2/2

"So," said Tenten as they walked, "what's your big goal in life? Ever since I was young I just loved weapons, so I decided I'm going to become a master in all hand to hand and long range weapons, invent a few weapons myself and become a legendary kunoichi on the par with Tsunade of the sannin!"

"Cool!"

"What about you?"

"Oh I just like learning jutsus and want money."

Tenten looked at him for a bit.

He looked back.

This was getting kind of awkward.

"That's it? You do realize we will have to kill people you know."

"Yeah, pretty much. As long as it's not children or something it shouldn't be a big deal."

"Yeah but you can't just start a career for such a simple reason! You'll never make it to genin let alone chunin!"

"Haha jutsu go puff."

"What?"

Tenzuka smiled. "Nothing, you were saying?"

"Well it's just, I can't imagine choosing this career for such a simple reason."

Tenzuka shrugged. "Well it's more than that. My goal for now is to become a genin and learn from a jonin. Then I guess I'll study what it means to become chunin so I get a better pay. They say high level jonin get summons so I'll probably aim for that in the distant future, but it's all pretty long term. I expect I'll become chunin in 5-6 years."

Tenten was giving him a look that suggested she wasn't impressed. Oh well.

The conversation died off.

"So," said Tenzuka, "wanna train?"

What she considered an average training regime was pretty insane.

The girl would train for an hour or two in hand to hand combat, have a small break which consisted in her entering random training grounds for any scattered kunai and shuriken, then she would train her accuracy for the entire afternoon.

Every. Single. Day.

She had already been doing this for a year now, so he could understand why she always got a 10/10 out of shuriken practice. She wasn't satisfied however, saying that she wanted to be able to hit moving targets while moving herself, which was understandable, but intense.

She wasn't a machine of course, using shuriken or kunai every day got pretty boring after a while, so she'd randomly swap between taijutsu, using chains, wooden bamboo sticks, anything and everything.

Tenzuka had set himself up a pretty intense afternoon.

Itachi carefully hid disinterest that he felt as he looked at the construction project he was required to deal with.

His village already had a theatre, what was the point of another? He understood where the man in front of him was coming from; having inherited his father's inheritance he finally felt like he had enough money to pursue his dream, but it was a declining business and the guy had no experience.

"So, why should I fund this exactly?"

"It's a chance to bring the people closer to their country, to their history! To educate the young and give nostalgia to the old! It will produce money and jobs, giving more prosperity to the village!"

"Your heart is in the right place, but your mind isn't," said Itachi trying to be less harsh as possible. What he was proposing wouldn't work- nobody cared anymore about these sorts of things. It would be a waste of his creativity, the best thing to do is to just find another way to monetize his passion. Now to explain in a way that would seem deep and wise...

"Think of yourself as a high-class chief from fire country with the wrong ingredients: the chief shouldn't stop cooking, he should just change the recipe." Ok, that should probably work.

The man almost had tears in his eyes. What an exaggeration.

"Thank you Hokage-sama! Truth be told I wasn't so sure it would actually work. But I didn't know what else I could do so I tried anyway."

Itachi nodded in sympathy. "Analyse your passion and see what is fundamentally required and what isn't, then find a way to make it new, to make it exciting. If possible you should try to create something that eliminates the previous weaknesses and creates new strengths. I truly wish you the best of luck. My doors are always open."

"Thank you, sir! I will not let you down!"

The man left.

Itachi let out a sigh of relief. Finally.

He had about 5 seconds of silence when another knock could be heard. Ugh.

"Come in."

Wakita entered the room.

Finally, someone he actually wanted to listen to.

"Report."

"Hai! I planted the seals like you asked and discovered I was right. This is the proof."

She handed him a glass ball.

This was a creation of the third Hokage, the seeing ball. As a Hokage himself, he finally had the records to see how it worked and wasn't surprised that it required a ridiculous amount of fuinjutsu knowledge.

First one had to place a combination of seal formulas on a room, the where was determined by maths. These seals would capture light and sound.

Another array was required as a power source and another to transmit the information to the ball. A final array was then required to interpret he signals and project them inside the glass (on a lowers scale of course).

A lot of work, true, but the results...

Itachi powered the ball and watched, already knowing what he would see.

A disgusting scene appeared between an academy teacher and a student. He gritted his teeth at the paedophile

"That's not all," Wakita said coldly, "later on there is footage of another teacher reprimanding a girl for simply fighting back against a bully amd then-"

"They are both fired." He wrote the declaration down and signed it.

"Rat! Bird!" The Hokage called with authority.

Two Anbu appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

"You are to find this man and imprison him. Use lethal force if necessary."

"Hai!"

Tenten was great to hang out with.

His initial "all work and no play" assessment was completely wrong. Oh sure she trained like her life depended on it, but that didn't mean she was some stuck up prick like Neji.

Speaking of the guy, he didn't attend to school for three days. Also, two academy teachers had retired. He wasn't taught by them personally, but he heard that they were great.

He spent most of his days' training, either with Tenten or alone, eager to improve to keep up with the girl. He had long since learned the survivors drink technique, and was slowly learning the others.

He had asked one of the new teachers if there existed a higher version of the ability and he had been proven right. Unfortunately, he didn't have the control for it.

Lack of chakra control meant incapability of performing the technique in most cases, but one could also overpower and waste chakra too. Being a civilian born, he didn't really have to worry about the second problem though.

Wakita eventually taught the class the "release technique", a universally standard jutsu for getting out of a genjutsu.

Only a few actually had the control for it, so after sending most of the class back to the floating leaf balancing exercise that they had learnt last year, she increased the number of leaves required for those who were behind. Tenzuka was one of those individuals.

What's worse is that he sucked at paying attention to detail.

Every once in a while, a hidden academy teacher would randomly place a student under a genjutsu. Nothing embarrassing would happen, but you would "wake up" to see your exercise book full of scribbles. It was pretty annoying.

Other than that, the month went by pretty fast.

He eventually managed to hold a candle to Tenten during their spars, sort of learned how to throw kunai and shuriken at moving targets (they decided to use random rocks as the moving targets) and was slowly getting the 'chakra jump' technique down. For being one of the basics, it wasn't very easy. Or maybe he just sucked.

"Ok, we're done." Said the fake academy medic.

He thanked the man and left the room, eager to go back to class.

It took a bit to organize, but eventually, the academy opened a secondary mental evaluation. The main difference from the standard test was that after the first time you participated, you had to volunteer to do it again and that it wouldn't give any exams or give extra points. They would supposedly ask a few questions, write them down and then teach you a boring meditation technique. It was supposed to be a 'spiritual awareness' sort of program.

That's what it was officially for at least. It actually was for him and Neji, and any other students that the bijuu could have possibly hit in the meantime.

Which meant a lot of boring meditation techniques.

The worse part was that the medic in charge was one of those hard-ass 'I want perfection' type of guys, so he actually had to try hard or get reprimanded.

And if anyone asked? He 'liked it' and 'wanted to get better.' He couldn't even properly complain!

Well, he could to Neji, but the bastard was already ahead of him, having completed the basics and was on to the next level.

He saw said bastard get up as soon as he went back to class. It was probably his turn.

"Ok have a seat Tenzuka-san." Said Wakita.

"Yes sensei."

The class was in the middle of a history lesson.

After a long day of training, Tenzuka tiredly walked home.

The camper's sparks was a useful jutsu for starting fire, but having a water affinity made it incredibly hard. Not to mention tiring.

The meditation techniques were slightly useful for making him feel like he was doing something when he was actually too tired 'real training' (otherwise he would have had to stop like 20 times today) and he suspected it boosted chakra recovery, but he had no way to test if it was a placebo or not.

He hadn't seen Tenten for a while now, which was slightly sad since it was fun to hang out with her, but it made sense: graduation wasn't too far away now, they both had to step up the pace, Tenzuka simply wasn't at her level.

It was a real shame since he finally had enough money for a weapon and specifically looked forward to sparring with her.

But that wouldn't be happening.

He decided to buy a simple and cheap kodachi, a basic sword that looked like a non-bent katana and wasn't too long. Hopefully, it would be easy to learn.

The weapon came with a few very basic forms to practise with, plus maintaining instructions.

He hadn't practised much with it, preferring to focus on jutsus. It was a shame because the kodachi was pretty cool.

Also, he was finally deemed old enough for not needing a babysitter anymore. He had been ecstatic at first...

But now he just felt lonely.

Tenten was talking to a few friends of hers. He waited for their conversation to finish (he didn't want to be rude after all) and then tried to talk to her.

It felt weird.

She wasn't trying to avoid him by any means, but he could vaguely sense her desire to be somewhere else. to not be in the conversation right now.

It made him uncomfortable.

He cut the conversation short with an excuse and left.

The following days didn't change much. He got the same 'here come's the annoying guy that I have to deal with' vibe from her for the entire week.

He decided to leave her alone.

He went home and cooked dinner, washed the plates he used, had a shower and went to bed.

The cycle seemed to be endless.

He'd wake up, prepare himself for the day, go to the academy, train, library, more training, home, prepare for bed and then sleep...

Was life meant to be this repetitive and boring?

To help pass the time he spent a lot of time in the library and read different chakra control exercises. It didn't quite quench whatever hole he had, but it did make him too distracted to think about it.

"Finally! Freedom!"

Tenzuka nodded at his classmate, completely sharing the statement.

After waiting forever, it finally happened: graduation day arrived.

The written exams were brutal. His personal favourite was the final test, the open question ones; he could use those as opportunities to mention other stuff he knew.

The best part was the jutsu demonstration. After showing the clone and transformation jutsu, he had been asked to show any of the basic five he knew: he had performed all five (although he only managed to the survivor's drink perfectly) and had gotten a compliment!

He felt great.

The forehead protector felt a little uncomfortable on his head though, he'd have to find a better way to carry it. For now, he'd wear it normally.

He was free.

Figuratively of course. He was still a 'slave to money' and now to his countries military, but it didn't matter: the boring cycle would end. He would get a team, go on adventures, buy his own house...

"Team two? Follow me please."

Tenzuka stood at the same time as Tahara, a shy dark skinned girl with long black hair, and another guy he had never spoken too did.

The three were guided to an empty classroom. Their new sensei turned around.

He was an old guy, at least in his forties and was almost completely bald. He had an ugly black moustache and just gave Tenzuka a bad vibe.

Tenzuka shook his head, this was the moment he had been waiting for! He would get a team, learn all sorts of things (mostly teamwork) and travel a lot!

"Let's get this over with. My name is Goto, just call me sensei. I was assigned a team but I'm really only taking apprentices."

Huh?

"Show off all of your skills. Whoever I deem 'the best' will become my apprentice."

The three of them looked at each other in confusion. What was up with that?

The test was over. Tahara had won.

It had been really anti-climatic. Tenzuka was expecting a cool test about their survival capabilities, or maybe even teamwork effort, but it had just been an anticlimactic presentation of their skills.

He and the nameless guy were sent back in class, visibly shaken- it couldn't really end like that, right?

But it did.

Wakita was kind as usual, giving the two of them a sheet of paper to sign up into an extra program. They were basically the options for the losers who couldn't pass a real test.

The first option was the medical program, followed up by the research division, the opportunity to re-take the year and finally, the working class.

They all sucked. Everyone knew how hard the medic's program was. The third option was basically being a normal civilian, but with a bit more privilege since you had passed the academy exam, by not by much. The final option was to re-suffer for another school year with a younger class... which kind of sucked.

Tenzuka and the now-named Ando decided that the research division was the only decent choice.

It just seemed so unbelievable.

Tenzuka had learnt all five basic ninjutsu, had done pretty well on the exams, he had maintained a high score in his physical performance throughout the years...

It was just so unfair!

Ando shared his frustrations even more. Apparently he was a civilian like him (which wasn't hard to believe due to his simple dark brown hair, average clothing on the par with Tenzuka's plus his tan) but in an even worse condition economically since he only had one parent.

"We have to keep in touch with Tahara! I refuse to be kicked out without even knowing why!" He said angrily.

Tenzuka shrugged, annoyed at the situation but feeling a little helpless about it.

"If he didn't tell us now, I don't think we'll ever know."

"He might tell Tahara eventually. What a fucking asshole."

They slowly made their way to the research division.

The building wasn't very impressive. It had two floors but also ruined and dirty walls looked pretty small and was squashed to another building to the left.

"Dance academy?" Said Ando in a confused tone, reading a sign.

"Must be the building the left."

Making their way to the door, Ando knocked.

Tenzuka didn't really know what he excepted, but the door opening creepily to a poorly lit room definitely wasn't it.

They made their way inside, wondering if they had just the wrong place.

The door slammed shut.

They were surrounded in darkness.

"What the fuc-" started Ando, but was cut off.

Tenzuka didn't have much time either: he blacked out.

There were many different ways to wake up.

Tied to a chair with a blindfold while also being almost entirely naked, was definitely in the blacklist.

"Hello?"

He was met with silence. Ok then.

The academy taught different methods to apply chakra to escape from certain situations. They didn't really classify as jutsu since most of them didn't even use chakra, but they were all useful, even if one would have to add 'stretching' to his daily routine in exchange.

He tried the method to get his tied arms in front instead of being on his back but failed thanks to something blocking him at his back- was probably a chair.

It didn't feel like tape though.

So he was stuck to a chair by rope with his arms tied behind his back. Great.

He wiggled a bit and deduced that his hands, legs, chest and waist were tied up. This was impossible to get out from with just the academy standard.

An idea came to mind. This was gonna hurt.

Having his hands tied together made it a bit difficult to perform hand seals, but thankfully the F rank 'travellers legs' jutsu only used two hand seals.

The jutsu was useful in combination with the 'ninja leap' jutsu, another F rank basic that all ninjas used to leaf jump. With the second jutsu, one could reinforce his or her leg muscles and bones a bit to not break legs while tree hopping. A real ninja could perform both without hand seals, but one step at a time.

His idea was to use it in his arms. It would require different hand seals but if he was right-

It took him at least half an hour to actually pull it off, and even then, he wasn't sure that he had it down to the same level as the travellers legs...

But he was low on chakra so he didn't really have a choice. It was now or never.

Performing his new and improvised 'travellers arms' technique, he started to rock his chair back and forth, trying to fall on his back-

He fell.

His effort paid off. Despite literally throwing his entire weight on his arms, he didn't break them thanks to the jutsu.

Using his legs and feet, he eventually managed to kick the chair away from him, which was good since the jutsu required chakra to maintain. With how weak he was now, he probably couldn't even perform a lowly clone.

Damn being a civilian-born sucked.

Still, now he was on the floor without the chair. A big upgrade.

He used a technique he learned into the academy- it consisted in him bringing his knees to his chest; if everything went right he would be able to get his arms in front of him...

He managed.

With his arms now no longer behind him, he took off his blindfold.

He was in a dark room. Creepy.

His arms were also still tied, as was his legs.

The campers spark jutsu could probably be used to free himself, but he didn't know if he had enough chakra to perform it enough times to burn the rope. It would be better to find another method.

Not being able to see despite not having a blindfold, he had to crawl a bit to move around. Who knows, maybe he'd find a knife or something? It was a shame he didn't have his kodachi on him, whoever captured him must have taken it.

He eventually made his way to a wall, which to his delight hadn't been painted. Was he at some abandoned construction area? It would explain why he couldn't hear the usual 'Konoha noise' (noise made by loud civilians trying to sell their stuff).

He used the unfinished wall to his advantage by rubbing the rope against its rough surface.

It took him a bit but he eventually rubbed it enough to make the rope warm. It was also slightly damaged.

He performed the campers spark (with difficulty due to the rope) and successfully lit the rope on fire. It hurt a bit, but the rope was eventually damaged enough to break it with sheer strength.

Having both of his arms back like normal, it took him no time to break the ropes on his feet. What an easy knot.

As soon as he got to his feet, he was hit with a super bright light.

"Congratulations." Said a male voice. "It only took you 47 minutes."

Huh?

His eyes eventually adapted to the bright light. He was in a weird basement of sorts.

"Hello," said the same voice as earlier, that now revealed to be a young adult, "my name is Kabuto. I'm your new mentor."

When Ando woke up, he felt like shit.

And a little wet.

Wait, what?

Getting up in panic, he looked around to see a full enclosed room with water at his feet.

He was in a small metal cage that didn't have enough height to let him stand, the water level was slowly but surely rising and he had no idea where he was.

It was definitely a test.

Then what were they testing? His ability to get out of tough situations? His reactions to external stimuli?

Whatever, he'd ace this thing.

The cage had a lock, so there must be a key somewhere right? He looked around.

Couldn't see one.

Ok then, this was probably a way to test the skills that he had learnt at the academy...

They couldn't possibly know which of the two basic jutsu he had mastered, so it had to be academy standard. They were probably watching him at all times and wouldn't fail to basic henges, so creating a clone outside the cage while cloaking himself with the floor's pattern probably wouldn't work.

What else was academy standard? Kunai and shuriken...no, they couldn't pass the bars. Basic taijutsu. Basic history knowledge...

Maybe they weren't testing skills he already had, maybe he had to come up with something new.

How could the theory he had learnt into the academy apply to pick locking?

They all learnt how to pick locks, but his tools had been sequestered so they didn't want him to do it the old fashion way.

Welp, the water was getting to his knees.

Shrugging, he decided to just try and brute force the problem. They probably wanted a solution that required finesse, if one came to mind he would use it, but for now, he'd do the obvious.

He slammed his foot against the cage door with all his might.

It didn't budge.

He tried again and again, each time using different angles, but none of the ideas worked. Deciding on a different approach, he grabbed the edge of the cage and pressed his feet against the lock, effectively getting out of the water.

Applying force, he tried to slowly weaken the cages lock. Meanwhile, the other leg slowly came to his chest as he decided to apply force one final time.

Every genin was required to know at least two of the basic jutsus right? Well, considering chakra affinities and their respective disadvantages, only wind, or pulse at it was often called, was neutral to all chakra affinities. Assuming one wanted to test genin, (now that he thought about it) the best jutsu to require was...

He powered a kick with the ninja jump jutsu and kicked the lock as hard as he could.

The cage, already having quite an amount of force on it already, was immediately blown off his hinges.

Hah!

Tenzuka and Ando quietly sat with their new mentor.

"Impressive." He said to a fat man with glasses that the two assumed he worked with Kabuto, he had a lab coat on after all.

"Quite."

"So, what was the point of all of this?" Asked Tenzuka curiously. "Was it like a survival thing?"

Ando unknowingly nodded at the question. He had been thinking the same thing.

A ninja never did anything randomly. A high-level ninja like Kabuto? He probably planned this perfectly ever since the two had entered the building, no, ever since their sensei failed them! It was a brilliant strategy of some sort, a perfect technique to gather all sorts of information-

"Oh, that," said Kabuto sheepishly. "I was bored."

What.

"I had nothing better to do and didn't feel like a boring presentation, so I just did it for the hell of it."

The flying.

"Plus it was fun wasn't it? Instead of having a boring morning you had an intense one and felt cool doing it!"

Absolute.

"Me and Omori-san decided on a prank each. I did the creepy 'wake up blind' thing and he did the 'wake up in a prison that will drown you soon' thing."

Bloodstained.

"On a side note, that room is a mess now so we need to clean up. Usually one of us would do it, but you two are the rookies. On the plus side congratulations! You two are now officially genin!"

Actual fuck?!

The leaf village had lots of bars and restaurants, as one would expect: it was a huge village after all.

One restaurant, in particular, was very famous for one thing: it was the place where the first two Hokage took out their very first genin team. That day the restaurant wasn't well known but was close to the training ground the two had used, so the teams went for a simple meal and celebration.

It had sort of become a tradition since then. The two leaders were historical icons and had a lot of fans, in the span of a few years the once quiet and boring place was now a lively business, full of teams excitedly chattering among themselves, some for the first time, about their tests and teachers, others were there simply because of routine, discussing their hopes of fame and fortune or their ideologies. All in all, it was a famous place full of happiness and tasty food, especially at graduation.

Two genin didn't particularly reflect the happy mood.

"This sucks," said Ando unhappily, "we were supposed to be one of them."

He glanced in annoyance at a new team from a class he didn't know. Their new teachers were buying food.

"Yeah, but we failed remember? We should be happy we have a new mentor at all. We could be back at the academy tomorrow." Said Tenzuka.

"I still call bullshit. The two of us are better then Tahara! Like at first I wasn't sure, but then I thought about it and realized I could easily take her in a fight."

"Maybe he wasn't looking for skill?"

Maybe Tahara showed more intelligence or patience or something?"

"How?! She just showed off jutsus like we did!"

Tenzuka shrugged. Truth be told he also thought it was unfair, so it was hard to defend the guy.

"Plus if they are a team where are they? Shouldn't they be celebrating?"

Tenzuka stared at the crowd. True, he couldn't see them.

"Dunno..." he said slowly, "maybe they already finished eating or something? We did come way later."

Ando rolled his eyes.

"Well, we can just always ask," said Tenzuka. "We just have to find her."

"Nah I don't care that much." Said Ando in a grumpy tone. "Let's just eat."

"Ok so! As the official leader or the research department, I shall explain why we are crucial to the village!" Exclaimed Kabuto with enthusiasm.

"Because you guys give jobs to losers who couldn't become real genin?" Said Ando grumpily, receiving a bump to the shoulder from Tenzuka.

"Because we are intelligence gatherers! Everyone knows knowledge is power, right?"

"Say that to an army."

"Well we gather an unique type of knowledge! One that can only be attained by a special type of person!"

"A virgin?"

"A scientist!"

"So an adult virgin."

Kabuto gave a sharp look to the genin in front of him. Ando was staring back in defiance while Tenzuka was trying (and failing) to stifle a laugh.

"Tell me, Ando-san, what do ninjas use in every single battle they have?"

"The power of friendship and determination?"

"Their minds."

"You have clearly never watched Naruto."

"Chakra," continued Kabuto as if Ando hadn't said anything, "is an obvious, even instinctive answer, but a lot of people are civilian born, so they can't go around dumping unique and high-level jutsus around without consequences. They need a strategy. An efficient one too."

Kabuto stopped talking and brought out a shuriken.

"This is a tool invented by the samurai in iron country. Why is it so popular with ninjas then?"

"To keep the economy going," replied Tenzuka. "They have the best metal workers and the largest mines, while the other countries all have something and need something as well. Fire country has tons of food for example, but very little water territories, unlike water country, etcetera. Iron country gets a business, the ninjas get an easy weapon to use, everybody wins."

Kabuto smiled. "You're close, but not quite. The real answer is: because we lie, cheat and steal."

"I know you mean cheating as in 'not playing fair," said Ando, "but really, you're just giving me opportunities on a silver platter. It's like you want me to make fun of you."

"Since ninjas would have stolen the tools anyway, Iron country decided they may as well make a business about it." Said Kabuto with a dark smile.

"That doesn't make sense," replied Tenzuka, "how can you make a business out of something that everyone steals anyway?"

"Nothing comes without effort. All iron country had to do, was sell and hand over the shurikens for about the same amount of money that it would take to organize raids. But enough of that!"

Kabuto walked to a wall that a whiteboard on it and flipped it over. The other side had weird posters and drawing about what looked like chakra, the human body and weapons.

"As scientists, we try to understand the unknown, to explain the mysterious, to predict the unimaginable! All of this, motivated by curiosity and our love for knowledge!"

"-and totally not because we want to control the world." Deadpanned Ando.

"Of course not!"

In an underground base in the middle of nowhere, Jigoku, chuckled to himself.

The leaf was paying attention this time, but it wouldn't matter. He wanted to be freed and he would be. It was a matter of time. One would have an easier time asking the weather to change, using polite voices.

The seal the current Hokage was using to keep him at bay was astoundingly effective. It reminded him of those godamned Uzumaki pests.

Getting rid of them was his best achievement.

Unfortunately for him, there was nothing he could do right now. But that was to be expected- he hadn't even tried to hide his presence after all. Hopefully that paranoid idiot would come to visit him.

It was annoying to depend on plan B), but with his opponent being able to see chakra, plan A) (use the opportunity to possess someone on the higher end of the social and political hierarchy) failed spectacularly. Those Anbu would have been his otherwise.

For now there wasn't much else to do, other than napping and planning. He needed a better approach for those red chakra-seeing eyes. He wouldn't do anything to attract attention.

Until his allies came of course.