A Vote

The class was, for once, silent, as everyone in the room looked at Iruka with rapt attention as he finally started to teach us the subject we had all been waiting for. The basics of chakra manipulation. Today, we were going to start searching for our chakra center, which was where we stored all of our chakra. Sadly, Iruka made one thing very clear, that finding and even starting to use chakra could take months for some people. So Iruka asked us to follow him and five minutes later we stood in a room filled with large, fancily embroidered pillows and nothing else.

"hey, Iruka! What are these pillows supposed to do?" Naruto asked, looking curiously at them as if he expected them to do something special.

I looked at the intricate embroidery and figured it out instantly "clearly, these are some sort of fuinjutsu pillows, they probably have some sort of effect to help us find our chakra faster, right Iruka?" I stated confidently, only asking Iruka at the end to allow him to confirm my guess.

"first of all, Naruto, the pillows are to make you comfortable when you are sitting here silently and motionlessly for the foreseeable future. And Anno, while I appreciate your interest in fuinjutsu, just because you like it, doesn't mean everything is related to it" Iruka said with a deadpan while most of the class snickered behind him. Or laughed at me openly, though that was mostly the group.

"I'm pretty sure I'm actually right Iruka, I mean, based on my expertise as an eleven-year-old who knows calligraphy" I smiled as I accepted that the pillows may very well just be for comfort.

And thus, we sat down for our first session of, as I would soon learn, many, many more to come because Iruka was not kidding when he told us that even finding our center would take months. As I spend days upon days, mindlessly trying to convince my brain that there was an untapped well of energy inside me. And, after two long months of effort, brain-numbing boredom, and cramps from sitting still for too long I finally found my chakra.

[congratulations! You've leveled the skill 'meditation' to 25, allowing you to access your chakra!]

"Yes! I did it! I finally found my center!" I yelled in pure joy into the room full of meditating kids, who immediately sent me annoyed glares for interrupting them, which I immediately ignored.

"While that is great, I would still appreciate it if you would refrain from ýelling in the class specifically named 'silent meditation'" Iruka said dryly.

"sure, sure, silence, control, persistence, mutual respect and so on are all important, but Iruka, you have to understand that some things are more important than even that, specifically, me" I tried to explain to Iruka who for some reason just stared at me with a deadpan expression.

"…sure… anyway, now that you've found your chakra you can learn the first exercise to control your chakra. Come with me back to class and I'll get you started" Iruka said, sounding skeptical at first but his voice quickly turned encouraging as he went on.

As we walked into class, the clan kids looked up in surprise, their leaves even dropping from their foreheads, clearly not expecting someone to come in.

"what are you doing here Iruka? And what's Anno doing here?" Kiba asked, surprised since Iruka never really left us when we were trying to find our centers.

"he found his center, pretty fast too, in fact, I think that may be an actual record, I'm not completely sure since there is always at least one person from a clan who started earlier than everyone else, but it might be," Iruka said, looking thoughtful.

"that is so unfair! Why does he only have to spend two months while it took me ten to find mine back when I started!" Kiba cried out in outrage, looking very annoyed that I only had to sit still for a fifth the time he had to.

I guess my hugely disproportional mental stats are finally showing some value, that's nice, I can't wait to learn chakra manipulation way faster than Kiba as well.

I placed an understanding hand on Kiba's shoulder and spoke with as much sympathy as possible "Kiba, no matter what you think, it is not your fault that I'm better than you, sometimes, there are just extraordinary people, like me, who are just amazing at everything they do, but that doesn't mean the rest of you should feel bad, ok?" I smiled at him, again trying to be as understanding as possible, while Kiba was getting more annoyed by the second.

"you really only remember that whole 'getting knocked out and failing faster than everyone else in history' when you want to brag about breaking a record, don't you?" Shikamaru said from where he was relaxing next to Choji, causing a few chuckles to go around.

"first of all," I said holding up a finger, "I think I've made it very clear at this point that I didn't simply break that record, I shattered it, secondly," I cast a quick glance over at Kiba, who actually looked a little upset that I had found my chakra so fast compared to him "that doesn't mean that I'm not a chakra genius, after all, I did beat eight-year-old Kiba when I'm only eleven, which is clearly a grand achievement," I said, standing on the table in a glorious pose.

"Okay, okay, quiet down and get back to learning chakra control, now Anno, what you need to do, is get that chakra from your center, have it extend through your chakra channels to your forehead, make it grab your leaf to prevent it from falling for as long as possible. Ok?" Iruka explained

"easy, ill have it down in five minutes, tops," I said confidently.

"I'm sure you will," Iruka said in a rather patronizing tone, almost like he knew something I didn't, and then left.

"hey Anno, since you found your center so fast, how about a bet? If you can get the leaf to stick to your head by the end of the day, I have to do anything I want three times, and if I win, you have to do anything I want for the next two weeks" Shikamaru said as soon as Iruka left.

"sure, why not? having three favors from you will be fun" I said, after all, it had to be easier to move now that I knew it was there.

I sat down and sunk into meditation, slowly making my way to my center, arriving and looking at the huge swirling sphere of blue energy, I tried willing it to move. Nothing happened. I tried again, but harder yet still nothing, again and again, I tried, harder and harder. This was what Iruka told me to do so why isn't it working. It couldn't be that… learning to Utilise a mystical and incredible energy which allowed normal humans to shape reality itself wasn't something you just did in a couple of hours, could it?

"Hey Shikamaru, about that bet?"

After thoroughly losing my bet with Shikamaru and him demanding for me to leave him alone to sleep for the next two weeks, I went up to Iruka, since there was something I needed to ask him.

"hello there Iruka, as you can clearly see from my last test, I have perfected my calligraphy and as such I would like some basic books on fuinjutsu, please" I smiled happily at him, hoping that by pretending that I might actually get the books, that I might actually get them.

"sorry Anno, but only genin can be considered for those books, so until then you'll just have to make do with training your calligraphy" he smiled apologetically.

Three months went by with more sitting in silence and stillness. but this time it was slightly better since there was visible progress, starting out with slight wobbling along the edges of the sphere, to a thin tendril of chakra slowly making its way to my head and sticking a leaf to me and finally all the way to effortlessly moving chakra around my body.

But the speed we learn new things isn't fast enough. Sure, I can keep a leaf stuck to myself for hours now, but that's about it. My chakra control skill isn't improving after plateauing at fifteen, and now I'm stuck waiting for everyone else to catch up before we can start learning basic chakra applications. meaning how to do that super jump thing that everyone does, and if my speed at learning everything else chakra-related is an indicator, I'll be stuck waiting again after a short while. I need to get more jutsu but the only way to get those is from Konoha's library, and I can't enter the genin section on the second floor, never mind the third chunin floor or the fourth jonin floor so I'm just… stuck.

I let out a tired sigh, while I don't have anything against breaking into the library, I just can't see a way to do that.

"a-are you o-okay?" Hinata asked shyly but looking seriously concerned for me.

"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry about it" I gave her a slightly frustrated smile.

"o-ok, if you s-say so… you c-can a-always ask us f-for h-help… j-just s-so you k-know, o-ok?" Hinata spoke hesitantly, looking embarrassed but with a hidden resoluteness in her eyes.

Should I ask them to help me? I did it before with that shop guy who was harassing Naruto, but that was different, they just thought it was a prank and we weren't targeting the place all ninjas go to learn new jutsu. But, I need those books, and I need their help to get them. I'm gonna do it, besides, what's the worst that can happen? It will probably be incredibly fun too.

"Everyone!" I called out in an excited voice, standing up as they looked at me from where they were resting after our own training "we are going to do a heist! We shall break into the Konoha library's second floor and take a bunch of scrolls!" I declared full of confidence, waiting for the excited cheers of my friends.

"but what if we get caught?" Choji asked, looking worried, clearly he didn't understand how fun it was gonna be yet.

"I see your point, but, and hear me out, what if we don't get caught? We get a bunch of cool jutsu. And even if we do get caught we won't get seriously punished, after all, six out of ten of us are clan heirs, one of us is one of the only people who has a Sharingan, and lastly one of us is the surrogate grandson of the Hokage and they can't punish me and Sakura differently then the rest of you as that would be favoritism. I legitimately don't think it's possible to find a group of ten people less likely to get seriously punished. Besides, some of us don't have clan jutsu to learn so we just have to sit around waiting if we don't do this" I explain.

"I still do not think it is a good idea, why? Because last time when we pranked a shopowner similarly, I was almost caught and you had to take the fall" Shino said, still not convinced.

"Yeah, when we were eight! We have been training for situations like this for almost three years since! We can totally do this, and this time, we can plan more" I argued back.

"How about this, we take a vote, and whatever side has more votes is what we do" I proposed, getting nods all around in response.

"So… who here wants to steal jutsu from the library?" I ask, holding my breath in nervous anticipation.

Naruto's hand went up immediately "I want cool jutsu, besides, Jiji is super nice, he won't punish us too harshly"

Next was Sasuke, who simply gave a short nod of agreement.

Ino's hand shot up then "Anno's right, my daddy won't ever punish me, so why not grab a couple of jutsu!" she said excitedly

Then Kiba swiftly raised his hand after thinking for a bit "it might be fun, and we totally won't get caught, so yeah, why not"

I looked around desperately, looking everyone who didn't have their hand raised in the eyes. Choji looked away, not meeting my gaze, Shikamaru looked at me like I was an idiot, Hinata looked down immediately, but I think I saw a flicker of something in her expression, was that… fear? Something to ask later, and Shino just looked resolute in his choice. That left only Sakura, and as I looked into her green eyes, I could see caution and adventurousness fighting for dominance in her, and I tried to plead with my eyes to say yes. And slowly, she raised her hand and it was decided, we were going to steal from Konoha's library.

The people who voted yes started cheering. "This Is going to be amazing!" I yelled excitedly, besides, what could go wrong?

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So… first authors note, huh? Anyways, I want to tell whoever is reading this that I know this chapter is a bit shorter than normal, but the next chapter is going to be very long so it balances out. I think. Maybe.

oh, and the academy ark is going to end with chapter 10, and after that the power progression is gonna pick up and there will probably be more system stuff as well.