Chapitre 33: CH_2.2 (033): Genin Corps
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
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The next day, Takuma found himself in a large field. Unlike the grassy fields with Maruboshi, every step on these yellow fields would kick up dust. Situated in one of the shinobi cantonments of the Leaf village, the field was the site for the first meeting of the newly minted rookies joining the Genin Corps. After completing his morning training, Takuma arrived early on the field to be safe on his first day.
So here he was, waiting for the other rookie genins to arrive. His classmates began to arrive in groups as if they had decided to meet somewhere else before coming to the meeting site. He didn't greet them and stood by the side, watching them mingle and taking note of everyone who had failed the jonin test to end up in the same position. They may have acted like they were better than him in the academy, but now they were on the same level as him. He did wave to Taro, who gave him a 'sup' nod. Unlike the day they had met, his messy man bun was made tight and clean. Even he, himself, had cut and combed his hair, clipped his nails, and had his clothes ironed, all to make an excellent first impression.
Takuma noticed someone he didn't recognize walking into the field. He immediately straightened up, thinking it was someone senior from the Genin Corps, only to notice that the person was young. The new arrival looked about the same age as him. Soon after, more young people began trickling into the field, and Takuma recognized none of them. They all looked to be his age, and all of them had shiny plates on their forehead protectors.
"Hello," one of the strangers walked to him and greeted him with a smile with a gap between the front two incisors. "Where are you from?"
Takuma furrowed his brows a smudge. The person spoke in an accent he had never heard before— he had only one accent in the Leaf village, which was the one he spoke in, but this one was different. He did understand it, though it took a second to process.
"My name's Takuma. Who might you be?" he introduced.
"Oh! Nice to meet you, Takuma! I'm Ando Masaaki!" said the boy as he shook Takuma's hand with both his hands. "I came from Inaho," he said with a grin.
"You're from, where, again?"
"Inaho, it's down south, beyond the Kaikyo-en, near the Shuen fields," Masaaki rattled off the words like a Gatling gun.
Takuma took a moment to separate the joint sentence into individual words. Land of Fire's political landscape with its various regions, provinces, and cities had been part of the academy curriculum. He didn't know Inaho, but he did know Kaikyo-en, it was one of the two great mountain ranges that ran through the Land of Fire. The Hidden Leaf village, itself, was located two hundred kilometers from the Kaikyo-en range's mountains. He also knew about the Shuen fields, the rice bowl of the Land of Fire— as much as seventy percent of the nation's rice came from Shuen fields.
"So, you're not from the Leaf village?" Takuma looked at Masaaki's forehead protector wrapped around his head. "You are a rookie, right?"
"Gave the exam back at home, passed last month. Came here last week with my pops, he went back home yesterday," said Masaaki, his hundred-watt smile dimmed a little bit.
Takuma digested the information in his mind. He wanted to ask the obvious question but decided to bite it back and went with: "So, how was the academy back at home?"
"Hmm? We didn't have one back in Inaho. Kiwanishi had one. Inaho, Kiwanishi, and three other villages shared that one academy."
He knew it! Takuma had no idea that there were shinobi academies outside the Hidden Leaf village but from Masaaki's words, he had one near his home. And it was safe to assume that similar shinobi academies existed across the Land of Fire to recruit more people as shinobi. It made sense, didn't it— why only use children from one village/city when you have an entire nation's youth to choose from.
Takuma felt he had learned something important. He wet his lip before posing his second question, "Did you give the jonin test?"
If Masaaki had dog ears, they would droop down. "Yeah, me, Ai, and Nenro gave the test, but she failed us," he said, sounding.
'Of course, or else you wouldn't be here,' thought Takuma.
"... The others back home will make fun of us even though we bragged so much."
"Others, fun? What do you mean?"
Then Masaaki told Takuma something that made him realize how privileged his classmates— not him— were by attending the shinobi academy in the Leaf village. According to Masaaki, every year, only the top three to six of the academy graduates, the very best, would be selected to travel to the Leaf village to be tested by a jonin to be part of a three-man cell— the rest of them would be directly conscripted to the Genin Corps, and serve around the regions near their academy, they didn't even get to come to the Leaf village.
'No, I'm privileged as well,' thought Takuma. Even though he didn't get a chance to test for the jonin-led three-man cell, he was at least in the Leaf village and not in some remote place.
"So, you're from here, huh," Masaaki said.
"Hmm?" Takuma, who had been lost in thought, focused back on his new companion. "Yeah, I'm from Leaf village. Why?"
Masaaki looked towards the only large group in the field. It was made up of Takuma's classmates. "You're not standing with them or not dressed like that, so I thought you'd be the same as me," he said.
Takuma peered at his classmates, and all of them were wearing their own clothes— unlike Takuma and Masaaki, who wore the standard blue vest and pants. In fact, Takuma's classmates, along with a couple more, were the only ones not wearing the standard gear— everyone else was dressed in the same blue attire.
"Did they tell you to dress in uniform?" asked Takuma. He was wearing one of the sets Maruboshi had gifted him. He was also issued two extra pairs yesterday after getting his id-card. Though, Maruboshi's gifts were of higher quality fabric.
"Isaki-sensei, the chunin who came with us, told us to wear the standard gear to put a good impression because we're not from here," said Masaaki, still staring at Takuma's classmates. "You don't get along with them?"
Takuma shrugged. "Can't say I do. They're not bad people, though. If you want to make friends, go ahead," he said before asking: "What about your other two friends? I don't see them; you didn't come with them?"
"Oh no, they're there," Masaaki pointed to a pair standing on the other side of the field. The boy and girl were, similarly, dressed in the standard gear and stood awfully close to each other, and upon a longer look, they were holding hands.
"Oh my, are they..."
"Yuck," Masaaki stuck out his tongue in disgust, "they're always like that. One day, I swear, they will merge into one blob."
Takuma laughed. He didn't know if it was natural physiology or because of chakra, but the children in this world were more mature than the children back in his world. It was good that they matured quicker because being a child soldier wasn't nothing to sneeze at.
After a while, there were around a hundred genins gathered in the field in small groups (with Takuma's classmates forming the largest group). Soon after, two older men dressed in the standard shinobi gear with flak jackets strolled into the field. One of them looked like a bodybuilder with a buzz cut, while the other looked shady with his dark shades and forehead protector covering his entire head.
"Get into a ten-by-ten grid now," said the bulky man in a naturally loud, gruff voice. "There should be ninety-seven of you here."
"Quickly!" said the shady man in a breathy voice.
The rookie genin followed the orders and formed a ten-by-ten grid with the last three places empty.
The bulky shinobi waited until everyone was silent and looked at them and then raised one of his hands to reveal an analog stopwatch. "It took you two minutes and seventeen seconds to stand properly," he stared down the genin in front of him before sneering. "Pathetic!"
Takuma narrowed his eyes at the venom in the bulky man's voice. He glanced around, and others were showing varied expressions reflecting the same emotion.
"At least all of you're on time," the shady guy snickered.
"All of you, whatever filth you crawled from, are here because you were deemed unfit by an elite jonin of their time and guidance, in other words, they marked you as useless garbage. Due to that, you were conscripted to the Genin Corps because this is the only place that would take you in," the bulky guy said apathetically. Takuma could feel the tension rise around him. He could see Masaaki beside him clench his fist— recalling what he had told him, Masaaki was sent to the Leaf village for being the best in his class, and now, he was being told that he was useless— he could understand the reaction.
"I am Chunin Ueda Yoshio," said the bulky man. "But you don't call me that. Call me by name, and I'll make you regret being born. If you want to address me, do it by sir. As a matter of fact, any shit that comes out of your mouth should be followed by a sir. Does everybody understand?"
There was an unchorused mumble of "Yes, sir" from the genins.
"You guys can't even respond properly," the shady guy shouted at them. "I have perfect hearing, and I didn't hear it. DO— YOU— UNDERSTAND?"
This time, the group chorused with a loud "YES, SIR!"
"We will see about that," Yoshi glared at everyone. "I don't know what I did, but I was unfortunate enough to be handed the duty to whip you failures into shape so that you won't embarrass Leaf shinobi... no, all shinobi across the lands... in front of our patrons. I will try to accomplish this task, no matter how unlikely I think it is, because those are my orders— and every word that comes out of my mouth will be your orders. Understood?"
"YES, SIR!"
"Good, now tell me which one of you is the shitstain named Takuma."
Takuma, who had been staring straight ahead like in a military movie, flinched. "Me, sir!" he hesitantly raised his hand.
Yoshio walked through the grid until he was standing uncomfortably close to Takuma, who could feel his warm breath over his face and smell the scent of deodorant that the larger man had worn. Takuma didn't blink or look at Yoshio and simply started ahead in the back of the skull of the person standing in front of him.
"Listen, everyone, dear boy Takuma here failed his graduation test twice before he somehow lucked out on the third try. I don't know how he passed the third time, and if the invigilator weren't chunin, who is not even on the same planet as him, I would've thought he cheated. I think he still did something fishy to pass because there's no way this stupid twig could be a shinobi. He was so bad that, unlike all of you, they didn't even let him test for a three-man cell," hearing Yoshio's voice this close rattled Takuma's heart in his chest. Yoshio leaned forward, his nose almost touching Takuma's temple. "I don't know whose ass you licked to get that headband, but make one stupid mistake, and I swear to god that there will be no luck helping you here."
"Yes, sir!" Takuma said loudly, his eyes trained straight. He had taken the judging eyes of his classmates until they had grown desensitized and had grown to see it as normal. A little bit of yelling in his face, while new, didn't really affect him. He was prepared for it. The announcement of his failure to people who didn't know did get to him, even though he knew the rumor would leak his result through his classmates.
Yoshio, who was leaning away from Takuma, froze when he heard the shout and stared at Takuma with a hard stare that only broke because someone in the assembly scoffed.
It was one of Takuma's classmates, and while Yoshio missed it, the shady guy caught it. He briskly walked to the guy and yelled into his face. "Is there something funny, genin?! Tell everyone so they can also laugh. Do you think you're better than him? Do you?! At least he wore his uniform; you didn't even have that common sense! We gave you the gears for a reason. God damn wear them!"
The classmate who had laughed flinched and looked down at his feet.
"Everyone who didn't wear the provided uniform will stay back today," said Yoshio.
He walked to the front of the group before addressing them again. "You're hereby part of the Genin Corp basic training. If I do my job properly, you'll enjoy hell after you die."
Takuma straightened and up clenched his fists. If life was going to be hard, then so was he.
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 34: CH_2.3 (034)
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
Takuma could hear his breathing inside his head as he observed his team in various states of exertion. On the first day, the rookie genins had been apportioned into teams of five each. Any group activity was to be done with the team.
His new team... was interesting, to say the least.
"You... You're a monster, Masaaki," said the girl with the bub cut and a lock of hair braided a violet ribbon just in front of the ear. She was huffing heavily with her hands on her knees as she looked up at Masaaki.
She wasn't wrong. After sprinting for the better part of half an hour, Masaaki looked like he could do it for another hour without breaking a sweat.
Masaaki's laugh was boisterous. "You don't train enough, Ai," he said with his arms crossed over his chest.
"I train enough! You're the deviant one!"
Masaaki laughed more.
"Ai's right, Masaaki. You're just something else," said the guy standing beside Ai with his hands resting on his waist as he caught his breathing.
Takuma could confidently say that he hadn't seen a more handsome eleven year old in both of his lives. Nenro, Masaaki's classmate from the academy, was strikingly good-looking with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and tall stature. Takuma had noticed many interested eyes from girls in the rookies lingering at Nenro, and many had even come to talk to him over—the number would've been higher if Ai hadn't staked her claim in public. Takuma wondered if it was a coincidence or deliberate that Masaaki, Ai, and Nenro were placed together on the team.
That left the last member of his team. Takuma turned to look at the ground behind him, where Taro wheezed on the ground as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the world.
"... I never noticed you have such low stamina," Takuma said to Taro.
Taro stared up at him and looked like he wanted to say something but closed his eyes.
"Takuma, you also seem to be doing well," Nenro's voice made Takuma turn towards the handsome blonde and chuckle.
"... I run a lot," he smiled wryly.
"I'm sorry, should I've not asked?" Nenro asked with a worried look on his face.
"Eh? Ah, no, no, it's nothing," Takuma waved him off— it was more like he was forced to run by Maruboshi during the Leaf/Coin Concentration Practice. He wasn't as sunny as Masaaki, but he had already caught his breath and could go again. "How's the search for the apartment going?" he asked.
Ai perked up as a starry look appeared in her eyes. "We found the perfect place! It's only a couple streets away from the main road. The market and bathhouse are like five minutes away. And you won't believe how nice the apartment is— it's better than my home back in Kiwanishi!" she said in glowing praise.
"We're going to finalize the lease today," Nenro smiled softly.
"Well, congratulations on finding someplace you like."
"We're going to have a housewarming party or something when we get some time. Come visit us then," said Masaaki.
Takuma nodded. He still lived in the same place. The state previously rented the place, and the rent was paid directly by them without Takuma needing to do it himself. But after Takuma graduated, that stopped like the allowance. The landlord had come asking the very first day if Takuma wanted to rent, and he had agreed. Even though his house was nowhere near the main streets or the market— the apartment was excellent in shape and had twenty-four hours of electricity and water, and even though the neighborhood didn't house great characters, it was quiet, something Takuma appreciated. Plus, he was comfortable with his place, and that's what mattered most. And it wasn't like he could afford a place in a nicer area like the trio— even they could only afford it because they were splitting the rent three ways. The landlord had drawn a new lease after a long round of negotiation in which Takuma dragged the price down as much as he could. On the downside, he had to give three months' rent in advance, which had put a dent in his savings.
"Though, I'm surprised that we found the place so quickly. The landlord didn't even try to negotiate the price much and looked happy to rent the place to us," said Nenro with concern, "I fear that there must be something wrong with the place."
"Don't jinx it, Nenro," Ai lightly kicked Nenro on his leg.
"Shinobi make great tenants..." Everyone turned to Taro, who had now sat on the ground. "... or to be precise, genin makes for great tenants. Shinobi are paid more handsomely than most professions out there, and genin are only assigned D- and C-rank missions where the risk of dying is lower than the higher-grade missions that aren't assigned to genins. There's rarely any downside to renting out to genins. Chunin and Jonin, on the other hand, are a completely different story. B-rank missions anticipate combat with other shinobi, and the risk of casualty spikes up like a mountain; I don't even need to speak about A-rank assignments. And owners don't really prefer tenants who can die one random day, leaving them responsible for cleaning out the place, contacting the next of kin, and doing additional paperwork— thus making chunin and jonin terrible tenants. My dad said that he and mum were forced to take out a loan to buy our house because they couldn't find a good place to rent."
That made sense. Takuma didn't know how much his status as genin contributed to his landlord from keeping the apartment for the ever-reliable state to renting out his property to an eleven-year-old. The landlord had visited the apartment for regular check-ups and had never complained about anything as Takuma kept his place clean, and he never had any complaints from his neighbors as he wasn't at home for most of the day. Maybe that contributed as well, he thought.
"Gather up!"
Yoshio's voice boomed in the field. No one wasted one movement and hurried to gather in front of the instructor as if the last one would be strung up dead. In less than half a minute, twenty-five genins had placed themselves in a neat five-by-five grid that they had learned to form in the past two weeks. The ninety-seven genins had been quartered into three groups of twenty-five(one of twenty-two) made up of teams of five(or four). Takuma's group had the fortune(or ill fortune, as Taro put it) to be taught by Yoshio, while some other chunins took the other groups.
"To be tired by running a few steps. Pathetic," said Yoshio as he walked the ample space between each genin. He had a baton in his hand to strike them whenever someone did something he didn't appreciate. Yoshio walked behind Taro and smacked him on his back to make him stand in rod-like attention— or whenever he found even the slightest of mistakes.
"As you losers are right now, you're going to be mauled by drunkards and filthy bandits, and while I don't mind that happening, the higher-ups don't want to see the money spent stitching your uniforms go to waste— I warned them not to pay you little shits, but they didn't listen— so I have to make sure you don't die in some random ditch while on missions."
Takuma felt insulted at the remark. He didn't know about a bandit, as he hadn't met one, but he could wipe the floor with the drunkards he had said in his neighborhood. He glanced at his taijutsu-proficient classmates, and they looked more displeased than him.
"We're going to remedy that, but before that, I need a volunteer." A mocking smirk surfaced on his face, "Which one of you sorry doormats think they can take me on? Anyone who thinks they're better than me?"
A hand was immediately raised, and Takuma recognized it was one of his classmates, one with higher taijutsu proficiency. "Sir! I think I can do that, sir!" he said loudly.
Yoshio grinned and threw the baton away. He beckoned the guy forward. The genin walked out of the grid with an angry look on his face and immediately darted toward Yoshio without warning. The chunin instructor's grin widened as he effortlessly caught a kick from the genin. Yoshio's muscles bulged under his vest as he used the caught leg to swing the genin and thrash him into the ground face first. There was a sickening "gah" from Takuma's classmate.
Yoshio raised his foot and stomped it down on the guy's calf. Even though it wasn't audible, Takuma could hear the bone crack in his mind. His breath caught for a second.
"Are you alright, genin?" Yoshio asked, unbothered by what he had just done.
Takuma's classmate was holding his leg and shaking. His body had shrunk slightly into a fetal position. He said in a croaky voice, "Sir! Yes... sir! H-However, I-I think I broke my foot, s-sir!"
"Nothing serious then," smiled Yoshio. He then yelled, "Medic!"
In the middle of the large field shared by all five groups, the shady guy with dark glasses, who had accompanied Yoshio on the first day, sat on a foldable chair under a beach umbrella. He put down whatever book he was reading and teleported from there to beside Yoshio using Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Jutsu).
He knelt down beside the cowering genin. He pulled the pant sleeve and observed the injury while the genin hissed, groaned, and yelled in pain when he was poked or his leg was was moved. The shady guy weaved hand seals before holding the leg with one hand and placing his other hand over the point of breakage for an iridescent green glow of Iryo-jutsu to appear.
"You see, I was pissed when they forced me to teach you a lot that I decided. I couldn't do anything as they were my orders, but I decided to make it a little fun. So, I proposed a harmless bet to the instructors. All four of us train our groups, and at the end of the basic training, one team for each group will participate in a tournament to decide a winner," said Yoshio.
Takuma narrowed his eyes. The shitty instructor was using them for fun and games. This was definitely some sort of new rookie hazing— pitting them against each other like animals in a fight club and enjoying as they beat each other up.
"Of course, we understand the need for some motivation for you lazy lot," Yoshio continued. "The four teams that participate in the tournament will not be participating as teams; they will participate as individuals, meaning there will be one winner," the chunin instructor raised one finger. "As a reward, the winner will get a C-rank jutsu scroll."
Takuma's eyes widened as he heard gasps around him. The academy three were E-rank jutsu. Rookie genins like them were allowed access to a library of D-rank jutsu. C-rank jutsu was beyond that. Takuma didn't know if genins were allowed access to C-rank jutsu, but from the gasps around him, he could infer that even if they were, he wasn't going to get his hands on one for a long time.
"For my group, that's you guys; there will be a leaderboard that will be updated every week. Every week, the team on the top will be exempted from some punishment everyone else will have to face," Yoshio's face was the perfect expression of evil.
"The team on the top of the leaderboard at the end of the basic training will participate in the final tournament."
Takuma clenched his grip on his other wrist behind his back. He could feel his heartbeat through the pulse on his wrist. A C-rank jutsu. For an orphan like him who wasn't part of a jonin-led three-man cell, or from a shinobi clan, or had close relatives in the shinobi organization, a C-rank jutsu was more precious than gold.
He had to get it.
He was going to get it...
... No matter what it took.
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
108 Power
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