A/N: sorry, I've been really busy this week had to fix some bio-data issues before graduating.
[ JINICHI WATARU ]
cock-a-doodle-do
Morning arrived with a heavy, oppressive weight that clung to my exhausted limbs. I woke up feeling incredibly tired and groggy, staring blankly at the ceiling of my room. My muscles ached in protest as I forced myself out of the warm comfort of my bed. The system interface blinked in my peripheral vision, patiently waiting for me to acknowledge the new day. I let out a long sigh and rubbed the sleep from my stinging eyes.
■ [ DAILY QUEST ]
[Quest: Path to Evolution]
Player must finish all the workouts listed below before the end of the day.
Push-ups [ 0/ 100 ] Sit-ups [ 0/ 100 ] Squats [ 0/ 100 ]
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[Rewards] — + 500,000 Exp, 5 stat points, recovery pill.
[Penalty] — -5 stats reduction on a random stat.
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Even with the exhaustion in my bones, I knew I could not afford to skip my daily quests. I went through the familiar, repetitive motions of stretching and completing the mandatory physical exercises. The push-ups and squats burned in my tired muscles, but the promise of experience points kept me moving forward.
[ *DING* ]
[ QUEST COMPLETED ]
Once the familiar chime of completion echoed in my head, I dragged my sweaty body toward the bathroom. The hot water of the shower finally provided some much-needed relief to my strained muscles.
I stood under the spray for a long time, letting the steaming water wash away the lingering fatigue. My mind began to clear, slowly sharpening as the grogginess faded down the drain. I stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist while shivering slightly in the cool air. The mirror reflected a young ninja who still had a very long and dangerous path ahead of him. I quickly dressed up, and mentally prepared myself.
Stepping back into my living space, I immediately started on my mundane daily chores. Sweeping the floor and organizing my supplies gave my restless mind a chance to wander freely.
'It seems that the system wants me to understand something before being It starts issuing mission quests again…but what could I be missing?'
'The threats of this world will not wait for me to grind out low-level quests forever. I don't even have time anymore I have about 3 years maximum before everything goes to hell.'
I clicked my tongue in frustration.
'Fine! If I can't speed up my progress using the system, I'll just have to go about it the old fashion way!'
Learning actual jutsu's would provide me with a versatile arsenal that didn't solely depend on levelling up. My thoughts naturally drifted toward the complex and mysterious art of sealing techniques. Fuinjutsu seemed like the ultimate equalizer, capable of achieving miracles if one understood the intricate formulas.
The idea of mastering sealing arts took root in my brain and refused to easily let go. It was a discipline that rewarded intellect, meticulous planning, and precise execution over raw, overwhelming power. I imagined myself trapping enemies, storing massive amounts of equipment, or even altering the battlefield with a single scroll.
It was the perfect complement to my physical combat style and my bizarre, unique movement techniques. I just needed to find someone knowledgeable enough and willing enough to teach me the basics.
There was only one person I currently knew who might possess that kind of specialized knowledge. Sensei Shohei, despite his deeply ingrained laziness, was an experienced Jonin from a highly respected clan.
The Nara were known for their intellect, meaning he had to know at least a little about formulaic arts. I finished wiping down the kitchen counter and tossed the cleaning rag into the nearby sink. My decision was firmly made, and I quickly strapped on my ninja sandals with newfound determination.
The walk through the village streets was relatively quiet, with the morning rush just beginning to properly form. I navigated the familiar paths, my mind rehearsing exactly how I was going to present my request. The sun was fully up by now, casting long shadows across the dusty roads of Konoha. I kept my head down, avoiding the gazes of the passing villagers and patrolling shinobi guards. Eventually, the distinct architectural style of the Nara clan compound came into my direct line of sight.
The compound was sprawling and peaceful, surrounded by dense trees that provided a comforting, shaded canopy. I approached the main gate respectfully, nodding to the guards who watched me with mild, bored curiosity. After stating my business and my connection to Shohei, they waved me through with lazy hand gestures.
Navigating the winding dirt paths of the clan grounds took a bit of careful observation on my part. I finally managed to locate the specific traditional house that belonged to my notoriously lazy sensei.
I stood on the wooden porch, taking a deep breath to steady my slightly elevated heart rate. Raising my hand, I knocked firmly on the sliding wooden door, hoping I wouldn't be completely ignored.
The sound echoed surprisingly loud in the tranquil, quiet atmosphere of the surrounding residential area. I waited patiently for a few moments, listening intently for any signs of movement from within the house. Just as I raised my knuckles to strike the wood again, the door suddenly slid open.
A young woman stood in the doorway, fixing me with a sharp, incredibly unimpressed glare. She looked to be about four years older than me, bearing a striking resemblance to my Jonin instructor. Her dark hair was tied back loosely, and she carried the signature relaxed posture of the Nara clan. She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my standard-issue Genin headband. I offered a polite, somewhat awkward bow, suddenly feeling very much like an intruding nuisance.
"Can I help you with something, kid?" she asked, her tone dry and slightly raspy from sleep. I straightened my posture and tried to project as much confidence as I could possibly muster.
"Good morning, I am Jinichi Wataru, and I was directed here because I was looking for Shohei-sensei," I replied clearly. She blinked slowly, absorbing the information before letting out a long, deeply aggrieved sigh.
"Of course you are," she muttered under her breath, turning her head back toward the dark hallway.
"Shohei!" she bellowed at the top of her lungs, completely shattering the quiet morning atmosphere.
"One of your annoying little Genin brats is here to bother you on your day off!" The sheer volume of her voice made me wince and take a half-step back from the doorway.
A muffled, incredibly pained groan echoed from somewhere deep within the upper floor of the house. Heavy, dragging footsteps began to slowly descend the wooden staircase, sounding like a man marching to his execution.
Shohei finally emerged from the shadows of the hallway, and I had to instantly bite the inside of my cheek. My respected Jonin instructor was wearing a set of incredibly fluffy, bear-themed pyjamas complete with little rounded ears.
He rubbed his eyes furiously, looking like he had only managed about two hours of actual sleep. I tried my absolute best not to laugh, forcing my facial muscles into a neutral, respectful mask. His sister merely rolled her eyes at his attire and smoothly stepped aside to let him handle me.
Shohei leaned heavily against the doorframe, releasing a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire world.
"I explicitly told all of you to take the day off and rest your bodies," he grumbled miserably. He scratched the side of his neck, glaring down at me with half-open, exhausted eyes.
" Sigh…I expected at least one of you to ignore my instructions and disturb my peace." He gestured lazily with his hand, motioning for me to take off my shoes and step inside.
I quickly slipped off my sandals, stepping onto the polished wooden floor of the Nara household. Shohei led me into a modest sitting room, immediately collapsing onto a plush cushion like a fallen tree.
"So," he drawled, resting his chin heavily on the palm of his hand.
"Since you are here ruining my perfectly good morning, what exactly do you want from me?" I knelt respectfully on the opposite cushion, gathering my thoughts to make my ambitious request.
"Sensei, I have been thinking about my current combat capabilities and my overall progression as a shinobi," I began.
"I want to expand my skill set beyond my physical techniques and my current limited arsenal." Shohei raised a single eyebrow, waiting patiently for me to finally get to the actual point.
"I believe that learning Fuinjutsu would be highly beneficial for my development," I stated with unwavering conviction. I looked him dead in the eye, hoping to convey my absolute seriousness regarding this matter.
Shohei stared at me in complete silence for what felt like an agonizingly long eternity. The lazy indifference in his eyes slowly shifted into a look of absolute, unadulterated amusement. He let out a short, scoffing breath that quickly evolved into a genuine, albeit quiet, chuckle. "Fuinjutsu?" he repeated, shaking his head side to side as if clearing water from his ears.
"You want me, a Nara, to teach you the most complex and tedious art in the entire shinobi world?"
I nodded eagerly, choosing to ignore the obvious mockery heavily laced within his questioning tone. "Yes, sensei, I am willing to put in whatever work is necessary to master the formulas." Shohei sighed again, dropping the amusement and fixing me with a stern, coldly analytical gaze.
"Jinichi, I am going to save you a massive amount of wasted time and shut this down completely." He leaned forward slightly, closing the distance between us to emphasize his harsh, unyielding words.
"You absolutely do not have the inherent talent or the precise chakra control required for advanced sealing arts." The blunt rejection hit me like a physical blow to the chest, leaving me momentarily speechless.
"Fuinjutsu requires a mathematical mind and an almost obsessive attention to microscopic, tedious details," he explained.
"If I were going to teach it to anyone on our team, it would be Kisuke, not you." I felt a sudden, sharp sting of defeat settle heavily in the pit of my stomach.
I slumped slightly on my cushion, my grand plans of becoming a seal master instantly shattering into dust. The system couldn't shortcut everything, and clearly, natural talent was still a massive barrier in this reality.
"I understand, sensei," I muttered, staring down at the intricate grain of the wooden table between us. I refused to let this completely ruin my initiative, quickly pivoting to my secondary, more realistic plan.
"If Fuinjutsu is completely off the table, then I want you to teach me new jutsu's."
Shohei rubbed his temples, looking like he severely regretted letting me inside his house in the first place.
"You brats are going to be the absolute death of me, I swear it on the Sage." he complained. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, silently debating whether to kick me out or concede. Finally, he brought his gaze back down to me, offering a highly reluctant, almost pained nod.
"Fine, if it will get you out of my house and back to resting, I will teach you."
A surge of relief and excitement washed over me, completely erasing the previous sting of my bitter rejection. "Thank you, sensei, I am ready to start learning right now if you are," I offered eagerly. Shohei immediately held up a hand, effectively halting my enthusiastic momentum in its tracks.
"Absolutely not today," he stated firmly, pulling his bear-themed pyjama collar tighter around his neck.
"I am going back to sleep the exact second you walk out of my front door."
He pointed a lazy finger directly at my chest, his expression brooking absolutely no argument whatsoever.
"Go find your teammates and inform them to meet me at the training ground early tomorrow morning," he ordered. I nodded quickly, mentally preparing to track down the others before the sun reached its peak.
"I will swing by the quartermaster and requisition some specialized chakra induction papers for the three of you."
"We will test your elemental affinities tomorrow, and then we will see what jutsu actually fits you."
I stood up and offered a deep, respectful bow to my clearly exhausted instructor.
"I will pass along the message immediately, Shohei-sensei," I promised, turning toward the hallway. I quietly slipped my sandals back onto my feet, making sure not to disturb his sister on my way out.
The morning air outside the Nara compound felt significantly lighter now that I had a solid plan. Tomorrow, I would finally take my first real steps into mastering elemental shinobi arts.
[ DANZO SHIMURA ]
The subterranean depths of Root headquarters provided the perfect silence required for my undivided focus. I sat rigidly behind my polished desk, my lone visible eye scanning the encrypted scroll laid out before me. The dim candlelight flickered against the cold stone walls, casting long, distorted shadows across the secure room. The situation developing above ground in the daylight required my immediate intervention. Hiruzen was growing far too soft in his old age, blind to the true potential slipping through his fingers.
My operatives in the land of tea had observed the string off events that had occurred in the foreing nation. First, it was the creation of a technique that rivalled the hiden of a noble clan, now the boy has awakened his latent potential in the form of a Kekkei Genkai. And one that would only bring unwanted attention from the hidden sand. The last thing my village needs is more political strife against rival villages.
Hiruzen sees a quirky Genin who needed careful nurturing and gentle, patient guidance. I, however, saw a highly volatile weapon that desperately needed to be secured, sharpened, and tightly controlled. The boy's true potential will only be reached if he is nurtured by me, he will become a weapon of the root, and thus a weapon of my Konoha.
If Konoha was to survive the coming decades, we needed assets that operated entirely outside traditional boundaries. Unfortunately, Hiruzen had already placed his protective, suffocating gaze upon the boy, making a direct acquisition entirely impossible. Snatching him from within the village walls would undoubtedly trigger an internal political crisis I wished to avoid.
Therefore, the boy had to be effectively neutralized and extracted while operating far beyond the village borders. To accomplish this, I needed to utilize external assets that could not be traced back to Root.
I unrolled a fresh, blank scroll and picked up my finest calligraphy brush with steady, practiced precision. I began drafting a highly coded message, using a cipher known only to a very specific, exiled contact.
The strokes of ink disguised lethal intentions beneath layers of mundane, seemingly harmless mercantile poetry. I requested the deployment of a highly skilled capture agent to monitor the borders of the Land of Fire. The target was to be secured alive the moment he stepped foot outside Konoha on a sanctioned mission.
I knew this particular contact would demand an exorbitant price for rendering such a risky, high-profile service. They possessed an insatiable hunger for unique genetic traits and bizarre, unconventional combat phenomena. Merely mentioning the boy's strange rotational technique would be enough to effectively set the hook.
I carefully sealed the scroll, pressing my personal, unmarked wax insignia into the heavy paper. I summoned a trusted Root Anbu from the shadows, handing over the scroll without a single spoken word.
The masked operative vanished instantly, beginning the long journey to deliver my treacherous, necessary correspondence. I leaned back in my chair, steepled my fingers, and allowed my mind to calculate the next steps.
I was not the only prominent figure in the shadows who had taken a sudden interest in the boy. A certain traditionalist Hyuga elder had quietly expressed intense, venomous outrage regarding the boy's fighting style. The similarity to their clan's absolute defense had deeply offended their strict, outdated mentality.
This elder desired the boy's complete erasure, viewing him as a thieving mockery of their proud heritage. I had made a tentative, quiet arrangement with them: I would provide the shinobi necessary for the assassination, and in exchange, they would integrate a few select members of their house into Root. There is always room for talent in root.
I could easily use this blind, arrogant rage to further destabilize the situation to my own advantage. By feeding the elder carefully curated whispers, I could ensure they inadvertently aided my actual capture efforts. If the Hyuga assassins were busy planning a public death, my contact's agent would have an unobstructed path.
[ ?????? ]
The damp, putrid air of the hidden laboratory was a comforting embrace against my pale skin. I sat in the gloom, my eyes tracing the intricate cipher of the newly delivered scroll. The old Warhawk in Konoha rarely reached out unless he required something truly despicable and deeply covert.
My long, segmented tongue darted out, wetting my dry lips as I deciphered the hidden layers of text. He wanted a mere Genin captured alive, which immediately struck me as incredibly odd and highly intriguing.
Danzo was not a man to waste valuable favours on insignificant, low-level academy graduates. The message vaguely hinted at a unique, undocumented physical technique that utilized violent, self-sustained rotation.
Furthermore, the cipher explicitly noted that my former beloved teacher, the Hokage, had also shown distinct interest. If both the light and the dark halves of Konoha were hovering around this child, he was special. My curiosity, a beast that constantly demanded to be fed, was suddenly and violently awakened.
I tapped my fingernails against the stone table, a rhythmic sound echoing in the dark chamber. Danzo wanted me to act as his obedient hound, fetching the prize while he kept his own hands clean.
I scoffed quietly into the darkness, fully aware of the arrogant presumptions of my former political ally. If I sent my agents to retrieve this fascinating specimen, I certainly would not be returning him to Root. I would keep the boy for myself, dissecting his secrets upon my own cold, steel examination tables.
The cipher also contained a deeply buried hint about a deal with a high-ranking Hyuga traditionalist. It seemed the prestigious clan was terrified that their absolute defense was being mimicked by a mere commoner. This internal friction, combined with Danzo's clumsy manipulation, presented a glorious, chaotic opportunity for my operatives.
The old fool in the shadows thought he was hiring me for a job, but I was simply hunting for my next test subject. And so, I began formulating my own plans, preparing to snatch the boy from beneath everyone's noses.
I burned the coded message, watching the flames consume the paper until nothing but ash remained. The glowing embers reflected in my reptilian pupils as I began formulating the deployment orders. I needed an agent who was discreet, powerful, and capable of neutralizing a target without causing excessive damage. My mind sorted through my vast collection of loyal, disposable pawns currently scattered across the elemental nations.
!!!!!!!
'YES! He will be perfect for the task!'
Finally, I settled on the perfect candidate to intercept this mysterious Genin beyond the village gates.
I stood up from my chair, the long fabric of my robes dragging softly across the damp floor. The prospect of acquiring a completely unknown variable injected a thrilling rush of adrenaline into my stagnant veins. I walked toward the heavy iron door of my sanctum, eager to issue the deployment orders. The shinobi world was fundamentally built on the acquisition and exploitation of powerful, unique talents. I intended to uncover exactly what made this child so incredibly valuable to the old fogies of Konoha.
[ DANZO SHIMURA ]
I remained in my underground office, going over the logistical reports of my active Anbu squads. The wheels were now fully in motion, spinning a sophisticated narrative that would ultimately benefit me in the end.
The exiled snake would undoubtedly attempt to betray our quiet agreement and keep the asset for himself. I had already anticipated this predictable treachery and factored it into my overarching, multi-layered tactical equations. As long as the boy was removed from Hiruzen's soft influence, my primary, vital objective would be achieved.
I reached into my desk drawer, pulling out a separate, much smaller piece of unmarked parchment. This note confirmed the deal with the Hyuga elder, ensuring their cooperation in the coming weeks. I would pave the way for the mission, and they would fulfil the end of their bargain regarding their clan members.
Should the snake's agents strike first and seize the boy, the fallout will land entirely on foreign adversaries. Root will remain entirely blameless—a silent observer merely guiding the tragic flow of events from the deep shadows.
If my Root Anbu, operating under the guise of Hyuga assassins, intercept the boy before the snake's pawns can lay a finger on him, we secure the ideal outcome. We will stage his demise, leaving the village to mourn a tragic casualty while the real asset is brought under my absolute control. In the dark, we will shape him into something that can truly be of use to my village.
But if both forces converge on the asset simultaneously, the directive shifts to absolute denial. Under no circumstances can the boy be surrendered to the snake. My men will end him. A dead weapon can never be turned against the Leaf, perfectly neutralizing his volatile talent before it can ever become a threat.
It was a beautiful, intricate web of deceit designed solely to strengthen the hidden foundations of the Leaf. True power was never about overwhelming, flashy displays of ninjutsu or screaming your intentions to the heavens. It was about controlling the unseen currents, shifting the board while your opponents were admiring their own pieces.
The Wataru boy was merely a pawn, completely unaware of the massive forces converging upon his fragile existence. I closed my visible eye, allowing myself a rare, fleeting moment of grim, quiet satisfaction. The roots of the great tree were thirsty, and soon, they would be fed by the inevitable coming bloodshed. I had successfully aligned the disparate interests of snakes and birds, all to ensure the boy ended up exactly where I wanted him. My legacy was secure, hidden in the dark, nourished by the secrets I had carefully collected.