A.N.: Happy new year everyone! When I uploaded my last chapter I noticed I accidentally had more of a backlog than I thought. Surprise!

Chapter 16: Raucous Requests

As I entered the kitchen I couldn't help but appreciate the foresight of using my debugging paper for this test. At least my clone hadn't been completely out of his mind when he set off a bomb in our apartment. Even so, the dinner table was blown to pieces, and I needed to act fast to put out the embers before they could set fire to my remaining furniture.

Normally, applying the standard explosive script to my cheap debugging paper would have been about as dangerous as a firecracker. This here was more like a homemade grenade. Louis would've been proud.

I went to grab a broom and dustpan when my dear neighbour shouted, "You okay in there!?"

I trotted over to open the door. "Yeah, sorry Naruto. Just a small jutsu accident," I assured, totally not trying to cover the view to my apartment as I tried to manually guide Naruto back to his own room.

He was having none of it, rolling out of my grip and stumbling into view of my smoking kitchen. "Satoya, you're one of the smartest people I know, and somehow still one of the stupidest people I've ever met."

He said it with such conviction that I couldn't help but agree with—WAIT I can't fall for his talk no jutsu!

My shoulders slumped and I started sweeping the floor. "That really hurts, coming from Konoha's #1 knuckleheaded ninja."

Naruto took a sharp breath, but stopped short of yelling, instead indignantly crossing his arms—I raised him well. "Pretty sure you stole that title by now. How many times have I brought you to the hospital again?"

I paused my sweeping and chewed on my lip. "Thrice..." Not that three times was a lot, but it was infinitely more than the zero times I brought Naruto there. "But hey, I was using my clone for this test. Totally safe."

Naruto sighed. "Will I have to lock up your writing supplies every night?"

I take it back; I raised him to be a total pain in the neck. "Many apologies, Naruto-shishou. Would you be so kind as to help me pick up some of the wood shards?"

"Only if you promise no more explosives in the house."

"Yes, mom," I responded, "I promise to only test them outdoors."

Naruto didn't look convinced, but relented anyway, summoning a batch of clones to help clean the place up. Once we finished, I brewed myself a cup of tea. I would have just gone back to sleep, but my clone bedmate was splayed across the mattress, leaving me no room to join him.

Naruto lounged down on my sofa and watched me shovel tea leaves into a filter. "How much of that stuff do you go through per week?"

"I plead the fifth."

Naruto snickered. "That much?"

"It's mostly habitual. I don't really need it with clones on sleeping duty," I responded. The boiler clicked off and I poured the water in. "Speaking of which, aren't you going to go back to sleep yourself?"

"I have another two clones in bed," he answered. "Do you wanna head out for a bit instead?"

"To do what?" I asked. "I was planning to work on some more scripts."

Naruto groaned. "What did I just say?"

"It won't be explosives! I'm also working on storage scrolls," I said. "Plus, I need to finish my tea before we leave."

"If I let you start working on something now we won't be leaving for another hour."

I pursed my lips. "Okay fine, I won't be writing anything new. How about you help me with a problem instead?"

"You really think I can help you out with sealing?"

"You are an Uzumaki," I replied. "They were the foremost sealmasters in the world."

Even if he had no genetic predisposition to understand technique formulas, a fresh set of eyes could help me out of my mental rut concerning the impossibilities of warping spacetime.

"I'm not a real Uzumaki," he said. "Gramps said I got the name to honour their memory."

No need to burst his bubble on that quite yet. Not like I could explain where I'd even gotten the knowledge from.

"Either way, you might notice something I hadn't considered," I said. "I'll be right back."

I went and grabbed a few previous designs from my bedroom's work desk, careful not to wake up my dozing clone. Just in case, I also took some ink and brushes. I clicked the door shut behind me and brought the arrays over for Naruto's perusal.

He took the first one off the stack and skimmed the text. "No clue what this means," he said, and gestured to the tea waiting on my kitchen counter. "You gonna drink that now?"

I rolled my eyes and sauntered over to pick up the mug. "At least try to take this seriously."

Naruto huffed and shook his head, raising the paper closer to his face. His brows furrowed and his eyes intently scanned the code line by line. After thirty or so seconds of deliberation, his posture relaxed and he nodded to himself.

"Yup, I was right the first time. I have absolutely no idea what any of this means."

I inhaled a bit of tea mid sip as I choked out a laugh. "Darn. I hoped your protagonist powers could solve all my problems."

Naruto laughed. "My what?"

"Your protagonist powers," I reiterated. "Nevermind. Banking on those was probably a bit too optimistic."

"Dunno what you expected. This is just some weird writing arranged in a pattern," he said. "What does it even do?"

I sat down beside him and grabbed the array he was holding. "Here we have a standard storage seal," I explained. "Add a bit of chakra and," poof, a kunai popped out and clattered to the floor.

Naruto blinked a few times, registering what happened before raising his brows in askance. "Okay, so what's the problem?"

I paged through the stack and handed him a different array. "This is my version."

Naruto channelled his chakra into the seal. "It doesn't work."

"Yup."

"Why?"

I grit my teeth but kept smiling. "Who knows? By all means it doesn't make any sense."

How could I—a 'hot shot IT-Guy'from modern day earth—fail at something as simple as designing a functional variant of my own? The commonly peddled product had some of the messiest syntax I'd ever seen. Anything would be better than the poorly written excuse of a program.

"I mean seriously, just look at the original!"I smacked the sheet in my hand with the mug, spilling liquid all over it. "It's like these people have never heard of IF/ELSE statements before."

"Uhh, it's kinda hard to read what you mean if you pour tea over it." Naruto said.

"Oh, right…" I stood up and let the liquid drip on the floor, wiping my hand over the paper for good measure. Thankfully the material was designed for field use and therefore waterproof. I flipped it over and traced my finger along the page.

"Here we see a full sentence dedicated to what could be said in a single word, here we see unnecessary poetry, and here is a nested statement that should only take a single 'while'. This disgusting piece of code should be bowing down in shame in front of its superior!"

"Its superior?" he questioned, taking another look at my version. "I guess it's… shorter."

"You don't sound adequately impressed."

"Well yeah, it doesn't work," he reiterated, shattering my ego into a million bits.

I hung my head. "I know, but besides that it's a huge improvement."

"It's also uglier," Naruto added.

"Wha— aesthetics don't matter!" I blurted. "And my calligraphy is perfectly fine. Your argument is invalid."

Naruto looked dumbfounded. "I dunno, I just think the longer one's nicer. It's all swishly, swirly, flowy," he said. "Yours just square, ya know? You can for sure make better art than that."

Now it was my turn to look dumbfounded. "Gimme that," I said, snatching my array from his hands.

I held the standard array at a distance to view the image in its entirety. I hated to admit it, but this mess of syntax was indeed aesthetically pleasing—more than my own work.

So what? That was just how code looked! Top to bottom, a simple series of commands. It didn't need to look pretty, it needed to work.

'It doesn't work.'

How could artistry influence function? It hadn't mattered for other designs. The basic practice arrays were written just like normal programs. In fairness, folding the fabric of spacetime was a lot harder than making light. LEDs were commonplace on Earth while pocket dimensions were completely theoretical. The math required for such a thing—waitaminute.

I peered at the image again.

I need to test this.

I stepped away in search of a fresh ink brush when Naruto barred my path.

"Nuh uh, no more drawing," he said. "I helped out. You finished your tea. We. Are. Leaving."

"Okay…"

The air was chilly this time of night. Stars twinkled in the skies above and the dim glow of Konoha's red-light district—don't think about it too hard—produced a soothing ambience. Naruto led me to the stairs to the Hokage Monument, and a bout of nostalgia struck me as I was reminded of the times Naruto and I used to sneak out of the orphanage.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You'll see," Naruto replied.

His disarming smile dispelled any complaints I would otherwise raise. I could only nod in acceptance as he kept leading me up the mountain. By the time we finally stopped, we found ourselves deep inside the forest far out of reach of Konoha's artificial lighting. I noted the sound of rushing water—this is like the ultimate stereotype for a murder scene.

"Alright, I followed you all the way out here," I announced, sticking my hands up, "Did you have something specific in mind?"

"Of course I do," he declared, puffing out his chest, "This is the spot we went fishing in years ago!"

"And why is that important? Do you want to fish?"

"Remember when we were here as kids?" he started. "A year into our friendship, you promised to teach me treewalking some day."

"And I did," I responded.

"Yeah, but you taught everybody. It was supposed to be something special," he grumbled. "We used to be something special. Just us two, taking on the world together. Now we're in different teams, going on different missions, and you always work in the evenings too."

"You're right. We'll be going on different missions soon," I responded. "Which is why I need to be as prepared as possible. I won't have you to watch my back."

Naruto pressed his lips together. "You're the most overprepared genin in the world. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Don't tempt fate."

He shook his head. "Anyway, we're here because Kakashi says my chakra control is shoddy," he explained. "So you gotta help me waterwalk."

Wow, Naruto earnestly asked me for chakra control training. He must have been desperate for a leg up on Sasuke.

"Hayate hasn't even gotten us started on that," I responded.

Naruto crossed his arms. "Ya think I don't know you've already started on it yourself?"

Finished on it, actually. "You got me there."

I gave him a quick rundown on how to mould the chakra in his legs, hammering home that there wasn't any 'trick' to the skill beyond practice. I then took an illustrative step into the river while narrating exactly what I was internally doing.

A mistake.

The second my foot touched the water it was yanked out from underneath me. My other foot was still on solid ground, which forced me into a split. Resistance was futile as I back flopped into the stream.

Naruto's resounding laughter probably woke up the entire forest.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up," I said, drifting along in a lazy backstroke. "You'll get plenty wet yourself by the time we're done."

"Ehehe, we'll see," he replied. Moments later, I was surrounded by two dozen clones. "Alright team, you know what to do!"

His copies saluted and each dashed up- or downstream to practise what I had explained.

"Cheater," I grumbled with a sour expression.

"A good ninja uses every tool at their disposal," Naruto asserted, holding his chin up high and pointing a thumb to his chest. "And I'll be the best ninja there is, believe it!" His clones all chorused their assent.

God save me from shonen protagonists.

To be fair, I'd been using clones too when I learnt it. Despite what fanfiction generally wanted me to believe, neither tree- nor waterwalking were things a pre-graduate could easily achieve. In addition to regulating your chakra output, carrying something as heavy as a human necessitated going against your body's natural chakra pathway, twisting it into a coil to compound its sticking force.

The way it behaved was so tantalisingly close to electromagnetism I almost wanted to declare the mystery solved. Sadly that didn't explain why a chakra magnet worked on any surface and didn't give a crap about respecting poles.

I'm getting off track.

Only through repetition would the technique become second nature, and I just demonstrated to myself I had more to learn. I made myself a far smaller batch of clones and sent them off as well. Meanwhile Naruto Prime sat atop a branch, watching his clones take slow and steady steps along the river. They mostly wound up dunked under water, but not always.

I climbed up to join him on his perch. "I see what's going on here," I declared. "You're bamboozling me. You've clearly practised this a bunch already."

"No…"—He averted his eyes—"I guess all your chakra control tips just stuck with me."

I shook my head in fond exasperation. "Naruto, why are we really here? I doubt you needed my help."

"I just wanted to hang out with you," he admitted, opening his mouth again but hesitating to continue.

"And..?"

He leaned on my shoulder. "You won't leave me behind, right?"

I chuffed and ruffled his hair. "The thought would never cross my mind."

He wrapped me in a tight hug. "Even with our teams doing different things?"

"This déja vu conversation is hardly necessary," I said, hugging him back. "Trust that no matter what happens, I'll always be your friend."

We stayed there for a bit longer until a few of my clones decided to jump up and get some hugs of their own. "Hey hey hey, who said you could skip out on work?"

"Lead by example," one of them said, nodding sagely.

I shoved him off the branch and he fell to his death. "I hate all of you."

Friendship moment successfully ruined, Naruto and I got back to work.

Both of us had started at a sedate pace, but for every batch of clones dispelled, our tempo increased. By the time the dawn's first rays shined through between the trees, I was drenched in sweat and gulping for air. While our clones were busy getting wet, we'd been vertically racing up and down the trees.

"I win!" Naruto declared.

"Yeah… fine," I collapsed onto my back. "Next time… no weights."

In addition to being physically fatigued I was also running precariously low on chakra. Trying to keep up with Naruto's clone production was a dumb move. I was amazed he was still standing after all that compound exhaustion.

"Do you give up?" he asked, sliding off the trunk and peering down at me. "We still have time before missions."

I groaned and Naruto laughed.

"How about we go on a walk instead?" he offered. "Betcha I could still find our old training field."

"You think it's intact?" I asked.

"I dunno."

Only one way to find out.

I struggled to my feet and Naruto supported my weight. As we neared the clearing we'd once called our own, the dawn chorus was steadily eclipsed by telltale thwacks of fists hitting wood. Someone had annexed our territory.

Gone were the straw dummies and circular targets of the past, replaced instead by huge, worn logs of wood. Hitting those logs was…

"If I cannot do 2000 kicks without a mistake, it's 2000 punches! If I cannot do 2000 punches, then 2000 squats! If I cannot…"

And next to him was…

"I will do 500 punches! If I fail, then 500 jump ropes! If I trip, 500 pushups!"

"That's the spirit, Konohamaru-kun!"

Wait what.

I must have been hallucinating. The explosive tag mishap had actually been far larger than I assumed and I was now stuck in a coma. Things probably weren't looking good out in the real world. My brain must have been pasted if it came up with this.

"Why's he so green?" Naruto asked, unaware that he was just a fragment of my damaged psyche.

I didn't bother answering his question, instead waltzing into the clearing with laser focus.

"Time out!" I declared. "You,"—I pointed at Konohamaru—"How'd you wind up here?"

"What's with the attitude?" asked Lee before the kid could reply. "It is most discourteous to interrupt a training session!"

I blinked at him, and then turned back to Konohamaru. "Well?"

Naruto smacked me upside the head. "He does this sometimes," he explained. "Anyway, I'm Naruto Uzumaki. What's your name?"

"My name is Rock Lee. Like you, I am a genin of Konoha. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance!"

"This loony is Satoya Ibui," Naruto added.

"It's not lunacy," I interjected. "It's the world that's wrong. I see fate unravelling before my eyes."

Lee raised his brows. Their exaggerated thickness made me smirk. The sheen of his magnificent bowl cut turned the smirk into a chuckle.

"I understand," Lee said. "One of my teammates also has misgivings about fate."

My chuckle escalated into a full belly laugh.

"Why're you laughing!?" shouted Konohamaru. "You should respect Lee-sensei! He's a way better ninja than either of you!"

I clapped Lee's shoulder a few times—possibly with too much force. "Yes of course! I'm sure he is a far greater teacher than either of us."

Konohamaru growled, and Lee tenderly removed my Hand. "Is it a fight you want?" Lee asked. "Yosh! I have been itching to test myself against the so-called generation of geniuses."

I held up my arms. "Woah hold on, who said anything about fighting?" I replied. "My compliments were sincere. Seeing how well you were training your student genuinely impressed me."

"I did not take them as anything but!" Lee said. "It does not change my wish to test myself against you!"

Oh hell no. Lee was a hunk of muscle fully capable of directing devastation anywhere he wished. In my exhausted state, fighting him would be a death sentence.

"I'm afraid I will have to decline," I responded. "Naruto, how about you?"

My friend didn't hesitate for a second before cracking his knuckles. "Sure thing, when do we start?"

Lee took up his signature stance. "I will let you have the first strike."

Naruto glanced at me, "Got some dulled Kunai on you?"

"Always." I handed him a pouch. "Stay on guard. Lee is incredibly strong."

A smirk appeared on Naruto's lips. "Just gimme five minutes."

Oh brother.

Moments later one Naruto turned into dozens who synchronously threw their kunai. I felt an urge to facepalm. He should have gotten out of sight first.

As one may expect, Lee launched forward to escape the volley, rocketing straight toward Naruto Prime. Thankfully, the fight didn't end just from that. Naruto was saved by a clone's valiant sacrifice, using the expelled chakra smoke and a wave of replacement clones as cover for his escape into the treeline.

"You wish to tire me out by sending clones in your place," Lee noted, "but it makes no difference! No matter how many you send, I will defeat them all and find you."

"The heck you just say!?" shouted one of the clones. "We can keep this up all day. Dodge this!"

Lee dodged it, and all the other ranged attacks sent his way. Now lacking any weapons, the clones were left defenceless against Lee's counterattack. His targets scarcely managed a single hit before getting pulverised. I flinched as I watched them scramble to safety so better outfitted clones could take their place.

Konohamaru gaped in awe. "He's so cool!"

I agreed, though the fight was far from over. Announcing he wouldn't tire out no matter the number of attackers had been optimistic. Lee relied on purely taijutsu and didn't have AOE skills. On a good day, Naruto could summon hundreds of clones. If Naruto played his cards right the matchup was in his favour. Though as we'd seen, attempting any sort of melee was definitely not the right play.

"Everyone retreat!" a clone announced. "Use the Kakashi strategy!"

The clones all disengaged and fled deeper into the forest. I felt Naruto's chakra pulse throughout our surroundings.

"How unyouthful!" Lee declared. "Running will not win you this fight!"

"Shut it, bushy brows!" yelled one of the clones.

An arsenal of weaponry sailed at Lee from every direction—kunai, shuriken, senbon, spears, spiked balls. I knew for a fact that Naruto had no idea how to use any of these things. Instead of a targeted assault it looked more like someone dumping a cart full of weapons onto their opponent and hoping for the best.

"This is nothing compared to Tenten-san!" Lee stated. "You are merely giving away your positions!"

He disappeared from sight once again, and I barely caught as he reappeared in front of a firing squad. "Ah shi—" One kick and two punches; four clones went down. Another ten bull rushed him in a suicidal charge, doing everything in their power to push him back to the clearing.

Contact!

Incredible. I hadn't expected Naruto to land a single hit, especially not in melee. Lee was shoved off the branch and forced back in the open. I noted there were a lot less weapons in the clearing than there had been earlier—the smaller ones must have run out of chakra.

Lee noticed it too. "I see you create your own ammunition," he said. "No matter!"

His eyes traced the surroundings, paying close attention to the mischievously chuckling clones. I knew the real Naruto was the one with the most chakra, but Lee wouldn't be able to recognise that. What else was he looking for?

I wasn't given the time to find out. Lee shifted into a crouch and prepared to jump. Before he leapt away the larger weapons stuck in the ground all dispelled, revealing themselves to have been clones all along.

Kage bunshin bukijutsu.

But Naruto had shown his hand too soon; Lee still had firm footing. He grabbed one of the ambushers to use as a shield, blocking off one side as he dealt with the other. Taking a page from Naruto's playbook, the ensuing smoke cloud covered his escape and I scrambled to make out where he went.

He reappeared in front of Naruto prime. "You're finished."

Naruto was wrapped in bandages and dragged down from his perch, slamming into the ground. Lee landed on top, placing his foot on Naruto's back.

"How'd you find me?" Naruto asked.

Lee smirked. "You were the only one with a full weapon pouch."

Naruto groaned. "I can't believe it."

"It was a good fight, Naruto-kun," Lee said, stretching out his hand.

Naruto gladly accepted his help off the floor. "Yeah, well played," he said. "I'll totally beat you next time."

Konohamaru ran up to Lee with stars in his eyes. "You're the coolest sensei ever!"

Lee blushed pink—yes, literally. "Only because you haven't met Gai-sensei yet."

Despite the entire universe having tilted on its axis, this change may have been for the better. Lee could only be a step up compared to the nonsense that Naruto taught Konohamaru in the show. I didn't see why he would stop Konohamaru from learning ninjutsu too. Teaching him Rasengan at some point down the line should still be possible.

Yeah, this is fine. Better than fine, even.

The next week of D-ranks was a slog of menial labour and delivery jobs. Clones helped make some of them go faster, but speedy completions only rewarded us with more missions. Money was nice and all, but I'd have preferred extra training over work. How depressing that literal reincarnation wasn't enough to escape the daily 9 to 5. Thankfully Hayate had promised to keep the weekend free for group training.

I hadn't quite expected this.

"Today we will delve into elemental transformation and advanced ninjutsu," Hayate said. "However, writing and storing technique scrolls is a risky endeavour, which is why Kakashi-san here will serve as our living library."

The man in question huffed. "I get the sense you only like me for my jutsu." He then turned to us six gathered genin. "Before I get started on teaching you anything, we should talk about chakra natures. They fall into one of five categories—fire, wind, lightning, water, and earth."

He pulled out a small bunch of paper. "This is chakra induction paper. Channel your chakra into it and it deforms as such," Kakashi held a piece up for us to watch wrinkles arc out from his fingers. "My element is lightning. The paper reacts differently to each element. Wind will cut it, earth will crumble it—"

My goodness could he be any slower with this. Quit stalling and get on with it!

"—and I see someone is rather impatient to get started. Why don't you show off to the class? We can discuss the results as they come." His eye smile gave me the impression he was making fun of me.

I fixed my facial expression and sheepishly accepted a piece of paper. It felt heavy in my hands and I couldn't quite keep my hand still as I held the sheet between my fingers. My friends leaned in closer to watch, which only served to increase my nervousness—especially Sasuke's red eyes.

Kakashi motioned for me to go ahead.

I held my breath as I channelled my chakra. After a short delay, I felt the paper become wet, dry again, wrinkle, catch fire, tear apart, and crumble to dust in that order.

Not.

What actually happened was nothing. Nothing whatsoever.

"Uhh, Kakashi-san?" I asked. "No, wait. You're {trolling} again aren't you? Handing me normal paper. Very funny."

He took it back and wrinkled it just like his last one. "Do you have performance anxiety? I could get you a private room."

"Kakashi-san, please don't say something inappropriate," Hayate interrupted. "Satoya, are you confident you successfully manifested your chakra?"

"Uhh, yeah?" Heck, I was at stage two of Rasengan training. No way did I fail something that simple.

"He did it correctly," Sasuke added. At least withstanding his Sharingan stare was worth something.

Kakashi shrugged and gave me another piece, and this time I pushed a ludicrous amount of chakra into it so it would be visible to bare eyes.

Come on!

Once again nothing happened.

Shit.

"Huh, you don't see that every day," Kakashi noted. "Who wants to go next?"

"Me!" Akuma and Naruto shouted in parallel.

So what, we'd just ignore this and move on? This was a momentous discovery, right?

Noting my pout, Akuma added, "Hey just because you're weird doesn't mean I'm not still curious about myself."

Naruto and Yuu both vigorously nodded along.

Hayate cleared his throat. "If I recall correctly, there hasn't been a nonstandard chakra nature documented for nearly fifteen years now. We will need a more advanced method to determine yours."

"Meaning I'll just sit this session out?" I asked.

"It would be best to determine everyone else's affinity first," Hayate replied.

So yes.

Akuma received the next piece of paper. In response, Naruto loudly protested how it wasn't fair that team five got two tests in a row, so Akuma handed him the one she was about to use herself.

"Thank y—ouch!" Naruto pulled his hand back from sudden combustion.

"Heck yeah!" Akuma whooped, "All of you tremble before my awesome flaming prowess." Naruto glowered at her and she cleared her throat. "And uhh, sorry about that. Didn't expect the paper to hurt you."

Fire. That was probably the least surprising outcome of all time. The only things less surprising were Naruto's wind and Sasuke's lightning—foreknowledge for the win. Neither Yuu nor Sakura had any preference, so Kakashi just handed them the paper at the same time. The two pieces crumbled away.

"Both earth. I suppose I will take over your instruction then. My own affinities are earth and water," Hayate said.

"And what about me?" I asked. "Should I just head back home?"

Hayate chuckled and shook his head. "No, my clone will take you to a specialist," he replied. "I suppose our meeting with the Hokage should have already taught me you'd never make things simple."

You're telling me, buddy. I was the one who had to live with this whacko body. At least I wouldn't have to be left on the sidelines all day while everyone else got to have fun.

Here's a little piece of trivia for you: Natural Yin or Yang affinity was a thing that existed in the Naruto universe. The far less fun caveat to this revelation was how difficult such an affinity could be measured. It produced no visible results in the tried and true paper-method and historically required a whole bunch of trial and error to figure out. The same thing was true for secondary affinities, though by the time a ninja was advanced enough to start learning those, they could usually figure them out on their own.

To my luck there was a far simpler method nowadays.

Thanks to the mystical powers of technological progress, pesky things like rare primary or secondary affinities could be tested with something called an 'inductive deterministic array'. I was told this marvellous machine had been initially conceived by Jiraiya—cough Orochimaru—of the Sannin himself, and only recently completed development. Not only would it reveal individual affinities, but even the relative ratio of one's natural disposition in addition to potential underlying kekkei genkai.

All that fancy functionality was more than enough to tell with certainty that I was 100% natureless. The technician on duty had assumed it to be a technical fault at first, but nope. Repeat tests, negative, and positive controls, all told the same thing.

All that hard-earned chakra after years and years of healthy activity and nutrition, only to be told I'd need even more work to gain any proficiency with ninjutsu. On the plus side, it also meant I wasn't inherently disadvantaged in any affinity either—or so Hayate said. We didn't actually know that for sure because unlike 'rare affinities', 'no affinity' was literally completely unheard of.

Was cursing 'God' even the right thing to do at this point? Lacking affinity could have been a side effect of reincarnation. Alternatively, this had been a deliberate choice by the cruel author of my fate.

If it's the latter, I hope they at least care enough to give me a set of plot armour.