6 A Pebble Bounces off Pebbles and Stones

A Pebble Bounces off Pebbles and Stones

__________

Over the following month, my nightly rests in the roots of the Mother Tree proved to be an incredible boon. I had gone from the undeniable last place in my class in terms of chakra capacity, to generally outperforming a quarter of the class. With my above-average chakra control in play, I ended up in the middle of the pack in most of the class' chakra exercises.

With this regimen established, I had managed to account for my inferiority in regards to chakra reserves. Addressing my inferior abilities in Taijutsu, on the other hand, had required a very different approach. Research and deliberation weren't all that useful when it came to close combat, so I had thrown myself into the action.

__________

"Katsuo, go low! Sho, take his right!" shouted Hisoka, directing the two boys. Katsuo dove for my legs, while Sho prevented me from capitalizing on his compromised position without getting a face full of his shoe.

As I dodged to the left, I hastily ducked to avoid Hisoka's kick to my head. Katsuo immediately took advantage, spinning on his hands and shooting a low kick at my torso. I grunted at the impact, but wrapped my arms around his leg and tried to jump back while lowered in a crouch.

Katsuo was pulled back, knocking Sho off his feet, but Hisoka's fist prevented me from standing all the way up. I tossed Katsuo's leg in the air, sending him sprawling on his shoulders, and arced my leg out in a sweep forcing Hisoka back. I broke off, allowing the two boys to stand up shakily and get back into their stances.

After our first day of Taijutsu spars, I had met up with the trio of second-year students at the tea shop as usual. Instead of continuing with chakra exercises, I had requested that we head to a training field and spar. None of the three had been enough to challenge me, so we had started fighting three-on one. For the first week or so, their lack of coordination allowed me to win quite often. As their synchronization grew though, I found myself losing constantly for the next three weeks.

After a month of beat downs, my greater dedication to training had finally started to pay off, and I was able to land a draw in most matches, with the occasional win scattered throughout.

"I think we're good for today," I spoke through pants. The three immediately sighed in relief, and Sho flopped to the ground.

"It's so not cool," he said petulantly to the sky before raising his head to look at me. "How do you keep getting good so fast?" he shouted in question. I gave him the same answer as always.

"I train a lot, Sho," I explained for the hundredth time.

It wasn't like Sho had any aversion from training, he just never did it of his own initiative. He trained at the academy, when his father told him to, and when we all trained together, but that was it. The fact that he could keep up with the other two was just a testament to his talent.

"I know," Sho whined, "but it's still not cool," he insisted. "Don't you ever get bored?" he asked.

"Nope," I answered simply, and it was the truth. I honestly just didn't have anything else to do. There were no smartphones or video games in this world yet, fictional books weren't much more interesting than history or chakra theory, and becoming increasingly superhuman by the day was just addicting. Training had started as a desperate, fear-induced scramble, but interacting with more people had helped improve my mental health to a degree that I could have never expected. I had grown far more relaxed since starting the academy, and now I trained because it was what I wanted to do, rather than what I felt I had to do.

"You're really weird," Sho surmised. I laughed because the kid didn't know how right he was.

"Sho!" Hisoka exclaimed. "That's not nice!" she scolded.

"What, it's true!" Sho insisted. I shook my head at the budding argument and left the two to their devices. Meanwhile, Katsuo had moved off to the side and had started on katas.

Katsuo, like Maki from my class, was another one of those people I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for. He tried hard, worked a lot, and was quite intelligent for his age. Unfortunately, he didn't have the absurd level of advancement that Kakashi, Itachi, and Orochimaru likely had, and he also didn't have the extra advantages that I had. As a result, he was someone that was constantly told he was exceptional, but only because he worked for it. To see others work less and be at his level, or work presumably as much and drastically exceed him must have stung a lot.

I did my best to banish my negative thoughts and approached him.

"Hey Katsuo," I greeted. He simply nodded in return, continuing to move through his stances. "Everything good?" I asked.

Katsuo turned to give me a look that said "really?" I hid a wince. I thought for a moment about the best way to approach the topic. I hadn't known the boy for more than a few weeks, but I didn't want to lose the few friends I had managed to make. Lasting friendships and trustworthy allies were incredibly hard to come by.

"Look, dude," I started, deciding on an approach. "I'm just really good at Taijutsu, it's my talent," I explained. "Like, remember when we were doing the chakra exercises last month?" I asked. Katsuo looked at me for a second as I said that, and I knew I had his attention.

"You were the best at those! So much better than the rest of us, and I was the worst!" I exclaimed, latching onto his interest as much as possible. My plan had been possibly the most cliche solution, but I wasn't exactly skilled in social maneuvering so I worked with what I had.

Luckily, my target was a six-year-old, and there were limits to how far chakra-augmented maturity could go.

Katsuo sighed and stopped his practice, dropping into a seated position on the ground. I joined him immediately.

"I might end up better at Taijutsu than you, but you'll probably be way better at Ninjutsu!" I explained.

Katsuo seemed to chew on that, so I gave him silence to think. After a minute or so, he turned to me and spoke.

"You really think that?" he asked in a quiet voice. I smiled and nodded eagerly.

"Yeah! I bet you could be a great Ninjutsu specialist!" I insisted. I wasn't lying either, Katsuo had rather spectacular chakra reserves.

My words seemed to cheer the boy up, and I heaved a large internal sigh of relief. Another part of me, one that I had been listening to less recently, wasn't so happy. After all, how valuable were these actions in the long run?

'Is soothing children's insecurities really how I plan on leading this world to peace?'

I didn't like that line of inquiry. I didn't really have an answer for it either.

__________

As the next week passed by, the flow of day-to-day life let me forget my self-doubt. The following Tuesday, I returned home from the training grounds thinking heavily on that day's lessons instead of my own ambitions.

Today we had started practicing tree walking. I was happy to find that this was one of the chakra exercises that was made easier by a lower body weight. As a result, I was towards the top of the class for the first time in an activity that didn't involve academics. None of this was what I dwelled on though.

Tree walking had once again brought the fictional works of my past life to my mind's forefront.

So much of this world just didn't match up. Shukaku and the Kyūbi were the only tailed beasts mentioned anywhere in history texts. The former was spoken of as a legendary demon that guarded Sunagakure, and the latter was feared as a force of nature that brought about absolute destruction. Strangely though, it was never even hinted that they were related creatures. The moniker 'tailed beast' was also never once used.

Stranger still was the fact that Kaguya and the Sage were actually common knowledge. They were a fairy tale commonly told to children.

"The Sage of Six Paths and the Moon Sage had come together to imprison the Rabbit Devil Kaguya on the moon. Her eternal servant, the demon Zetsu, prowled the shadows at night doing her bidding, catching children who strayed too far from their parents to sacrifice to the goddess, hoping to build her power so that she could escape."

It was a fairly gruesome tale for young children, but truthfully not any worse than the fairy tales of my old world. I had likely been more terrified than any other child when I first heard the tale; Akari had been incredibly confused by my reaction when she read it to me.

There were a number of other small differences to round things off. To name a few: Madara Uchiha had apparently died helping Hashirama Senju defend Konoha from one of the Kyūbi's appearances; Hashirama Senju was apparently still alive, just with irreparably damaged chakra coils from the same battle; and the Kamizuru clan was an extremely highly regarded force, one held in far greater esteem than Konoha's Aburame clan.

The problem though was that pretty much all of the inconsistencies I had encountered could also be a result of propaganda or a result of events not having occurred yet. As far as I knew, the series could have been completely accurate and had just offered information an academy student would never be able to access.

The slightest chance of my knowledge being accurate was far too valuable to disregard. I knew that my memories would likely fade with time, so I had to take the risk and keep a record. I spent the night writing everything I could remember in one of my academy notebooks. I just had to hope no one found an academy student's belongings interesting enough to search through.

__________

"Thank you guys so much!" I said honestly as the three genin handed me a stack of books.

"No problem, gramps," Sora replied, ruffling my hair.

"We certainly don't have any use for them, Kazuo," added Saki as I tried to fight off Sora's hand.

Unfortunately, the young shinobi had improved leaps and bounds through his experience on the field, making my struggles pointless. I wasn't fighting all that hard either. The past month of C-ranks had rapidly wiped away many of Sora's childish tendencies. I didn't know what all he had seen, but I was happy enough to see his lighthearted side today.

"Yeah, I'd rather forget about them to be honest," Kou chimed in, "the academy was so boring," he explained. The three had given me their notes from the academy, and I couldn't wait to go over them.

"I know," I told Kou knowingly. I had already learned nearly all of the mathematics, and sciences the academy focused on. In physics in chemistry, I was potentially more advanced than even the teachers. History and chakra theory were the other two 'academic' subjects of focus, but my own research had taken me far beyond the scope of the class. As a result, I used the class time for chakra control exercises, but those I could conduct seated at my desk were rapidly losing effectiveness.

"I'm gonna use these to get out faster," I revealed. "If I can finish off all the fourth year material before the end of the semester, Juro-sensei has to let me move up," I explained. Kou gave me a sympathetic nod.

"You'll have to be really good. For some reason they try to stop you as much as possible," he explained, having tried several times to advance out of the academy sooner.

Sora, though, had a slightly pained look on his face. He may have been the youngest on the team, but due to his upbringing, he very well understood why instructors and administrators might want to keep young children away from the field. I found it odd that he had matured to a far greater degree in the past month when compared to his teammates, but he refused to talk about certain things, and I didn't want to strain our relationship by prying too far.

"Is it really that bad?" he asked. He knew that I hadn't managed to make any friends in my class; jealousy and rivalries simply didn't allow for friendships to form. Further, the fact that I regularly connected with my friends from the lower year probably soothed his worry; he had gained some faith in my ability to avoid becoming isolated when not forced into social interaction. As such, he wasn't nearly as insistent as he might have been.

I gave him a pointed look.

"All of my classmates hate me, I already know everything we're doing in class, the only things that are really useful are the training fields and spars, and I'll have even better resources and sparring partners as a genin," I summarized. Sora sighed in resignation and shook his head. Even though he understood, he didn't like it.

We had been training together almost daily since he was seven and I was two, and had formed a close bond. I'd argue that I was closer to him than I was to anyone else, and he was closer to me than he was to anyone apart from his mother. In many ways, he viewed me as a younger brother.

"You're a pain in the ass," he said without any malice. He still drew a sharp look from Saki.

"Well I think it's rather admirable that you're working so hard at such a young age," she complimented. I had to resist laughing fondly at her defensiveness.

"Thank you, Saki," I said honestly. The girl was far too fond of me. Had I been the same age mentally as I was physically, I would have probably been spoiled by her inability to allow a negative comment in my direction. Given that I was far less impressionable, her attitude was just endearing.

I spent the remainder of the evening alongside Team Kayo. I didn't get to see them nearly as often after they had started taking C-ranks, so I enjoyed the time that I had.