Chapter 1: Awakening 

…

You are Shinji, an orphan with no last name and nothing to your name. Your seat was to the back of the classroom, and while you weren't dead last in here, you still were very much behind the likes of Sasuke Uchiha. You felt a little envy in your heart at the last Uchiha, he was ahead by a long shot to everyone in the class.

Unlike him, if someone were to ask the teachers what you are good at, they would say that Shinji was average in almost everything. It wasn't a bad thing, but neither was it good. You didn't want to be just average. Well, nobody wanted to be just average either, and if they could change it they would.

Suddenly, you hear the sound of the classroom door creaking. Iruka came into the class, he had a frown on his face, showing that his day hadn't started in a good step. You could guess why that was so.

He was a little later than usual and you could reckon why by the tied-up yellow-haired ball of energy in his arm.

He drops the wriggling student on the ground and turns towards him. "Naruto, how many times did I tell you?! Not only did you miss class but also went and vandalized the Hokage Statues!!"

Naruto smiled confidently, and you guessed that he would have given you a thumbs up if he could get out of the ropes. "I am going to become the greatest Hokage! Better than any that came before me!"

Wow… Yeah, you didn't believe that at all.

Unlike others, who seemed to hate him for no reason, you didn't hate Naruto and even found some of his pranks entertaining sometimes.

But, at the same time, you were looking at this from a logical standpoint, Naruto simply didn't work hard enough to be Hokage. His Taijutsu was almost nonexistent, even though he had pretty good stamina. His Ninjutsu… he couldn't even do the simple Clone Jutsu, and to top it all off, his grades were horrendous. You didn't even know one academic subject where he passed.

Naruto was a guy who liked pulling pranks more than training. That was your conclusion for now, and it was too late to change that now. Hard work is about consistency, not just one moment in time like a day or a week.

"Naruto!" Iruka yelled out the young blonde's name again and punched him on the back of his head. Stopping Naruto's grandeur speech. "Tomorrow is your graduation exam. So you can't be doing things like this anymore."

You almost sighed at the situation. Initially, it had been entertaining, but now almost every other day Iruka would bring Naruto to class and reprimand him for something or other. There was a reason why the children didn't like Naruto, well, one was his annoying pranks and the other was how adults told their kids to stay away from him.

While you were curious about what secret Naruto had, a chill crawled down your spine just thinking about trying to find out a secret like this. A Ninja village wasn't something you could waltz around like that and try to investigate.

With a sigh, you get rid of such thoughts for now. Some secrets were better not known.

After clearing your mind, and ignoring Iruka's yells, you couldn't help but think about tomorrow and feel a little nervous.

Though you could use the three basic Jutsu like almost everyone in the Class could. From what the older years usually said, as long as you could perform the three basic Jutsu, then you would pass. The academic grades didn't matter as long as you weren't completely failing like... Naruto, and maybe Kiba. The latter at least was in most of the classes, in body, because his mind was in dreamland most of the time, as he usually slept like a log through most classes.

But you were sure that in the end, Kiba would graduate. Clan kids would always graduate since even if they somehow failed, their family members would be enough to pick up the slack and make a ninja out of them.

Orphans like you on the other hand, and normal civilians, were a different deal. You didn't know the exact premise, but no one that you knew from the orphanage ever became a ninja in the last two years. Sure, there were many orphanages throughout Konoha due to the Nine-Tails attack, so some of them probably became true Genin.

But still, you were confident that there must be something more to the Genin Test than just using the three normal Jutsu.

After Iruka was done berating Naruto for his mistakes, the teacher realized that the class was coming to an end. "Okay everyone, we will now revise the Transformation Jutsu. It will be a big part of the test tomorrow, so remember to practice it," as he said that he glanced at Naruto. "For those who are not sure whether they can use it well enough, make sure to practice harder."

Those words resonated with you, but if you were honest with yourself, sometimes hard work just couldn't do that. The strongest Ninjas have always come from the Strong Ninja Clans, most of the Hokage were from well-established Ninja Clans too, and that said a lot.

Even Minato Namikaze, the 4th Hokage was an exception to that. But he was super talented too, his Chakra reserves were rumored to be massive. There are stories of how he teleported the Nine-Tailed fox away from the village. You didn't know whether that was true, but you knew that the Hokage were strong.

"One by one, form a line and come towards me, demonstrating your Transformation Jutsu," Iruka instructed the students and they formed a line.

You stood at around the end of it as your seat was in the back. The students went and used transformation, you didn't bother too much with it and waited for your turn.

...

When it was your turn, Iruka looked at you and raised his brow. "Shinji?" He waved his hand. "Don't worry, I know you can do it."

You shrugged, seeing that the class was about to end, he needed to test those that he didn't think were good enough to make it and encourage them to study more.

"Transformation Jutsu!!" You heard Naruto yell something behind you, and turning around you saw a naked woman, with only smoke covering the risque parts.

It seemed like Naruto had come up with another stupid Jutsu. But this one you at least understood what it was, and while it seemed silly, you could see that it was useful against… certain kinds of people.

The other students laughed while Iruka got angry at Naruto, with blood spilling out of the teacher's nose. You decided to walk away from this mess and go back to the orphanage.

As you walk along the roads of Konoha, no one pays any attention to you, like always. Even when you entered the orphanage, and went to your room.

Every Academy Student gets their room as soon as they are accepted in the Ninja Academy. Since in their rooms they practiced Jutsu and the village didn't want civilians learning those Jutsu. Especially other orphan children, as they could become irresponsible with them.

Tomorrow will be your last day as an Academy Student. Or at least that was what you assumed. Still, today you could train harder and prepare for tomorrow, or just rest...

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[Pick one, and write your choice in the comments down below.]

A ○ Rest, and laze about, maybe sleep?

B ○ Train Jutsu

C ○ Train Taijutsu

D ○ Train Jutsu and Taijutsu (Expect lower results than just concentrating on training one.)

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A/N: In the story, you, the reader, will choose how it goes by voting. Be careful though, because there are bad endings, trying to fight someone way above your level will end up with you dead. You have no plot armor, and when it comes to Luck-related events, I just roll dice. If you need more explanations or Shinji's stats, check the Auxiliary Chapters.