Chapter Ten- A Curious Porcupine

"Big brother, you look like you're going to fall over at any second" Mikoto noted as we began walking towards the academy on Monday morning. She looked slightly concerned and looked me up and down as we walked.

"Well that's a nice observation Mikoto" I replied as we left the clan grounds and began heading towards the main street. She slightly scowled at my nonanswer. I had to admit though that I may be training too hard. But then I gained three points in intelligence and six in strength. That wasn't even to mention the biggest discovery I made.

Shadow Clone Jutsu, was in a few words broken. I had it swing a sword yesterday until I finished my training for the day, which was twelve hours. When I dispelled the jutsu…..It was probably the worst headache I ever had.

I assumed it was a drawback from receiving so many memories at once, but it didn't do any real damage besides increasing my fatigue slightly. But that wasn't important at all, the fact that I gained four points in my dexterity stat when I dispelled it was. 

Dexterity was how coordinated you were, which was trained through muscle memory in some cases. Doing the same task over and over. Kenjutsu in and of it's self is something that focuses majorly on dexterity, with a minor portion coming from agility and strength.

But shadow clone dexterity training was something I was readily planning to abuse, Sakumo gave me way too much work to fit into one month, and it was just one of the sacrifices I had to make if I wanted to optimize my time around the water walking exercise. Headaches it is.

"Stop ignoring me!" Mikoto huffed as she stepped on my foot. 'Bratty little sisters are such a struggle...…'

"What did you ask?" I said simply as I honestly didn't have the energy to waste retorting, everything I had would go into another twelve hours of training.

"Why is Uncle mad? Why do you look half dead?" She asked. I guess she noticed when he came to pick up Aunt Misa after our argument. Surprised her curiosity held until now.

"In order, Uncle is trying to force me to join the force. I want to return to the battlefront, I'm training so I don't die while I'm there" Once again my foot was stomped on, this time rather hard.

"Are you stupid, did you get your head hit too hard while you were fighting for your life? He begged Lord Kagami to give you a chance on the police force!" She yelled as she got in front of me with a rather large frown on her face. 'I highly doubt Uncle had to beg, he's on the path to becoming one of the elders in the Uchiha hierarchy. Hell, Aunt Misa is a second or third cousin to Lord Kagami'

"Mikoto my dear sister, have I ever lied to you about something serious?" I asked as I looked down at the four-foot-three girl. She slowly shook her head.

"Then trust me when I tell you, I don't have a fucking choice" I said as the fatigue and the stress began reaching a melting point. My Sharingan came alive of its own volition, though the images of my dead comrades merely felt like background noise at this point.

"Now can we please continue, I'd feel pretty embarrassed having to apologize to your teachers for causing you to be late." I asked more gently, noticing her shocked expression. I could count on one hand how many times I've been particularly stern with her.

She just nodded meekly. I began feeling pretty bad as we continued the rest of our walk in relative silence. I gave her a small hug in apology as I dropped her off at the door of the academy.

"I'll be here to pick you up at two" I said as I disappeared in a swirl of leaves, about a minute later I arrived in front of a lake.

The rope still hanging from the highest branch, the end just barely entering the water itself. My hands rose into a cross seal as half my chakra vanished. Another thing I noticed was that no words were needed between myself and the clone. I could order him with my mind to complete whatever task I put it up to. Almost robotically it walked away and began going through Sakumo's katas.

I looked down at my hands which were now covered in callouses and blisters, I slightly smacked both of my cheeks before jumping onto the surface of the lake. 'You're only two days in Tometsu. You get a break in eight hours when you pick up Mikoto' 

And thus three days passed in what wish I could say was the blink of an eye. I remembered every second, it was a grueling training plan after all. At this point the skin on my hands had almost completely calloused over, I had bags under my eyes and now Mikoto is also mad at me. She's trying to hide it, but I can tell she's annoyed by my 'choices', even though I clarified with her that there wasn't a choice.

Man, if I knew it'd be this much of a struggle to juggle my personal and shinobi life, might've made some different choices in my career paths. I couldn't blame her or Koshu, I'm obviously not telling them everything and I'm sure they know it as well. 

Personal problems aside, I was greatly proud of the results I managed to receive from training forty-eight hours in four days.

-

Level 9 (1480/6000)

Name: Tometsu Uchiha

Chakra: 1185/1185

Title: Fang's Apprentice- Boosts the learning speed of Kenjutsu and Lightning release by 20%

Strength:19-(32)

Dexterity:28-(37)

Agility: 27

Endurance:21-(27)

Intelligence:70-(79)

Stat points:10

Perk Points:1

-

'An almost perfect all-around growth with intelligence and strength receiving a focus. Water walking was training my intelligence while climbing the rope with four hundred pounds on my body trained my strength. They both also trained my endurance slightly while my clone was responsible for dexterity.' I recounted as my eyes were drawn to another sacrifice I had to make in my time constraints.

I loved being fast, so that's what hurt me the most about this training program. There was a remedy though, from now on all of the stat points I received would be put in agility instead of intelligence. Not forever but until the time my agility again passed my strength, with that my bases were covered.

I couldn't train agility while water-walking, the point of the exercise was to control and prolong how long I could walk on it. If I trained sprints as well then my chakra would dwindle at an increased pace. Not even to mention that fact I'm running on fumes as is.

I continued my training until something interesting happened on the sixth day of training which was Friday.

I'd already picked up Mikoto from the academy to have lunch and take her home, but when I returned I discovered exactly who was using my squad's old training ground. He obviously never showed during the week so I wrote it off, but then there was a blonde kid going to town on a wooden tree stump.

My clone was standing about ten meters away from the kid where I left it, still going through a multitude of slashes without even the slightest bit of fatigue. Just from looking at him, I could tell he would've destroyed me in pure swordsmanship a week ago. 

From a single look at Mikoto's friend, I noticed he was doing the academy katas, almost flawlessly as well. 'They don't even begin sparring until the second year. How could he have learned the katas already?....None of my business' I decided as my interest was lost on the subject, I offered the kid a nod as he noticed me before I returned to my little piece of hell. The damn rope over the river.

If I wanted peace during my torture it seemed I wouldn't receive it, as I was hanging from the rope after my second attempt the kid walked over the edge of the water. I was slightly impressed by the kids resolve, blood fell from his knuckles while he was covered in sweat. The kid didn't stop once in the three and a half hours I've been here.

"How can you walk on water?" He asked…'Minato' a voice reminded me, Mikoto only said it once after all.

"Chakra," I said as I began struggling to climb the rope. Long had passed since my hands would bleed from this, but the rope was now stained a dark red instead of the plain straw-like color it had originally. I managed to make it fifteen feet up before Minato spoke again.

"Like this?" He asked as he pointed to me. His finger had a single leaf stuck to it, but I recognized the 'exercise' immediately. It was considered a chakra control exercise, barely. It was mostly used to teach kids how to move their chakra to a limb. 'Yet another thing he shouldn't know yet? I guess he spies on the other classes every chance he gets, smart.'

"Fine... Instead of moving the chakra to your finger move it to your feet. Run up a tree without hands using your chakra." I said as I finally made it to the top of the tree. In the six days I've done this it was only the third time I managed to make it to the branch that would allow me to rest. I was pulling five hundred pounds up thirty feet with only my arms and core.

The kid nodded and bowed slightly before running to the closest tree. 'Why did I help him?' I couldn't help but ask myself. It was obvious the kid had a thirst to improve and on some level, I could respect that. A whim?

But no matter how I look at it he would be competing against my sister. Now that I think about it, Mikoto could never win Rookie of the Year over this kid. What eight-year-old trained like this, I knew for a fact I didn't nor did she. But she would undoubtedly win Kunoichi of the Year. And if it was anything like my class, it would be the rookie of the year, kunoichi of the year, and the dead last on a team together.

'It was likely they would be a team together if my experiences told me anything. Maybe it could be useful to build a relationship with the kid.' Just as that thought passed the kid was blasted back from the tree, bits and pieces of bark flying around signifying his failure.

"You're using too much chakra." I offered a piece of advice as I appeared next to the downed kid. He looked up in surprise at me appearing next to him.

"It's a rather simple process, use too little chakra and you'll slide off, too much and you'll blow the tree bark apart. The key is finding the sweet spot" I continued as I offered him a hand, he grabbed it quickly as I helped him up.

"Ok, I'll get it this time" The kid said with resolve, I watched as he attempted the exercise again. He actually made it a few feet before his leading foot slid forward and he smacked his face against the tree.

He was only able to attempt it for about twenty minutes, I offered him a few tips and tricks and he managed to run ten feet up the sixty-foot-tall tree. Though he was only a kid, so after the last attempt he was on his knees sweating bullets, he got up with difficulty as it was obvious he intended to make another attempt. He went forward into a sprint before my foot reached out, he rolled a few feet before landing on his back.

"There's no point in trying to train without the chakra to do so, your chakra pool is small so just take a break. Should be ready to go again in ten minutes or so" I said as I looked down at the scowling kid, he was obviously annoyed that I tripped him up.

"I'm Minato Namikaze. You're Mikoto's older brother right?" He asked as he sat up and crossed his legs. 

"Yes, Tomestu Uchiha. I'm curious as to why you're training so hard?" I asked. Usually, that would be a redundant question, we lived in a shinobi village. But not for the usual eight-year-old kid, really only clan kids would begin training. But that only started at the age of five and it wasn't particularly gruesome. Nothing like punching and kicking a tree stump until you bled. The kid was peculiar.

"We're at war. There are also rumors going around that a select few younger shinobi could graduate early." Scratch that, the kid wasn't as smart as I gave him credit for. The oddest thing was he talked about it like it was a reward, given to kids who worked hard.

'So that's the higher-ups scheme. Of course it's only voluntary, but that doesn't mean they won't order the teachers to plant an idea into the kids head. It had it's merits though, a few real prodigies would be discovered years early. Giving the village plenty of time to indoctrinate and groom them into powerful shinobi. what of the kids that aren't extremely talented? Dead before they hit puberty, nine times out ten.'

"I have heard of the lowered age limit as well. You intend to participate?" Surely I could understand why, the sooner an orphan could graduate the sooner they could leave the place. I highly doubted that being in an orphanage could be tolerable. Too many horror stories go around monthly of mistreatment. We've been at war for four years now, and the orphanages have begun to flood with new residents. Some things had to be sacrificed to take care of so many kids, not that I agreed with that at all.

So even the prosperous Land of Fire could let kids go hungry.

"Yes, if I can graduate early I can stay ahead of my peers and try and make a name for myself" The kid said with resolve as he lowered his head slightly.

"You're dumb, would you like me to explain why Monito?" I asked as my frown almost cracked at being able to do that to somebody else. 'Sakumo is a bad influence'