>>5785555
Second, broad nerfs to a lot of the crazier powers in the setting. Sharingan for example is just going to be regular ol’ normal Sharingan from early in the series and limited to its original base functions. Kekkei Genkai still exist as a concept but in broad terms they aren’t required to do special stuff, they just make advanced stuff several orders of magnitude easier and more intuitive. This means that you could theoretically replicate these abilities without having the Kekkei Genkai, it’s just usually a prohibitive pain-in-the-ass and not usually worth working towards unless you’ve inherited the proper breeding. All the same powers and abilities exist but are not quite as reliant on the arbitrations of destiny. If you wanted to generate a steam jutsu, for example, you could have a Kekkei Genkai that allows it, or just master both fire and water release first and practice a lot.

>The Character
You are Otomo Mizutani. Your mom fled Kirigakure and moved to Konohagakure while she was pregnant with you. She’s a cold, emotionally unavailable woman who doesn’t talk about it much, if ever, but you do know that it has something to do with the death of your older sister before you were born. Your mom helps maintain Konoha’s water shrine, but you mainly live off government benefits that your mom bought with secrets stolen from Kirigakure.

As the son of a foreign ninja who many suspect is some kind of spy, nobody really wants anything to do with you. Coupled with the fact that your mom ignores you, you’ve turned out to be a lonely and miserable individual in general.

You’re eight years old and are starting at the academy soon.

>The Mechanics
1d20+10 is the standard dice roll. I’ll be taking the middle roll of the first three by default: If I get a 13, 17, and 24, the result is 17. The standard DC for actions that are exactly appropriate to your skill level is 20, but the DC will range from 11-30 on a scale of trivially easy to impossibly difficult. Getting two matched numbers is a critical. If you have two matched numbers and succeed, it’s a critical success. Two matched numbers and fail, it’s a critical fail. 1s and 20s won’t matter beyond being particularly high or low numbers in this regard. Three matched numbers is a super critical.

You can influence the dice roll with two special pools of points: True Ninja and Will of Fire. True Ninja points are earned by being particularly selfish, pragmatic, and ruthless. Will of Fire points are earned by being particularly selfless, empathetic, and merciful.

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>>5785558
>Mechanics Cont.
Using a True Ninja point will allow you to take the highest of the three rolls, making you succeed more often. In-combat your enemies will realize you’re going for the throat and they will respond in kind. Using these makes you more likely to succeed, but the world grows harsher in response.

Using a Will of Fire point won’t influence your rolls, but will vastly lower the consequences of failure and slightly increase the impact of succeeding. In-combat your opponents will realize that you aren’t out for blood and will generally meet you in the middle by being less lethal as well. Using these isn’t as glamorous and won’t improve your overall odds of success, but you’ll find that the world is a more friendly place.

Most of the time you can use either or, but only when it could at least make some amount of sense. A True Ninja point probably can’t be used on giving a friend a warm hug, and a Will of Fire point probably can’t be used to slit someone’s throat.

Your choice of action and the quality of your moves will influence the hidden DC of checks. Punching a Jonin in the face might require a 30, punching them in the face while they’re asleep might require a 20, as a quick example. Observation and certain abilities can reveal the DC you’ll need to hit on certain choices, but frankly I’ll probably be stingy about revealing it to keep things mysterious.

>Character Creation
Your life is fucking depressing! How does it affect your personality?
>You’re soft-spoken and wise. You’re not the life of the party, but people listen when you talk.
>You’re foul-mouthed and crude. You’re not exactly high-class, but you draw attention.
>You’re eloquent but boring. You can say a lot, and say it well, but you can’t say anything people care about.
>Write in (How your character presents themselves. Paired positive and negative aspects.)

You’d say you’re generally an ??? person.
>Enduring
>Agile
>Observant
>Intelligent
>Insightful
>Write in (Your best trait.)

People hate you because you’re ???.
>Weak
>Clumsy
>Inattentive
>Stupid
>Obtuse
>Write in (Your worst trait.)

Do you favor the spiritual aspect of life, or the material aspect?
>Spiritual (You’re better at understanding spiritual things. You’ll have better control of your chakra for hand seal jutsus.)
>Material (You’re better at understanding material things. You’ll have better control of your chakra for using your body.)

Are you a True Ninja, or do you have the Will of Fire?
>True Ninja (+3 Starting Pool of True Ninja.)
>Will of Fire (+3 Starting Pool of Will of Fire.)
>I’m just a normal guy (+1 Starting Pool to both.)

>>5785559
>You’re soft-spoken and wise. You’re not the life of the party, but people listen when you talk.
>Insightful
>Obtuse
>Spiritual (You’re better at understanding spiritual things. You’ll have better control of your chakra for hand seal jutsus.)
>Will of Fire (+3 Starting Pool of Will of Fire.)

>>5785559
I know vanishingly little about Naruto
>You’re soft-spoken and wise. You’re not the life of the party, but people listen when you talk.
>Write In (Strong/Large)
>Write In (Slow, speed wise and speechwise, but not mentally as some think)
>Material (You’re better at understanding material things. You’ll have better control of your chakra for using your body.)
>>Will of Fire (+3 Starting Pool of Will of Fire.)
But the idea of a very large, "gentle" giant ninja is interesting to me.

>You’re soft-spoken and wise. You’re not the life of the party, but people listen when you talk.
>Intelligent
>Weak
>Spiritual (You’re better at understanding spiritual things. You’ll have better control of your chakra for hand seal jutsus.)
>Will of Fire (+3 Starting Pool of Will of Fire.)

>>5785559
>You’re soft-spoken and wise. You’re not the life of the party, but people listen when you talk.
>Write In (Strong/Large)
>Write In (Slow, speed wise and speechwise, but not mentally as some think)
>Spiritual (You’re better at understanding spiritual things. You’ll have better control of your chakra for hand seal jutsus.)
>Will of Fire (+3 Starting Pool of Will of Fire.)
I'm basically in the same boat as the other anon in how much I know about Naruto, but this quest sounds interesting.

>>5785562
>>5785571
>>5785585
>>5785592
I'm pretty eager to continue, so we'll split the difference on some of this stuff.
These ones are for sure:
>You’re soft-spoken and wise. You’re not the life of the party, but people listen when you talk.
>Spiritual (You’re better at understanding spiritual things. You’ll have better control of your chakra for hand seal jutsus.)
>Will of Fire (+3 Starting Pool of Will of Fire.)
As for your best and worst attributes it seems slightly more contentious.
>Best attribute
2 for Strong/Large
1 for Insightful
1 for Intelligent
>Worst Attribute
2 for Slow (In what I assume to be a mental agility kind of way, rather than being stupid.)
1 for Obtuse
1 for Weak

Combining them together like matter and dark matter, we get:
>Best Attribute
1 for Strong/Large
1 for Intelligent
>Worst Attribute
1 for Ponderous (The nice way of saying slow in the sense you guys mean.)

So, final destination vote on your best attribute, first to 2 gets it since there are 4 of you.
>Intelligent
>Strong

>>5785635
>Intelligent

>>5785635
>Intelligent
I think intelligent and ponderous are great paired together. Given time, we come up with much better solutions than others. We're slow to act because we don't see a need to rush it. We like to go over all our options. We're wise beyond our years, and have a sagelike personality.

>>5785635
>Strong

>>5785635
>Strong

>>5785635
>Intelligent

>>5785635
>>Strong

>>5785638
>>5785652
Intelligent gets it.
Writing.

Also, since you some of you guys say you're not familiar with the setting, I'll use less jargon for the beginning and exposit about what exactly all these terms mean and what exactly waits for you in the future.

Suffice it to say, you're an 8 year old kid. You live in a ninja village called Konohagakure (The Hidden Leaf Village), or Konoha (The Leaf) for short. It's called a village, but in this day and age the hidden ninja villages are pretty fucking big. City sized. Konoha in particular is big enough to encompass several forests and sizable river.

In this world ninjas are the primary military force of a given country. Konoha is the ninja village of the Land of Fire. In Konoha, children that show ninja potential go to the academy at the age of 8, graduate at 12, and then start doing ninja shit as child soldiers. Sounds kind of fucked, and it is, but it's a time of peace right now and Konoha is famously one of the more soft and good-hearted villages, so it's not that bad. That's why the Will of Fire is a thing at all, the other ninja villages more or less have contempt for that kind of stuff.

The issue with your character is that your mother isn't originally from Konoha, she's from Kirigakure (The Hidden Mist Village), or Kiri (The Mist) for short. She fled from Kiri to Konoha for reasons she's never explained to you adequately, but since you're intelligent you have some pretty strong guesses I'll go over in the next actual post. Kiri is the ninja village of the Land of Water, a xenophobic, brutal shithole off the Land of Fire's eastern coast. Around 15 or so years ago was a war called the Third Shinobi World War where pretty much everyone was trying to kill each other in a brutal, protracted conflict. Kiri ninja fought with Konoha a lot in addition to having the nickname "The Bloody Mist Village" because they're famous for being brutal as hell.

So nobody is super hyped about your existence in Konoha. That's the basic scenario you have going for you.

>>5785665
>Strong lost because I went to go and get dessert
man

>>5785687
It's ok, if I was here I would have voted for intelligent so neither of our votes would have made the difference.

>>5785559
>>5785665
>True Ninja 0
>Will of Fire 3
You are Otomo Mizutani, son of a foreign ninja spy who wants to steal Konoha’s secrets and kill everyone. Or so you’re told. More than likely that wasn’t true, but your mom doesn’t talk to you or anyone else unless it’s absolutely necessary, so who knows?

Your alarm goes off at exactly 5:40am, jolting you awake. You sit up in a complete stupor and stare dumbly around your borderline pitch black room in abject confusion for several long moments before it slowly dawns on you what exactly is happening. You set your alarm for one minute before sunrise explicitly because you’re starting at the academy next week and you need to get used to waking up earlier than you usually do for the hour long walk you’re going to be taking to get there every day. Class started at 7, so if you left at 6 you’d have 20 minutes to get ready. It’d be good practice to get used to this schedule in advance so you don’t show up late like you normally do to everything in your life.

You spend several minutes of your extremely limited time just sitting on the edge of your bed staring out your window, wondering where the world went wrong that this was seriously required of you, not exactly hating your life but not exactly loving it either. Eventually sunlight filters in, carrying the chirps of happy birds, and you’re infused with enough zest to get the fuck up.

You fumble around in the dim but brightening light to get your clothes on in your spartan bedroom before finally managing to stumble out of your room into the much darker hallway. It’s the modern world and pretty much everyone has electricity at this point if they wanted it, but your mom is a woman who lives in the past. Your house was locating deep in the woods in the southern portion of the village, about a 15 minute walk from the nearest water shrine. It wasn’t too big, wasn’t too small, but what it definitely wasn’t was technologically advanced.

You manage to find your way through the hall and down the stairs to the living area, a small area with a basic larder, wood stove, and several cushions around a low table. Dipping a ladle into a water bucket, you fill up a wooden cup and stand around drinking it, looking around your house. Mom was already gone. Usually was. You grab a handful of nuts out of a bowl and eat them slowly while you just stand around for awhile.

Another day. Nothing better to do than face it.

>>5785711
>Cont.
You make your way to your front door, stopping to say a quick prayer at your sister’s shrine on your way out. You’ve asked what happened before. Not only have you not gotten an answer, but asking basically guarantees that mom isn’t doing your laundry or laying out food for you for a week. Eventually you learned to stop bothering.

All you have is the calligraphy written on her portrait in lieu of a photo: “Izumi Mizutani. Gave her life too early for a world that couldn’t appreciate it.”

You do the math in your head. From what you can figure, your mom is around 38. You’re 8. Your mom left Kirigakure at 30. You’ve managed to eventually surmise that your sister was around 12 when she died owing purely to the number of incense sticks that your mom burns on her birthday, which by now is 20. That means she died the same year she would have been graduating from Kiri’s ninja academy, and since you also know (From what a few adults have aggressively told you in-between calling you a Mist Village psycho.) that the graduation from Kiri’s ninja academy is them forcing the students into 1v1 fights to the death.

Didn’t take a genius to figure out why mom left. No wonder she didn’t care anymore about anything. About you. Probably used up all her love on the first try. You could understand it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

You walk outside. What do you do?
>Look for your mom. She’s probably at the river again.
>Go check out the academy. May as well familiarize yourself with it before you go for real next week.
>Go farther, to some part of town where nobody is likely to recognize you and you can mingle with other kids for a change instead of just quietly lurking in the woods like you normally do.
>Go back inside, go to sleep. Who cares. Give up, be a loser, fuck it.
>Write in

>>5785713
>Look for your mom. She’s probably at the river again.

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>>5785713

>>5785713
>Go check out the academy. May as well familiarize yourself with it before you go for real next week.
Since we're going down the intelligence route we might as well.

>>5785687
It's a shame, wise and quiet giants are underappreciated.

>>5785713
>Go check out the academy. May as well familiarize yourself with it before you go for real next week.
Time for academy.
>>5785735
Came a bit late. I'm still interested in a taijutsu build.

>>5785735
Considering you're starting the game as an eight year old boy you'd probably never get to experience the full effect of that anyway, to be fair.
I was planning on blitzing through the academy pretty fast, but I'll probably linger on it for awhile at my rate because I'm ponderous and long-winded as well and I want to make absolutely sure I've covered all my bases for the setting, so we'll probably do 8 major scenes for each of the semesters you'll be going there, plus or minus some extra stuff.
Naruto is somewhat a setting about being a child soldier, so being strong and large would have more or less just made you well-developed for your age . My plan was to get you to around 13-14 sorta quick and then just pause there for awhile, then do a timeskip to get you to 17-18
You'll be able to use your intelligence to learn how to summon water dragons and shit like this eventually though with your high intellect though, so don't worry, it'll be based.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKtLZzEtoNw
>>5785741
You'll probably get your ass whooped in the first year or so during your training, but the whole point of training is to get you good at stuff that you're bad at, so it's not off the table. You'll just have to make sure you focus on it.

>>5785715
>>5785735
>>5785741
Going to the academy.
Writing.

>>5785748
I'm sure it'll be nice for some people, it just isn't my thing. It just sounded like something unique in a setting full of ripped-but-skinny dudes.

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>>5785713
>>5785715
>>5785735
>>5785741
>>5785753
>>5785760
You briefly consider going to visit your mom. But why? What good would it seriously do for you? Spend 15 minutes walking down there just to have her look at you impassively for a second, at best.

At this point you need to just get used to living your life independently, and the academy was your one shot to make something of yourself beyond just sitting around being a nobody. So it would need to be your priority.

You set off, walking north through the woods. It was pretty safe, all things considered: The village wasn’t densely populated in your specific section, but there were plenty of genin (Low-ranked ninja) who kept the wolf population in check. The Inuzuka dog-clan guys probably wouldn’t allow it to get too out of hand either.

It only takes you 25 or so minutes until you start entering the village proper, forest and plants giving way to power lines and walled buildings. You eventually find what you’re looking for: Old guy’s house. Old guy’s house was nice because he had a shed facing towards the woods that was low enough for you to clamber on top in order to get access to the rooftops, which held several purposes for you: First, no adults that recognized you would have anything to say to you. It’s not like you were going to be assaulted if someone noticed you, but you’d rather not have your day ruined by being called the son of a traitor whore. Second, moving by rooftop was the ninja way, and good training at that. You could even see a couple now glancing at you from a good distance before going back to their business. One day you too might idly glance at some kid running around the rooftops before going back to your business. What a dream.

At first you run, imagining yourself to be some kind of ultra badass. Then eventually the town starts slowly waking up with the slowly rising sun and you decide to relax and take it easy, sure that you don’t want to be seen up here moving around like a jackass little kid playing pretend.

You take it slower, and eventually reach your destination: The academy.

You guess it would be fine to just… walk right in? After all, this was supposed to be your home away from home for the next four years, so it should definitely be fine. Definitely fine.

You walk through the door and enter. Not locked. No problem. You fish in your pocket for the slip of paper you got in the mail telling you where you were supposed to be. Year 1, class 2. Alright. You march down the halls, head swiveling around like a moron tourist. Definitely good to get that part out of the way while nobody was around. You eventually find what you’re looking for and barge in.

An incredibly intimidating looking adult ninja looks up at you from a desk arrayed in front of a multi-tiered seating system. He just stares at you.

You just stare at him.

“What do you want?” He says, breaking the silence.

>What do you want?

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>>5785775

>>5785775
>food

>>5785775
I'm here to learn.

>>5785775
>>5785834
>I'm here to learn

In zoomer speak: "Make me him"

>>5785775
>Just familiarizing myself with the layout for next week. I like to be prepared. Sorry for bothering you.

>>5785946
Support

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>>5785775
>>5785804
>>5785834
>>5785909
>>5785946
>>5786016
What do you want? What DO you want? You begin to take a mental inventory as your life flashes before your eyes. Food, first of all. To be prepared in advance to start school next week. And ultimately to become a cool ninja like this guy. Okay. That seemed like an accurate summation of your short, medium, and long term goals at this exact moment.

Oh. You've been standing here thinking for way too long. It feels like it's been 20 minutes or something. Respond, RESPOND.

"I want food, to be familiar with the layout for next week, and to be made into you." You says quickly.

He just continues starting at you. What did you miss? Oh.

"Chunin-Sensei." You add, rendering a polite bow.

He takes your measure for another long moment, just letting you stand there while he takes in everything you said. You didn't know him well enough to ascertain *why* yet. Maybe he liked to take his time thinking like you did? Or maybe he just wanted to wait and see if you would squirm.

"... In the academy it's customary to spend the beginning of class on introductions." He provides, finally.

"Uh-" Wait, what was your name, again? Oh! "Mizutani. Otomo."

"Those are both last names."

"The first one is Otomo."

"Hmm..." Rubbing a his chin, and glances down at the piece of paper in front him. He didn't correct you when you called him Chunin-Sensei, so you were probably right on the money. He taps his pen to his tongue and quickly scrawls something down. "-and... there."

"Chunin-Sensei?"

"I've just added you to my shit list. But don't worry, I think I can help you. Yeah... I'm Juro Uchiyama. You will refer to me as Juro-Sensei" He says, standing from his desk and striding over to you. He places his hand on your shoulder and begins forcibly walking you out of the class and through the hall.

"This is Konohagakure Ninja Training Academy. There are four years of instruction, each year of instruction is divided into three classes, each class is divided into three cohorts. You have just bought your way into my cohort. Congratulations."

He continues marching you through the halls, forcibly rapping room labels with his knuckles to draw your attention to them. Random places in this case, like Training Room #3 and the Chunin-Sensei Communal Office. Eventually he practically shoves you out of a set of doors and into a large yard outside the building.

"That-" he says, gesturing to a pale tree in the back corner of the yard. "-Is a pear tree. This-" he says, handing you a short throwing dagger he produced out of nowhere. "-Is a kunai. You will throw the kunai at the pears on the pear tree. You will throw that kunai at pears on the tree. If you miss, you will sprint to the kunai and retrieve it. If you hit, you will walk to the pear and collect it. You will keep going until I tell you to stop."

"Go." He slaps you hard on the back.

>Roll for nailing pears.
>1d20+10

Rolled 6 + 10 (1d20 + 10)

>>5786018

You know, I kind of was worried that slow won, but now that I see it in action, I really like it. Being a smart guy that at the same time doesn't think completely perfectly seems to be very interesting.
The soft-spoken and wise probably also has a hand on it too.

Rolled 6 + 10 (1d20 + 10)

>>5786018

Rolled 17 + 10 (1d20 + 10)

>>5786018

>>5786025
>>5786026
>>5786098
Crit fail.
So, two things.
One, do you want to pop a point of Will of Fire to take the sting out of it? Not necessarily an important roll and I already have an idea of how to spice up your life in a fun way because of it, but if you do want to ease the suck for what's about to happen I'll let you do it.
>yes
>no
Two, I liked the idea of the generic target DC being a 20, but now that I actually see the rolls I don't see the utility of that so we're just going to drop the +10 from here on out. General DC is thus going to be 10 for average level stuff, obviously modified by the scenario. Also, I'm kind of eager to establish a rapid pace while I'm actively paying attention because I'm extremely motivated and chomping at the bit to write posts, so I'm thinking about inventing some mechanism to keep us going even if I only get 1 response. I'm taking suggestions about what that should look like.

>>5786111
>no
I'll be honest, I find the mechanics both confusing and redundant
I don't like the take middle roll thing, when taking first one (or even if you rolled it yourself) would achieve the same thing and faster.
I also really dislike the idea of matching number things to decide crits, and the fact that it's the only reason that we have to roll 3 dice anyway doesn't help.
And I don't know why add the +10 to every roll and increase the standard DC from 10 to 20, when it's a constant modifier and what changes the difficulty DC itself.

>>5786117
As for why I don't like the matching thing, I'm not sure. Maybe it's because it just feels odd? It's very different from the normal way of doing things, so it might just be that

>>5786117
>I don't like the take middle roll thing, when taking first one (or even if you rolled it yourself) would achieve the same thing and faster.
Fair. The idea was that unless you were using True Ninja, you'd get consistently average results, which was my way of motivating you towards the dark side. Instead of it being based on taking the best of three, how about we call best of 3 the norm and instead you can use Trun Ninja for a bonus?
The average of 3d20 keep highest is 15 which doesn't leave a whole lot of space for DCs unless I handle it with lots of contextual dice modifiers instead of just moving the DC on my end, so what are your thoughts on just doing a standard 3d100 thing with an average DC of 70, True Ninja adding +15, Will of Fire adding +5 + reduced failure impact? I like things being both gamified and transparent because I like the idea of the dice being somewhat manipulable by players who understand the math, but I understand I'm bogging things down with complications.

With that idea, I'd be able to just ask for d100s, mentally set the DC below or beyond 70 based on how hard what you're doing is, and then you have a simple choice between 3 different types of dice to add some mechanical and narrative flavor to the roll.

On your end, all you would really need to think about is what you want to do, and then whether you want to roll a 1d100, 1d100+15 for higher success but increased general hostility, or 1d100+5 for slightly higher success but reduced general hostility. So there would be two mechanics at play, your choice, and the dice you reach for.

>I also really dislike the idea of matching number things to decide crits, and the fact that it's the only reason that we have to roll 3 dice anyway doesn't help.
Also fair, but that's one I like because it mathematically increases the odds of crits and is resilient to the concept of keeping higher rolls from influencing the chances away from crit fails being possible when keeping higher dice. I'll just shelve that for now and think more about how exactly to handle crits later.

>And I don't know why add the +10 to every roll and increase the standard DC from 10 to 20, when it's a constant modifier and what changes the difficulty DC itself.
Yeah I realized that the second we rolled. That one was just a flat mistake because I wasn't thinking.

Regardless, I'll write the next post with the way things currently work, we'll move to d100s the next time we roll unless you have some ideas for me you want me to think about.

>>5786154
I like that idea, d100 gives way more leeway then d20. And having both pools do similar things but in different ways would streamline it more then having then change the dice system.
Since you don't know how to implement crits, maybe you could do degrees of success? It would encourage to spend the points whether it was a failure or pass, since it could push out a result from one tier to the next.
But it probably would need to increase the bonus they give, like 10 for will of fire or 20 for true ninja, so they could reach those threshold easier.

You could also go for average of rolls instead of best of them, although that tends towards making the result be middling and adds an extra layer of maths. Of course, you would have to set the average DC to 50.

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>>5786018
>>5786025
>>5786073
>>5786098
You take the kunai and test its weight in your hand. You’ve seen them before while rooting through your mom’s things, but you haven’t actually practiced with them yet. You wind up your arm experimentally and practice the motion of whipping it at one of the pears in the tree a few times, getting nice and ready to not totally botch your throw.

After a few moments of mentally preparing, you feel a surge of confidence and whip it at the lowest hanging pear you see.

It flies straight, thankfully, but you whiff the throw by a pretty wide margin and nail the kunai into the wooden fence behind the tree. You look at Juro-Sensei.

“Well? Go get it! Run!”

You sprint as fast as you can to retrieve the kunai and then sprint as fast as you can back to the spot Juro-Sensei wants you throwing it from. You weren’t tired yet, but you could see how you’d get tired pretty quickly if you kept missing. You take a second to catch your breath-

“Keep throwing, I want the minimal amount of downtime possible. If you can’t learn to aim you’ll at least get to be a good runner.”

Muttering to yourself you throw the kunai again without taking any prep time, and whiff the throw even worse. Having learned the essential nature of this training by now you don’t bother waiting for Juro-Sensei to tell you to go get it. Sprint there, sprint back, throw, miss, sprint there, sprint back, throw, miss. This continues for the better part of an hour. At first, Juro-Sensei yells at you whenever you stop to rest for too long, but as you get progressively more exhausted he begins becoming more lenient with you.

By the time an hour has gone by you’re tired as hell and have transitioned into more of weak half-jog/half-walk shuffle than anything approaching a sprint. You still haven’t scored a single hit on a pear and are becoming really hungry.

Your irritation with your lack of ability in throwing this fucking thing straight and earning yourself a little break eventually gets the better of you: Instead of taking time to properly aim on this, your ultimate throw, you just huck the kunai as aggressively as possible towards the general direction of the tree branches hoping to at least hit one of the pears through sheer dumb look.

The kunai flied between the branches and goes sailing over the academy yard’s fence. You shoot Juro-Sensei a panicked look.

“Woops! Well, go get it! Hope you didn’t hit anything important!” He says, grinning at you maniacally, evidently taking great satisfaction in how fucked you were.

Restraining yourself from swearing under your breath, you weakly jog over to the fence and clumsily clamber over it. Internally you offer a prayer: ‘Please, Kami-Sama, don’t give me a nightmare on the other side of this fence…’

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>>5786196
When you land on the other side this scene greets you: A pissed off looking boy about your age with dark hair and darker eyes staring daggers at you.

“You fucking retard! You damn-near took out my eye! I ought to beat your ass!”

Yeah, Kami-Sama decided your prayer was insufficient. And evidently he hated you as well because you hear a bark of laughter coming from the top of the fence, overlooking your little confrontation.

“Uh oh! Looks like he insulted your honor, Mizutani! I recognize him too, he’s also going to be one of my brats too! Tell you what, this is a teachable moment. You two or going to fight, and I’m going to watch so I can take your measure. Go.”

The dark-haired boy looks surprised at this whole situation, staring at Juro-Sensei, his mouth fumbling to come up with something to say.

1d100 to make normal roll
1d100+15 to Spend True Ninja ( 0)
1d100+5 to Spend Will of Fire (3)
>Strike him now while he’s confused and not paying attention (+1 True Ninja)
>Refuse to fight him unless he attacks you first (+1 Will of Fire)
>Just put your dukes up and get ready
>Write in

>>5786197
>Refuse to fight him unless he attacks you first (+1 Will of Fire)
He's going to sucker punch us, isn't he?

>>5786202
Maybe bro! Give me a dice roll just in case!

Rolled 61 (1d100)

>>5786203
Alright

Rolled 61 (1d100)

>>5786197
>Refuse to fight him unless he attacks you first (+1 Will of Fire)

>>5786206
This is the second time that someone rolled a result that's identical to mine.
If it happens a third one I'm going to be spooked.

Rolled 24 (1d100)

>>5786197

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>>5786205
>>5786206
>>5786212
>+1 Will of Fire, your total is now 4
>You still have 0 True Ninja points, you’re a real nice kid
“Look,” you explain, holding up your hands in a placative manner “It was an accident, and nobody got hurt. I’m sorry and-”

An impulse in the base of your spin tingles and you throw your head back just in time to avoid getting sucker punched by the dark-haired boy. Another round of straight jabs comes your way as the boy aggressively surges towards you, forcing you to back up towards the fence and get your arms in front of you to protect your face.

“Die, bastard!” he screams at you.

You’re not even upset, you’re just in awe with just how bad things can seriously go for you on what you consider to be your first day of legitimate training. This kid wasn’t some kind of elite fighter or anything, but protecting yourself was taking all of your energy. You were already significantly exhausted from running back and forth for an hour so offense was out of the question now that you were already on your back foot. You do manage to more or less prevent yourself from taking a significant blow, but your arms were going to be hurt and bruised for days, not to mention a couple of the kid’s wild swings manage to get through your guard and nail you in your left shoulder. If this kept up it was only a matter of time before he managed to get in a hard strike on your face or torso.

Thankfully, Juro-Sensei finally decides that you’ve had enough.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough, I’ve seen what I wanted to see.”

The dark-haired boy ignores him and keeps trying to get a more impactful hit on you. That only lasts for a span of about three seconds before Juro-Sensei’s grabs him by the back of his collar and effortlessly hurls the kid off to one side.

“Did I stutter, brat? It was already clear he was going to lose, I’m trying to do some training here, not bully him for no reason. Get the fuck out of here. I’ll see you on Monday.”

The other kid stammers a protest, but it’s short-lived. Whatever pride he had wasn’t going to allow him to succeed against a fully-trained adult shinobi no matter what, so he eventually simmers down and begins walking away.

“This isn’t over, spy.” he says. At first you’re confused, but then you realize that Juro-Sensei definitely said your name when he told the two of you to fight.

After the dark-haired kid is gone, you put your hands on your knees and begin trying to steady your breathing, utterly and totally spent. Juro-Sensei hops on top of the fence, and then grabs you by your shirt, easily lifting you from one side to the other before once again hopping down to join you.

>>5786258
“Hell of a day, wasn’t it, Mizutani?” He asks, twirling around your spent kunai before handing it back to you. “Keep that. It’s your lucky kunai. I want you to work on your aim over the next week so you’ll be good at it by the time you start class. Also-”

His hands fly to a pouch on his thigh for what seems to be a nanosecond before three of the knives fly into the tree, each one piercing a pear and knocking them to the earth. He picks them up and hands them to you.

“They might be a consolation prize, but you earned them. Another thing: You should have decked that kid while he wasn’t looking. I respect that you’ve got a kind heart, kid, but in this world when you’re in a bad situation you sometimes need to use every advantage at your disposal. Right now it’s a temperamental kid upset that you nearly hit him with a kunai, but later it might be an actual ninja who is legitimately going to kill you unless you kill him first. I want you to think about that while you’re training.” He ruffles you hair “Now get the fuck out of here, I was busy before you showed up. I’ll see you on Monday.”

>Any last words for Juro-Sensei before you go?

You have a week before you (Officially) start your academy training. What are you going to spend it on?
>Train religiously with your lucky kunai.
>Your mom definitely used to be some kind of high level ninja. There’s a very, very low chance of it, but maybe you can pester her into teaching you something?
>You know what, today was exhausting and it’s going to take you days to recover from this anyway. Just take it easy, relax, mentally prepare yourself with some studying at the library. Apparently the academy’s first year is foundational training and theory, you already got your foundational training, you could use some theory.
>Do nothing, you lazy asshole.
>Write in.

>>5786260
>Your mom definitely used to be some kind of high level ninja. There’s a very, very low chance of it, but maybe you can pester her into teaching you something?

>>5786260
>Any last words for Juro-Sensei before you go?
>Thanks for everything Juro-Sensei! I'm looking forwards to monday!

>Your mom definitely used to be some kind of high level ninja. There’s a very, very low chance of it, but maybe you can pester her into teaching you something?

>>5786260
>Any last words for Juro-Sensei before you go?
>Just nod and be on your way.

>You know what, today was exhausting and it’s going to take you days to recover from this anyway. Just take it easy, relax, mentally prepare yourself with some studying at the library. Apparently the academy’s first year is foundational training and theory, you already got your foundational training, you could use some theory.

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>>5786260
>>5786265
>>5786270
>>5786285
You give Juro-Sensei a nod and turn to leave. Upon second that though, you turn back before you’re about to exit the yard’s gate.

“Thanks for everything, Juro-Sensei. I’ll see you on monday.”

“Heh.” He smiles “Thank me when you graduate.”

—

You had a week to get ready, really ready. Just one lesson with Juro-Sensei and you already felt like your horizons were seriously expanded on just what a ninja could truly be capable, of the path to get there. But you felt like that wasn’t the full puzzle, like there was some other side to it that you didn’t yet fully grasp.

You wanted more. It was like you had just become aware of a hole inside you, and you needed to fill it in with knowledge about what it meant to be real shinobi. But Juro-Sensei wasn’t going to be your personal trainer when he had a life and other students to worry about. Nor was here for you now, this week. The only other ninja you had access to was-

“Mother. I’m starting at the academy next week, and I need advice so I can do well.” You say, having rehearsed that in your mind over and over while you waited for her to come home.

As she enters the house, she places her hands together and offers your sister’s shrine a curt bow before walking right passed you and towards the kitchen, where she begins fileting a fish.

“... I met my Chunin-Sensei, Juro-San, at the academy today. I want to know more about what it means to be a ninja.”

She ignores you.

You bring it up once every 30-60 minutes for the rest of the day and never seem to move a single inch closer to having her acknowledge your presence beyond merely guaranteeing your continued survival. You resolve to try again every single day.

The first day, you got nothing. You fill in the dead space between attempts with target practice, albeit target practice that’s not nearly as intense as what you got the previous day. You throw your kunai repeatedly a slat of wood you lean against a tree. You even manage to start hitting it semi-regularly by the end of the day.

The second day, still nothing. Your throwing arm was getting sore, so you do stamina training running through woods. One day wouldn’t make a difference on your overall health, but clearly a bit of endurance would go along way with what you were in for.

The third day… nothing. You use your other arm to throw the kunai at your wooden slat, figuring that two useful hands would eventually be better than one. Your accuracy when doing that is utter dog shit, but by the end of the day you feel like it’s getting slightly better. You’ll work in using both hands from now on.

The fourth day you get, guess what, nothing. You spend the majority of your day wandering around the locales near your house, skipping stones in the river, and observing birds.

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>>5786316
The fifth day, you follow your mom outside in the early morning, about five o’clock. She glides slowly through the dark woods like a ghost, clearly aware that you’re following but not necessarily trying to encourage or discourage you. She heads towards the water shrine, but doesn’t enter. Instead she walks to a spot by the river and calmly sits down.

For the first time in what feels like years, she looks at you and lets out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Otomo-Kun… Sit down.”

You practically teleport next to her and sit cross-legged.

She pulls her eyes off of you and stares into the water of the river, drifting off into silence. The silence lasts for almost half an hour until the sun begins to rise and she speaks once again.

“I want you to observe the water. Don’t just look at it, observe it. Learn from it. Build a framework in your mind and memorize it.”

>Roll to understand what the fuck this woman even wants! 1d100, 1d100+10 if you use one of your four Will of Fire points.

Rolled 22 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5786318
Seems like an appropriate time to use it

Rolled 57 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5786318

Rolled 81 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5786318

>>5786318
>>5786321
>>5786339
>>5786350
Even with her instructions, it’s hard to not just look at the water. There’s a small waterfall, the water stabilizes after flowing down it, and then it drifts lazily along. Nothing more to see here. It was water. At least, that’s what you would normally think. The mere fact that you were told to observe it and memorize it lead you to believe that there was something to it that you weren’t grasping. Something underneath the underneath.

You observe harder. As the water flows down the waterfall, you try and predict the arcs the droplets would form, how the ripples flowed out from its base, the specific frequency of the waves, how big they were, how long they lasted. You count the seconds it took for them to travel out from the base, attempted to get an intuitive measure of approximately how far they were supposed to travel.

Then you see something. One of the ripples from the base of the waterfall pushes a little harder and farther than it was supposed to. You scan the water, wondering if perhaps a stray rock fell or something. Nothing. You scan for aquatic animals, fish. Maybe one of them moved weird. You spot a couple lazily drifting around, not really doing anything notable. Just vibing out as fish.

You stare again at the base of the waterfall. Nothing notable happens. Maybe your eyes were getting in the way. You take off your shoes and dip your bare feet into the water. Ice cold. You close your eyes and focus on the sensation of the water flowing across your feet, hoping your tactile sense could pick up something your visual sense couldn’t.

With your eyes closed, closely paying attention to the feeling of the water, your mind starts to drift. You think about how you feel, and why. Why didn’t you punch the dark-haired kid in the face the other day? You were told to, you just didn’t want to. Why? Was it the right thing to do? Yes? No? Why? Nobody has ever *told* you what was supposed to be right and what was supposed to be wrong. What if he were an enemy ninja who was going to kill you unless you killed him first? It would be okay then, apparently, but why, exactly? Was there some inherent part of your own soul that made it more worthy of protection than someone else’s? Since it was yours, of course, you had a special connection to it. But everyone else who had a soul must have that same special connection, one that isn’t necessarily different in its essential nature to your own. Was wanting to survive just part of being an animal, and if so, is your animal nature something you should embrace or something that you should strive to overcome? And if you tried to overcome it, what purpose would that even serve? Was there some special glory in sacrificing yourself for a friend, or even an enemy, and where would that glory even come from after you were dead? Was it a glory bestowed from the world, or some small corner of your own being? Was it even valuable, this glory, or was it a meaningless distraction?

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>>5786422
A lot of questions. No answers. You open your eyes back up and continue observing the water. The water didn’t care, it just flowed. It bent around any obstacle, moved forward, did what it was supposed to do, no more, no less. When there was change, it adapted. When there wasn’t, it obviously did nothing.

Except that wasn’t always the case. You spot another aberrant ripple with no discernible cause. Your head cocks to the side as you peer around aggressively for an explanation. A bizarre thought occurs to you.

“Mom?”

“...”

“Is the water alive?”

She slowly turns to look at you once again, her hands drifting towards yours. She takes them and begins carefully moving your fingers together in different formations.

“Tora. It’s the hand seal of the tiger.” She says, placing your hands in one position.

“Ushi. It’s the hand seal of the ox.” Another position.

“Tora.” And your hands go back.

“Ne. The hand seal of the rat.” And your hands go together in a new formation. I want you to repeat those motions and think about what you just said to me. I also want you to think that, if there is some kind of life in that water, what other life might exist within yourself. I want you to think about that and focus the sensation of your thought on your stomach.”

You do what she tells you, fumbling your hands together. It’s hard to remember where exactly your fingers are supposed to go so you start muttering the names of the signs under your breath.

“Tora Ushi Tora Ne, Tora Ushi Tora Ne, Tora Ushi Tora Ne…”

You keep doing that with nothing happening until it slowly becomes second nature and your mind can drift without actually focussing on it. If there was life in the water, what other life must exist within you that you’re not aware of?

All at once, it happens: You feel a surge of power coming from your stomach, blasting into your mouth. You bolt upright in surprise as that power transforms into water, your mouth overflowing with so much that it comes splashing out all over the place in uncontrolled buckets. You gasp for air, staring at your mom in abject shock.

She slowly rises and begins doing the hand signs herself before letting loose a high pressure laser of water, thinner than a pencil, flowing hard as fuck. It beams out of her whistling lips and obliterates a rock jutting out from the center of the river.

>>5786425
“The basic name of this jutsu is the ‘Water Bullet’. It has many variations. The basic form of any jutsu is to combine the chakra of your physical and spiritual natures in the precise way required by the jutsu, using the hand seals to focus your energy. There is further life in all things, and understanding the nature of that life is key to understanding the nature of the life within yourself.”

She sits back down as if that wasn’t completely insane and if she didn’t just say more words in a row than you’ve ever heard her speak in your entire life. Your mind is absolutely ablaze with what this could mean for you, so much so that you couldn’t contain it. You stand and begin hurriedly moving away, needing to be completely alone to mentally go over everything you just experienced.

“Otomo-Kun?”

“Yes mom?”

“Never ask me for advice again.”

>Congratulations, you now know the absolute basics of using ninjutsu! You’ll have to get better at it if you want the water bullet to consist of more than just vomiting water everywhere.

—

It’s now Monday, your first real day of academy. You arrive exactly, and I mean, exactly in the nick of time, Juro-Sensei giving you stink eye as you just barely manage to make it inside the classroom before he does. 25 other students are already inside and seated, watching as you quickly make your way through. There are only so many empty seats by now, so your options are limited.

>Sit next to the boy with the face mask and the prosthetic arm
>Sit next to the dark-haired asshole boy (Why would you want to do this?)
>Sit next to the pompous-looking girl who’s glaring at you
>Sit next to the formally-dressed girl with pink hair.
>Sit next to the boring boy with green hair.
>Sit next to the girl who is grinning like a moron and eating a cup of noodles.
>Sit next to the unassuming boy with a smirk on his face.

>>5786428
>Sit next to the formally-dressed girl with pink hair.

Just picking the who seems chill, but not boring.

>>5786428
>Sit next to the dark-haired asshole boy (Why would you want to do this?)
To apologize for almost hitting him with a kunai before, of course.
WILL OF FIRE!

>>5786428
>Sit next to the formally-dressed girl with pink hair.
Breaking the tie

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>>5786431
>>5786434
>>5786436
You sit next to he formally-dressed girl with pink hair. She looked pleasant enough and you didn't want to start your day with more needless problems, even if you were very close to sitting near the dark-haired boy.

She gives you a pleasant smile.

"Hello! My name is Yuna Yoshinaga. What is yours?"

"Otomo Mizutani" you respond, bowing your head slightly.

Her smile shifts imperceptibly in character. It went from one of genuine warmth to one of purposefully maintained warmth.

"Oh. I've heard of you, is it true that-"

Juro-Sensei slams has hand down on the teacher's desk, causing Yuna to visibly startle.

"Alright brats, listen up. My name is Juro Uchiyama. I am one of three of your Chunin sensei. A Jonin is a high level ninja. A Chunin is an intermediate level ninja. A Genin is a low level ninja. You are here in the academy to gain the skills you'll need to become Genin. You will refer to me as Juro-Sensei. When I enter this class, you will all stand until I tell you to sit. In the academy, it is customary to spend the start of class on introductions. You will tell me what your name is, what a ninja is, why you want to be a ninja, and what the Will of Fire is. I will start: My name is Juro Uchiyama. A ninja is what I am. I wanted to be a ninja for reasons that are irrelevant to you. I will not explain the Will of Fire because I want to hear what each of you thinks it is first."

He gestures to the closest student to his far left.

"You, go."

It's going to get to you eventually, but luckily Yuna was seated pretty far from where that guy is. It's going to take awhile for the introductions to get to you, so you have some time to think in-between listening to your fellow students.

>What is your name?
>What is a ninja?
>Why do you want to be a ninja?
>What is the Will of Fire?

>>5786434
+1

>>5786460
There are a lot of people in this class, and you can only listen to so many of their explanations while you attempt to formulate your own. You decide to take note of the answers some of the more notable students give.

The boy with the face mask and prosthetic arm goes first.
“I’m Naoki Fuma. A ninja is a tool of the village. I want to be a ninja because I want to be a tool of the village. The Will of Fire is a secondary philosophy for the ninja of our village.”

The dark-haired asshole boy goes next.
“Daigo Shimura. A ninja is an elite soldier. I want to be a ninja because I want to prove that I’m elite. The Will of Fire is empty nonsense for weaklings.”

The pompous-looking girl who was glaring at you goes next after that.
“I’m Masami Igarashi! A ninja is just a person who uses jutsu and is really strong! I want to be a ninja because I don’t want to be just some random peasant! The Will of Fire is the idea that you’re supposed to be a good person in addition to being a ninja!”

The boring boy with green hair:
“I’m Junpei of clan Sugita. A ninja is a member of the military force of his village, and by extension, his nation. I want to be a ninja because… Well, my parents told me to. The Will of Fire was the philosophy of the first Hokage and we generally adhere to it, when possible.”

Noodle girl goes:
“I’m Shizuka Hirata, and a ninja is just a job, and I want to be a ninja to make money so I can quit being a ninja and open a noodle shop, and I don’t know what the Will o’ Fire is!”

Unassuming boy with the smirk on his face:
“Katsuro Kanemaru. A ninja is a guy who does does jobs for jobs for the village that require the application of force, and uh… I never really thought about why, I just thought it was what I was supposed to do. The Will of Fire is the idea that you’re supposed to be courageous in defense of your nation.”

Finally, it’s Yuna’s turn.
“Yoshinaga, Yuna. A ninja is what my dad is. I want to be a ninja because… I just do. The Will of Fire is the idea that love is the key to peace.”

>It’s your turn.

>>5786480
>Otomo Mizutani
>A Ninja is a trained operative that serves the people through missions. Not all Ninja have the people's best interests in mind, but I believe that they should.
>I want to be a ninja to work towards a more peaceful future, where blood is only shed in the pursuit of justice.
>The Will of Fire is the ideal of Konohagakure, and essential to end the cycles of war and revenge.

>>5786480
>My name is Otomo Mizutani
>A ninja is Someone who protects the village
>I want to prove my mother and I aren’t spies despite what certain morons think
> the will of fire is protecting the village and its citizens even idiots that make
Assumptions about people based on rumors

>>5786480
A Ninja is a trained operative that serves the people through missions. Not all Ninja have the people's best interests in mind, but I believe that they should.
I want to prove my mother and I aren’t spies despite what certain morons think.
The Will of Fire is the ideal of Konohagakure, and essential to end the cycles of war and revenge.

>>5786532
Support

>>5786480
Supporting >>5786532
Time to use the 'wise' part of our character. The 'slow' part will follow soon lmao

>>5786480
>>5786532
>>5786542
>>5786560
>>5786563
>>5786660
When it’s your turn you stand, as someone established as a tradition a few answers back. You clear your throat and think for a second, gathering your thoughts. Your brief preparation has caused most of the class to assume that you’re about to give a particularly notable introduction so some of the students who had stopped paying attention turn their full attention to you.

“Otomo Mizutani. A ninja is a trained operative that serves the people through missions. Not all ninja have the people’s best interests in mind, but I believe that they should. I want to be a ninja to work towards a more peaceful future where blood is only shed in the pursuit of justice. The Will of Fire is the ideal of Konohagakure, and essential to end the cycles of war and revenge.”
>+1 Will of Fire, your total is once again 4.

When you’re done you sit down. Yuna gives you a thumbs up when you do.

You can’t help but overhear Daigo mutter something that sounds like ‘Dumbass thinks he’s a manga hero, can’t even throw a knife right…’

The remaining introductions proceed without anything notable, which is fine because you need a second to get over your mild adrenaline rush from public speaking.

Juro-Sensei begins pacing back and forth in front of the classroom once everyone does and then begins a speech.

“Alright. So, the two major points of this introduction were ‘What is a ninja’ and ‘What is the Will of Fire’. First, ‘What is a ninja’. The best definition was that one.” He says, pointing at Naoki Fuma, the boy with the facemask and the prosthetic arm.

“A ninja is a tool. There is absolutely no way around that. Your job is to complete your mission. When you’re on a mission, you are an extension of the will of the Hokage, and you will accomplish his will to the best of your abilities. However, just because you’re a tool doesn’t mean that you’re any specific kind. Most of the time, that tool is a weapon. If you need to kill, you need to kill. Sometimes that tool is a shield. If you need to protect, you will protect. If some lady hires Konoha to find her fucking missing dog, you will be a leash and you will collect her fucking dog. What kind of TOOL you are is an extension of what kind of person you are. The village needs every single kind to be competitive in the Shinobi world. Without TOOLS, we cannot succeed in performing our functions. That is the ninja way. To do your job, and to do it dispassionately without questioning it. You change what kind of tool you are, but if you are a shinobi you will be a tool.”

He pauses to make sure his words are setting in. Then he resumes his speech.

>>5786668
“Every village has a will. You can consider that a modifier on top of being a ninja. It’s what it means to be a ninja from that village in particular. In the Land of Earth’s village, Iwagakure, the Will of Stone is the idea that a strong resolve is the most essential part of being a ninja. They believe primarily in being steadfast and unmovable in their resolve. In the Land of Water’s village, Kirigakure, the Will of Water is the idea that secrecy is the most important aspect of being a ninja, above and beyond even protecting their own lives and DEFINITELY above and beyond protecting the lives of anyone else.”

It’s not lost on you that his gaze lingers on you while he’s talking about them. The other students in the class pick up on it as well, giving you furtive, uncomfortable glances.

“However, we, here, live in the Land of Fire. Our will is the Will of Fire. The best answer to that one came from…” He hesitates, his finger drifting back and forth between you and Yuna. He just gives up after a while “... Those two. Her because it was textbook, him because he actually sounded like he understood what the fuck he was saying. The Will of Fire is a firm love for your village and your people. In many cases, it’s the firm love for ALL people. When you truly believe in each other, you can use that as a source of motivation and strength to continue fighting against all odds, building willpower and strength of character. And when you die, your will gets inherited by those who believed in you as well, and your will gets passed along down the generations.”

He pauses once again to let that one sink in. You notice that people aren’t looking too worried about you anymore.

“If you’re not fucking stupid, you’ve probably noticed that being a ninja and having the Will of Fire can sometimes seem incompatible. You’re supposed to be an unfeeling tool on one hand, and you’re supposed to genuinely act out of love on the other. Anyone with a brain can see how those ideas are going to come into conflict, but as one of your Chunin-Sensei I am going to impart both of these to you because you will absolutely need to understand both or you will not be a proper Konoha ninja.”

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>>5786671
He points at Daigo “If you do not have the Will of Fire, you will be scum. No matter how strong or capable you are, your will will not be passed down to anyone when you do eventually die, no matter how strong or capable you are, you will just be soulless mercenary.”

He points at you “If you cannot be a ninja, you will be killed. You will die. Let me say that again: You WILL die, and you will die quickly. You will hesitate, you will fail to act, you will second guess your mission if it’s not palatable to you, and it will be a weakness that will get you killed by another ninja who DOES act as the tool as a tool like he’s supposed to be. My job as a Chunin-Sensei is to give you the tools you need to do your job, do it well, and keep you alive and effective when you begin doing missions for this village. No more, no less. If you feel like you don’t understand one or both sides of being a Konoha ninja, you will reflect on it and shore up your weaknesses. With that-”

He pulls out a list, incidentally the same piece of paper who was working on when you barged into the classroom.

“Otomo, Naoki, Daigo, Masami, Junpei, Shizuka, Katsuro, and Yuna. You are in my cohort. When we do special training, you will be with me. Special training starts now. Taijutsu. One on one matches. Assemble in Training Room 3. The rest of you, your Chunin-Sensei will collect you shortly.”

—

When you’ve assembled in Training Room 3, Juro-Sensei tells you to split about into four groups and spar. He teaches you two seals, the Seal of Confrontation and the Seal of Reconciliation. The former is a hand sign that displays the universal sign of combat engagement between shinobi, and the latter displays the universal sign that two shinobi or comrades after sparring. Traditional shinobi sparring always begins with the seal of confrontation and ends with the seal of reconciliation.

How are you going to fight? The males are generally unwilling to fight the females for obvious reasons, and Juro-Sensei tells you not to fight Daigo because he’s already seen it.

>1d100. 1d100+10 Will of Fire
>Fight Naoki (He’s definitely the most formidable-looking in your group.)
>Fight Junpei (He looks normal.)
>Fight Katsuro (He looks normal.)
>Fight Yuna (She doesn’t look intimidating, obviously.)
>Fight Masaki (She looks normal.)
>Fight Noodle Girl (She looks pretty easy.)

Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5786674
>Fight Junpei

Rolled 54 (1d100)

>>5786674
>Fight Junpei (He looks normal.)

Rolled 70 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5786674
>Fight Yuna (She doesn’t look intimidating, obviously.)

Nothing like some friendly sparring to get that friendship-meter up.

I’m happy using a will of fire point here. First impressions are important.

Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>5786674
>Fight Yuna (She doesn’t look intimidating, obviously.)
Might teach us that looking non-threatening doesn't mean you aren't a threat.
I'd rather not use a Will of Fire for this, save if for a time we're not actually sparring and we need to learn something.

>>5786674
>Fight Yuna (She doesn’t look intimidating, obviously.)
Will of fire bros.
Use the point here.

>>5786674
>Fight Yuna.

Since we're kind of average, fighting someone that probably won't demolish us is a good first step, and it shows that we don't have any reservations about gender or anything. We take everyone seriously. However, if they are better than us and we're friendly with them, that's a good training partner for the future!

File: Katsuro Kanemaru.jpg (212 KB, 1024x1024)

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>>5786686
>>5786688
>>5786690
>>5786697
>>5786701
>>5786767
You walk up to Yuna and show her the seal of confrontation. She smiles and informs you that she has to get changed first. You know for a fact that changes of clothes aren’t being provided by the academy by default, so that’s definitely a worrisome sign.

While she’s gone Katsuro walks up to you and playfully bumps your arm with his elbow.

“I see what you’re up to! My dad keeps saying I’m a little young for this stuff, but you know what, if you know what you want, go for it, by all means! That’s what I always say!” he says, giving you an eyebrow flash and a wink.

He ultimately pairs up with Naoki because he wasted too much time messing with you and now he’s got to fight the obvious problem in the room. The other matches are Daigo v. Junpei, and Masami v. Noodle Girl.

Yuna comes back dressed in a white fighting gi. The two of you claim the final unoccupied corner of the room and exchange the seal of confrontation. The smile on her face slips off immediately and she adopts a fighting stance, which also wasn’t a good sign.

However, you weren’t completely defenseless. You haven’t really been trained like she obviously has been, but you were a boy and just flat out had your honor to defend. In addition, you’ve been in a couple street fights and had observed your mom doing some training outside your house and attempted to replicate the moves… Okay, granted, even you knew that this whole thought process was completely full of shit, but you might get luck-

She rockets forward while you’re haggling with yourself about your odds and busts you across the jaw too fast for you to do a single thing about it. You learn three things from that: One, she’s fast, two, she has technique, but most importantly, three, you were conscious and she didn’t actually hit you that hard. She was either going easy on you, didn’t have the physical strength to back up her skill, or both.

All that stuff in mind, you resolve to just defending yourself while you looked for some kind of weakness. Easier said than done, but at least you weren’t exhausted from sprints like your last fight. You block roughly half her blows with your arms and the other half with your face and ribcage. Eventually something makes itself apparent: Since she was so clearly beating your ass, she’s leaving herself open more and more as time goes on and you just weather her blows. This gives you an idea.

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>>5786801
Eventually she ducks low and sweeps her legs in a trip. You managed to see it coming, and when she moves to trip you you throw your body directly over her. Your heel still manages to get hit, but your center of gravity was farther forward than she expected, causing you to fall right on top of her. While she’s confused you wrap your arms around her neck in a headlock, not deliberately trying to choke the life out of her or anything, but holding her firmly.

She responds by lifting you up with her whole body while you cling to her back and then smashing you hard as hell into the floor, possibly concussing you when your head bounces off the mat and driving the wind from your lungs. In your delirium you manage to wrap your legs around her waist and essentially guarantee that there’s no way you’re going to be dislodged. Arching your back, you manage to wrench her body straight as a board and apply enough pressure to her neck that she immediately taps out.

And thank Kami-Sama for that. You let her go and stumble off to the side of the room, slumping down against the wall like a dying warrior.

She approaches you, completely healthy and undamaged, warm smile back on her face and not forced like it was when she found out you were the Kiri guy.

“You have good instincts, you’re just untrained. I’ll teach you, if you want.” She says, like you didn’t just win. Technically. Barely.

“Uh…” You have to blink the stars out of your eyes from whenever your head bounced against that mat. “Thanks, I, uh… Am observant.”

Katsuro manages to limp by you, blood streaming from his face and looking like he belongs in a hospital. Through the pain he still manages to give you a sly look and whisper “Boy’s got that dog in him…” under his breath in a weak voice that suggests one of his ribs is broken.

“Otomo, you’re still alive, get a grip. Fight Naoki, he’s ready.” Announces Juro-Sensei.

You lurch back to your feat and offer Yuna the seal of reconciliation, which both of you forgot due to you wandering off immediately. She happily returns it.

Naoki is completely unbothered when you approach him. He offers the seal of confrontation. You don’t have the focus to ascertain how the other fights went.

“I’m going to give you the same offer he rejected. Do you want me to go easy on you, yes or no?”

>Yes
>No
>Gameplan, if you have one.
>1d100 or 1d100+10 (There’s almost no way you’re seriously going to win in your state, but you can go down hard or easy.)

>>5786804
>Yes, please go easy on me.
>We're going to lose. There's no doubt about that. But play defensive, try to learn and not just survive. I know we're just a kid but try to figure out what he does to get past our meagre guard. Having even the most basic idea might help in the future! Let's use that observation we were just complimented on.

I don't know how to roll. I'm new here. Help

Rolled 70 (1d100)

>>5786812
>Yes
Just try not to look too bad

>>5786804
>Yes, please go easy on me.
>We're going to lose. There's no doubt about that. But play defensive, try to learn and not just survive. I know we're just a kid but try to figure out what he does to get past our meagre guard. Having even the most basic idea might help in the future! Let's use that observation we were just complimented on.

Supporting this option.

>>5786812

You roll by inputting dice+1d100 I’m the options tab. Add any modifiers/number of dice that seem relevant.

Rolled 22 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

Anyways, here’s my roll

>>5786819
Thank you, I appreciate the help! Here's my roll.

Rolled 71 (1d100)

>>5786804
>Yes
No Will of Fire.

>>5786812
This isn't a bad plan.
You can roll by putting dice+1d100 in the options field.

Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5786824

Final attempt before I accept my failure. Apologies.

>>5786804
>>5786812
>>5786817
>>5786819
>>5786822
>>5786824
>>5786826
>>5786834
“Yes, please go easy on me.”

A smile forms in Naoki’s eyes.

“Good. I don’t actually like doing that to people unless they’re asking for it, one way or another.”

He raises his hand in the seal of confrontation. You return it.

He adopts a ready stance. His stance doesn’t look as quite as rigidly honed as Yuna’s, but that’s just your largely untrained eye. He seemed far more relaxed, even going as far as idly rotating his wrist to release some of the tension. He doesn’t look like he’s willing to make the first move and is just eyeing your behavior.

It’s hard to not feel a little self-conscious and exposed, especially as the moments drag on. With Yuna you didn’t have a chance to feel awkward about how crappy your stance probably looked compared to hers because she was too busy throwing hands at you, but Naoki is a different beast. He’s just looking at you. He never takes his eyes off you, but they’re traveling around. He’s clearly noting how you’re balanced, where your weaknesses are. You see his eyes dart to your heel the very instant you feel a dull ache develop where Yuna kicked you during her trip.

The worst part is, there wasn’t really shit you could do about it. You just straight up did not have enough control of your body to limit his access to information.

He continues standing in his ready stance, as if you’re going to make the first move. Eventually he seemingly decides that there’s no way you’re going to do that.

“Alright. Are you ready?”

“I’m as ready as I can be.”

“Cool.”

He doesn’t rocket forward like Yuna did. Instead he just starts slowly, steadily advancing. You back away. You have no choice. He moves forward. You back up.

“Otomo-Kun. You’re about to step off the mat.”

You look down and it’s true, you were.

Your eyes go back up just in time to see his wooden arm swatting your hands away from their defensive position near your head with the force of a sledgehammer blow. You hardly have the time to react to the pain that shoots up your right wrist before his other palm rises to meet your unprotected jaw and-

-You beam back into consciousness lying flat on your back, completely disoriented once again. Naoki is kneeling next to you, looking unworried.

“I’m afraid you lose.” He bluntly expresses while giving you the seal of reconciliation.

You return it.

“But hey. Daigo is next. He thought to himself earlier that I was a kindred spirit and confided in me that he thinks you’re a ‘retarded Kiri spy’. You’ll get to watch as I show him how I feel about him dishonoring the both of us like that.”

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>>5786976
Naoki doesn’t disappoint you. The second the match officially starts Naoki does a full-blown somersault, kicks Daigo in the stomach hard enough that the noise of the thud actually reverberates in your chest all the way in the peanut gallery. It’s hard enough that Daigo is literally lifted off his feet shortly before Naoki somehow finds the momentum to kick Daigo in the torso again with his other leg, and then jumps up to him while he’s airborne and slams a wooden fist into the side of his skull before Daigo even comes close to hitting the ground. It was absolute, brutal overkill.

Junpei has to carry him to the infirmary.

—

Juro-Sensai pulls in a blackboard and begins writing all of your names on it, in order of strongest fighter to weakest.

Naoki
Power Gap (He actually writes this.)
Yuna
Shizuka
Katsuro
Daigo
Otomo
Junpei
Masami

Well. At least you weren’t the worst.

“These rankings are by no means final. Some of you are showing great potential in raw instinct-” He nods to Shizuka and Katsuro, surprising katsuro utterly considering he got destroyed almost as hard as Daigo did. “-Some of you are showing great discipline in training-” A nod towards Yuna, who beams back at him. “Some have untapped reserves that aren’t being used due to lack of instruction-” A nod towards you. “One of you doesn’t need to worry about a damn thing. Naoki. Good job. And two of you… Well, you know who you are.”

Junpei lets out a groan and Masami looks like she’s abjectly humiliated.

“... But these rankings are subject to change. Except for Naoki’s because… well, damn. He’ll be training taijtsu with me. At least once a week we’ll be back here and I’ll keep the list updated. Next is Shurikenjutsu. To the field.”

>1d100 for Shurikenjutsu, otherwise known as throwing shit. 1d100+10 if you want to spend some will of fire.

Rolled 41 (1d100)

May the dice gods be in our favor. Perhaps we'll be better with shuriken than kunai?

Rolled 75 (1d100)

>>5786979

Rolled 69 (1d100)

>>5786979

>>5787004
Nice, we're already a ladykiller.
Mom would be proud if she didn't hate us!

>>5787009
Perhaps if we get stronk enough she'll finally love us. Or at least try to.

>>5786979
>>5786991
>>5786999
>>5787004
>>5787009
>>5787023
(Took a break because I’m starting to run out of steam, realized I had more content than I initially assumed for this part. I’ll be keeping that 75 for next post though.)

It was time to see how you stacked up against other kids your age. Sure, you kind of botched it in your first try. Alright. But it was your first try. From what you learned from Yuna and Naoki, most of the other students seemed to have been getting some training from their households stretching back long before the academy: That’s the only way Naoki could have gotten capable of literally juggling a person in combat. People weren’t just BORN able to do that.

If you were going to be somewhat low-tier to start off, so be it. It just meant that you’d have to learn faster than everybody else to catch up, and that’s one aspect of your skillset that wasn’t going to be a problem.

You emerge into the training yard eager to see if your training had paid off, kunai vibrating in your pocket in ready bloodlust to kill some pears. The bloodlust was short-lived because Juro-Sensei has you, Jun, and Naoki help him grab four targets from a storage shed. Yuna volunteers to go check on Daigo and see if the medical ninja have him in good enough form to come back to class yet.

“Oookay students, listen up. The goal of this training is the same as the goal of last training. I just want to watch what you’re capable of so I can get a baseline and know what I’m working with so I can plan some individualized instruction for you later… Did I mention that was the goal of the taijutsu? Well, whatever. Pair up with someone and just take turns on your target. I get that some of you are a little banged up, so take it easy. I find shurikenjutsu very relaxing and therapeutic. Speaking of, shurikenjutsu has shuriken in the name, but most people use it as a catch-all term for any kind of ranged weapon. So we have kunai, shuriken, senbon, fuma shuriken, whatever you want. Most ninja carry a couple kunai and shuriken, but it’s a whatever floats your boat kind of deal so long as you eventually show me that you can at least use all of them on a basic level. For today it’s whatever floats your boat. Except for you, Otomo. You’re using kunai.”

You immediately turn to look for Yuna when it comes to making pairs, but you remember she’s gone.

Who are you grouping with?

>Junpei is collecting senbon from a small box.
>Shizuka is accidentally cutting one of her fingers juggling shuriken.
>Naoki is standing waaay back from the targets staring at a fuma shuriken. Oh yeah, his clan invented those.
>Masami is still looking depressed from being declared the worst taijutsu fighter.
>Katsuro is pulling tissue out of his nose and inspecting the amount of blood on it.

>>5787059
>Naoki is standing waaay back from the targets staring at a fuma shuriken. Oh yeah, his clan invented those.
A cool dude, I want pointers from him!
Or at least to autistically observe him to crib his technique thanks to our extreme int.

>>5787065
He's not holding it, if anything he looks extremely fucking nervous.

>>5787059
>Naoki is standing waaay back from the targets staring at a fuma shuriken. Oh yeah, his clan invented those.

>>5787059
>Katsuro is pulling tissue out of his nose and inspecting the amount of blood on it.
Don't overwork yourself QM! The biggest trap of most quests is the QM getting burnt out.

>>5787059
>Masami is still looking depressed from being declared the worst taijutsu fighter.

>>5787059
>Shizuka is accidentally cutting one of her fingers juggling shuriken.

>>5787078
Yeah, I'll call it for tonight. I'm getting pretty tired anyway, I just spent the last 20 minutes zoned out staring at my while carpet planning the order of operations of the next few posts in my head. I'll be back at it tomorrow, albeit slower because I'm a player in a Sunday D&D game that's going to take my attention.

Before I go though, some general knowledge on your skill level for everyone. Pretty much every one of the character creation options oriented Otomo towards being good at Ninjutsu, so that's the thing you're definitely going to excel at. If Naoki is hard maxed towards pummeling people up close, you're hard maxed towards quickly learning how to annihilate someone with Ninjutsu. For those of you who are interested in being a melee fighter though, I wouldn't worry about that for a couple of reasons.

One, the plan is that once the setting is firmly established time skips are going to be a lot more common so I can get you out of this really young age. I'm imagining each semester will have one major event + I'll give you some slots for free time and training and then I'll go easier on the time skips after you graduate. Those slots are going to influence how far you go in any given aspect you choose. You'll always be naturally better at learning ninja magic than fighting, but you can be really good at fighting. You wouldn't want to be overly specialized anyway because there are circumstances where you won't be able to use jutsu (Running out of chakra for it.)
Two, there's a specific ninjutsu that's going to help a lot with that.

The only thing that's not very flexible about Otomo is that he's hard-wired for water release. It has to do with your mysterious background.
If anyone isn't familiar with Naruto as a setting, every person has a chakra nature. That's basically your elemental orientation for what kinds of abilities you find easier. Most people gain a preference to jutsu within their nature, Otomo's is much more demanding than usual.

Other than that, I'm always looking for feedback. Dice are way better now than in the first few posts because I talked about it. Things I'm especially interested in:
>I'm using a lot of AI art, if any of you haven't noticed. If you want to introduce art you feel matches the vibe of a character better than what I supplied, specifically for Otomo, I welcome it. I posted that image before I had any clue what he'd be about mentally and physically, which was probably a misstep.
>My conception of the setting is a lot different in tone than Naruto while keeping the same world, specifically, I'm keying it off more of the mature parts of the setting rather than the goofier parts. Is this good, or bad? Do you want me to stray farther, or come closer to the original setting feel?
>What's good in general?
>What's bad in general?
>What do you want more of going forward?

If you have any questions, curiosities, theories, or suggestions, I'll read them tomorrow morning and float some answers.

>>5787142
Oh, another thing.
If you know Naruto as a setting you'll know that when you graduate you'll be placed on a three man squad with a Jonin leader.
I want you to know in advance that your two teammates and Jonin handler are already essentially decided, barring major upheavals. I'm not deciding it in advance because I favor any particular classmate of yours (They're all equally interesting once you get to know them in my opinion or I wouldn't have made them characters.), but because your Jonin-Sensei picking them arbitrarily based on their whims is equivalent to what happens in the setting.
Still, I am curious what teams you think are going to happen so far.

>>5787142
I honestly can't say if going with the more mature tone is better or worse, since I don't have a framework for Naruto and how it goes. I mean I like both goofy and mature things, either or (even having them both is fine by me), but this has been a fun quest QM.
>What's good?
I like the vibe of the whole quest, especially the part where our mom showed us about that water stuff, that was kino. Also the way our character is being developed is pretty nice.
>What's bad?
I'm still slightly sour about us not getting the wise gentle giant start, but I know bitching about it is bad form so I'll stop.
>Going forward?
I honestly don't know. I suppose I'd support eventually becoming a hermit that gets called when shit really goes down.
>I'm a player in a Sunday D&D game that's going to take my attention.
Very based.

>>5787153
I'm guessing it'll either be Daigo for shenanigans or Yuna since we seem to be her friend.

>>5787142
>>My conception of the setting is a lot different in tone than Naruto while keeping the same world, specifically, I'm keying it off more of the mature parts of the setting rather than the goofier parts. Is this good, or bad? Do you want me to stray farther, or come closer to the original setting feel?

As someone not very in tune with the original setting, only really knowing it through fan works, I think you're doing a good job here. People are serious, traumatized. But it's also so expected that going into a job nearly guaranteed to kill you before 30 has people still cracking jokes because it's just so normal. I appreciate how you don't want it to fall into bloodline superpowers where the only thing that matters is the sperm and egg you came from.

>What's good in general?
Well you definitely have a good foundation for the story. We're not some god, but we're smart. I really do like how being the 'good guy' is objectively harder than being a True Ninja. We're just not as strong, but we might have better effects on our relationships and the world in the future. That's cool.

>What's bad in general?
I'm not incredibly enthused about the whole ninjutsu specialist thing. But at the end of the day I don't really mind too much. It helps you figure out how to progress us easier in the future if you had it nearly set in stone.

>What do you want more of going forward?
Me personally? I'm hoping we see more opportunities to develop into a sniper or a general ranged fighter. And generally try to find what we want to do with ourselves. A lot of Naruto stuff I've read with Original Characters seem to inevitably become Taijutsu Specialists, Nukes or both. Having a character that has foes terrified to be more than 5 feet away sounds like a nice change. Water Bullet, emphasis on the throwing stuff here. The best way to deal with a physical weakness is to kill them before they get close right?

But this is still really early in the story. First thread and all that. So that might be just me. But I had a good time participating in this. You're doing a good job.

Personally, I’m hoping that our spirit focus, wisdom, and int will all pair fantastically for becoming a Fuinjutsu specialist. It goes well with our ponderous nature. Fuinjutsu isn’t usually used on the fly, but is carefully and thoroughly prepared. The things it can accomplish are a lot more interesting than muh fireball too, imo. Especially with more youkai in the setting than just a shinigami.
Coincidentally, fuinjutsu is fantastic for taking people alive.

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>>5787059
>>5787065
>>5787077
>>5787078
>>5787099
>>5787140
"Naoki, do you want to partner up?"

He's standing there in the back, staring at the fuma shuriken (A giant shuriken the size of a manhole cover.) that's been laid out for the class to use. He doesn't seem to notice you.

"Naoki?"

"Huh? What? Oh. Yeah. That's fine."

"I'll get your weapons for you. You wanted the fuma shuriken right?"

"NO! I mean... No. Regular are fine for me." He says, with a look of total panic. You can visibly see a bead of sweat forming on the side of his forehead.

"... Okay."

You collect several kunai and shuriken from one of the boxes laid out at the disposal of your cohort and take your place standing in one front of one of the targets. Naoki sheepishly joins you eventually.

"... You first, Otomo."

You've been training for this off-and-on for the last week, so you're pretty confident in your ability to at least do alright. You toss a kunai. It impacts the target. Not in the bullseye, but in the outermost middle ring. Another. Innermost middle ring. Again, and you put your third into the outermost ring. You were three for three, and you look to Juro-Sensei for a sign of his approval. He gives you a smug nod, looking pleased with himself.

You pause for a moment to take a look at how the others are doing. Junpei teamed up with Masami, and he's absolutely killing it. It hardly even looks like he's throwing his senbon, they're just appearing in the target after his hands blur. They're not hitting with extreme force, but utter precision. He's also capable of pretty easily throwing three at a time with one hand, six if he uses both of us hands at the same time (Which he does.) and as he steadily empties an entire box of them you realize that he's been drawing the shape of a rabbit better than you could with a pen and a piece of paper. You can't help but imagine what it would feel like to just have like 6 of those sprout out of the side of your neck before you could even register what had happened. It occurs to you that, so far, Junpei and Naoki are the two classmates you have that could pretty easily just outright kill you if they wanted to at any moment. It's hard not to feel obviated, like you're separated by some vast from them. But at least Junpei was apparently terrible at taijutsu. Masami's face was white as a sheet at first, but eventually she starts looking angry and has the gall to critique Junpei's form.

At the other team, Shizuka the Noodle Girl is throwing shuriken. They're impacting less accurately than your shots, but she's doing this *thing* with her wrist that's making them fly in really unpredictable arcs. Unlike Junpei she's talking while doing it, apparently explaining the different scenarios that go into whether or not you want beef, chicken, pork, or shrimp in your ramen bowl. Katsuro is just nodding along with vague noises of approval while trying to interject and ask if Shizuka has any smart sisters she'd be willing to introduce him to.

>>5787142
>Seeting
I like it
>Good
Seems to be good in general
>Bad
Already gave my feedback on what I considered to be odd
>Looking forward to
Us trying to complete our mission while surviving and clinging to our idealism

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>>5787532
As for Naoki, he's gingerly picking up some shuriken like he's secretly expecting that they'll be burning hot freezing cold enough to possibly damage his fingers... Well, his wooden fingers, because he tries to use his wooden hands at first. You notice that the dexterity of that hand is pretty limited, its fingers twitching and spasming as they try and fail to grab one. Eventually he just uses his good arm and gets ready.

"Alright... Stand back."

He throws a shuriken. It glides depressingly into the dirt. He picks up another one. It flies wide left by like a mile and lands in a bush. Not only was he EXTREMELY bad at this, but he had an uneasy look about doing as well, like he was completely terrified they were going to frisbee back towards him and cut him in half. You look at his wooden arm. The fuma shuriken. Wooden arm. Fuma shuriken. He's from the Fuma clan. Ah.

"Naoki, this might sound rude, so feel free to not answer, but... did a fuma shuriken take your arm."

He winces as if he's in intense agony, stops what he's doing, and turns to look at you as if he's guilty about it.

"... I've always been strong. Because of that, my clan taught me to use fuma shuriken when I was a little boy. Very little. I had the strength to sail one like it was made of paper, but... I lacked control. One day I was practicing, I sent the fuma away, but it came back for me." He explains, reflexively rubbing his prosthetic. "I'm terrified of these things. I'm scared of anything that has a blade, especially something that can be thrown at me. Not just because I might get maimed again if they're used against me, but because if I use them against others I might hit an ally, a bystander, or even hurt an opponent in a way beyond what I intended. Part of the reason I studied taijutsu so aggressively is because I never wanted to feel that unsafe in the face of danger again, but I just can't get over it."

>>5787557
When he's done telling you about his reasons for being bad with throwing weapons, you begin rubbing your chin, thinking of an appropriate response. It was unlikely that a short conversation was going to help him get passed his issues, but at the very least you wanted to say something that wasn't just an empty platitude either. While you're thinking, you see Yuna and Daigo emerge from the academy building.

Daigo was storming over to you and Naoki with a purpose.

>What do you say to Naoki?
>How do you prepare for whatever Daigo wants?

>>5787561
>What do you say to Naoki?
As it was said, there's no point with empty platitudes. How about "I don't think trauma is something people get over easily. Just ask my mom. I think what's important is that you're trying to be better. You have a weakness, you're trying to build up your strength. I'm sure that Juro-Sensei or other ninja can help you too if your family won't. I could try too. Will of Fire right?"

>How do you prepare for whatever Daigo wants?
Accept that he's going to start yelling at either us, Naoki, or both. Expect a punch. But see if he has anything worthwhile to say for once.

>>5787557
"I can say but unless you can properly use them the risk won't go away. You might also wanna ask Juro-Sensei for private lessons to make you get a bit more comfortable around blades."

>Retrieve all kunia and shuriken you and Naoki just used.

>>5787578
Supporting this, it sounds reasonable.

https://youtu.be/8vxFyBErgv0?si=QxcDKASV_cWmae54

>>5787578
This is pretty good, supporting.

>>5787711
Not a bad tune man.

>>5787578
>>5787582
>>5787626
>>5787711
>>5787732
You need to respond before Daigo gets here and does… Whatever it is he’s gonna do.

“Naoki, I don’t think trauma is something people get over easily. Just ask my mom. I think what’s important is just trying to be better. You have a weakness, but you’re clearly capable of building up your strength to overcome it. I’m sure that Juro-Sensei, me, or other ninja can help too. Will of Fire, right?”

He ponders what you said. You’re getting the sensation he tends to be introspective the same way you are.

“The Will of Fire is a secondary consideration. It’s a luxury we can afford after we get strong, not before. With strength, it’s admirable to reach out to others and form bonds because you can contribute as an equal partner to others in the village. Without strength, and relying on others just makes you a weakling who cheaply masks your parasitic nature with shallow ideals. Not that I’m calling you or myself… Look, I’ll think on what you’ve said.”

Daigo finally makes his way too you. His head is bandaged and one of his hands is clutching some pain in the side of his chest. He has a sour look on his face as he checks the target behind you and sees your kunai embedded in it. He offers you the seal of reconciliation and walks away from you before you can respond.

Yuna walks up to you when he’s gone, looking self-satisfied.

“He’s a nice boy in, in private. He said Naoki had shown him the error of his ways and that, even though he dislikes you for being an ‘uppity fool who thinks he can act high-and-mighty despite being an untrained poser’, he told me that he regretted being a weasel about it. I think it’s progress! Naoki’s thorough ass-kicking probably had something to do with it as well.”

Naoki sagely nods in approval to that assessment without commenting.

—

When you’re done with shurikenjutsu training, Juro-Sensei adds those rankings to your cohort’s blackboard:

Junpei
POWER GAP
Shizuka
Yuna
Daigo
Otomo
Masami
Katsuro
POWER GAP
Naoki

Junpei doesn’t really react to that assessment, taking it stoically because it was obviously inevitable. Naoki is pretty calm about being on the bottom as well, though he rubs the back of his neck nervously when Juro-Sensai chews him out about how ridiculous it was that Naoki was one of the most gifted taijutsu students he had seen in years but was in danger of failing the academy anyway because a toddler could throw a sharp rock better than he could.

As for the “normal” group of students, he praises Yuna for her well-rounded skills, and Shizuka for her remarkable mental and physical dexterity. You and Daigo are told you’re about where you’re supposed to be. Katsuro is chewed out for not really trying, and Masami is told that she needs to meditate on where she’s going with her physical skills because she’s broadly insufficient. She looks like she’s about to cry.

File: Masami Igarashi.jpg (221 KB, 1024x1024)

221 KB JPG

>>5787864
Next on Juro-Sensei’s initial assessment is jutsu.

“Okay. We’re not going to differentiate between ninjutsu and genjutsu for now. Frankly, Konoha only requires that you know two different ninjutsu techniques to graduate: Transformation Jutsu and at least a basic Clone Jutsu. For genjutsu, we just require that you’re basically aware that they exist and can recognize the signs of being caught in one. We don’t start training those until next year, but I still want to know if any of you have some kind of preexisting ability with it before we move on to general knowledge and end the day. If you can’t form a jutsu or even if you don’t know what they are, step back. Everyone else, show me the most advanced thing you’re capable of. If it’s an attack, target me with it. I can take it.”

Everyone except you, Daigo, and Masami steps back.

“Masami, go.”

Masami looks nervous, but steels herself, forming three hand seals, the last of which you recognize as Tora. An illusionary image of herself pops up out of a puff of smoke. It looks kind of pale and washed out, shimmering like it’s made of mist. Totally unconvincing. Juro-Sensei sticks his hand into it and it immediately dissipates into nothing.

“Alright, not super impressive but congratulations for being ahead of the curve on at least one thing. Daigo, go.”

Daigo forms the same three hand seals and a slightly better image than Yuna’s pops up. It’s still obviously an illusion because it’s all washed out and partially see-through, but at least it’s not flickering like Masami’s was. Again, Juro-Sensei dissipates it.

“Needs work, but you’re at the top so far. Congratulations. Otomo, go.”

>Form a Jutsu, 1d100 or 1d100+10
>Try a Water Bullet, hope you don’t just puke several gallons like you did on your first try.
>Attempt to replicate the clone jutsu. You saw the hand seals the other two used, how hard could it be?

Rolled 80 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5787868
>Try a Water Bullet, hope you don’t just puke several gallons like you did on your first try.
He asked us to do the most advanced thing we're capable of. And I think we only failed the water bullet because we weren't expecting it to happen. Now that we actually know how to do it, I bet we could at least make a projectile, rather than barfing our body weight.

I really wanna try and have a good showing, so let's use a will of fire point. Show him that we have some potential.

Rolled 22 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5787876
+1

Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5787868
>Try a Water Bullet, hope you don’t just puke several gallons like you did on your first try.

>>5787876
>>5787882
Will of fire or no, we are doing a good show on this one

Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5787868
>Try a Water Bullet, hope you don’t just puke several gallons like you did on your first try.

>>5787876
Adding onto my reasoning here for a second. Naoki's doing training with Juro-Sensei because he was far above the rest of us. If we display some natural aptitude he might be willing to give us some slightly more advanced tips in the future. Is my thoughts anyways. Preparation in the present means a stronger base in the future. We'll be able to branch out into different skills if we have a strong baseline to help us survive missions.

>>5787868
Voting to use the will of fire point on this excellent success.

>>5787868
>Try a Water Bullet, hope you don’t just puke several gallons like you did on your first try.

And using the water bullet, obviously.

File: Water Bullet.png (927 KB, 1192x673)

927 KB PNG

>>5787876
>>5787880
>>5787882
>>5787890
>>5787917
>-1 Will of Fire. You have 3.
You form the Tora seal and begin mentally preparing yourself. You think about what you learned from the river. There as life inside you, ebbing and flowing like water. An energy that was infinitely adaptable and flowing, and that could be summoned at will. And that energy was in all things, including every cell of your body. Your body was an interlocking mechanism of material and spiritual life. You feel power surging in your stomach as you think about it. You recall the water forcing your mouth open as it gushed out, but how your mom was able to control it with her lips without letting it force her mouth open. Why? Surely her muscles weren’t the problem? It dawns on you: It’s because the water was formed from the raw energy of her spirit, and it didn’t need to literally turn into water until the exact moment it needed to.

“Any day now, Mizutani.”

You form the hand seals. Quick.

Tora Ushi Tora Ne.

Power flows up your throat, but you’re ready for it this time. Instead of just letting the water explode into your mouth uncontrolled, you focus your will on sending it on an expedient path directly at Juro-Sensei.

“WHOA, fuck!” He says, immediately throwing himself out of the way as a pressurized blast of water explodes out of your mouth stronger than any firehose, shooting at the spot Juro-Sensei was just standing and hitting the pear tree. You notice that this time the water isn’t actually becoming water until it’s about an inch away from your face: Until it leaves what you assume to be your aura, it’s simply invisible energy.

You maintain the blast for about 3 seconds before your vision starts to dim and you feel in desperate need of oxygen, ending the flow and gasping for breath.

The pear tree has a large circle of bark stripped off, in addition to about an inch of core wood at the center of the blast. If that hit a person dead-on the only reason it wouldn’t strip off their skin is if the raw force of the blast transferred more of the energy into sending them flying than burrowing it into their flesh. The pear tree was rooted to the ground though and just had to take it.

You feel a bit weak and hollow, like there’s some kind of hole where your spiritual energy used to be. Your muscles feel like they’ve had the life literally sapped out of them in addition to that, but you manage to remain standing, if very unsteady on your feet.

“Ohhhh!” Comes the noise from the rest of your classmates who were watching. Masami looks absolutely spent as if the whole day had been an emotional rollercoaster, and Daigo looked pissed.

>>5788011
Juro-Sensei explains to you and everyone else that being able to form such a strong elemental release at such a young age was a spectacular achievement on par with Naoki’s taijutsu. Noting that you were close to falling over though, he adds that your chakra reserves (The energy you needed to expend forming a jutsu.) left serious room from improvement and suggested that you hadn’t actually done much training: If you could only do it one time without nearly passing out you would only be useful for less than 5 seconds in a fight. Still, you were clearly the best at ninjutsu in your class and must have an unbridled natural command of it worthy of advanced classes when you started your academy training on it for real next year.

The jutsu rankings get added to the board:

Otomo
POWER GAP
Daigo
Masami
Everyone Else

>You’re fully capable of Water Bullet Jutsu without any real possibility of fucking it up.
>You still need to practice it if you want it to become a more basic attack instead of a finisher that leaves you exhausted.

—

The final lesson for the day was a simple academic evaluation. Juro-Sensei explains that he’s going to give you two packets and an hour to work on both in succession, but was going to let you just sit in the classroom and take a break first while he takes his time getting the forms prepared. The first packet will be general knowledge questions, the second packet will brain teasers and puzzles.

You have a bit of time to just hang out with someone and socialize/talk instead of just having short exchanges between training. You can use this time to learn more about someone you’ve already met, or acquaint yourself with someone you haven’t really interacted with yet. In order of how well you know these people:


People you’ve already talked to to one degree or another:
>Naoki (You’ve found out that he’s pretty stoic, mature, and motivated by what he considers logical, clear-thinking.)
>Yuna (You’ve found out that she’s just a generally warm, nice person who gets along with everyone and is well-rounded.)
>Daigo (He doesn’t like you and wants nothing to do with you. Sort of working out to be your rival. He’s not a complete asshole though, as evidenced by the fact that he offered you something approaching a truce.)
>Katsuro (He’s spoken to you, but you haven’t really spoken to him. Seems like he’s kind of lazy and immature, but also gregarious and friendly.)
People who you haven’t really spoken to at all.
>Masami (So far seems like she has the weakest talent level in the class overall, you don’t really know what she’s about though. Seems like she was hoping her first day would go better. Kind of abrasive and annoying.)
>Shizuka (Some kind of whimsical clown girl who’s obsessed with food as far as you can tell.)
>Junpei (Guy just seems kind of boring? He’s good at throwing senbon, but other than that seems to have the personality of a bar of soap.)

>What kind of conversation do you want to have the person you chose?

My D&D shit starts soon so I won't be back for awhile.

>>5788014
>Junpei (Guy just seems kind of boring? He’s good at throwing senbon, but other than that seems to have the personality of a bar of soap.)
I want to ask about how he trained his throwing skills and how to get better throwing shuriken

>>5788014
>Shizuka

>>5788014
>Masami (So far seems like she has the weakest talent level in the class overall, you don’t really know what she’s about though. Seems like she was hoping her first day would go better. Kind of abrasive and annoying.)

>>5788014
>Masami

>>5788014
>>5788020
+1

>>5788072
>>5788119
>>5788126
Yeah I vote for Masami as well. Build a strong friendship with everyone.

>>5788014
>Masami

File: Otomo Mizutani Internal World.jpg (314 KB, 1024x1024)

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>>5788020
>>5788025
>>5788072
>>5788119
>>5788126
>>5788140
>>5788330
Everyone files into the classroom. It was currently empty. If you had to guess, you’d assume that what’s likely going on is that each of the Chunin-Sensei had blocks of time in their daily schedules for the different classroom areas. Since your cohort did training room, yard, classroom, it was likely that another one did yard, classroom, training room, and the final one did classroom, training room, yard. It strikes you that starting in the classroom would be superior because there’s less overall time spent moving around. Assuming you were meant to start in the classroom every morning. Or maybe-

“You’re blocking the door.” Junpei politely announces from behind you.

Oh.

“Woops. Sorry.” You say, stepping out of the way.

Junpei migrates over to a seat next to a window, produces a notebook, and begins meticulously writing something. It’d probably be for the best to leave him alone for now: He was one of the students you hadn’t really spoken with yet. You were a little eager to touch base with all of them, partly because you wanted to make friends, partly because you wanted to get solid baselines so you could compare your skill with them, and partly because your internal meditations on the Will of Fire were dominating a lot of your inner world right now.

You scan the classroom for someone it looks like you should probably talk to. Masami.

She was sitting by herself in the back of the class, farthest from everybody. You… could probably understand why. You had achieved a string of minor to major victories today, so you were feeling pretty high in self-confidence. Even in the subjects you were anticipating you’d be bad at (Taijutsu.) you managed to pull off at least some kind of morale win where you learned, improved, and ultimately got acknowledged. Masami, meanwhile, has basically been getting knocked down all day. Nobody cared about her introduction, she was the worst at taijutsu, disappointing at shurikenjutsu, had her ninjutsu made to look like shit compared to your’s and Daigo’s… The list probably continues with stuff you hadn’t been able to see. Like with the water at the river, the underneath of the underneath that wa-

“Hey!” She says, looking at you. Peeved.

“Uh… Yes, Masami?”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Just stand around staring at people like a doofus! It’s rude!”

Was that true? Is that how everyone perceived you? You begin mentally going over your experiences throughout the day, trying to get a catalog going for-

“And that too!” She says, even more peeved.

“What am I doing now?!”

“You’re just spacing out mid-conversation! I mean, hello, I was trying to talk to you?”

Naoki is seated closest to where you’re standing at the front of the classroom. He clears his throat to get your attention, eyes filled with amusement.

>>5788522
“Otomo-kun, no offense, but I’ve known you for one day and I already know for a certainty that two of your core traits are how you have a tendency to stare, and a tendency to space out. You’ve been standing in the front of the room for about two and a half minutes not doing anything except staring at a wall, and then swapping over to get lost staring at Masami.”

Oh. Oh no. For the first time in maybe your entire life it was dawning on you that you weren’t just some kind of ghostly observer but a real flesh and blood person who was being noticed by others in the same way you were noticing them. Maybe you lacked so- Oh no, you were doing it again!

Flush with embarrassment, you quickly shuffle passed Naoki while he grins at you with his eyes. Katsuro also unleashes some full belly laughter from somewhere in the background, definitely at your expense. Damn it.

You sit yourself down right next to Masami, causing her to shrink away from you a little bit in surprise.

“Alright, Masami. I’m going to really try this time. I want to talk to you.”

“U-uh okay. What about?”

“I don’t know. Anything?” You flick your fingers at her as if you’re blasting a wave of social energy at her, and then adopt a Juro-Sensei phrase that’s quickly getting baked into your skull: “Go.”

“Alright… Um… Why do you think you space out so much?” She asks. A genuine question and not a weird dig at you.

Considering to yourself that- No, damn it, use your words.

“I think it has something to do with the way I was raised. My mom is a cold woman. Distant, I guess. She never talks, no matter how much I try, it’s like she’s a ghost or something, not really in this world anymore. We live in the woods, kinda far in the south section. Isolated. And nobody likes us because she was a foreign ninja who defected from Kirigakure. Even if she’s not a spy, she’s still a traitor to a village even if it’s not this one. I guess that’s how they feel, like if she did it once she might just do it again. So it’s been kind of lonely. I have nothing to do all day so I just look around, and instead of talking I think and daydream. I suppose it’s not really normal to do that as much as I do, especially when there’s things happening around me.”

While you’re talking, she’s staring at you. Apparently the same way you stare at others. It feels kind of penetrating. You could see how she’d find it invasive if it were coming from someone she didn’t know. It reminds you of fighting with Naoki, that exposed feeling of being examined for strengths and weaknesses.

When you’re done talking she just sort of takes it in, metaphorically chewing on the words before she can swallow. Maybe that’s also a miniature example of how you functioned.

File: 10038178l.png (654 KB, 800x979)

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>>5788523
“I’m lonely too, I guess…” She says, turning red from embarrassment from admitting that, sinking lower and lower in her seat, like forcing herself to talk is sapping her physical energy. “My parents died for the village when I was really small, and I live with my grandpa. He’s really old though and kinda depressed… He says I look too much like my mom and it makes him sad.”

She flat out puts her head down on the desk so you can’t see her face. “I imagined that when I came here I’d be able to prove myself, have fun, and things would feel better, but I’m failing. Maybe it’s not so bad though…”

Wow, the Will of Fire sure was something. I mean, it really worked. Dang. You attempt to formulate a respo-

Juro-Sensei picked that exact moment to slam back into the classroom. Not exactly a good moment. You catch Katsuro, Daigo, and Naoki turning away from you at the interruption, all three having obviously been listening. Masami is quickly wiping something on her face with her sleeve off to your side.

“Ooookay brats! It’s time we found out how stupid all of you are!”

>1d100 or 1d100+10 to find out stupid you are.

Rolled 71 (1d100)

>>5788526
I have confidence here, intelligence is one of our special traits. Several of them, even. The DC to do well isn't going to be hard for us.

Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>5788526
We can do it. We’re smart.

Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5788526

>>5788530
>>5788535
>>5788536
Wow, I guess we spaced out in the test

>>5788539
Worse, we forgot we were being tested on tactics and instead started philosophizing on the "best" solution to every question and scenario we were presented. Juro-sensei deadass thinks we’re high. Ethics: every aspiring child soldier’s greatest weakness.

>>5788539
The average DC is 70, and we have intelligence as our strength, so it should drag it down.
I think we are fine

>>5788579
Honestly, even if we had done poorly on this, it could just be explained as: You’re very intelligent, but you lack the actual applicable knowledge.

>>5788526
>>5788530
>>5788535
>>5788536
>>5788558
>>5788579
>>5788588
It’s impossible to say this out loud without sounding like a complete douche: ‘I am smarter than most people.’

But you didn’t need to say it out loud, you just knew it for a fact. That being the case, you accepted your first packet smugly. It was the general knowledge packet. General knowledge didn’t necessarily correlate perfectly with intelligence, but that was fine. You’d managed to pick up some books here and there, it wasn’t like you were ignorant.

>What were the two founding clans of Konohagakure?
‘Senju and Uchiha.’
Easy.
>Who was the first Hokage?
‘Hashirama Senju.’
>Who did the first Hokage fight at the Valley of the End?
‘Madara Uchiha.’
>List the five primary elemental releases in order.
In order…? You’d seen them depicted on murals and such in a circle, but starting with which one? Fire, maybe, because it was associated with the village…
‘Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Water.’
>Which villages were hostile to Konohagakure in the Third Shinobi World War?
‘Iwagakure of the Land of Earth, Kumogakure of the Land of Lightning, Kirigakure of the Land of Water.’
… Does Kirigakure even count though? Technically they were hostile and we fought, but you’re not actually positive if they were declared for one side or the other. They might have just been a third wheel. You’ll leave it alone.
>Which villages were friendly to Konohagakure in the Third Shinobi World War?
‘Just Sunagakure of the Land of Wind’… But there are minor villages too, like Amegakure and Kusagakure, and… A bunch of smaller ones for the other irrelevant countries. You don’t actually know. Probably some hostile minor ones too… Fuck. You don’t know what their status was.
>What is the most important beetle to the Aburame clan?
… Huh? Kikuchi or something?
>What are ‘ninja dogs’ called?
… Nintendogs?
>What is the average reaction speed of a human and how does the generation of chakra affect this average?
No no no…
>List the 12 basic hand seals.
‘Tora, Ushi, Ne’...
>What does ‘ANBU’ mean?

—

By the time the first hour is done, you’re done too. Luckily the test seemed to have an ‘Easy>Medium>Hard>Medium>Easy>Medium>Hard’ kind of structure to it, kinda like waves of difficulty surging forward and flowing back. You could at least FATHOM an answer to most of them.

Blessedly, the puzzle test was easy and mostly consisted of basic pattern recognition. You basically killed it and finished early, returning your attention to the classroom only to watch as Shizuka was just blatantly eating chips with her packet just shoved unceremoniously off to the side. Where she got the chips you didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

Juro-Sensei eventually collects them and begins flipping through them quickly, one by one. He eventually stacks them in a neat pile on his desk.

File: Shizuka Hirata.jpg (256 KB, 1024x1024)

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>>5788650
“We’re not doing rankings for this one because I actually think embarrassing anyone on this is bad form, and I can’t actually rank you without putting someone on the bottom. Your grades are going to be public knowledge later anyway, but labeling any of you as smart or stupid this early will just mess up your self-esteem. I don’t think real smarts can be determined by a piece of paper either. Besides, you’re all stupid from my point of view. But I will point out the one notable weirdo because it actually influenced my opinion for the better and I want it to influence everyone else’s opinion for the better too: Shizuka.”

“Eh?” She says.


“Dogshit knowledge, very surprisingly good at the ‘intelligence’ puzzles. You have detention for eating during the test and because I want to investigate what the hell your problem is.”

“NO!”

“Yes. Anyway, everyone else: Class is over, get out.”

—

You’re all filing out of the academy building. As you look around at Konoha spreading out before you, it feels a lot less threatening than it did last week. When you came here, you had nobody. Now, you think, you might have as high as eight.

“Um… Everyone, if you’re interested in some after-school training my house has a dojo and-” Yuna starts.

“NO.” Katsuro states, firmly.

“But-”

“NOPE! Fuck no! I am not being one of those freaks who just wants to just train nonstop. I’m not a psycho, there’s more to life than that. It’s our first day, let’s set a tone, yeah? The tone is ‘Me and my new friends are going to get some ramen in honor of the memory of dear, departed Shizuka.’ and not ‘Me and my robot soldiers are going to keep training even though we just finished a rough day.’. You want to start that later, fine, but not right at the starting line, come on!”

Your entire cohort is paused in front of the academy gate for this discussion, except for Naoki and Junpei who are walking off. Katsuro grabs Junpei by his shoulder and physically forces him back into the group, but nobody dares with Naoki.

“I’m sorry everyone, but it seems I’m one of those freaks who just wants to train nonstop. By myself. See you.” Naoki says, walking off without turning back.

What do?

>Yuna is right, we can get off to a really good start if we start focused and stay focused.
>Katsuro is right, we’re not robots and we need to set a congenial tone.
>Some middle ground that’s fun and still productive? (Write in.)
>Be like water: Don’t care, whatever happens, happens. In other words, let Katsuro win on his own.
>Naoki has the right idea. Screw you guys, I’m going home.

>>5788652
>Some middle ground that’s fun and still productive? (Write in.)
>Ninja Tag. A combination of hide and seek and tag, and you’re allowed to set traps or throw blunt and soft projectiles. Limited to a block so people don’t go too far.

>>5788660
+1

>>5788652
>>5788660
+1
Sounds interesting...

>>5788660
+1

>>5788660
+1

>>5788660
>Support

You guys realise games are just survival skills made fun right?

>>5788722
I do now.

>>5788660
+1

>>5788722
Oh anon if only i wasnt too lazy to tell you the games I played as a child.

>>5788660
>>5788671
>>5788690
>>5788702
>>5788719
>>5788722
>>5788810
>1d100 to see how good you function at Ninja Tag. (You're inherently slightly worse than everyone else because you're lonely and never got to play this until now, unlike everyone else.)

Rolled 23 (1d100)

>>5788929

Rolled 76 (1d100)

>>5788929

Rolled 29 (1d100)

>>5788929

Rolled 46 (1d100)

>>5788929

>>5788929
>you're lonely and never got to play this until now, unlike everyone else
So no matter what happens, we already won by having fun for the first time

>>5788995
we made frens ;-; that's the important thing

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>>5788995

File: Untitled.png (1.36 MB, 1920x1080)

1.36 MB PNG

>>5788660
>>5788671
>>5788690
>>5788702
>>5788719
>>5788722
>>5788810
>>5788939
>>5788940
>>5788945
>>5788947
>>5788995
>>5789028
“How about we just split the difference and play Ninja Tag? It’ll be fun and we can eat together after.”

Nobody seems very enthused about your idea, everyone milling around not wanting to be the person to tell you no. Except Daigo, who is sneering at you with malice while he readies a put down. Katsuro cuts him off before he can do it and is the one who breaks the ice.

“Oh man, what are we kids? That game’s for-” He seems to pause, remembering something, and then smiles at you serenely. “Actually, we are kids, I love ninja tag. And none of you other losers have a choice, it’s what we’re doing. Junpei is it though, it’s the price he pays for not doing anything interesting all day!”

All the other students seem unenthused at first, but eventually start getting taken in by Katsuro’s force of personality, discussing strategy with each other as they jog off excitedly. Katsuro slaps you on the back “Don’t worry, man, I’ve got you. And I’ll show you how it’s done!”

—

Katsuro isn’t able to show you how it’s done because Junpei is an utter fucking terminator. At first you don’t even know where he is, scanning the streets from a concealed position behind a dumpster with Katsuro. He begins to mumble about how Junpei probably went home after all like a dickhead when two rocks bruise the sides of your necks simultaneously from the shadows of a nearby rooftop.

“Dead.” Junpei announces, still completely invisible and now from a significantly different location than where the rocks came from.

The two of you wander dejectedly to a small gathering area and sulk. You hear more announcements of “Dead.” come every couple of minutes, Masami, Daigo, and Yuna eventually joining you in order of how fast they were killed. It takes less than 12 minutes and there’s not a single person who actually did good. Junpei casually joins you eventually, materializing in your group out of nowhere with the same blank look on his face he’s always wearing.

“Junpei, what the hell, how did you do that?!” Katsuro screeches at him childishly.

Junpei just shrugs noncommittally.

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>>5789173
It’s Yuna’s turn next since she lasted the longest. She has a more reasonable power level for this game, actually making it feel like a game and not a merciless assassination simulator. You’re the second to last one to go down, in a comical scenario where she knows vaguely where you’re probably at but can’t pinpoint your exact location because you’re scuttling around behind a trash can like a crab avoiding her line of sight while she circles around the area looking confused. You only lose because you eventually can’t help but giggle at her, getting caught and earning a rock lightly bouncing off your forehead while she pouts. Junpei is completely gone and only shows up again when Yuna loudly announces that he wins.

—

It’s your turn next because everyone unanimously agrees that Junpei is too good.

Katsuro goes down first because he’s sitting on a bench out in the open hiding his face with a newspaper.

Masami goes down second because you make eye contact with her while she’s trying to dig her way under some filthy-looking leaves and gunk built up against a fence and she’s too humiliated to even try and run from you.

Daigo goes down next because he’s not even trying to hide at all and just relying on outrunning you and avoiding your rocks. You manage to get him because while he’s running he collides with an older man because he’s not looking where he’s going. You tap him with a rock while he’s apologizing profusely.

Yuna goes down last because she’s doing some crazy shit where she’s lurking underwater in a fountain, breathing through a fast-food straw for air access. You only find her because a little kid is laughing at her and trying to splash water into her straw at the fountain. She comes up sputtering and coughing while you wait for her to surface and tap her forehead with a rock while she waives you off.

Junpei is fucking invisible and you give up on him, but you do manage to catch him silently drop down from a tree like a cat when you announce that you give up.

—

Shizuka is eventually released from prison and gets shanghaied immediately for some ramen by Katsuro, signaling an end to the game. She explains that Juro-Sensei investigated her background at length, insisting that she must have been raised by circus clowns before making her copy facts out of a textbook for the time that she’s been gone.

The group of you assemble at a ramen stand, where Daigo insists on paying because he gets a pretty good allowance. Yuna buys Shizuka a second bowl when she still looks hungry, and the conversation generally pertains to people pestering Junpei about how he became some kind of super soldier.

>>5789177
He shrugs and explains that his clan does a lot of security and scouting in the forests outside the village walls, and thus has a keen interest in building up his ability to creep through the brush. Apparently he got so good because his sister took him on a lot of sneaky camping trips, helping him learn how to camouflage himself, identify plants and animals (Specifically with a mind towards poisons that could be applied to a senbon.), and training him to throw good by insisting that he needed to collect a certain amount of dead birds every outing or else she would beat him up and leave him behind next time. She never needed to beat him up. Yuna is aghast at his bird-murdering ways, but Junpei merely shrugs and soullessly insists that they made for good target practice.

… Yeah, Junpei could definitely kill you all pretty easily if he wanted to, and with a straight face.

As you sit quietly and listen to your new friends, a man on the street notices you and angrily opens his mouth to call you the son of a traitor whore. At least, that’s most likely: The man sees your group all hanging out with each other, and with a stern glare from Daigo of all people, he shuts his mouth and keeps walking.

You can’t help but reflect further on the nature of the Will of Fire, and the spiritual energy you discovered by the river. About how your mom said that there was life in all things. You could practically feel some kind of energy radiating out from your group, a subtle shift in the aura around all of you that made the world a kinder, safer place, an atmosphere with a power to it on a similar level to the strength of your bones and the kami that live in the water and the other elements. Life was good.

>END OF INTRODUCTION.

>>5789178
Your datasheet:
>Ninjutsu: 2 (Power of most releases you’re capable of: Spiritual.)
>Taijutsu: 0.5 (Power of your physical fighting techniques: Physical.)
>Genjutsu: 0.5 (Power to influence the minds of others/Atypical abilities: Spiritual/Physical.)
>Intelligence: 2 (How smart you are and how crafty you can be.)
>Strength: 1 (How strong you are and how potent you are physically.)
>Speed: 1 (How fast you are. Helps with stealth, defense, and with positioning.)
>Stamina: 1 (How much energy reserves you have, physically and spiritually.)
>Hand Seals: 2 (Hard Cap on how high level/fast your releases can be.)
>Total: 10

>Techniques Known:
Water Bullet

Ranks are rated 1-5:
1=Weak
2=Competent
3=Strong
4=Very Strong
5=Master

Totals:
18-Genin
22-Chunin
26=High Chunin/Low Jonin
30=Prime Jonin
34+=Kage

To further explain these stats, I want to state that most ninja tend to specialize towards Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, or a dynamic balance of random stats related to both. Ninjutsu, Intelligence, Hand Seals, and Stamina makes a good Ninjutsu fighter, Taijutsu, Strength, Speed, and Stamina make a good Taijutsu fighter. The majority of ninjas disfavor Genjutsu because it’s considered generally weak (Why would I trap someone in an illusion they could possibly break out of after 5 seconds when I can just outright stun/kill them with lightning or straight-up knock their ass out?) Also, in my variation of the setting in particular it’s required to have broadly balanced skillset to be good at it, and most ninja are going to want to use their time min-maxing for their strengths rather than being broadly okay but mediocre overall. But for my purposes you can consider Genjutsu to be the stat that increases your facility at all the miscellaneous skills that don’t neatly fit with the general stat scheme, IE, illusions, summonings, fuinjutsu, medical jutsu, and other niche stuff that doesn’t fit neatly elsewhere.

I still broadly recommend against pursuing it as a specialty because having a grab bag of lots of niche utility stuff is going to be worse than just having one or two utility abilities from that category that augment some other kind of more normal style. It’s better to have a team of ninja with good specialties and each with a minor dip into some utility talent than a team of ninja who are uber specialized and one guy who has all the utility but will fold like a sack of potatoes. It’s normally a share-the-load thing within a team and not normally something that one person is meant to be really particularly stacked on.

>>5789185
That being said, don’t stress about stats SUPER much, because your true power is going to come from what they actually do and not a soulless quantification of numbers. Like Juro-Sensei said about the intelligence test, a piece of paper/stat sheet is never going to fully encompass what a person is truly made of. It’s just an arbitrary representation of your broad skills that will never actually be the full picture. For example, Shurikenjutsu can be seen as a sub-type of Taijutsu, but obviously two of your classmates have a crippling weakness for one over the other that wouldn’t be cleanly represented in pure stats.

A perfectly balanced, GENERIC academy graduate Genin would look like this, but overall the academy would prefer overlooking someone who is below par on one or two things but who rocks at something else than someone who is well-balanced but generally disappointing:
>Ninjutsu: 2.5
>Taijutsu: 2.5
>Genjutsu: 1.5
>Intelligence: 2.5
>Strength: 2.5
>Speed: 2.5
>Stamina: 2.5
>Hand Seals: 1.5
>Total: 18

You have 1 point to distribute per semester, and will end up with a total of 18. That 1 point can be separated into two 0.5s and split between two stats. You can only have one thing end up as high as 4. Every semester you have one thing to do with your free time that won’t be about training: This can be about establishing friendships, defining how you’re training in more specifics, learning more about the world, doing miscellaneous stuff you’re interested in, whatever. Your training + free time interests will influence what scenario you get each semester, but won’t always be the end-all-be-all of what I write because you’re not in full control of what fate has in store for you. Those scenarios won’t be overly long because I want to get you started for real when you graduate, which I’ll say will end up with you at around 13 years old. After you graduate points will be gained slower, obviously, since we won’t be time-skipping nearly as much.

First Semester Focus
>0.5 to X
>0.5 to X
>Free Time

>>5789187
Alright so. We get two (half) points to distribute for this semester, I think they should be put into Taijutsu and Stamina.

The more stamina we have, the more effective we are everywhere else because we can do it more. Well, except Intelligence I guess. And Taijutsu is such a basic tool that not upgrading it to at least a 1 feels...dumb?

So those are my votes. Stamina and Taijutsu. Two amazing starting points. Stamina can be accomplished pretty easily and with Taijutsu class, and some comrades like Yuna and Naoki, we'll probably absorb some knowledge from them.

As for our free time? Try to get to know the people around us more. We apparently spend so much time just *thinking* that maybe we can try and lower the amount we stare into space by keeping ourselves around people. I think talking with Naoki and Yuna would be good ideas. Naoki just feels like he needs a shoulder to stand with, and Yuna seems like she'll be great at getting more personable. Part of being a Ninja is taking jobs. Which might require talking with people. Not creeping out clients with our empty stares seems like a good plan.

Also, question for the GM. I notice that Shurikenjutsu isn't listed there. Can I assume that Shurikenjutsu is buffed by a combination of speed and strength?

I'm having a great time! Thanks for running this, you're doing an amazing job!

>>5789187
>0.5 to Ninjutsu
>0.5 to Stamina
>Try to become friends with Yuna

>>5789187
>0.5 to Stamina
>0.5 to Taijutsu
>Get to know everyone better

I’m inclined to agree with >>5789221
We need to round out our foundation a bit so we have more reliable chakra reserves and can hold our own without jumping straight to our ace. I’m also interested in the advanced ninjutsu classes Juro-sensei mentioned, so if there’s a stat requirement we need to meet, it’d be cool to know. Otherwise, let’s enjoy our first/last taste of childhood with our future comrades.

>>5789228
I have to agree with this idea as well. We can find a balance between training and friendship. Sure we could be a perfect combat machine. But we're in control of an 8 year old child that's never really had friends before. Let's try and prepare him for the future. As both a Ninja and a person. Which means building these relationships and enjoying this youth. Make sure we know what we're defending or fighting for or whatever our motivation becomes.

>>5789187
>0.5 to Ninjutsu
>0.5 to Stamina
>Get to know everyone better

>>5789221
>Also, question for the GM. I notice that Shurikenjutsu isn't listed there. Can I assume that Shurikenjutsu is buffed by a combination of speed and strength?
Yes, depending on what weapon you're throwing. Senbon are all speed, fuma shuriken would be all strength. I consider it a subcomponent of Taijutsu and mention it in the fourth sentence of >>5789187
Naoki is good at Taijutsu and bad at Shurikenjutsu because of a mental block/phobia.
Junpei is good at Shurikenjutsu and bad at Taijutsu because of his dogshit strength and stamina and lack of a coherent fighting style.
I'd ultimately consider increasing Taijutsu to make you generally better at both throwing stuff and beating up stuff though, those two are just exceptional cases.

The stats presented leave a bit to be desired because they really don't cover everything, but I'm using it anyway because those are the actual metrics used in the Naruto databooks that describe the power level bullshit and I want to keep it iconic with things you might see on the wiki somewhere. So if you want something that's not listed, you should just consider it tied to the nearest possible fit.

Also, as I said, your datasheet is only going to be a vague approximation. There are always circumstances where you could be better than someone in certain contexts even if every single one of your stats is lower than theirs. Based entirely on what your narrative specialty is. Kick-In-The-Balls Johnson with Taijutsu 1 will be able to beat Dojo Johnny with Taijutsu 4 so long as he can manage to kick Dojo Johnny in the balls.

>>5789187
>0.5 to Stamina
>0.5 to Ninjutsu
>Get to know everyone better
I think the other two anons have the right thinking with this.

>>5789187
>0.5 to Taijutsu
>0.5 to Strength
>Build relationship with Yuna

Also, I need some help with something from some of you who are more familiar with /qst/ in general.
This is my first quest, and I'm also posting it after a several year hiatus with hobby in general. Last time I was really into quests was in 2018. As a consequence, I don't really know about what I would call "thread management" here.

For example, do I use the same thread over and over again until I hit the bump limit? Or do I archive it on Sup/tg/ and start a new thread every time I hit a new "chapter"? If I'm supposed to be archiving each thread as like a chapter, do I delete the thread afterwards, or what? Do people generally schedule threads for specific times/days, or just pop in and drop shit at will like I've been doing? Can I archive the thread on Sup/tg/ early, or do I need to wait until I'm actually done with the thread first? I'm completely ignorant on the meta side of how this is supposed to be done.

Just need a little push in the right direction so I don't flub some basic etiquette about what I'm supposed to be doing.

I'll let this vote sit for a couple hours because I need to touch grass. Feel free to discuss what direction you want to take your skills, because the more information I have about what you guys want, the more capable I am of providing it.

>>5789272
Normally QMs ride the thread until page 10, or 2000+ plus
You can archive it early, Suptg auto-updates.

>>5789272
Oh, and there's no real trend about how to update quests.
Some QMs do daily updates, doing one or two posts. Some write large updates every 3 to 5 days. Some run sessions on scheduled time and days, some do sessions whenever they want.

>>5789185
>Stamina training x2
>Hang out with others
My logic is that we have ninjutsu and handseals at 2, so getting stamina up to competent compliments it nicely. It also means we can survive longer in taijutsu training, speed training, strength training, fights, etc in the future. Building up our stamina first and foremost means we can train a lot more efficiently. Won’t have to stop nearly as often. Can go for much longer. And thus learn a lot more. Develop more.

>>5789277
>>5789285
Sounds pretty easy and low maintenance. Thanks.
I was concerned about needing to make a twitter to announce threads and be really paranoid about getting bumped off, but I guess that's all unwarranted.
I'll probably continue posting somewhat aggressively until you guys are out of the academy, and then slow down to a couple days a week once we're over the hump and things are settling into a smooth rhythm.

Man... Honestly I kinda wanna hang out with Masami and Naoki. With the first one we can kinda relate and maybe if we train our Ninjutsu she can absorb a little of us. Maybe get her to try and discuss some philosophy so she can get more attunement with her Chakra and progress more. And Naoki because maybe we could be some kind of physiologist and because he can be analytic like us from our short talk we had. But getting to know everyone is a good step this first year.

>Hang out with everyone
>Stamina training x2
I like >>5789300 argument, maybe if we build a steady base we can focuse and gain more points on the longer run if we decide to someday go full Alpha Male Grindset.

>>5789187
Out of curiosity can you show us Rock Lee’s stats during his first appearance?

>>5789335
>Ninjutsu 0.5
>Taijutsu 4
>Genjutsu 0.5
>Intelligence 1.5
>Strength 3.5
>Speed 4
>Stamina 3
Rock Lee is minmaxed as fuck.

>>5789343
We can totally match that...totally...

>>5789343
Stamina 3 is the goal for all day training then, good to know

>>5789349
>>5789317
>>5789300
>>5789249
>>5789248
>>5789237
>>5789228
>>5789223
Alright, if I'm counting correctly the votes look like:
>9 for Stamina
>3 for Ninjutsu
>3 for Taijutsu
>1 for Strength

Since Stamina has a completely commanding lead, we'll just give it a full point. I'll say that if a single stat doesn't get more than double the next highest, it'll be split. Not the case this time.

Most of you want to make friends generic style, with a lean towards Yuna.

Writing, but taking my time because part of that is wandering around my kitchen trying to think of something that's not just a flat recitation of "You train stamina, it is now better, it was with Yuna."

Hopefully each semester will just warrant one or two full posts at max.

>>5789469
Stamina at 8 votes actually, but it's above the threshold anyways
My post at >>5789349 was just speculation on what we'd want if we wanted to go trainingautist mode

>>5789469
Why not both at the same time? Yuna has a dojo. She could put us through the paces and at the same time it'd be spending time with her. Talking while we're dead on the ground exhausted.

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>>5789221
>>5789223
>>5789228
>>5789237
>>5789248
>>5789249
>>5789300
>>5789317
Your first day was incredibly notable for you and so is every day that follows, but things settle into a steady rhythm. Academy 5 days a week, each day is 2 hours taijutsu, 2 hours yard, 2 hours classroom, 2 hours open after school where the Chunin-Senseis are available for students who want extra training, or you’re allowed to leave. Part of the design philosophy for having 6 hour class days with an optional extra 2 essentially comes down to the ninja clan structure: Some clans just want to train their own students and generic schooling fundamentally irritates them. On the other hand, some students were quite literally orphaned, or didn’t come from ninja families, or other myriad reasons why one student would just be fundamentally disadvantaged with extra opportunities. The village also had an interest in maintaining a generally accepted generic skillset minimum, and that required a bit of standardization.

All of this figure out yourself after thinking about it for awhile. In your position, you were essentially on par with an orphan like Masami: You couldn’t rely on your mom for any further training, so you had to keep an eye out for any possible advantage to keep yourself competitive.

At first you want to immediately take up Yuna on her offer to train in her family’s dojo, but on the second day of class she sheepishly informs all of you that her dad was strict about not allowing extra students in his home because, and I quote “It’s a waste of my daughter’s valuable training time to baby novices when that’s what Chunin-Sensei or for. Don’t invite anyone that doesn’t have a basic foundation.”

… Yuna really needs to stop quoting people exactly, because you honestly didn’t need to hear that.

Still, in school it’s not like Juro-Sensei isn’t teaching you anything. Generally speaking 4 days of the week in the academy dojo (Training Room 3) are spent on generic taijutsu tutelage. But you can’t say you’ve really gotten better at fighting: You’re memorizing the forms well enough, but whenever it comes to the weekly sparring day you’re still just locked into a holding pattern where you’re just feebly defending yourself from getting hit. You just weren’t thinking fast enough to put what you were learning into practice, and you had too much of a gentle mindset for hitting another person to come naturally to you.

To rectify this problem, you spend a lot of your time on strength and endurance training, reasoning that if you can just get used to exerting your body, you’ll not only get better at the raw endurance needed to get more training in (Instead of honestly just getting exhausted rapidly, which really limits how much sparring you can do.), but you’d also pick up the manual dexterity to use that stamina for a better purpose.

>>5789692
Juro-Sensei hears you out when you bring up what you want and makes an after school training program, one he says will help you with building up both your physical and spiritual power.

Monday: Misogi. Waterfall training. The premise of which is to stand or sit under a waterfall and meditate. Harder than it sounds, because the water came down hard, cold, and it actually took a lot of physical effort and stability to not just get knocked around, especially when you began freezing and shaking. Not only did it exhaust you physically, but it spiked your metabolic rate extremely and gave you a lot of valuable time to enhance your personal connection with the water kami. Eventually it became easier and you could almost feel the spirits of water flowing straight through your body.

Tuesday: Regular, no bullshit running. Juro-Sensei has a series of checkpoints set up around Konoha that you have to hit in sequence, the last of which is evidently near his apartment and has a bell attached that you ring when you’re done. Low effort for him, high effort for you. Your first day of doing the route has you take 3 hours, half of which is spent walking. After 3 months you get it down to a consistent 1.5 hour jog.

Wednesday: Break. And mercifully needed.

Thursday: Obstacle course. Evidently designed to have you build up stamina and speed, there’s an obstacle course in one of the village’s forests that is mostly used by Chunin. You get a slot on thursdays on Juro-Sensei’s insistence. It consists of several agility obstacles that you’re supposed to complete as fast as you possibly can at a dead sprint while other ninja blast jutsus or throw swinging logs at you and such. You fail to pick up your speed very much because the course is designed for people of a much higher skill level than you, but boy do you learn to take a hit and land on your feet.

Friday: Misogi once again, and then you’re done until Monday..

Eventually you do get invited to Yuna’s house because she thinks that if her father meets all of you he’ll be less hardcore about not wanting to tolerate your weakling selves. You dress in your finest clothes (The same as all your other clothes.) and head over. Masami, Junpei, and Katsuro are also there, being that they’re all interested in improving their combat abilities as well. Katsuro shows up in a kimono and gets ruthlessly insulted by Masami, who thought he looked like a dumbass. Katsuro insists that he wanted to have a harem one day and in the likely chance Yuna ended up part of it he wanted her dad to have a good impression. Masami was invited too, of course.

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>>5789696
Masami kicked him in the nuts shortly before your group arrived and Katsuro had to spend the majority of the dinner in agonizing pain while Yuna’s dad berated him for having a squeaky voice and not being masculine enough for his dojo. The man did ultimately agree to let the four of you train there starting next semester though. He liked Masami by default because he had two daughters (Yuna had a five year old clone named Yuzuki, who seemed kind of shy.), he liked you and Junpei when you proved to be polite and respectful in his home, and he even ended up liking Katsuro when he overheard Katsuro explain to Junpei that he needed to undergo training to gain stronger balls.

Eventually your first semester comes to a close.

>0.5 to X
>0.5 to X
>Free time

>>5789697
>0.5 Hand Seals
>0.5 Speed

Both of these are pretty foundational, you need to be quick to survive and to get an edge on your opponent and you also need to be skilled in Hand Seals to be of basically any value with Ninjutsu

Not really sure about free time, I'll let others take the lead there

>>5789697
Twice more, my fellow autists! 3 stamina and we'll be able to train all day. It'd also make us Strong in that field. Which sounds pretty good! I hope it opens up an extra slot to earn more per semester.
I wonder if we should specialize in absurd defense, too.
>0.5 to Stamina
>0.5 to Stamina
>Use your free time to watch the village craftsmen at work from a distance. Builders, forgers, engineers - you want to find out how they make things function so well.

>>5789697
>1 to Ninjutsu
>Train at Yuna's family dojo
He said we could train next semester right? Might as well take the offer.

>>5789697
I can't believe Katsuro is gonna be the natural counter to Kick-In-The-Balls Johnson

>Ninjutsu
>Taijutsu

Now that we've got some more stamina and can actually function for more than 5 minutes, let's get slightly better at Taijutsu and Ninjutsu. Our weakness and our strength respectively. Especially now that we're in Yuna's dojo. Don't want dear old friend's dad kicking us out for lack of potential.

>Free Time
I think I'll throw my vote in with >>5789717 because I'm tired and can't really think of anything better. See if the trade chads have any basic tips for a ninja. How to take care of equipment and whatnot.

>>5789718
And by 'next semester' I mean the semester we're currently in. Unless I'm understanding this wrong.

>>5789697
>>5789717
I'll support this anon
When experiencing new things sometimes it can be used to further yourself.

>>5789717
>>5789697
based stamina autism xd
yeah this is cool
my wife left me for Katsuro of the Iron Balls

>>5789697
>Handseals
> Taijutsu

>>5789697
>0.5 to stamina
>0.5 to Intelligence
>Use your free time to watch the village craftsmen at work from a distance. Builders, forgers, engineers - you want to find out how they make things function so well.
This should boost our intelligence up to a point.

>>5789800
Int and stamina are the two best stats to raise at the start, yeah.
Both should logically impact how quickly we can improve.

>>5789697
>Taijutsu
>Ninjutsu

>>5789717
+1 Support

Get some wild stamina and make our whole deal ranged fighting and tiring out close range opponents until we can slip away to snipe at them again.

Though I wouldn't mind leaning into some Genjutsu, some mist illusions or creating fog for us to hide in. Stuff like that.

>>5789697
I support >>5789728

>>5789889
I think it'd be hilarious to see a scene where we're sparring with someone and win purely because we defend until they're so tired they can't continue.
Victory without throwing a punch.

>>5789697
>Intelligence
>Ninjutsu

Oh, and hang out with Masami.
Lonely squad forming up

>>5790103
I want to hang with Masami too

>>5789697
>0.5 to stamina
>0.5 to stamina
>Use free time to train at Yuna's dojo
I'm fucking shocked only one anon has voted for this. It'll improve our stamina and we were invited to go since it's the second semester.

>>5790103
Naoki is the loner guy though.

>>5789697
She's lonely too, she's the orphan
>>5788526

>>5790280
Naoki seems like a cool dude.

>>5790287
Yeah that is kind of sad.

I think stamina won again lmao. Honestly if we're doing this we should go all in and go for a 4 in stamina. The longest lasting child in the world. 15 million D-ranks a day!

>>5790291
Why stop there? There's no need to contain it. The coveted...
Rank 5 stamina pre-genin.

>>5790298
Unfortunately we cannot go above 4 according to the rules ;-; we'll have to max it out later down the line. It's a tragedy. I know.
>You can only have one thing end up as high as 4.

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>>5790302
We just have to break our limits. And the most naruto way to break your limits is to watch your family be killed.
Coincidentally, killing them yourself counts as watching them be killed.
You know what we have to do.

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>>5790305

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>>5789714
>>5789717
>>5789718
>>5789728
>>5789773
>>5789775
>>5789796
>>5789800
>>5789878
>>5789889
>>5789967
>>5790101
>>5790280
Towards the beginning of your second semester you’re pretty obsessed with waterfall training. You begin to relish the purity of mind, the purity of focus that comes from meditation beneath the water. Feeling the flow of chakra within your body is becoming second nature to you, understanding the nature of that energy is becoming easier.

When you shut your eyes and let go of your sapient mind, the spirit of the world is ablaze to you, wrapping around your skin. The spirits of the water are definitely not sapient either, but you can sense that they’ve become used to your presence, each gout of water deposited on your head an investigation of your body by some curious little entity that flickers to life from nothing with the soul purpose of investigating WHAT IS THIS as it slides down your form and ceases to exist as its subsumed back into the impure world in the pools below.

The water poses a question. Your answer is the life energy flowing through your body.

Tora Ushi Tora Ne, Water Bullet.

You allow the water to build up in your mouth without directing it, letting your spirit take control of the flow without your thinking mind’s guidance. You release your hand seals, raising your arms out to the side and just allow it to come forth. Water begins flowing out your eyes, your ears, every pore of your body. Or is that just the waterfall? You ARE the waterfall. You feel your spiritual energy beginning to run out but you push harder, ever forward. ENDURE. Your reserves are a deep pool of liquid, and you reach for the underneath of the underneath, for further life buried below in the deeper earth at the base of your soul. You want to find your limit.

Your vision dims.

All at once you become aware that you’re freezing in the icy water and the strength has left your body.

You struggle to stand, or move, but there is nothing left.

You sag down as the strength leaves your back.

You crumple.

You fall.

The water pushes you over the ledge you were sitting on as you hurdle to the pools of water below, your consciousness becoming the black void of the deep ocean.

—

Your ears pick up the sound of soft singing, but you can’t pick it up accurately. You’re too weak.

“... searching for a child who’s gone afar… He can’t be found though I search all day…”

Blackness takes you again.