Chapter 5

Chouji's fist impacted against my forearms as I covered my chest. The Akimichi's renowned strength send me skidding backwards while I felt my arms go numb. Once I regained a firm enough stance, I kept my eyes on my friend. Chouji was panting heavily as sweat covered his brows.

[Physical Resistance has gone up a level.]

Dismissing the screen, I thought about how much it had taken Naruto and me to curb Chouji's extremely gentle nature so that he could actually spar with us. Between him pulling his punches and Naruto's messy fighting style that I was still trying to improve, it had taken entirely too long for me to get the Resistance skill tree. So far, I only had the Physical branch but it was sure to have some to resist the jutsu elements at the very least. I hoped so at least.

After getting the skill, I had spent the better part of a day wondering if I should find a way to grind it. I decided against that for several reasons. First of all, I wasn't masochistic enough to beat myself up just to grind the skill. I didn't even have Gamer's Body and Mind to help keep me undamaged and sane. I liked having a modicum of sanity, thank you very much.

Secondly, it only seemed to give one percent per level, so at the rate my skills leveled I would have to received too much damage for it to be worthwhile. Something that I wasn't about to do to myself. And lastly, I doubted the shitty Game would allow me to get it high enough to make myself invulnerable. It was sure to have a cap of some sort and I would be happy if I never had to find that out.

Back to my spar with Chouji though, he was completely exhausted and my arms were covered in bruises after so much blocking. But I was ready to take him down. Both of us had put extra effort in this spar as it was the first time, we had to spar in an actual class instead of our get togethers at the Nara or Akimichi compound. It somehow made it even more important than those.

I smirked at him and he groaned.

"Shit." He said simply before I started running at him. With a last-ditch effort, he tried to attack again but I had dragged the spar on for a reason. I had more stamina than him. All my training had made sure of that. I was also sure that if I could check his stats his Dexterity would be lower than mine.

The match had been long. I had spent the entirety of it dodging to the best of my capabilities and blocking when I was unable to. I was confident in my Taijutsu prowess after weeks of defeating the civilian students and the weaker clan members. But I wasn't crazy enough to get up close with Chouji from the very beginning. I had made that mistake on our friendly spars and after his change of attitude towards training he was a beast.

Now, a tired Akimichi heir wouldn't be able to touch me and that was proved when I dodged the incoming fist before punching his side and positioning myself behind him. With a kick behind the knee he went down and then I punched him in the jaw as he tried to turn to me. After that I put some distance between us. While fast, my punches didn't do much damage, not against an Akimichi's physiology at least.

I went back in when it was evident that he wouldn't stand back up fast enough to be a danger and kicked him in the back sending him to the ground. After that I threw myself on top of him at put his arm behind his back. I had him.

"I yield." He groaned before Iruka called the match. With a relieved sigh I stood up and offered Chouji my hand to help him. We both did the Seal of Reconciliation and went back to our group. "You are so annoying to fight, Eiji." He grumbled and I chuckled tiredly.

"Tell that to my arms, I won't be able to train shit with them like this." I looked at said limbs and they looked as bad as they felt. I grimaced as I thought about how painful cooking would be with them like that. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have blocked with both arms and so much. I forgot about that as I looked at a new screen that had popped up.

[Quest Complete: Win your first spar against a Clan heir.

Reward:

+3 Basic Taijutsu Level

+1 to all Physical Stats]

[Chakra has gone up a level.]

'Well, isn't that a nice surprise?' I thought to myself as I grinned. It had been a month since the last time I had received a Quest Reward after all and two months since I had arrived to the ninja world. It was nice to get something for free after all this time. With a simple thought I dismissed the screen while calling for the updated ones.

[Basic Taijutsu – Lvl 15

Increases the skill of the user in hand to hand combat according to skill level.]

[Eiji Satou

Title: Academy Student

Energy Points: 280/280

Chakra Points: 100/100

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 10

Constitution: 14

Chakra: 10

Chakra control: E]

Overall, it felt pretty badass. Yeah, the stats didn't look all that impressive but I had it in good authority that they were. After all, I had just defeated Chouji and he was top 3 of the class as far as I was aware, right behind Sasuke and Kiba. Those three together with Naruto, Shino and I made the top 6 of the male side. Ino, Sakura and Hinata made the top 3 of the female side, unsurprisingly. The Hyuuga heiress was supposedly behind the other two but I was sure it was just her shyness. Although, I guessed the male top had changed now. Now the other was probably Sasuke, Kiba, me, Chouji, Shino and Naruto.

How had the top formed when we hadn't battled one another yet? Sensei had written the list, probably so that our competitiveness would motivate us. Didn't work out with Shikamaru though. Anyway, the thing is, he had made the list based on the prowess shown after a week of spars. From then on, the places would switch only if we defeated the higher spots.

With that and everything else I knew, I had tried to calculate where Sasuke and Kiba stood in the stat department. I was pretty sure neither was above the twenties in anything. Sasuke was probably an overall 17 while the Inuzuka would be a 15. I was so close to beating the dog that I could almost feel it. If the teachers decided to pit us against each other right before I reached his level after this long, I would be pissed. Not to mention that he would never let me live it down.

After a week, I noticed that the teacher seemed to purposely avoid pitting the Clan heirs with anyone else. They probably thought that it would be a waste to have a Clan heir battle against a mere orphan or civilian. Soon, Naruto was added to the least based on mere stamina and strength even if his technique sucked. Being the Jinchuriki probably helped. And just last week they had deemed me worthy, apparently.

"Nice spar." Shikamaru commented, not even bothering to fake enthusiasm. I just rolled my eyes at him and sat down at the other side of the Shogi board.

"It was a cool spar." Naruto explained with true enthusiasm. "You were so close, Chouji. A couple more punches and he would have gone down."

"Thanks, Naruto. You are a real friend." I deadpanned at him and he kept his gaze on the grateful Akimichi while ignoring me. I internally smirked. Some time ago he would have been sputtering about not meaning it like that. He had come a long way from the awkward friendless boy I had eaten ramen with.

"Regretting your creation?" Shikamaru asked as we started playing against each other.

"Never."

"I still don't know if he is more troublesome like this or not."

"I would say not." I said, not entirely convinced. While not having him constantly nervous about if we would leave him was nice, Naruto's new confidence had proved to be, as Shikamaru would say, troublesome. He wasn't outright pranking us, but he did enjoy messing with us a little. I would take that over how he was every day of the week though.

While we both continued our game, I was distractedly paying attention to Naruto and Chouji's conversation that seemed to jump between commenting the spars and discussing food weirdly often. I also kept an eye on the battles. While I had never actually tried to copy a style or something, I did take note of certain moves to try out later.

Lately though, I had started to pay more attention to playing against Shikamaru. Both because I didn't want him to think I didn't care and because I really wanted to beat him. One can only take so many beatings before starting to take it seriously. I had even asked him to lend me some books about the game. He had happily done so with an actual smile instead of his lazy smirk.

The result of all that was this:

[Shogi – Lvl 10

Increases your strategic thinking while playing Shogi according to skill level.]

If you were wondering, no, it wasn't nearly enough to beat Shikamaru. It had made the matches longer, but it he was still stomping me without problems. I was sure his skill level would have been around the thirties or forties. I had a long way to go…

On a more cheerful note though, I had managed to continue beating Kiba in the lap runs. It had been almost painful to keep up the spree but I managed to do so long enough to get a Constitution stat and from there it had only snowballed. Now instead of not letting Kiba beat me I was focusing on beating Naruto and taking second place.

[Running (Active) – Lvl 13

When used increases the speed of the user while running by 100%.

Consumption 7 Energy Points per second.]

Sniff. Beautiful isn't it? Running was still my favorite skill and the one that I was most proud of. It probably had something to do with it being the most noticeably useful. Because yeah, Taijutsu was also pretty dope but without it having an Active effect or a percentage, it was difficult to see something about it besides the level. And while these two were great:

[Physical Conditioning (Passive) – Lvl 12

Improves the rate at which your Strength and Constitution increase during training by 60%.]

[Stealth (Active) – Lvl 12

Hides your presence according to the level of the skill and the awareness level of others.

Consumption 7 Energy Points per second.]

They just weren't as impressive, not really. Stealth was cool though. It just didn't bring the bragging rights that Running did. However, the skill that was contending with Running for best skill so far was Shurikenjutsu, or its branches I should say. Just look at these babies:

[Shurikenjutsu

Shuriken Throwing – Lvl 9

Increases accuracy against a stationary target with a shuriken by 90%.

Kunai Throwing – Lvl 8

Increases accuracy against a stationary target with a kunai by 80%.

Senbon Throwing – Lvl 1

Increases accuracy against a stationary target with a senbon by 10%.]

Almost perfect accuracy. If that wasn't cool, then I didn't know what was. I wanted to see everyone's faces when I started getting perfect shots left and right. So far, the only ones competing with my scores were Sasuke, Sakura, Ino and, surprisingly, Shikamaru. The first was practically a given. The second two had been a surprise before I reasoned that Sakura was Kunoichi of the Year for a reason even if she was next to useless in the series and she was pretty even with Ino. Shikamaru had been a real shock though. He had only said that throwing wasn't troublesome enough to deal with Iruka and his mother yelling at him. I took his word for it.

As for my other skills:

[Cartography – Lvl 7

Improves the quality of maps drawn by 35%.]

[Meditation (Active) – Lvl 10

Increases the recovery rate of Energy Points and Chakra Points by 50% when active.]

[Cooking – Lvl 9

Improves the quality of cooked goods by 90%.]

Cartography had kind of lagged behind as I started to hang out with Naruto, Shikamaru and Chouji more and more. I simply didn't have the time to level up so many skills. At this point, I only drew maps when I didn't feel like grinding my other skills. It was distracting and I didn't have to put as much effort as it wasn't that much of a necessity, at least for now.

This only cemented my decision to wait for my chakra training though. Better to focus on the skills that I was currently using and needed. No need to take unnecessary risks. I would have a full year to train those skills, not to mention the time spend doing D-rank missions after graduation.

On a side note, I was kind of disappointed that Meditation's tenth level hadn't given me anything. I had thought that as it had unlocked my chakra at level five it would do something at level ten. Maybe it would at a latter level, I hoped so at least.

As for Cooking, I had to make food for three people, or seven if you considered Naruto's and Chouji's appetites. That meant that I cooked a lot and that meant more levels. It got to the point that Chouji's mother had started wanting my help when we stayed in their house until too late and had dinner there. Granted, even with the 90% improvement I wasn't anywhere near the level of the Akimichi cooks but I was good enough to compete with lesser restaurants. Their words, not mine. I could only assume it had something to do with me not knowing as much about cooking and just following recipes as best I could.

"You should focus on the game." Shikamaru's voice broke me from my musings as I noticed that I had lost another game.

"Sorry, sorry. Just thinking about what to do once we are out." I said as we set the board again.

"Watch clouds?"

"Stealth training?"

"We could go to my house and have something to eat."

You have three guesses who said what and the first two don't count. I sighed.

"Naruto, we do Stealth training anyway." I raised an eyebrow at the blond-haired boy.

"Well, but we could do so for longer." He said rubbing the back of his head. After I had to stop our pranking, he had pretty much stopped his too. He preferred to hang out with one of us, it seemed. All the theories of his pranking being to draw attention were pretty much confirmed at that point. Don't get me wrong, he still did prank sometimes, especially if someone annoyed him, but not nearly as much anymore.

Once he stopped his pranking, Naruto had come up with an idea for our Stealth training sessions. It took him a week to get Chouji and Shikamaru to come too. I had had to help him get Shikamaru to agree and his mother had been thanking us ever since.

What kind of training was it? Simple. We would choose one of the Chuunin that worked in the Academy and try to follow them without them noticing. Obviously, they did, they were Chuunin after all, but we were getting better.

How did we know that last part? Also, simple. Just last week we had started getting feedback. As teachers, they seemed to support our little extra training and had started leaving notes for us on our desks at the Academy. They told us everything from when they noticed us to how to avoid such development.

I had been pleasantly surprised that none of them seemed to have something against Naruto. I guessed that the Hokage had made sure that everyone was on the Jinchuriki's side in the education department. I wondered if Mizuki was a thing in this universe. I hadn't seen anyone been publicly against Naruto while inside the Academy so far.

"It has been a while since we went to Chouji's house." Shikamaru commented and I nodded.

"Let's go there." Then I turned to a disappointed Naruto. "And we'll do extra Stealth training tomorrow, how about that?" He instantly perked up and nodded. I smiled.

[}-o-{]

"What's the fuss all about?" I asked confused in a corridor of the Academy. In front of our little group was a much larger one of seemingly older students facing a wall.

"They are signing for the electives." I turned at the unexpected voice to face Shino. The Aburame was standing a little apart from us, probably being on his way out himself.

"Electives?" Naruto saved me from being the one to ask.

"There are specialized classes that can be taken during the last year. Only two per student though, from Ninjutsu classes to Politics." Shino explained pushing his dark glasses up. I could almost see the stars in Naruto's eyes. A frown appeared in my face. That most certainly wasn't a canon thing. I suppressed a sigh. It was a good thing I didn't intend on following canon anyway.

"Let's wait. I want to see what electives we'll have." I said.

"Do we have to? They are optional anyway." Shikamaru complained.

"You know your mother will force you to choose at least one, don't you?" I said with a raised eyebrow and he groaned.

"Can't let a man dream, can you?" He said eyeing me in annoyance. I smirked.

"Man? You'll be a man when your mother stops controlling your life." I said.

"Can't wait." He said looking back to the front.

"Isn't so good, really." We both turned to Naruto and I put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry." Shikamaru apologized with a surprising amount of empathy in his voice. I gave him a reassuring smile. Sometimes I forgot that even though I'm technically an orphan, I wasn't the rule but the exception. Shikamaru seemed to have the same problem.

"It seems to be clearing, let's go see." Chouji pointed out. It wasn't really clearing, but some were already leaving. What was important was getting Naruto's mind away from bad thoughts. I nodded at the Akimichi and he nodded back. Shino followed us as we made our way to the board.

Ninjutsu. Fuinjutsu. Genjutsu. Bukijutsu. Medical Training. Recon and Tracking. Intelligence Gathering. Trapping. Mannerisms. Politics. Business.

'Interesting.' I thought looking over the different lists. It didn't give details which were probably told in a class before one could sign up. But only knowing the lists was interesting.

"I'm going to sign up for Ninjutsu and I'll start kicking ass, believe it." Naruto said excitedly.

"Difficult, I want to sign up for almost everything." I groaned.

"Intelligence Gathering." Shikamaru said. I didn't comment. I remembered that the Ino-Shika-Cho trio specialized in exactly that so I guessed it made sense. However, I, as Eiji, didn't know if that was common knowledge so better keep my mouth shut.

"I think I'll take that too." Chouji said having gotten a pack of chips from… somewhere. I blinked.

"I would most probably take the Recon and Tracking course." I barely managed not to jump as Shino spoke from behind us. Chouji and Naruto weren't as lucky.

"Don't scare us like that!" Naruto said pointing at the Aburame and I almost wanted to say something along those lines.

"I was here the whole time." Shino replied with a deadpan.

"Well, that's some stealth you got there." I commented with a smirk and he raised an eyebrow at me. "Any tips?"

"It wasn't intentional." 'Who are you? Kuroko?', I thought.

"Hmmmm." I hummed while eyeing him. "We have a special Stealth exercise. Want to come with us? I'd like to see how you do when you actually want to be stealthy." I commented and he looked in our direction for a moment. It was a little unnerving not knowing if he was looking at me or not.

"It could prove useful." He said impassively after a while. I turned to the others and they didn't seem to have a problem with it. I received a couple of shrugs as response.

[}-o-{]

Shino POV

Eiji Satou was a mystery.

Why? Because he had appeared out of nowhere. Or maybe it was better to say that he had been surprisingly unnoticeable until this year at the Academy. And it all started with the first physical exercise, the laps.

That first sprint had taken everyone by surprise. He had obviously lagged behind and ended up slightly in front of the rest of the civilian average. His Shurikenjutsu had been as terrible as expected from the civilians and orphans that didn't have any previous training in the ninja arts. All about him screamed average.

But that had slowly changed. Now he stood at the top 3 in the Taijutsu spars, just below the highly physical heir of the Inuzuka clan, Kiba and the highly talented sole remaining member and heir of the Uchiha clan, Sasuke. He didn't even show signs of stopping his progress.

His Shurikenjutsu had improved at astonishing rates. In two months, he stood now in the same level as the most skilled throwers of the class. Granted, with stationary targets it was still difficult to measure his skill in that particular aspect but it was still impressive when compared with others of his same situation. Like his friend, Naruto, that was several steps behind him in that department even if he beat Eiji in the laps due to his seemingly unending stamina reserves.

Talking about the blond-haired knucklehead. They had become friends relatively early in the year. And it had come as a surprise for everyone. Although, the true surprise for me was to realize that Naruto didn't have friends. I hadn't noticed until Eiji started being around the blonde that the troublemaker didn't seem to have any company.

It was then that I started to pay closer attention to Eiji Satou. Because I started comparing Naruto to me. I didn't know why everyone seemed to avoid the blonde like the plague, but it was a situation eerily similar to the one faced by the Aburame clan in general. I had even noticed after some observation that almost everyone seemed to eye him with contempt. It was shocking. At most my clan were looked at with disgust. But actual loathing was surprising and a little disturbing.

What could Naruto have done to deserve that attitude from the village?

It was just another reason why I observed the little group that formed around one Eiji Satou. Because I knew he was the one that had brought in Shikamaru Nara and Chouji Akimichi, despite the latter having come to be closer to the Uzumaki. Seeing the lazy Nara that always slept in class wide awake and focused on a Shogi match against an obviously unskilled Eiji was a surprise.

Surprise was a word that seemed to follow the Satou.

So, I decided to approach the group tentatively. I wasn't surprised that I startled them. Aburame were known to have little presence. It was a skill developed to avoid the previously mentioned disgust of anyone that knew of our clan specialization. Eiji however, didn't seem startled by either my sudden appearance or even my sudden approach to them. Or he had kept his wits remarkably well just like Shikamaru.

Being invited to their little groups after school activities was another surprise of his. The Satou either didn't know about the Aburame clan or didn't care about our specialization. Probably the first, most people that came from non-shinobi families and orphans reacted the same to my clan after all.

So, it was because of that that I questioned them while they observed my approach to their stealth exercise. Which, by the way was an interesting take for it being that they even had feedback from their objectives. It was a smart idea.

"Do you know about the Aburame clan?" I asked bluntly to both orphans, Eiji and Naruto.

"No, should I?" Naruto asked confused and Eiji just raised a curious eyebrow. The latter's non-answer was an interesting response.

"I suppose not." I started. "We specialize in using insect colonies as… companions of sorts. Just like the Inuzuka have their Ninken." I explained simply. The Uzumaki frowned in confusion.

"How does that work? I haven't seen you with insects around like Dog Breath does with Akamaru." He asked, I noticed that Eiji remained silent.

"My clan lets them form hives inside our bodies, it's a symbiotic relationship. We provide them with a home and chakra and they help us in various situation." Naruto's turned understandably green.

"Well, didn't see that coming." This time it was Eiji who replied. I was almost surprised by his sudden response after his silence. But what did surprise me was that he sounded amused. No sign of disgust or even uneasiness. "What can they do?" He asked instead. Despite Aburame's being known for showing very little emotion to almost everything I had to do conscious effort not to show my surprise at his nonchalance.

"Some have poisonous properties, some have sensing abilities, some can consume an enemy's chakra." I explained looking closely at his expression.

"Sounds useful." He commented. I noted that it must be the first time I had told someone about my clan without them reacting negatively. It was… an interesting development. Then he stopped suddenly. 'I guess it took some time for the idea to sink in.' I guessed. "We haven't accidentally stepped on one, have we?" He asked nervously and I saw Naruto look around his feet.

"They stay mostly in contact with my body unless I use them for something." I explained stiffly.

"Oh, that's a relief." He sighed.

"So… erm…" Naruto started talking again with an uneasy expression and rubbing the back of his head. "I guess we have to be careful not to touch you suddenly, like smacking your arm or pushing you." The Uzumaki reasoned.

"You don't seem affected by this information." I pointed out almost incredulously. The blonde continued rubbing the back of his head looking away while the raven-haired boy just gave me a small smile.

"Well… I can't deny that it's… strange." Eiji said, being careful with his words. Still, it was a lot better than anyone else I had interacted with. "But to each their own, I guess. Just don't have them crawling on me and we are cool." He said calmly while Naruto nodded quickly next to him.

"I guess we cancelled the Stealth Training today, huh?" Shikamaru said next to us. I had forgotten he and Chouji were there for a moment.

"I guess we got distracted." Eiji chuckled.

"We were going to my house." Chouji informed me. I nodded. It was time for me to be on my way home too, I guessed. It had been interesting to be with the group for a moment. "You could come too if you want?" He continued and I paused, taking advantage of my glasses to look at all their expressions.

None of them seemed against the idea. Eiji smile was friendly, Shikamaru looked like he could care less as with everything else, Chouji did look like he wasn't entirely sure but didn't look against it either and Naruto still seemed to be looking around for bugs.

"Sure." I replied and we started walking towards the Akimichi compound.

I looked at the group, this time for a different reason.

Clan heirs that didn't seem to care about the Aburame's reputation. An orphan that was understandably uneasy but not disgusted. Another orphan that even seemed to react positively to my clan's specialization. What a strange group.

"Ne," Eiji called my attention with a curious expression. "Can I see one of those insects?"

Eiji Satou was a mystery, indeed.