The morning after my existential crisis and the Alien fiasco, I pulled out the documents I had on Uzumaki Naruto and Gaara of the Desert. Despite their earlier desires to not know this information, I shared the details about the jinchūriki with my teammates.

"These are Gaara and Naruto. I spotted them yesterday, along with their teammates, Temari and Kankurō for Gaara, and Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura for Uzumaki Naruto. Every single one of them should be on our do-not-fuck-with list."

"I can understand Gaara," Katsumi commented, "but Naruto? This guy's done one A-rank and a bunch of D-ranks, and I'm willing to bet the A-rank was a fluke Plus, we met him last night."

"Well, you're right. But, what this doesn't say is that Gaara is the unstable-as-fuck jinchūriki of the ichibi who can see through and murder with his sand, while Naruto is..." Wait, what? "You met him last night?"

Katsumi bobbed her head. "Yep, we ran into him at the ramen restaurant. He seemed nice enough."

"He's the jinchūriki of the Kyūbi and passively leaks unbalanced, mind-altering chakra. Given prolonged exposure or physical contact, he'll definitely affect how you think. I watched him subtly work on his own teammates and allies."

Maybe I was stretching it a little bit, but on the slim chance that he might try to therapy punch Katsumi, or worse, induct her into his (hypothetical) harem, I had to protect her.

"Seriously?!"

"Yeah. I'm not exactly a mind-reader, so I can't be sure of the exact effect, but any foreign chakra messing with your mental energy produces psychological changes. From what I could gather before my... episode, it likely works along with his unconscious desires. The unconscious desires of a lonely, preteen boy. Take a guess as to which of his allies were the most affected."

Katsumi shuddered, turning slightly green.

"How sure of this are you?" our teacher queried.

"One hundred percent that there is an exchange of chakra that affects the spirit energy of the victim, disproportionately targeting females of his age range. Everything else is educated speculation based on my own observations and experimentation with chakra, and what little I know of Uzumaki," I replied, tapping the notes with my fingers and slipping into debriefing mode. "Also one hundred percent sure that he is the Leaf's jinchūriki. Assuming no bijū has changed hands, he is the container of the nine-tails."

Haruka only had to think for half a second. "Alright, as lead jōnin of this team, I'm implementing a temporary restriction on contact with either jinchūriki or their respective teams. Whenever it can be avoided without arousing suspicion, do not speak with them, do not interact with them, do not fight them, and do not linger in their presence. If any of the above must be violated, genin Kaminyojin Kenta is authorized to monitor the situation and order a retreat if necessary. In the event of a potential psychological compromise, Kenta is authorized to monitor our health and demand any of us to be removed, isolated, or restrained. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," we all acknowledged as one.

"Sensei," I added, "my observations and instincts say that the risk of compromise in the short-term is low and that the long-term effects might be reversible with separation. I do not believe such actions will likely be necessary, but I accept the role. In return, I ask that you all monitor me in return. I will, of course, submit to your judgment on the matter."

"Noted, genin, and appreciated." Her face relaxed a bit, causing the rest of us to relax as well. Apparently out of commander mode, Haruka continued, "I'll make sure that there's a messenger bird with this intel headed to Kumo ASAP. Is there anything else we should know?"

I shook my head. "Not of this magnitude. Just that I did manage to look into booking a training field. It—"

"I looked into that as well," she interjected.

"And now I feel redundant," I griped lightheartedly. "Anyway, that's it."

Haruka stood from her chair. "If that is all..."

"Yeah, that's... wait, actually, there was something I wanted to ask... It's only related to yesterday because the implications of Uzumaki Naruto's ability made me think of it, and it's a weird question, but... are harems a thing in this world?"

Sensei gave me an owlish blink. "What."

"Never mind," I hastily backpedaled. "Forget that."

"No. You just caught me off guard, that's all. 'Weird question' is right. But yeah, harems are a thing. They're a fucking annoying thing, that's for sure. A harem pops up and suddenly all the girls are snatched up by one fucker, leaving only married guys, frustrated and aggressive guys that can't get dates, guys who aren't interested, and guys who fall into such despair that they turn gay!" Her voice progressively moved towards a growl. "And that leaves us few girls who don't get sucked into that fuckpile to deal with an overabundance of assholes and uninterested guys!"

"You, ah, sound like you have personal experiences with that..." I muttered.

"You think!?" She took a deep breath. "Sorry. Yeah, they're real. Annoying as fuck to the rest of us, unfortunately."

"You think Naruto is a harem builder." While I thought something along those lines, it was Katsumi who actually voiced it aloud. "His power..."

"A regular old Heartbreaker, he'll be... if he ever takes that jumpsuit off," I replied, though the last part was muttered under my breath.

As I said before, most of this was just speculation based on a rather frightening observation. But the last thing we needed was a Naruto that was sexually active getting his grubby hands on the heir to my clan. If Uzumaki Kushina had been kidnapped in this world as she had been in canon, a woman from my clan of rapists and bloodline thieves having sex with Naruto would be disastrous for both Kumogakure as a whole and our clan specifically. If he had a harem to boot, Katsumi would end up being labeled a slut too, I'm sure of it.

But this conversation also made me rethink my "prayers" from just before my little meltdown. I'd been thinking with my dick — i.e. how can I get as many women and men as possible to want to have sex with me at the same time. In reality, that was an utterly awful idea. I wasn't even interested in forming romantic relationships, let alone multiple.

"It's a good thing we don't have to stay here all that long," Katsumi remarked.

I'll say. I was not keen on lingering in the Leaf any longer than necessary now. My fanboying was done; I already did that silently yesterday. Now if we could just get on with the exams...

The three of us were scouting the competition while Haruka did some jōnin-related business that we weren't privy to. Despite my orders, I navigated us so that Naruto and company would stay well within my considerable field of vision (and effective weapons range) all day. It wasn't all that hard to do, to be honest, but the chakra shadows made it nearly impossible for me to lip-read at this distance.

It was a little hard to tell, but I think Naruto was a bit more touchy-feely with Sakura and Hinata than a truly innocent boy would have normally been. All signs were converging on me being on me being an observer in a Naruto harem fic, and that was making me just a bit paranoid. After all, if the blob of malevolent goo that was Zetsu was still running about and he was still trying to resurrect Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, then we definitely had a problem, especially if our protagonist was distracted by the sexy.

I had the ten-fold jutsu active. It was a Kaminyojin bloodline technique that accelerated us to ten times our base speed, mentally and physically. Since my base speed was about three times what a normal human was, I was operating at nearly thirty times human normals. Physically incapable of speaking or understanding speech at this speed, I resorted to hand-signs to communicate with my teammates. They did the same for the reverse.

Within the documents Lord Ay had given me, there were sketched copies of every chūnin-hopeful's registration photo (because working photocopiers were very rare). Using those and the text descriptions, I had a good idea of everyone I was looking for. As I found them, I cataloged specific details that hadn't been in the documents — new weapons, strange chakras, body modifications, and the like. In correspondence with that, I also assigned them ratings on a very different scale than what was normally used.

I also took into consideration my teammates own opinions. Whenever we had the opportunity, I moved them towards one of our opponents so that my teammates had a chance to form an opinion. I was going to share these notes with my teammates later, so the more accurate I made them now, the better.

Earlier that morning, I had explained my rating system — technically stolen from Worm but modified for Naruto — to my teammates. Each person got a set of labels, a word and a number, that describes both how to fight them and how dangerous they were in that category.

The categories were:

~ Mover: Those with powers enhancing mobility above the norm for a ninja.

~Shaker: Those with powers with an area-of-effect ability, especially in regard to creating and manipulating environmental hazards.

~Brute: Those with a personal strength or durability-enhancing effect, or those who regenerated.

~Breaker: Those who can modify their body to apparently "break" the laws of physics or create a chakra cloak that modifies how they interact with the world.

~Master: Those who can control others or create minions, including summoners.

~Tinkers: Those who use special tools in their fighting style, including puppet and fūinjutsu masters.

~Blaster: Someone who is a ranged, offensive threat, especially users of fire-and-forget styles of jutsu.

~Thinker: Someone who has an information-gathering or processing ability, including all sensors and dōjutsu users.

~Striker: A person with a touch-based or melee-ranged ability, including taijutsu and melee weapons.

~Changer: Someone who alters their form or appearance, not counting the academy transformation jutsu that everyone could do.

~Trump: Someone who manipulates other people's chakra and jutsus directly.

~Stranger: Someone with unusual stealth or infiltration techniques.

Most ninja, especially high-ranking ones, would have an arsenal of jutsu that covered a huge array of categories, so I decided to focus on the top four when assigning classifications. As for the number, it went on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 was civilian level and 10 was effectively unstoppable by anyone other than a kage, and numbers above ten being fully unstoppable. It's not a E/D/C/B/A/S ranking, regarding the difficulty or chakra-intensity of the jutsu or overall skill of the ninja, but simply how hard it is to fight them.

For example, I would rate myself as Thinker 8/Blaster 8/Tinker 4/Mover 2. Katsumi would be Shaker 6/Striker 4/Mover 3/Blaster 2, while Takeshi would be Striker 6/Mover 1/Master 1/Changer 1.

What that meant was:

Hiding from me and staying out of my assault range is nigh impossible. I'm far less dangerous up-close and I'll struggle with a moving target. Separating me from my tools makes me significantly weaker, but I'm fast enough that that might be difficult.

Katsumi controls the battlefield; staying mobile and isolated from allies is critical around her, as grouping together only plays to her strengths. She's quick and dangerous in melee combat as well, so assaulting from afar works best.

Takeshi is extremely dangerous up close. He's quick, but not absurdly so. He tends to create or summon minions, but they aren't much of a threat. His physical form isn't wholly consistent, so expect abnormal motions when fighting him.

Basically, in four words and four numbers each, I could communicate the major strengths of an opponent and the best strategy for fighting them, even if their abilities varied widely. It had nothing to do with ninja rank, nor did it say anything about how one person's abilities would interact with another's. It said nothing about their titles or rank-on-paper, and it didn't give the whole range of their abilities. It was a pure combat strategy identification system based on the target's known abilities.

Haruka thumbed through my notes, her eyes wide. I'd only had to explain the system to her once, and about a quarter of the way through my explanation, she'd started getting excited. Now, as she flipped through my ratings for everyone in the exams, I could see the gears spinning in her head. "This... this is brilliant. I've never even heard of most of these people, let alone met them, and yet you've basically given me amazing instructions on how to fight them all! This is going to revolutionize Kumo's information gathering system. A little one-line blurb in our bingo books for every entry and our chances of victory go way up. You thought of this?"

I shook my head. "A smart man from my past life did. I just modified it for ninja use."

Haruka handed my notes back to Takeshi and Katsumi, who were still trying to mentally associate faces and rankings together for their own use. Though they hadn't said it in nearly as many words (or any words in Takeshi's case), I could tell that they were just as impressed.

"Well, either way, this is going to help a lot. There are several times I got into a fight with a supposedly B or C rank ninja, only to have the fight feel like an A rank one, or vice versa," Haruka replied. "And the bingo books don't distinguish people who are strong for their rank from those who lucked into a rank as good as they got. This could fix that."

"Twelve categories and eleven rankings within each? That's a lot more fidelity," I replied in total agreement with her.

Crossing her arms over her chest, my sensei asked, "Okay, there's talk among the jōnin that you should have been one of us for a while because of your genius, but seriously, how much of your supposed genius is due to your last life?"

"Forty percent? Maybe? I'd also put another fifty or so percent on my two bloodlines synergizing so well."

"Explain, please." She gestured for me to continue.

I adjusted my weight so that I was more comfortable in my seat, then launched into my explanation. "I was born with the knowledge of something like chakra," — chakra is like chakra, right? — "plus a whole bunch of other information like an education in electrical and mechanical... ɓuıɹəəuıɓuə. For lack of a better translation, let's call it smithing.

"In the beginning, the former gave me an edge in developing my chakra, including letting me start training just out of the womb. Seriously, chakra was an entirely new sense, my eyes were beyond awesome, and I was bored as fuck as a baby. I figured out wall walking before I was physically strong enough to walk; it was wall crawling."

There were eyebrows raised at that. "Shit. You're serious?" Haruka asked.

"Yeah. I am. Kaminyojin Masaru can confirm it for you, if you ask him," I grinned at her. By now, my teammates were listening as well. "Anyway, I also had eyes that let me see chakra. You won't believe how easy it was to get perfect control when you don't have to rely on a nebulous sense and can see how your every thought affected your chakra. And, seeing as I was a baby and had never been taught hand signs, I figured out what I could do without them." Tapping my fingers together, I spun chakra threads and connected them to each other. Then, I pulled my fingers apart and loosened the external coating of the threads; they went from invisible to sparking with lightning in an instant.

The first time I'd done this, I immediately went and created a lightning whip jutsu. It wasn't the most effective or efficient of attacks, but damn if it didn't look cool.

Letting the power lines fade from my fingers, I started speaking again. "So, my body had given me a way to see chakra, see a huge distance from me, and get a high voltage current exactly where I wanted it to go. My reincarnation gave me an additional decade to develop this ability — sixteen years instead of six, and the time-altering effect of my clan's bloodline gave me even more on top of that. But my reincarnation also left me with knowledge of a whole class of weapons and tools that don't exist in this world: railguns and sɔıʇoqoɹ. I don't have the resources to build a true ʇoqoɹ, but building an ɔıuoɹʇɐɯıuɐ — a lightning-powered puppet — was easy enough to do instead. And, well, when you have the focus and intelligence of an adult, the boundless energy of a child, the curiosity to investigate, and a body that literally makes training fun, it's not hard to get really strong really fast.

"That said, going through puberty again sucked. This whole growing up twice thing has wreaked havoc on my mind, but none more than puberty in an alien body." Chakra amplified everything, including puberty. In a way, it was alien to me; that wasn't even a lie.

"So, you're not a genius, you've just gotten a head start on everyone." It was Katsumi who said that, not Haruka. By now, my notes had been totally forgotten as they'd become engrossed in my tale.

"The average Kumo ninja spends three years in the academy, plus a year or two learning with their parents and two or three years learning under a jōnin sensei. That's seven years of general education at most, and that varies greatly from person to person. Most ninja master literacy and mathematics on the fly, having been only taught the basics in favor of the stuff they'll need to survive in the field. Conversely, my people had a mandated thirteen-year education program, where some of the smartest people went back for more, often adding four, six, or rarely even fourteen years of additional, specialized education. We lived a long time, relatively speaking, and we had a lot that needed to be taught. I myself died and was reborn having spent seventeen years, the vast majority of my life, in school."

"That's insane!"

I shrugged. "Ninja educations seem pitifully small to me. Keep in mind, we weren't a warrior culture, we abhorred the idea of child soldiers, and most places didn't even allow children under the age of fifteen to hold a job. By that age, we'd already completed the majority of our education, and by the time we were legally adults, the mandated education was done."

"Hmm... Yeah, now I can understand that a bit better," Haruka remarked.

"That's still ridiculous," Katsumi argued. Takeshi nodded along with her. "How do you get anything done?"

"Most people retire at sixty-five, not thirty-five," I countered right back. "Our average life expectancy was eighty and climbing, not fifty." Ninja did live just as long as my worlds humans, perhaps even longer, but that was only if they made it to retirement. Most did not.

Takashi huffed, picked up the notes he and Katsumi were supposed to be reviewing before tomorrow's exams, and waved them in our face. "We have work," he said.

Katsumi blinked, then blushed. "Oh, yeah. We got a bit distracted, didn't we?"

I sheepishly rubbed the back of my head. Grinning awkwardly, and without even my mask to obscure it, I said, "Yeah, sorry about that. You're right, we've got work to do."

Silence fell upon the four of us, with only the shuffling of papers filling the room with sound. Information was the key to victory, and we had a lot to go through.

Finally, the day of the first exam had come. Each of us, dressed in our full combat attire, stood in front of our sensei. Even though she was not the woman who had trained me initially, she had helped me greatly in the little over a month that I'd known her. She easily held my respect, as she held the respect of her own, original students.

We stood before her as she gave us some words of advice, and we listened.

"You are the ninja of Kumogakure. These next five weeks, you will represent our village and our country. Your success or failure will reflect on our village, yes, but more importantly, it will reflect on you. There's always next time, true, but if you win here, win now, wouldn't that just be amazing? If nothing else, give it your all for your own sake. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" we cheered.

She gave us a thumbs-up. "Excellent! Now I expect you to kick everyone's asses for me and make me proud! I'll be watching."

The three of us quickly made our way towards the Konoha Ninja Academy, where the first part of the exam was being held. Our spirits were high and our egos were stroked. We could do this!