Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this.
There was some boisterous chatter between children as we lined in neat rows for the Academy's traditional entrance ceremony.
There was a rather large difference in the amount of noise that the children were making. There were some cocky ones that were making nearly all the noise. And then there were the rest of them, who were either engaged in quiet, whispered conversation, or were standing unnaturally still, avoiding eye contact with any other children.
The Hokage arrived to deliver his speech to the children. He was a slightly shorter than average old guy with a funny robe.
And he was the most powerful person I've ever seen.
The air that he gave off wasn't the sort of oppressive power that the Kyuubi had. But the Hokage's spoke of battles won and something distinctly more… majestic, I suppose. It was hard to put into words.
But then he opened his mouth.
It was almost horrific how much blatant pro-Leaf propaganda that he was spewing out.
Disgusting.
I refuse to be chained down like this.
I heard my first rumour of Uchiha Itachi today. The prodigal son of the Uchiha clan head. The shining example of what all young ninja should be.
People tended to get excited with child prodigies. News of them spread quickly, and it wasn't a surprise for villages to get more missions when a talented young ninja rolls around. People wanted to see what they could do, sometimes even going as far as to request specifically for the kid.
They often didn't disappoint.
And with the news of Itachi's talent, came much in the way of rumours. Adult ninja were impressed with the speed at which Itachi was accumulating skill. Children were either jealous or in awe of Itachi's apparent strength.
And I was motivated to become stronger than ever.
I was not naturally skilled like Itachi was. I needed to train, and I needed to train quite a bit. Therefore, I had taken advantage of every single moment, even more so than I was doing. I was training long into the night, but I needed to work smarter. I needed to find a way to accumulate more skill in a shorter span of time.
The effects of training long past midnight have taken their toll on me. Training out in the fields for so long has made me exhausted, which meant that I couldn't train as effectively anymore. I needed to find a balance between sleep, training, and everything else to maximise efficiency.
My skills have plateaued somewhat, but I was already proficient enough in every area that I needed to pass the Academy.
But 'proficient' was not 'Itachi level.'
So I had to weigh my options. How could I get the most progress out of the least training? That was the question.
I had a few options. The first of which being learning the Yamanaka clan jutsu.
I received a bit of insight through the years as to how the Yamanaka clan jutsu were learned. The advanced things like reading and modifying memories were locked behind years of training and a prestigious rank. They also required one to be mindwalked themselves. An unstable shinobi couldn't be allowed to walk away with such dangerous jutsu.
Additionally, learning such jutsu made one too valuable an asset for the village to lose in common warfare, which meant that when one learned them, they were confined to an interrogation job within the village. Which was okay, just not something that aligned with my goal of being strong.
Though the higher-tier Yamanaka jutsu were locked behind at least the chunin rank and required one to be mindwalked– Kami knows I won't let that happen– some of the lower-tiered ones were available to virtually all Yamanaka.
For example, the Mind Body Switch jutsu was one that all Yamanaka genin were allowed to learn.
Not only was it relatively easy to learn, being a C-Rank, and the amount of damage one could cause was rather small.
It was a powerful jutsu for certain, but it could be overpowered by a ninja with a strong enough will, so a genin couldn't just possess the Hokage and go nuts. In fact, literally anyone could overpower the jutsu given enough time. The mind's natural rejection of the foreign chakra put stress on the jutsu, and it eventually would force the Yamanaka's mind to return back to their own body.
The length of time that the jutsu could be sustained, even on civilians, was rather short, especially for the unexperienced genins who were learning the jutsu. The fact that the user's body was helpless while the jutsu was being channelled also limited its utility, and therefore, its potential for damage.
Not only that, but any damage that the host body sustained would be transferred over to the user's body while the mind link was active, so forcing someone to commit suicide or whatever was hardly an option.
There was a reason that the Mind Body Switch was the signature jutsu of the Yamanaka clan. Almost all Yamanaka ninja learned the Mind Body Switch when they became genin.
When they became genin.
Becoming a genin was too long of a wait for me. I would learn it later, but I wanted power now.
The only other option that I could think of was drilling the things that I already knew. Drilling them relentlessly.
That approach to training had been tried. It was tedious, and without a teacher to coordinate my training, my progress had nearly reached a standstill. I was reluctant to talk to my mother about a tutor, given the fact that she was already receiving flak for my obvious state of exhaustion.
But drilling everything into near ridiculousness appeared to be my only option at this point.
So that was exactly what I did.