Let's See How Far We've Come (Part 1)

The three children who just came back from the Noibaro Clan landed harshly on the ground outside the entrance to the cave of Takira, two of them carrying a younger boy who seemed to have passed out.

"Kakuzu really can be a handful, can't he, Hideyoshi?" The exasperated boy with streaks of blonde in his black hair spoke to the bald boy with scars littering his face that made the twelve year old seem much older.

Hideyoshi replied, as annoyed as ever by the disrespect to his savior. "A handful? Well, inasmuch as I would like to say he isn't, destroying an entire village, even though it was really compact, at the cost of all his chakra was a bit of a dumb move. But you shouldn't talk that way about Kakuzu. I'm sure he had backup plans."

This was not actually the case. Kakuzu, although seeming simultaneously playful and aloof, was not as secretive or plotting as many thought he was. He was seriously just that kind of guy. Well, he was also well known as a training maniac, though that just made even more people suspicious of his personality.

In reality though, he only trained seriously but acted carefree because he wanted to destroy the Noibaro without attracting others to himself. He seems to have done fairly well at that. The only people who he grew close to over the past five years were these two, his sensei, and the person who brought him here, Hituki. To be fair, he actually was playful with those he cared about and didn't honestly care about most people, just like he seemed in that sense, though not a schemer.

Regardless of not being particularly renowned, he was already a rank two shinobi, in the top 50%. Kakuzu, who was indeed awake, was not listening to his two best friends bickering about whether his true personality was cold and cunning or as he portrayed himself. No, he was considering how his things were about to change.

He would be the youngest rank three shinobi in the clan after this. Destroying an entire enemy clan compound was definitely enough to warrant enough merits to do so. As a rank two shinobi in the meritocracy of the Takira clan, people turned in merits for nearly everything. Food, water, and homes were already provided for everyone at a level that could be considered just enough to live and do pretty much no work, a utopia in that sense.

Regardless of this, anything else costed merits. Library card? Merits. Going to the park? Merits. Extra food? Merits. And most importantly, inner clan membership? A shit ton of merits. Well, that or being a rank three ninja.

Inner clan members were provided with perks. First of all, a bigger house. Kakuzu had enough room to sit, eat, and meditate. That was about it. Inner members had much more space, and better furniture to fill it with. Second, more food and water. The amount those who didn't pay merits received was just enough to not be considered starving.

The trick of the seemingly too-good-to-be-true system was that anything that could be done to earn merits had to be done for a long time. The salary was good and all, but only receivable after signing a contract, the shortest of which other than being a ninja, was six years.

Hituki himself had made the mistake of signing one of those contracts, and afterward, he had to only take supply running missions for eight years, of which only six were up.

This was why Kakuzu felt the need to be extremely careful. In the inner clan, where he was about to go, all members, including ninja, were strongly recommended to sign a contract while in it. Kakuzu already had enough merits for anything he would need for the foreseeable future as it was, and didn't want to get caught by a seemingly good deal. He had taken a fair amount of missions since graduating around seven months ago, near his eighth birthday, and followed the orders of the clan head and those of his teacher. Nobody else.

While reminding himself over and over incessantly not to be beguiled by promises of credits, his two friends arrived in the main part of the cave. The group passed by the residential section quickly, then slowed to a comfortable pace while moving up the stairs. Well, a comfortable pace for ninja, meaning they were at the top of the half-mile tall tree in two more minutes.

Inside was the clan head, who had personally permitted them to take this mission, who he himself had made.

Kakuzu slowly sat up from Moriko's back and grumbled. "I'll give the report. I also have something to talk with the chief here about. Leave us for now and you guys can give your report later." Then he stood up, chakra at least full enough for that.

The chief nodded, telling the other two to go for now. Then, once they were gone, Kakuzu straightened back up in an instant. Not even his closest friends knew how much chakra he had, assuming the A rank cost all of his chakra, when 5% was left and it refilled from there by the time he returned.

"Clan head, this is gonna be bad. There's only one culprit they could blame for this, and it's us. Before I give the report, I want to know why you felt the need to even allow this mission. They will come looking and then attack."

The pale blue haired man leaned back with a sigh. "Don't think I did this for your benefit, kid. We actually got a message from our spy around two months ago that they were searching for our clan, and already figured out it was somewhere in this cave system. We needed to take the initiative on this one, and they left at an optimal time to do so.

Now, I have a question of my own. How are you taking those kills? You already had your first, but these are mostly not ninja and were defenseless. Not to mention the sheer number. I usually don't run therapy, but you're this clan's greatest asset in terms of potential, and this was a secret mission. I have to make sure you're ok."

Kakuzu took off the mask that covered the lower half of his face, which he had been wearing for years now, ever since his first day in the academy, and showed the lower half of his face to the surprised chief. After all, Kakuzu had never even shown his whole face to the chief himself. His throat had a massive scar, and his mouth had been cut around two inches past his lips on either side.

"How am I taking them? About as well as any other kill. These are the family of the guys that wiped out everyone I loved, so their ends don't bother me. Maybe killing the slaves, but it's nothing to write home about. What is is the seeming war we're about to have on our hands. I was going to report this along with my actual report, but this is better said off the record considering this development. I discovered a scroll in the basement of their slave storage, detailing some of their preferred military strategies. This might be a decoy, but their main three all involved around a minimum of 2,000 troops. Either they have an alliance with one of the big three in the Land of Waterfalls or they're much bigger than we thought and keep some secret holding place for soldiers. This war will be an uphill battle."

The village chief slammed a hand onto the desk. "This is bad! The war can't be more than a few days away from when they discover their village! I'll need to raise the guard. Your report can be handled later in front of the war council so we only need to hear it once, now, what did you want to talk about alone? Make it fast!"

Kakuzu sharpened up. "Yes sir, I want to talk about the hidden villages."

The leader of Takira began messing with some papers on his desk and nodded. "I'm listening."

"The five villages will be up and running in a few years. The Takira Clan should head something similar, in my opinion. Our clan won't be enough to defend against clans joined up into larger villages, especially Iwagakure. This war could be an opportunity to make ourselves seem strong, or it could go the exact opposite way. This is going to be a much more important war than we're thinking, either leading to the downfall or the rise of the clan."

The Clan Head, whose name was revealed to Kakuzu on his first day of school to be Kurokotei, nodded, a large number of papers stacked on the desk. He nodded slowly at Kakuzu. "Yes. I agree. I was already thinking about something similar. The problem is, we would be forced to allow outsiders into the cave, increasing the risk of invasion."

"That isn't something to worry about if we win this upcoming war, as long as we win by far. Our clan doesn't actually have any enemies that want to destroy us apart from the Noibaro and maybe the Iwatani, nor do we have a bloodline to steal. The only thing we have are our jutsus and Hero Water. Other clans have much more to lose than us, but they're still making hidden villages. We need backup to stand up to them, so the reward outweighs any risks of invading. The other clans should know that too. That said, we have to make sure that nobody thinks we're weak. This is just something I came up with on the spot, but I recommend we only send out our rank three and above shinobi, so our casualties don't seem as bad as they are. We also need to use underhanded techniques and traps to lower their number before they arrive here."

"We will discuss this more in the war council. Until then, I have to call the elders together for a meeting. Take this card down to the mission station and they will rank you up to rank three. Dismissed." He handed Kakuzu a silver card with the village chief's personal stamp inside.

After Kakuzu ranked up, as anticipated, there were a ton of people looking to contract him. One guy actually had the balls to request a twenty year contract for slave trafficking. Well, he didn't have balls anymore though…

After that mission, it was time to rest a bit, then prepare, not just for war, but for justice.

The next day in the training ground Kakuzu had rented for 20 merits, Kakuzu was stretching, alone. This was actually a fairly rare occurrence. For the past couple years, he could rarely be seen at any training ground without his teacher, but for some reason, today he not only came without him, but rented and then blocked off the entire area.

Today, Kakuzu was planning to get a bit messy, as much as he could within the confines of the village, at least. First was taijutsu training. Since he hit six, Kakuzu had been wearing weights. He took them off under no circumstances yet, only removing them if there were heavy ones already on there to upgrade and replace his current ones.

He could use the low-intermediate levels of both Crushing Basin and Reverse Flow, a style nearly exactly like the Judo he learned in his past life, which he purchased for a fair number of merits. He could also use the War Dragon's Rage at a middling level, and it became more comfortable to use the style every day.

At first, he assumed his body wasn't suited to the taijutsu style, but this was definitely not the case. He was just too short! Training in the style and growing increased his skill and comfort, and soon he was already nearing a mastery of the first few major points.

He could only use one of the taijutsu moves thus far, and that only once, the rest far too damaging to his body, but this was also an amazing rate of progress.

Next was kenjutsu. Now, Kakuzu wasn't a weapon guy. On the contrary, he hated them. But he needed to learn it in case of an enemy that needed to be chopped, not bashed. His sword technique was remarkably bad. Well, all things considered, especially how little he trained in it, it was great! But he would never reach the upper ranks of kenjutsu unless he could invest more time into it, and considering his clan, his talent, while above the average ninja, was lower in kenjutsu than even many of the bottom tier swordsmen of the Kawakami.

Finally came ninjutsu. This was definitely Kakuzu's forte, much more so than his mediocre capabilities in bukijutsu and above average skill with taijutsu, himself knowing a total of fourteen that he ever really used, but a few more he used on occasion.

After all the time he spent in the Takira Cave, he had already learned the three main academy jutsu, three D-Rank Earth Jutsu, the first two being Mud Mouth and Earth Hiding, the first of which swallows the target from underground, the second of which allows the user to sink into the ground and hide there for a short time, though not move around.

Next were his C-Rank Jutsu, of which there were four: Rock Throw, which throws a fairly large boulder, size based on chakra, Rock Gun, which shoots a small pebble from the mouth at high speeds, which then expands as it moves.

This was the basis for the next and his first original jutsu: Expanding Rock. It takes an already existing rock and decreases its density to make it larger, but if it expands quickly near a person, it can launch them a bit, though position in them in that way would be obvious and difficult. The final C-Rank was naturally the Earthen Clone Jutsu, which creates a number of clones from the earth, making them real and somewhat durable, but unable to transfer memories like the shadow clone.

He also knew 3 B-Rank Jutsu. The first of these and his second original technique was floating stones. A fair bit of the time spent in the third year of ninjutsu practice was on this one jutsu, as it was extremely convoluted, requiring the user to make atmospheric pressure disappear, then put a large amount of chakra on the bottom to make it float as if on a platform.

This specific move not only cost insane amounts of chakra, but also required a ton of chakra control. Only one group before Onoki and Mu appeared were able to fly, in the anime at least, and they were those from Hoshigakure. This was only possible through large, dense chakra and great control.

Kakuzu's chakra was not particularly dense, requiring him to use a large amount to make up for it by folding it over itself multiple times. All that was just to make the object resist gravity. The specific amount of chakra and its placement had to be calculated in real time, making the jutsu bordering between the edge of B and A-Rank.

The next jutsu was a bit easier, but required full concentration to not die. It was Earth Swimming, which uses a chakra cocoon to hold in oxygen and prevent the user from swallowing the earth they swam in. More chakra was used to break apart the ground in front of the swimmer.

This technique also allowed access to Double Suicide Decapitation, which was the final D-Rank Jutsu he knew.

The final B-Rank was Earth-Style Wall, which summoned a wall of earth. Pretty self explanatory.

Last were the two A-Rank jutsu. First was Heavenly Rockslide, his third and final (at the moment) jutsu, which summons what is effectively a small, controlled meteor shower, using the principles of his first two original jutsu, as well as a fair bit of chakra to make the rocks fall faster and cause more destruction.

The second was Targeted Sandwich. The Sandwich Jutsu is one performed to crush a large group of people or even a tailed beast by raising two large slabs of earth then slamming them together to crush whatever happened to be in between them. At best, it's a crude application of chakra, and counts as B-Rank only because it can be used on a positively massive scale with enough chakra input.

Targeted Sandwich Jutsu is a much smaller scale, but requires more specific chakra movements. First, the user has to permeate their chakra through the ground to make the earth around the target more dense, then make it slam into them quickly, splitting the land right beneath them to make it incredibly difficult to dodge. Then, finally, either trapped or crushed, the target would be sucked back underground like in Mud Mouth, but way faster, and while being smashed on all sides.

Today, Kakuzu was practicing…Rasengan. Not particularly original, but he seriously had no one-hit single target attacks apart from Targeted Sandwich, which cost much more than any Rasengan, and it would help him make a name for himself as a flashy, never before seen jutsu. Not to mention it would help him improve his chakra control grow to even greater heights than it was already at. He estimated from his work thus far that he would only be able to fire off four shots until he was out of chakra, but each shot was likely to take out enemies.

He had already spent around a year on it, as he had no way to get balls of any kind. He also didn't have the shadow clones or plot armor Naruto did, only a small bit of luck since he got to this world in the way of meeting Hituki, though that only sped up his arrival since he was already going there and the Second Hokage was only Kakuzu's age.

The way he trained it was still the three steps followed in the anime: rotation, power, then combining them. He practiced rotation by spinning a spherical rock, power by forcing a much heavier one that was still the same size as the first, then combining them by rotating the air around the rock without letting the heavy rock spin with it still in the air, pushed up by chakra.

He completed these three steps, but it was still inefficient compared to the normal Rasengan, as the rotation was only on the outside like a shell. The normal Rasengan had chakra spinning on the inside chaotically in different directions. However, only the shell was spinning and the chakra on the inside was just spinning the same way.

This gave Kakuzu an idea to take his Rasengan in a different direction than the original from there. He took the shape manipulation to a whole new level despite the Rasengan being considered the peak of shape change. He intended to make a large drill that covered his elbow to a bit past his fingertips.

Thus far, he had been able to create a drill a bit bigger than the Rasengan, but for something that covered his whole lower arm, he would need the ability to make an Odama Rasengan, still without shadow clones, regardless of whether he had them, since they couldn't help him cover his arm.

Because of this, Kakuzu had decided to finish the normal Rasengan first, as he didn't have the control to make the Rasengan Drill spin fast enough to actually drill through an opponent. Today was the day he planned to reveal it to his teacher, who was meeting with him for the first time in months to check up on his progress.

Kakuzu was giving him the knowledge of how to learn and use the Rasengan, albeit the incomplete version, as something of a thank you for all the knowledge and aid he received.

After around ten minutes of Kakuzu waiting, Hisaru arrived at the training ground.