of ninjas and sharp objects

"HEY! Wake up!"

I just groaned as a young voice far, far too loud for any morning, never mind one where last night I had just… huh, I can't seem to remember. Did I get way too drunk to the point I can't remember last night? It's a real option, as I have a killer headache, but, no, I don't go drinking.

"Are you even listening? Come on Anno, it's our first day in the academy, and I don't want to be late, so we gotta hurry and clean our room!" the same voice demanded.

Anno? My name isn't Anno, my name is, is, I… I can't remember. When that realization struck me, I, in the exact same moment, got hauled out of bed, thus stumbling to the floor with an indignant "hey!" and all the grace of a drunken, newborn and slightly debilitated giraffe.

"Finally! You're up! Now can we please get around to actually cleaning our room, so we can go to the academy?" that same, oddly foreign, voice asked yet again.

Quickly pushing aside matters of lesser importance, like the fact I could remember very little about myself, or that there was a young stranger in my room, to focus on what's really important. The fact that some asshat woke me up, yelled at me, kicked me out of my oh so comfortable bed, demanded I clean my room, which I held an instinctual hatred to, demanded I go to school, which I also for reasons disliked, while all the while I had a blaring headache.

As I looked up to complain to whoever dared wake me from my slumber, I opened my eyes to see something, weird. He was an eight-year-old as far as I could tell, now that wasn't the truly weird part, no, the weird part was that he was my size, with correct proportions. And as a one hundred eighty-five centimeter, or a little over 6 feet tall teen that was quite disconcerting, to say the least. The next thing I notice is a blue transparent box in front of me with something written on it.

[Congratulations on awakening player! Say "status" to begin the game]

"FINE! If you insist on being difficult then I'll get the cleaning supplies and hopefully, you'll be more helpful when I come back" the boy walked out with an exasperated sigh, leaving me with the perfect opportunity to study 'the game' as it called itself.

Okay let's give it a go I thought to myself as I uttered the word that would change my life forever "status"

[status:

Name: Anno

Age: 8

Level: 1 (0/100)

Health pool: 120/120

Chakra pool: 290/290

Stats:

Constitution 3

Strength 4

Dexterity 3

Intelligence 17

Wisdom 13

Points: 0]

"I guess that explains the me-sized eight year old" I mused out loud, even as I thought about what everything could mean.

While I was looking over my stats, a steady stream of information went into my head. I am, apparently, in Konoha, a place I distinctly remember as being part of the world of Naruto, a new manga I was reading. I had just about halfway through the chunin exams arc, just having started on the finals. Now, I don't completely know what is going to happen in the future, but I think it's pretty obvious, Itachi is clearly the main villain and Sasuke has to learn to rely on Naruto and Sakura to defeat him, with Orochimaru just being some half-way villain to grow stronger against.

The boy walked into the room again, this time with a bucket and some cloth that we could clean our room with.

"Come on, Anno, we need to clean before the old lady will allow us to head to the academy. Are you gonna help out or just sit there" the boy asked again.

After we finished I stood alone in the freshly cleaned room "Well, you know what they say, when in a new and scary place where you aren't sure what's going on, you just need to dig deep…" i said to myself with a serious tone "then shove your fear and confusion into said hole, cover it up, put on a facade of confidence you don't have, then pretend you know what's going on" i finished with a confident smile on my face.

[Congratulations! You have gained the skill "acting"]

No need to call me out like that.

After having cleaned with my new roommate what's-his-face, eating a healthy breakfast consisting of grilled fish and rice mixed with eggs, I started off towards the academy where I was gonna learn how to be a ninja.

While I was walking towards the academy I thought over what I had learned of the system so far. First and foremost were skilled, from what I could see almost anything could be a skill, from cleaning to acting to, presumably, combat-related skills. Secondly, stats, obviously they are your raw capabilities, however, I'm not completely sure what each stat does, like wisdom, isn't wisdom just another way of saying accumulated experience allowing you to make better decisions? How do you artificially inject experience into someone? Hmm, stuff to think about. Next is how experience functions, I have over the last hour or so since I woke up I already gained enough exp to level twice. From what I can see exp actually is accumulated experience, in the sense that the more memorable what you did was, the higher the exp gain, thereby allowing you to gain exp from things other than fighting. This however also means that killing a bunch of wolves may grant you exp the first couple of times, but then drastically slow down thus requiring you to constantly take on new challenges to level up. This is also why I have already leveled, after all, waking up in a new world is quite the experience.

As I stood at the entrance of the academy where I would be spending the next four years of my life. I went in, struck a quick power pose to assert my clear superiority over the rest of the kids and the academy as a whole, before continuing to the board where the names for the different classes were listed. Okay so I am in the protagonist class, that's great! They're protagonists, which means likable, which means great friends! I mean sure, they're the leads so they'll get into trouble, but as long as I work hard with my system I'll totally be able to keep up. As these thoughts went through my head, I was already heading to the classroom to meet part of the naruto cast in real life.

As I walked in I took a quick glance over the classroom, it looked a lot like a college auditorium with rows of progressively higher seats allowing everyone to at least see the board, with around half the class being here. Walking to the back of the class and taking a seat there, once again asserting my eight-year-old dominance over everyone. It was clearly the best seat since I'd be less likely to be noticed if I do something else than listen in class, while at the same time preventing people from looking over my shoulder and seeing what I was writing.

looking out over the class to see if anyone important from the series was here yet. What greeted me was the sight of Shikamaru sleeping While Choji ate chips beside him, Ino and Sakura having a, uh, shall we say, intensely youthful debate, over who would get Sasuke-Kun, and Sasuke-Kun himself trying his very damnedest to look as unapproachable as possible to drive off his fangirls, and, of course, failing, since they liked that.

And then, with a thundering BANG! The door flew open to reveal a blond boy with sky blue eyes filled with endless optimism and determination. He stepped in and declared at the top of his lungs.

"I'M GONNA BE THE NEXT HOKAGE! BELIEVE IT!" I, of course, instantly knew it was Naruto himself.

I could try to make friends right now and introduce myself, but on the other hand I also really want to train up observe, a skill I picked up on my way to the academy while staring wide-eyed at everything, it takes fifteen seconds of close study to activate, but I'll befriend Naruto tomorrow instead. After a while when the rest of the class had arrived Iruka came into the class showing his signature scared face.

"Okay, everyone! Can you please all introduce yourselves from top right, my right, to bottom left" he called out to the class.

I was coincidentally first in line so I stood to my full eight-year-old height which I depressingly realized was just barely taller than my sitting height and spoke with a slight smirk on my face "my name is Anno, I don't have a last name since I'm an orphan" and promptly sat down again and continued observing everything around me.

As the day continued Iruka mainly explained the curriculum for this year while I was just, well, staring at stuff. People kept sending me glancing at me like a weirdo which I didn't understand at all, I mean, I haven't even spoken to anyone yet. When I do eventually get around to speaking to them then, it'll be completely deserved, but now?

As the day was drawing to a close I had managed to level up observe a couple of times to level five and, deciding to test out how far I'd come, I observed Naruto.

[Naruto Uzumaki

Highest stat: Wisdom]

Naruto? Wise? Really? And his wisdom is higher than his Uzumaki-kyuubi constitution? Really? I mean he's a great friend but wise? Really? As in, the guy who stabbed himself hard enough that Kakashi was worried about him suffering adverse effects of blood loss when he thought he was still a normal person? Really? Don't get me wrong he's a great person, he's a shounen protagonist, he has to be, but wisdom being his defining trait? Really?

As one may be able to infer from my thoughts I was, to put it mildly, quizzical, about wisdom being his highest stat.

'But then again I've already thought about how weird wisdom is as a stat, I mean, is your ability to make correct choices really an attribute like strength? What if I were to consider this from another angle? Take it away from the textbook definition, video game logic, and into purely physical science? What is Naruto good at when it comes to his mind? He's good at thinking on his feet and is a very instinctual fighter. hmm. Maybe, just maybe, wisdom is your subconscious? It would make sense why academy learning is so hard for him. There just isn't enough external stimuli to occupy his subconscious mind to allow his intelligence, or his consciousness, to focus properly on classes.

This could also explain a bit about Sakura, my guess is that she has a large intelligence to wisdom imbalance. Meaning she doesn't have the necessary extra subconscious mind power to recognize her crush on Sasuke as that, a crush, and when she does develop the wisdom necessary to examine her feelings, they've actually become real.

Could there be other such debuffs because of stat imbala-

As I was peacefully contemplating the mysteries of the ethereal system, I suddenly felt a quick crack of pain in my forehead and heard Iruka shout at me "STOP DAYDREAMING AND LISTEN!"

I, of course, immediately disregarded his instructions as I really did have better things to do, I swear. Either way, I started to think over the other possible meanings of stats, and the possible results of stat imbalance. First of all, is strength, this one is easy, it is the amount of force my muscles can exert. Then comes constitution, which is more complicated but not by much, it is simply how durable you are. Now dexterity is much harder to figure out, is it how good your senses are or something? It can't be speed, since raw speed would be strength so what? Something about that sentence just clicked, dexterity isn't raw speed, it's how well you handle that raw speed. Something like how well and fast nerves transmit stuff from the brain thereby improving your hand-eye coordination!

As I prepare to delve deeper into my contemplations, I suddenly feel someone whack the back of my head.

"Soma, while I truly appreciate your willingness to become a shinobi, I feel it is my duty to explain to you, that you won't get very far if you can't listen to basic orders," a slightly annoyed Iruka tells me while looking down on me.

Basic orders? What basic orders? Ohhh, that thing he said, I think it was about listening? I can totally bluff my way out of this.

"I did listen! You told me to, so I did!" I lie straight to his face with what I hope is a look of absolute confidence and innocence.

"Really? Then what did I just say?" he asks and I, for an obviously unrelated reason, begin to sweat.

"Something about the curriculum," I say, making sure to avoid it sounding like a question.

"No, I believe my exact words were, please head to the training ground so we can see where you are currently" he answers with a straight face.

I belatedly look around and realize that the class is indeed void of anyone but the two of us. Maybe I should get better at the whole, pay attention to your surroundings, thing.

"Isn't that technically also about the curriculum?" I ask in one last desperate attempt not to get whacked, and to my supreme joy see his lips twitch up in a quick smile before he quickly smoothes his face and lets out a sigh that I'm ninety percent sure is fake.

"Fine, just get out there already," he says in a voice laced with exasperation and amusement.

I quickly go out to the training ground and prepare to crush my eight-year-old classmates in a show of my clear superiority.

Minutes later I stand at the training grounds, looking upon what I can only assume is a course designed to humiliate us, in an attempt to keep us in line or show us how far we've come by easily completing it at the end of the academy or some other such nonsense.

I hear a sharp clap and turn my attention to where Iruka is talking "Okay class, you are each going to go through this obstacle course, now, this is not something we do to humiliate you" I'm pretty sure he's lying and I was right "but to see where you are in order to best train you into the best shinobi you can be" he says with a reassuring smile which, honestly, is pretty reassuring.

One by one the other kids go through the course, some do well like Kiba Inuzuka the dog guy, others like one particular orphan does less than well when he manages to simultaneously get hit with a swinging log in the chest, and a blunt kunai in the head, resulting in him spinning end over end through the air, finally landing in a fake spike pit, which is essentially just a spike pit without spikes, head first, which I can only assume caused a concussion. It was brutal… and a bit funny.

Finally, it was my turn, I walked to the starting line with incredible amounts of totally earned confidence, and as I stood upon the precipice of the obstacle course I turned back and spoke to my peers.

"Watch, because this will go down in history"

I wake up slowly letting out a groan, feeling pain in various parts of my body. What in the world happened? The last thing I remember was explaining to my classmates that I was going to make history.

"Hey, you, you're finally awake. You gave us a real scare out there with what happened" I hear Iruka say while I sit up in bed and see the sunset outside the window.

"Scare? Why?" I ask, confused as to what could have scared him.

"You don't remember? Well, maybe that's for the best, I won't go into details but it was pretty bad, honestly, no one has ever failed that fast. I mean, normally, kids who are as bad physically as you know that they're bad, so they don't just charge ahead and immediately fail. Oh! But don't worry, as long as you work hard you'll be a great shinobi in no time" he gives me a reassuring smile, in what I'm almost certain is an attempt to keep me from getting discouraged.

"Huh," I say, as I process what he just told me.

"Hey now, no need to be discouraged, like I said, you just need to work hard," he says in a desperate attempt to avoid losing a student on the first day because of a bad starting point.

"I guess I succeeded in going down in history, eh?" I say while grinning at him.

He looks dumbfounded for a second before breaking out laughing "yeah, I guess you did, didn't you? You know what? I'll even put it in the archive records for you, how about it?" he says with a chuckle.

"You know what? I think I'd like that"