One thing I only just realized is that writing Karatachi as 'Karatachi-san' constantly is weird, so outside of Sora actually saying her name out loud, it will now just be Karatachi.

Also, I'm going to start putting commas in four-digit numbers, because that's what you're meant to do. Before, I'd write a thousand as 1000, but the correct way to write it is actually 1,000, I just never actually got around to changing my habit. Also also, this chapter has a much heavier subject than I initially intended, just a head's up because I know it might not be appreciated.

Chapter 9


Upon waking up, Sora was honestly a bit surprised that she hadn't woken up bolted to a table for study.

She rose and cracked her back, then stood up and started to do some light stretches to work away the discomfort that had accumulated from sleeping on a flat stone slab all night. With that done, she slipped into her new equipment manually instead of using her inventory, since she was still wary of being watched and giving things away about herself, then checked the time.

Since she had a half-hour of spare time to use before it would be midnight, she took off her gloves then dipped her hand into the fish-tank, plucking one out and placing it on the stone, then using her newly-acquired Mist Blade Technique, a cheaper and weaker alternative to the Water Blade, to form a sharp edge with which she could slice the fish open. When that was done, she formed the hand seals for the Mystical Palm Technique, pressed the two sides of the wound together and healed it shut, in total draining only a hundred points of her chakra.

In return, not only did she get a few percentage points of proficiency in her Mystical Palm, she also got 64 points of experience, of which 14 points came from her Intelligence increasing the 50 base points of experience. With a grin she placed the fish back into the water and fished out a different one, repeating the process two more times. She didn't use all her chakra up as she wasn't sure if she would need it during the day...well, night really, so it would be good to keep some back just in case she needed a full tank of chakra to use later.

The only issue was what to do about the small pool of blood that had accumulated. Sora frowned, flicking her hands to get most of the blood off then dipping them in the water to wash away the residual blood, all the while trying to figure out what she was meant to do about it. The room had no natural drainage, so using the Water Gathering Supply Skill to wash the stone would just mean the floor would get soaked, which meant all she could do would be to leave it to dry and stain the stone, not like it mattered much anyway.

With nothing better to do, Sora got back onto the stone slab and folded her legs over, shutting her eyes as she sat and waited for time to pass. After a few minutes though, she felt...odd. Nothing in the room had changed according to her Byakugan, and so she opened her eyes in confusion. As soon as she did so she was surprised to feel that whatever odd feeling had been affecting her stopped dead.

Now intrigued, she closed her eyes again and tried to mimic what she had just done, to no avail. Probably because she couldn't not think about it, since she was actively trying to do it. After five minutes passed she was forced to give it up for the moment and exit her room, moving quietly towards the training hall for her 'special training' which she really hoped wasn't a euphemism, because she would be trying and failing to castrate some fuckers if it was.

As she walked, she calculated in her head how much experience she could earn by slicing the fish and then healing them. It took roughly a hundred chakra to cut then heal one fish, and she regenerated 15.9 points a minute. So 100 divided by 15.9 was...6.3ish, which meant every 6 and a third minutes she could earn 64 experience. By that logic, every 60 minutes she should earn about 576 experience.

It was remarkably similar to the nearly 3,000 experience she had earned through performing katas and other training exercises the day before, as she had spent around 6 hours training. Six hours of healing fish would earn her a bit more experience, which was likely balanced as such since she was unable to do that kind of training as much, she likely wouldn't be spending much time in her room.

Then again, if she was to spend ten hours training, then maybe an hour being tested in the infirmary, and a neat 8 hours of sleep, she would have five hours spare, which would mean earning about 2900 experience each day just from her own training. Coupled with ten hours of intensive training, which would likely be much more rigorous and focused than what she had done later, and she guessed at earning maybe double the experience there, that meant she was looking at earning about 13,000 experience a day.

Of course, that was with ten hours of straight and brutal training, and that was without anything going wrong as well as her experience gaining being at the level she estimated it would be at. For all she knew it would stay at the same sort of level as it had been the day before. Sora simply decided to put those thoughts aside, remaining a little hopeful for such a powerful growth rate whilst not forgetting that it was likely unrealistic.

Instead, she made the final turn and short walk to the training hall, pushing the door open. When she saw nobody inside, she hummed and quickly checked the time. Upon seeing that she was still three minutes early, she moved to the middle of the room and did some preliminary stretches and twists. When she checked the time again and saw that it was dead-on midnight, she frowned then sat down, folding her legs and closing her eyes, deciding to wait patiently but to use that time to see if she could trigger her earlier state again.

After ten minutes, while she had managed to reach that state again, she lost it just as quickly thanks to the fact that when she noticed it, it became her focus of attention, which then dissipated it. It was like she had to have it happen without really thinking about it. So, with a slightly annoyed expression on her face, Sora attempted to push out as many thoughts as she could, trying to keep her mind blank as best she could.

When another few minutes passed, the door to the hall opened, so she quickly rose and upon seeing the painted mask that she now knew indicated a fully-fledged Hunter-nin, she bowed respectfully towards them. "I knew you were talented, I didn't expect you to already be learning how to meditate." Sora blinked in surprise and tilted her head, both at the subject of the words spoken as well as the fact that she recognised the voice as Karatachi. "It's a tough thing to do, you have to have a completely calm and blank mind, allowing chakra from your surroundings to enter your body and be turned into your own chakra, even I can't do it very well."

Nodding again, Sora waited as the woman walked around her and sized her up. "Alright, the Commander has seen fit to dump training you into my lap since he figured you would learn best from someone you have respect for, plus I'm on forced leave from active duty for confidential reasons. So, any suggestions for what you think you should focus on first?"

Sora hummed, thinking it through carefully. "I think either learning Taijutsu or Sōjutsu would be best. I have an...affinity for polearms I guess, I pick up polearm skills pretty quickly after all, but Taijutsu is both my weakest link and the best baseline ability overall, since unless I get my hands dismembered or tied up I can't be disarmed. As for Jutsus, really I need to put in work to expand my chakra pool so I can maintain techniques for longer periods of time." She then nodded to herself, looking at Karatachi to see what she would say.

"I agree with you learning Sōjutsu and expanding how much chakra you have, but I can't accept you using Taijutsu, or at least not the academy standard techniques." Karatachi then put a hand up to her chin as she looked Sora up and down. "You're 12, nearly 13, yet you're not even breaking 3 foot 8, so you'll likely be under 4 foot 6 fully grown. That means maybe something like a Blade-trick Taijutsu would work." The woman muttered to herself as she circled Sora again, making notes and comments and asking questions almost at random for a while before nodding. "Yeah, I'll have to get the commander to authorize you learning a different and more importantly rare Taijutsu, but I think he'll agree."

The woman then straightened up and took a scroll out of one of the pouches on her waist, unfurling it and drawing a short metal staff to emerge from it. "Now, take this, and try to hit me with it." Sora picked up the weapon and spun it a few times, getting used to the weight and the length of the staff. Karatachi took that time to take a kunai from somewhere, then simply waited casually for her to be ready.

Moving into a combat stance, Sora inhaled slowly, exhaled, then nodded, immediately charging towards her opponent and throwing out a probing jab which was immediately deflected to the side and out of her left hand. True to her experience, Karatachi immediately slipped in past her weapon and towards her. Just a little bit panicked, Sora pulled in her spear across herself with her right hand and grabbed it again with her left, providing a barrier...which did absolutely nothing when Karatachi merely hooked her kunai behind the staff, then planted a fist right into Sora's stomach, making her double over and leaving her wide open to be flipped onto her back on the ground, staring at the ceiling. "Ow."

Nonplussed, the woman grabbed her arm, lifting her up then moving away and waiting patiently for Sora to be ready again.


Walking calmly into the infirmary behind Karatachi, there was no sign of the utter abuse she had suffered at the hands of a woman she now deemed as an utter psychopath.

The entire ten hours were spent with her being beaten down in ways she didn't even know she could be beaten down, interspersed with occasional small lectures and advice. However, that wasn't to say that it was all wasted time. In just one of those hours she hadn't earned 1,000 experience, she earned a full 1,800 experience in just an hour. In just ten hours, she had earned roughly 18,000 experience, which meant she levelled up not once but twice. on top of that, from how hard she got beaten down, she even got a few points of vitality out of it, so that was a bonus.

Of course said growth rate was not just because of how vicious Karatachi was, it was also partially to do with her intelligence raising the gained experience. On top of that was also her Hunter-nin Recruit title that she had received. She hadn't had it equipped when training the day before, and her Academy Student title had been removed entirely since she was no longer a student. With all those together, she was gaining a lot more experience than she expected.

It made her curious as to what kind of level equivalents other people were at, since she didn't really have a good measuring post for what levels could beat who. Could a level 50 beat a Chunin? Would she need to be level 100 to give a Tokubetsu Jonin a challenge? What about regular Jonin, or ANBU or even the Kages? Karatachi obviously outclassed her to such a hilarious extent that calling it seal-clubbing would be a mercy, so evidently her level was way too low, but wasn't this kind of growth way too extreme? Then she realized that the only reason it was so fast was because of the combination that she was getting special treatment, she had the ability to heal and keep going from injuries and she had the Game enhancing her growth speed.

Inside the infirmary, there were some actual beds instead of stone slabs, some medical apparatus, and a masked Hunter-nin who didn't match anyone she had seen before. "Recruit-375 being presented for testing." Karatachi said formally, bowing in front of presumably a med-nin. Sora quickly followed suit as to not show disrespect, feeling just the tiniest bit uncomfortable as she still couldn't get thoughts of dissection and study out of her head, mixing with her innate dislike of medical settings entirely to add to her discomfort.

A female voice finally responded as Karatachi rose out of her bow. "Thank you, you may leave. I trust that your memory is sufficient to know the way back to your room." Sora nodded quickly upon realizing that it was she that was being addressed, at the same time as she saw Karatachi give her a brief glance then exited the room. "The Commander wants me to do daily examinations on you, for what purpose I do not dare to inquire and recommend you not do so either. These tests will range from physical to psychological to intellectual. I would advise that you give your all to these tests, for falsifying the information will incur a grave cost upon you, are we clear?"

The tone of voice was matched with pressure not dissimilar to the invisible pressure the commander had placed onto her when he spoke, and Sora was very quick to nod her agreement, almost sighing in relief as the pressure was alleviated. "Good. The first test will begin shortly. Remove your armour, including your mask, then sit upon that chair." They pointed out a...honestly she wasn't sure what to call the chair that they pointed out.

Sora disrobed and placed all of her garments in a pile, then went and sat down, waiting curiously as they opened and shut various cabinets. Eventually, they came over and flashed a light in her right eye, not bothering with her left since the Byakugan didn't contract in the presence of light. They started asking her some weird and invasive medical questions, far from typical questions like blood type or height, probably because they already had that information.

No, this was information like 'how many sexual relationships have you had this year' and 'how much of this substance have you intaken in the past month', obviously questions that were just designed for a broader range, likely a typical Hunter-nin questionnaire of some kind to get a baseline medical evaluation done. A lot of what was asked obviously wasn't tailored for her since she was literally fucking twelve, but it was still just the tiniest bit awkward to be answering so many weird questions.

After at least a quarter of an hour of questions, they moved on to other examinations, testing her blood pressure, heart rate, muscle strength, reaction time, lung capacity, all sorts of baseline tests that she went through monotonously. Finally, the med-nin sat down in front of her, and the pressure she felt made her even more uncomfortable than any of the questions or tests. When they spoke, she could tell they were speaking with the utmost seriousness.

"This is the final question I have for you and will affect your entire life. As a Hunter-nin, and as a female, there may come a time when in order to reach a target, you must use your body to do so, for the good of the village. This option will only be given to you once. As a past student of the hospital, you have a knowledge of biology, including the function of ovaries. Do you wish to have them removed?" Sora honestly stopped breathing for a few seconds as she processed what she was just told.

Remove...her ovaries? She honestly didn't...she hadn't even thought about that kind of thing. When she was silent, the med-nin, who up until now had remained utterly detached, actually extended an arm and placed it on her shoulder. "I understand how difficult a decision like that can be. But you cannot forget that as a kunoichi, capture may sometimes be far, far worse than death." Sora knew that, how could she fucking not, not with how she had been...abused and tortured before she died.

But...removing her ovaries entirely? She had died young in her first life and aside from a single time when she had been even younger and curious, she had never gotten together with anyone, much less decided if she wanted to have kids when she was older or not. And now she was being asked if she wanted to remove that part of her body entirely? That was...she couldn't just decide that!

Apparently seeing the conflict in her eyes, the med-nin retracted her hand and sighed. "I'll give you a few minutes to think about it." With that, they started to neaten up the apparatus in the room, cleaning tools and wiping down surfaces, leaving her to seriously contemplate her decision. Sora shook her head after a moment and got up, attracting her attention. "Have you decided then?"

Sora nodded at that. "If I ever get into that situation, being incapable of being pregnant wouldn't mean that I'm not still in that situation. Besides, it's not like I couldn't stop it from happening." As she spoke, she formed the seals for the Mystical Palm technique and waved her hands with a thin smile. The med-nin looked at her for a moment before sighing and gesturing at her clothing.

"Well, don't come crying to me if it ends up happening."


Tapping the stone slab beneath her arms, Sora watched the fish swim around lazily in their tank whilst waiting for her chakra to regenerate.

Her life had fallen into a routine very quickly, where she woke up half an hour before midnight, ate a light meal from a 'sealing formation' which was drawn on the wall that held her meals, practised her Iryojutsu on her fish for a while, then headed to the training hall for a session of beatings with Karatachi, interspersed with a brief lunch break depending on her hunger level. She preferred to not eat lunch most days because it wasn't fun getting gut-punched and having to hold down the food she had just eaten. After that, she would go for a physical examination with the med-nin whose name she still didn't know, then would go back to her room to practise Iryojutsu until she went to bed.

She had very quickly lost track of which day it was, since the Jutsu that told the time only told what time of day it was, not which day it was. It felt like a while, but the days blurred together so easily that she couldn't really keep it straight in her head. Plus, alongside being beaten to hell and back, she also repeatedly got pressed into using all kinds of different techniques, some of which she physically couldn't use.

While her relations tab in her menu said that Karatachi was currently a friend and halfway to the next stage, that didn't mean she went easy on Sora in the slightest. Very often she ended up with broken bones that she had to stop and heal, alongside losing gallons of blood from the training which might as well have been a blood harvesting activity, not that she complained, since she was seriously benefitting from it.

The harsh beatings kept raising her vitality, the regular physical activity also raised her agility, whilst her strength was slower but did still raise by a few points all on its own. On top of that, on the days when she had to cast Jutsus over and over and over again and felt exhaustion right down to her core, those exercises raised her Wisdom and Intelligence a little, meaning the only thing that never raised was her luck.

Annoyingly enough, she couldn't even use her level increase as a benchmark for how many days it had been, because on some days she gained upwards of 30,000 experience whilst on others, like Jutsu practise days, she earned less than 15,000, even only around 11,000 on one particularly slow day. However, all of that practice had paid off in spades, as she had risen up a long way, ascending straight to level 27.

Whilst levelling, her main expenditure of points was on Intelligence, constantly scaling up how much experience she earned in a day to match her growing need for more experience. Right now it was sat at a full 60 points. Her next highest stat was actually vitality, she had expended 15 points each into strength and vitality so she wasn't likely to accidentally die from training too hard, whilst on top of that she had her ambient growth, leaving it at 41 points.

Next was agility at 37, then strength at 32. Wisdom came in fifth at 25, and luck was still sitting rather unhappily right down at only 10 points. Her issue with luck was twofold. Firstly, 'something lucky/something unlucky' was just too vague for her. Secondly, and more importantly, it operated in increments of 0.01%. So for a 1% difference, she had to expend a full 100 points. To max them out, basically preventing unlucky events and making every 'event' be a lucky event, she would need 100,000 points, or 20,000 levels, an utterly unthinkable expenditure when she could put that into agility and be able to move at 10,000m/s, or take a tenth of that and put it into wisdom, making the cost of all techniques 100% cheaper.

Then there were her proficiencies. True to her word, Karatachi had found her a Taijutsu to use which complemented her short stature. It was called the Sticky Punch, and basically, it abused a technique she hadn't yet learned called the Wall Climbing Jutsu which pretty much all shinobi used to walk up walls, trees, and other surfaces. How it worked mechanically was that she would selectively adhere parts of her body to stick to different objects, be it enemies or the ground or walls, using that to pivot, spin and generally be an utterly unpredictable fighter.

It was best used in an ambush from behind, as she could adhere to the opponent's back and be basically unremovable unless she was killed. With their back wide open she'd easily be able to subdue or kill them. In reality, it was mainly just a training method for using the Wall Climbing Jutsu in an unconventional fashion, but since she was small and nimble, Karatachi thought it would be the best thing for her to learn until she was proficient enough in using her Naginata, even though she was forced to choose between using it in her civilian identity or as a Hunter-nin, as her using the weapon in both would be a dead give-away.

It sucked, but unless she wanted to get attacked for Hunter-nin activities, she couldn't have such an obvious tell. Thankfully enough, other than grinding that, her Sōjutsu, Bukijutsu, Shurikenjutsu and Mystical Palm all were rising at a respectable rate, each one levelling up a few times over the course of the time she spent being a living punching bag for ten hours a day. Honestly, when it came down to it, even that much pain wasn't her biggest grievance.

No, that honour went to the perks she had chosen. It wasn't that they were bad, but her 'Weren't you just...' and 'The Medic is always right' perks honestly could have been better spent on things like the Fuinjutsu perk. As for her polearms perk, using swords or daggers would have been a way better option. One thing that still confused her was how few options there were.

Honestly, there wasn't an option for bludgeons or scythes or axes or spears? It really just seemed odd to her, since the world she was now in had all those kinds of weapons available for use and more. Then there was the lack of ranged weapons. No bow, crossbow or firearm perks were available, and it honestly just confused her, since she had all three available for crafting later on in her menu.

Regarding firearms, they weren't anything fancy, and they were all locked behind much later levels of crafting proficiency, but it would still be a force multiplier in terms of a sneak attack weapon that wouldn't be easily blocked. Nobody would be ready for it if she suddenly pulled out a gun and shot them, since they wouldn't know what it even is. Plus, with how fast the shot would be, even if they were ready for it, she doubted most enemies would be able to even dodge it.

If they could dodge a bullet, she was probably fucked either way so it wouldn't matter.


I was tempted to cut out the last segment and put it in the next chapter, but I figured people would prefer the chapters be long than having more =D

Sorry if this isn't really very action-y and that Sora is growing without much issue, but I figured that if she's getting special treatment, being examined daily so Karatachi can tailor what training to do the next day, with ten hours of rigorous training every day, she would grow at a pretty insane speed, especially when paired with her Intelligence and her Hunter-nin Recruit title buff adding more experience to the pile. But hey, that's why reviews exist, so you can tell me I'm dumpstering this story like I always do =3

Also, does anyone here have any perks they think should have been added to the list when Sora was setting up her things? I feel like I massively undersold how many there should be, since as I said, there's no perk for bows or bludgeons or anything else, there were only three for weapons, which is just a ridiculous notion when considering how many weapons there are.

So yeah, if you have any ideas for perks, you can throw a review or a PM my way and tell me, and who knows, maybe something will happen soon ;)


Name: Sora Metami

Level: 27

Age: 12

Experience: 14,723/27,000

To Next Level: 12,517

Title: Hunter-nin Recruit - +50% increased damage to Missing-nin, +50% increased experience gain within Hunter-nin locations

Health Points: 1,412 (100 Base HP + (Vitality x Strength)

Regeneration Rate: 47/minute (Health ÷ 30) (Severe or noticed injuries can be chosen to retain scars)

Chakra Points: 1,600 (100 Base CP + (Wisdom x Intelligence)

Regeneration Rate: 53.3*/minute (Chakra ÷ 30)

Strength: 32 (Each point increases melee damage by 1%, adds 1 slot to inventory)

Vitality: 41 (Each point raises poison resistance by 0.1%, reduces need for sleep by 0.1%)

Agility: 37 (Each point increases top speed by 0.1m/s, increases weapon proficiency gain by 1%)

Wisdom: 25 (Each point decreases chakra cost for techniques by 0.1%)

Intelligence: 60 (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%)