, whose numbers corresponded with where they were stood in line, stepped forwards. "You three will study. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, step forwards." They did so in the same instant. "You five will go to The Hall to practise. 9, step forwards."
As she was on the end of the line and was the only one who hadn't stepped forwards yet, Sora quickly did so. "You will follow me." As soon as she was done speaking, the woman and those who were told to go to 'The Hall' vacated the room, while she moved to follow the woman. They didn't go far, only to the next room along, whilst behind them, Sora could see along the corridor that the other group went into the next room along from where they had been. Once at the centre of the room, the woman turned to look at her. "Other than the academy jutsus and your medical jutsu, what else do you know?"
"For jutsus, only those." The woman gestured for her to go on, so she did so. "I'm also adept with polearms, kunai both thrown and held and standard Taijutsu. I can handle animals, I know my way around a forge, that's it really." The woman watched her for a few moments before shaking her head. "I also know that I have an abnormal growth speed when it comes to learning."
"Oh?" The woman sounded highly amused at that, which slightly rankled Sora. "Well then little miss prodigy, I guess I'd better test that." Without another word, the woman moved to the side of the room and picked out a scroll, then tossed it negligently at her. "Read that, try to use that technique. If you can't manage it within an hour I'll break a finger." Blinking, Sora opened the scroll and skimmed the technique in curiosity, immediately noting that her game gave her the option to learn the skill. The technique itself was called the Mizu no Yaiba, or Water Blade.
Slightly surprised, Sora accepted the option to learn the skill, then checked her menu.
Water Blade Technique - This technique creates a solid sword out of ambient air moisture. Cost - 100CP on cast, 5CP/s to maintain
Immediately, she grinned behind her mask.
Looking at the woman who was stood before her, Sora rolled the scroll up slowly and tossed it back at her. "So, you admit you aren't a super prodigy then? Then break one finger and I'll call-" Interrupting her with hand signs, Sora used the technique, drawing out a blade from the air and grasping it, spinning it once in her hand as she smiled. "That is not possible." The woman said bluntly, stepping forwards and grasping the sword.
As soon as she touched it and saw that it wasn't a Genjutsu or some other form of trick, Sora felt a cold chill as the woman's mask fixated on her. "Techniques come to me easily. I also train exceptionally quickly, my current major drawback is how little chakra I have. I could only maintain that sword for a little over a minute before being drained entirely." The woman simply stared at her for a few more moments, making Sora just a little scared that she had really fucked up.
"Stay." The woman then flickered and vanished, a gust of wind being all that indicated her departure, making Sora's eyes widen a little. She knew about the Shunshin no Jutsu, sure, but the woman hadn't just left the room, she had gotten entirely out of Sora's Byakugan range, since the door was open and she could see down the corridor. She glanced at the place the woman had grabbed the scroll from and after some mental debate, she moved over to the shelf and began poking the different scrolls, reading the Jutsu name popups then learning them all one by one.
Saishuu Kyuusui no Jutsu, Suichuu Ikidzukai no Jutsu, Koi Sokushahou, Mizu no Tatsumaki, Suirou no Jutsu, it didn't matter to her what the ability did, she grabbed them all. It only took her half a minute to poke and learn them all, then she stepped back to her original place and acted like absolutely nothing had changed. After a minute two people entered, one of whom had the same figure and thus was likely the same person, though the other was different. "Show the commander the Mizu no Yaiba."
Blinking, Sora went through her hand seals and drew another blade out of the air, laying it across her left hand. The figure in front of her remained motionless for a moment before turning to look at the shelf then back at her. They then looked at the woman beside them who moved to the shelf and picked out a scroll before handing it to Sora. Taking the scroll, she rolled it open, then glanced up at the commander. "I don't have enough chakra to use this technique."
The one that was picked was the Mizu no Tatsumaki, or Tornado of Water, and it took 500 chakra to cast it, while even with the increased pool she had, she was still short by 23 points, ignoring the fact that she was still recovering chakra from using the Water Blade. From the side, the scroll was taken out of her hands and placed back on the shelf, and another was given to her, which was the Mizu Shugo no Jutsu, Water Protection. That one took 200 chakra to cast and 10 chakra per second to maintain, so she could actually cast it.
With a quick nod, she went through the necessary hand seals and used the technique, gathering water from her surroundings which formed across her body in a thin layer, not heeding her movement at all as she twisted and turned a little. "It seems your claim of being a prodigious learner was correct. You may return to the training room, and know that should you use any of the techniques within this room, you shall be punished." Sora bowed and hastily left the room whilst dispelling the technique, slightly nervous as she felt an invisible pressure weighing down on her heavily with each word that he spoke.
Frankly, she just considered herself lucky to get out without getting her ass beat again.
After spending a few more hours training, during which time a Hunter-nin came along to explain the rest of the details to her like how laundry was handled and all those small facts, Sora headed back to her room.
Upon arriving, she wasn't too surprised to see the 'commander', or at least someone who matched his height, weight, size and shape. She bowed in greeting, showing about as much deference as she could, since honestly, she didn't want to be seen as rebellious or disrespectful. "Your schedule will be different to the other recruits. You are to report to the hall at zero hundred hours every day for special training. On top of that, you will report to the infirmary at ten-hundred hours every day for testing. Am I clear?" Sora nodded, watching as the commander exited her room and left without a word.
As soon as he was gone, Sora moved into her room and shut the door, then sat down and looked at her hands. Both of them were quivering and twitching, and try as she might she couldn't quite calm down properly. She just had to do it, she had to make herself too special. In her mind, vivisection and studies were playing, as well as memories of the hours before her death.
But then...she realised that she was in Kiri. They probably thought she had a Kekkei Genkai of some kind, and Kirigakure was...heading straight towards a civil war between those with a bloodline and those without. She only knew that because the Game had given it away when presenting her with her starting options, and that knowledge was valuable and dangerous.
It meant she knew they would almost certainly not try to forcibly breed her 'bloodline' into forcibly conceived children, but it also meant that if they decided she had a Kekkei Genkai they would probably slit her throat, and possibly even her father for good measure. Shivering slightly, she shut her eyes and rubbed her thumbs against them, pulling her knees up to her chest with her back against the wall.
One of the Jutsus that she had picked out of the bundle was one that could tell the time. How exactly it did that she didn't know, nor whether it'd change if she went to the other side of the world, all she knew was that it told the time, and right now it was nearly seven at night. So, with much force of will, she pushed her thoughts out of her mind and stripped down, then lay on the stone slab and rested her head on her pillow, staring up at the dark ceiling, the only light illuminating the room coming from beneath her door.
And, with a hell of a lot more worries and pressure weighing down on her, Sora slipped into sleep.
Name: Sora Metami
Level: 11
Age: 12
Experience: 5,483/11,000
To Next Level: 5517
Title: Hunter-nin Recruit - +50% increased damage to Missing-nin, +50% increased experience gain within Hunter-nin locations
Health Points: 340 (100 Base HP + (Vitality x Strength)
Regeneration Rate: 11.3/minute (Health ÷ 30) (Severe or noticed injuries can be chosen to retain scars)
Chakra Points: 477 (100 Base CP + (Wisdom x Intelligence)
Regeneration Rate: 15.9/minute (Chakra ÷ 30)
Strength: 15 (Each point increases melee damage by 1%, adds 1 slot to inventory)
Vitality: 16 (Each point raises poison resistance by 0.1%, reduces need for sleep by 0.1%)
Agility: 22 (Each point increases top speed by 0.1m/s, increases weapon proficiency gain by 1%)
Wisdom: 13 (Each point decreases chakra cost for techniques by 0.1%)
Intelligence: 29 (Each point increases experience gain by 1%)
Luck: 10 (Each point increases the chance of something lucky happening by 0.01%, decreases the chance of something unlucky happening by 0.01%)
