Exploiting Bugs

Chapter 2 – Hey, you, you're finally awake

YOU HAVE SLEPT IN A BED – HP, SP, AND CP HAVE BEEN FULLY RESTORED

The renewal of sensation hit me hard, although not all at once. It took me a good thirty seconds for my head to stop spinning. First it was the sound. The distant calls of birds out in the forest, seeming far louder then they had any right to be. Then I could feel the discomfort of light hitting my closed eyelids, and I blearily opened them, only to be overwhelmed by brightness and colour. I hadn't really appreciated it at the time, but that dark void with only a blue screen had been so dark and empty, that the contrast left me shocked.

I took a deep breath, a heady glee filling me as I could feel my body once more. Pushing away the covers on my bed, I stretched languidly, a small groan escaping me, before swinging myself around and dropping my legs over the edge of the bed. I looked down at my hands. They were slightly more tan than I was used to, having been a sickly engineer, working from my desk at home and rarely getting any sun, and they were most certainly much smaller. A small grin graced my face as I thought to try something out. 'Status' I thought. Sure enough, a blue screen popped up before my eyes.

Name: Aburame Taiki

Age: 6

Level: 1

Exp: 0/1000

HP: 20 (+4 p/h)

SP: 20 (+4 p/h)

CP: 40 (+8 p/h)

Str: 1

Dex: 1

Con: 1

Int: 10

Wis: 5

Cha: 4

Free Points: 0

Chakra Control: 0% (Unlock your chakra to gain control of it)

So that's interesting. Looks like my mental stats have been at least partially carried over from my last life. I guess that would make sense being as I seemed to have kept my memories and personality. That being said, if I had lost any memories how could I possibly know about it. I took a look around the room. It seemed to be a small studio apartment, with only a bed, a wardrobe, and a kitchenette. There was also an internal door that I found led to a small bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I found myself face to face with the avatar from my character creation. I pulled a few faces to make sure that it was really me. Resting bitch face doesn't quite fit, I suppose I would say that I had resting bored face, though that lacks catchiness. It was the kind of face that I'd only have had in my previous life if I had burned the midnight oil and then stuffed myself with caffiene so I could catch an early morning train. At least this kind of face would be less likely to make me enemies I supposed.

I was broken from my thoughts by a knock at my door. I hurried back out into the main room and to the front door, opening it carefully to find someone oddly familiar standing outside. Its somewhat expected that a two dimensional drawing of an anime character would look slightly different than their real life counterpart, but honestly I had expected the differences to be greater. Standing in front of me was someone who I was almost entirely sure was Aburame Shino, who would be my cousin, or something along those lines. It was honestly uncanny. As if to confirm that, a blue screen popped up above his head.

Name: Aburame Shino

Age: 6

Aburame Shino is the heir of the Aburame clan, and a distant cousin of yours.

This was swiftly followed by another popup.

YOU HAVE GAINED THE [OBSERVE] SKILL

I shook my head slightly and the popup cleared, and I met Shino's eyes. Or at least I think I did, he was wearing his signature sunglasses. While I was standing there in shock, still in my pyjamas, he spoke.

"We are here to collect you Taiki. Why? Because my father is responsible for your admission to the academy."

I was taken aback for a moment, but quickly regained my senses. I looked over Shino's shoulder. We were on the first floor, I could tell, and over the edge of the wooden balcony outside, I could see a man who was presumably Shino's father, Shibi, waiting in the street. I nodded and replied.

"Of course, Shino. I'll be ready in just a moment, I just need to change."

Shino nodded and I shut the door, before running over to the wardrobe, my thoughts racing. From the ages in the two status screens that I had seen, and from the brief words just exchanged, it seemed that I was the same age as the rookie 9. I didn't remember any other Aburame being mentioned in that class, so perhaps I was an entirely new existence and not a character that had been in the anime. It also seemed like today would be my first day at the academy. In all honesty, it seemed kind of fast to me, but then again, I don't think I'd have wanted to be reborn in a world full of ninja only to have to spend years as a helpless child. Still, I had better focus on not keeping my clan head and his son waiting.

Inside my wardrobe were a few sets of almost identical clothes. There were a few pairs of cargo pants in range of shades of black and grey, and similarly coloured t-shirts and jackets. Very vanilla really. I pulled them on quickly and rushed out the door, although I did notice a pair of sunglasses on the bedside table that I snagged along the way. It seemed that they were a penchant of the Aburame clan.

I opened the door, and found Shino no longer outside, rather he was waiting down in the street with his father. I took the wooden stairs outside my apartment block as quickly as I could whilst still trying to retain some semblance of dignity, before striding across the street to fall in line with the two who were waiting with me, and they turned to go as I reached them. Shibi had looked towards me as I approached, and nodded, but had not said anything. I wasn't sure if that was good, bad, or just a character trait, but it left me some time to consider what was occurring more thoroughly.

Although I had only just arrived in this world, I weirdly seemed to have some memories floating around in my head, and some instinctualy knowledge of where we were going. Thinking about it, I realised I knew exactly what route we would be taking to the academy. One could chalk up these fuzzy bits of knowledge to the poor memory of a young child. Perhaps within a week or two I would be able to put on an act such that nobody would be able to notice anything suspiscious as to my lack of memories.

Around half way through our journey, Shibi finally spoke.

"Taiki you should return to the clan this afternoon with Shino once you have finished at the academy. We can wait no longer for you to begin facing your fears if you wish to be able to wield our clan techniques".

I looked up at Shibi, who had turned his head towards me. I nodded meekly, already knowing what he was talking about, and not relishing the thought of finding out exactly how badly the entomophobia trait would affect me. Shibi helf his gaze upon me for a few moments longer, seemingly sensing my apprehension, but eventually turned his head forwards again. The rest of our journey passed in silence and we soon arrived at the academy.

I heard the academy before I saw it; or rather, I heard the crowd that was mulling about outside the academy. Even before we had turned the corner from the main street that ran through the centre of the village, I could hear the growing sussuruss of a thousand proud parents spilling out into the street, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little shocked at the sight I was met with as we finally did turn the corner. My step faltered for a moment as I took it all in. The building itself was much bigger than I had imagined, with three stories at a minimum, and a central tower within the structure which seemed to be one, perhaps two floors higher. The shocking size of the building was only compounded by the size of the crowd in front of it. There must have been over a thousand people gathered in and around the yard in front of the school, and with more still gathering if my little party of three were any indication.

From the anime, I had been under the assumption that the world of ninja was relatively small, at least in terms of population. With no more than thirty to a class, a generous third of them passing per generation, and we'll say an average of 20 generations worth of active ninja numerically speaking when accounting for casualties, that would only be 200 ninja in the village. Of course, that doesn't count organisations such as Root; and other villages may have much greater numbers, though unlikely given that Konoha is meant to be the most powerful, such a calculation had always felt incongruous to me given the scale of later battles and the amount of casualties that must have been constantly occuring. It seemed that it may have just been mister Kishimoto's creative license at play, as with the number of classrooms that must be in that building, and the number of ninja hopefulls milling about outside, there must be many more ninja in active duty that just those protagonists that I knew and loved.

Noticing that I had stopped, Shibi also paused, turning to look at me. From his body posture, I imagined him scanning me with a calculative eye, though I was utterly unable to tell through his glasses. It was at this point that I was hit with the realisation that, despite this system that I seemed to be benefitting from, my short experience in this world so far did not feel as entirely game-like as I might have desired. Even if I had a status screen, and some advantages based on the traits I had selected, Shibi very much seemed to have a mind of his own, rather thatn being a wooden NPC, and as my clan head, he would have a lot of oversight with regards to my development. Or at least it seemed safe to assume so. If he looked at me in a negative light, it could cause problems for me down the line. Perhaps my selection of Entomophobia might truly have put me in a terrible position. It seems I had been rather too harsh on my estimations of Shibi's character, however, unfeeling though he may seem.

"There is nothing to be worried about Taiki." He spoke softly, now fully turning towards me, and taking the couple of steps required to place his comparitavely large hand over my shoulder. "Despite your dificulties, I have absolute faith that you will perform well on your entry assesment, and even if you should fail, you will still be a member of our clan."

I have to admit to being entirely taken aback by his closeness, and by the warm way in which he reassured me. Given that this was a brutal world of ninja, and the Aburame penchant for emotionlessness, I had subconsciously assumed Shibi to be a cold, and calculative robot. The truth actually made my eyes water with emotion a little, and I was glad for the sunglasses that hid the briefly welling tear. Still, this was a good opportunity for a statement of intent. I met his eyeline unwaveringly.

"Yes, Shibi~Sama, I won't dissapoint you."

He held my gaze for a moment, as if assesing me once more, before nodding, and turning away, steering me along by the shoulder towards the growing crowd. Shino, for his part, stood silently and politely nearby, waiting for us to finish our brief interaction. It seemed I may have understimated him too. Even at the age of six, he had stepped a little further away to give us what little privacy that could be had on a busy public street.

As we approached the back of the crowd, I heard a voice rising above the din, shouting for ordered lines to be formed. I obviously didn't recognise the voice, and with my current height had no way of seeing above the crowd, but after around ten minutes of patient queing as the line we joined crawled forward, I recognised two people who I would've bet money on being Izumo and Kotetsu. Apparently on top of guarding the gate, they were quite willing to be stewards at busy events. As we finally reached the front, Izumo directed us to one of ten tables that had been set up near the front of the academy. A part of me hoped that I would be able to meet Iruka right away, but we were greeted by an ageing ninja, going to fat, and barely squeezing himself into his Chunin vest.

"Good morning Shibi~sama", he opened, standing in far too laboured a way for any self respecting ninja, and bowing his head in greeting.

Shibi returned the greeting with a light nod of his head, waving his hand slightly.

"Please, Funeno~san, thank you for your assistance today. This is my son, Shino, and another member of my clan, Taiki. The two of them will be applying to join today".

Shibi motioned his hand above each of our heads in turn, and the Chuunin, Funeno~san, began to note down our information. Once he finished, he handed a small wooden chip to Shino and me, each of which were engraved with a number; Shino's being 963, and mine being 964. I did note, however, that the numbers were written in hiragana. Although I could read a little hiragana in my previous life, the ease with which I read the numbers led me to believe that I may have become fluent, or at least partialy so, in japanes. In fact, thinking about it, I think we had been conversing in Japanese the whole time, I feat that I had most certainly not been capable of previously. For now, I was going to assume that I had inherited the early memories of this body. It did raise a few ethical concerns, but given how much was going on presently, I decided that I could worry about those later.

Before I knew it, Shino and I had been directed over to a part of the yard where the children who had already been processed were sat around in small groups, either talking to their friends or making new ones. Shino seemed to gravitate towards a quiet corner, under the shade of a large tree, and wanting some peace to try and get my head in order, I decided to follow him.

AN: So its been a hot minute. I've been kinda busy with life and stuff, plus i'm just generally good at distracting myself with other stuff to do. Gonna give this another go though, so third times the charm I guess. Had some fun making a spreadsheet that auto calculates secondary stats like hp for me once I put in the primary stats, so that should take some lode off of the background work that has to be done for a gamer story. But lets just wing it and see where it goes I guess. I have some ideas with what I want to do with this story. Are they the same ideas I had when i originally started writing it? I honestly can't remember. Thankfully I had literally only published one chapter previously so there won't be some horrendous paradigm shift in plot.

In any case, enjoy the new chapter. I also made a couple of corrections to the first, but that was only typos and once rather unintuitive maths blunder. I plan to post lots if possible, but I'll not lose my head and post everything at once as I finish it. I'll try to build up a stock of completed chapters. No more than one a day, and maybe i'll do less, such as 3 a week. Who knows.