CH_2.4 (035)

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The roofs in the Hidden Leaf village were considered free property for shinobi to traverse through. Any day, one could spot at least two dozen shinobi jumping from roof to roof to avoid the roads crowded with slow civilians.

Takuma looked down at the road street from a tall roof in a residential area. He stepped back and ran to the next roof, jumping over a gap between the buildings that would've made him pee a little even thinking about jumping if he was in his previous body. His new body, though— his shinobi body could put any professional traceurs, individuals who practiced parkour, to shame. He had strength, balance, dexterity, and nimbleness that allowed him to be as comfortable between buildings and roofs as he would be on a flat road.

He again stepped near the ledge and observed Taro and Masaaki walking on the road. The rookie genins were made to walk a beat in a part of a village as part of guard duty— they would walk the streets, converse with the people they met on the way, keep up to date with the events in the area, and help anyone who they could.

However, as this was part of the basic training, Yoshio instructed them to only have two people on the road while the other three would watch over them as part of a stealth and backup simulation. Takuma peered at the buildings across the street and saw Nenro also skipping through the rooftops of the buildings and keeping an eye on the two walking the road. As for Ai, she was somewhere hidden doing the same job— he had lost sight of her, which meant she was doing a good job.

Basic training hadn't been what he expected. The training was tough, but nothing he hadn't done with Maruboshi. Takuma still started his training at four in the morning (he did it alone as Maruboshi had started retaking regular missions) before going to the genin basic training. He trained in different things, involving his team and group under Yoshio, who did hit him- well, everyone- a lot. The chunin instructor, in only their first week, threw a shuriken into one of his genins' palms after an argument before nonchalantly calling for the Iryo-nin.

As long as the shady guy chunin— Takuma still didn't know his name— could heal the injury, Yoshio would inflict it as a punishment. Takuma had gotten his thigh bone bruised and suffered micro-fractures that had pained him so much when Yoshio had made him walk to the shady guy sitting halfway across the field to get healed.

The thing that disappointed Takuma was that they were still going through academy-level stuff that everyone could do. Everyone knew how to do it, but Yoshio ordered them to train them anyways and would punish them for even the most minor mistakes. Takuma hoped they would move on to something new.

"What are you thinking about?"

Takuma skipped on his feet, shifting his weight on the ball of his feet, as he twisted back with a kunai already in his hand to slash the person who had sneaked up on him.

*Scrriiing!*

His kunai met another as sparks flew on contact. Takuma immediately overpowered his opponent and was about to push them back to get some space and launch the next attack when he noticed that the supposed foe was his female teammate.

"What were you thinking sneaking up on me like that?!" Takuma said as he stepped back and loosened his grip on his kunai. One didn't just sneak up on a shinobi like that and not expect to get stabbed in the face.

He sighed; he still needed to get used to his new teammate's antics.

Ai stuck out her tongue and twirled her kunai with her finger in the ring. Among Takuma's team, Ai was the mood-maker with her outgoing character. In the team with quiet characters such as Takuma and Taro, Ai was the one who struck up conversations that involved the entire group. Even Masaaki, the friendliest of them all, and Nenro, the most popular guy of the rookie genins, followed Ai's lead in conversations.

Takuma was sure if Ai was in his previous world, she would be successful as a streamer or any internet personality.

"Why're you here?" he asked.

"Nothing happens during patrolling. I was getting bored. I wish something would happen, anything," Ai shrugged as she followed Takuma to the next roof.

"Nothing happening is good for us," said Takuma, still keeping an eye on the road from every successive rooftop. But he didn't tell her to go away— he was also getting bored.

"Hey, do you think we will ace the board this week?" Ai asked.

Group Yoshio Weekly Rankings. The five teams would compete throughout the week in every activity in hopes of being at the top of the group's weekly rankings. There was no set scoreboard, and Yoshio didn't reveal the running order until the very last day while announcing the winner— nor did he specify a point system that would help them estimate their ranking. Because of that, every team had to be on top of their game throughout the week, fearing that some other team had taken their spot the other day.

"We haven't done anything different than the last three weeks, so I don't think so," Takuma said.

"But we are doing everything we can," Ai grumbled before doing a flip between two buildings. "I really want us to win this week!"

The rankings reset every week, and their group had been consistently in second and third position every week, while every other team was wildly inconsistent in their rankings. Takuma was sure when the points for every week were tallied, they would be favorites for entry into the final tournament. However, that wasn't enough. Coming first in the weekly rankings came with a reward in the form of mission points.

Mission points were the other currency in the Leaf shinobi military other than money. In many ways, mission points were more important than ryo, as jutsu from the jutsu library could only be accessed by paying through mission points. As the name suggested, mission points were earned by completing missions. The genin in basic training weren't allowed to apply to official missions to earn mission points.

So for Takuma, the only way to earn mission points was through topping Group Yoshio's Weekly Rankings.

"The way I see it, we need to win the fights if we want to top the rankings," Takuma said as he stopped on a rooftop and watched the building across the street as Nenro ran through the roof while a young man hung his washed laundry on the clothing line to dry. Nenro apologetically nodded for disturbing the man and immediately jumped to the next roof.

Ai giggled at the sight. She then asked, "Taro said something like that, right?"

Takuma nodded. Taro had pointed out that the teams that grabbed the first place in the last three weeks had collectively won most fights throughout the week. He had shown them a tally as proof that he had drafted sometime they weren't looking.

"Yoshio said that the final tournament is a competition among instructors, and I'm pretty sure they have put money into it. I mean, why wouldn't they. So, by giving out mission points, Yoshio is trying to reward the team with the combat ability who would then win him the final tournament," Takuma analyzed. If the other teams hadn't figured it out yet, it was only a matter of time before everyone did.

Combined with Taro's win tally, it was safe to infer that fights had a considerable weight in Yoshio's secret/internal grading system.

"Uhm, that's gonna to be tough," Ai said with a little blush on her cheeks.

Takuma was no longer the weakest person among his peers. He had gone from the bottom of the barrel to the top fifteen out of the twenty-five people group. He didn't win any fights, but he had a better record than Ai, who won more than Taro. Nenro and Masaaki were the reason why their team was able to bag the third and sometimes second place— Nenro hovered in eleventh or tenth place, but it was Masaaki who consistently made it into the top ten rankings, which, other than him, was occupied by the clan and shinobi-born kids. The buzz-cut bald kid with gap between his front teeth hit like a tank.

"If we want to be on the top, you, me, and Taro will need to win more," said Takuma with a shrug. It was the plain truth. "That and complete the drills faster and better than everyone else— if we can do that, it's only natural we will be on the top."

"It sounds easy," she sighed.

"Not to me," Takuma pursed his lips and knew that she understood it as well. He had been trying to polish his taijutsu skills. He had observed Nenro and Masaaki fighting. They possessed a fluidity in their movement, and he tried to ask them what it was, but they didn't seem to know what he was pointing out. He lacked what they had.

If they wanted mission points, something needed to change soon.

———

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The change came quickly.

"Today, we're going to work on chakra control," Yoshio announced after another grueling conditioning drill. He did his customary round through the grid and let his baton eat while correcting the postures. "Takuma, how did you train your chakra control— if you did, that is?"

"Through Leaf Concentration Practice, sir!" Takuma said in a sturdy voice, his body rigid in attention.

"So, what are we going to do today?"

Takuma thought about what they had been doing these days— the same old academy stuff, so he was going to repeat his words, but as the words formed in his throat, he felt Yoshio's heat behind him, and he swore he could feel the cold baton as well.

"The Tree-Climbing Practice, sir!" he took the risk and changed the answer at the last moment.

Yoshio, who had gripped his baton ready to strike Takuma, smacked it back into his palm and stared at the back of Takuma's head for a solid few seconds. Takuma felt the gaze trying to boil his brain through his skull.

"You're correct for a change," said Yoshi, "and you've ruined my day."

Takuma held back the biggest grin from splitting his face and put on his best stone-cold stoic face as Yoshio passed him by, giving him a displeased look.

"Today, we're going to learn the next step in improving your pathetic chakra control. Follow me! The last one to arrive will have to do thirty pushups with their heaviest teammate on their back," saying that Yoshio took off and the genin, who had just done a long conditioning drill, had to follow the absurd pace set by the chunin instructor.

Yoshio only stopped when they reached an area with a tall wall in the middle. It was just a single gray concrete wall just standing in the middle of the empty field. They had to crane up their necks to look at the wall that looked to be around four-story tall.

"Even though it's called the tree-climbing practice, you lot are going to do it on a wall," Yoshio said. He then paused and looked at Takuma. "So, you were technically wrong... this improves my mood."

Yoshio walked to the wall and started to climb up the wall without using his hands. He walked halfway, removed one of his legs, and crossed it over the other thigh. "Gather chakra in the bottom of your feet and climb the tree using the same concept of sticking as the leaf concentration practice. Just here, the weight is different, and the sole of your feet is a difficult place to gather chakra. If any of your numbskulls didn't know, better chakra control means you can cast jutsu easier. The second purpose is to develop a sense of building chakra in your body. A shinobi is constantly moving in the heat of battle, and processes like molding chakra and directing it gets difficult when most of your mind needs to focus on other things— you need to practice chakra control until it becomes instinctual, and the tree-climbing practice is the place where you start."

Yoshio jumped off the wall and landed on the ground with his bulky body throwing up a lot of dust. He continued, "This is how you're going to do it. You will climb up the wall and walk down the other side."

Then a grin appeared on Yoshio's face that disturbed Takuma. The sound of weight shifting of feet around him told that the rest of the group thought the same.

"The first team to complete the exercise successfully will be rewarded. All the members will get a very generous cache of mission points," Yoshio announced.

The moment Yoshio finished, Takuma knew how he was going to make up for the mission points he had lost out by not being the top team.

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