Bab 21: 44th Training Ground
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The dull sound of hitting bark echoed throughout the forest. A boy was punching the tree with his bare fists to the point of bleeding, yet he kept going. It didn't even seem like there was any pain, the way the boy kept going.
Aizen was finishing up his body conditioning after a day at school. More than four months had passed since the Uchiha Massacre, and at this point, the event was scarce in conversations. Even though an entire Clan, the last founding Clan of Konoha Village, was destroyed, it only took people a few months to put the event out of their minds.
People were like that. After expressing their initial emotions, they simply revert to their daily lives, indifferent to the past. It wasn't anybody's fault, though, this was just how it worked. No one expects people to sulk about the past. They needed to move on and inspire new events in the future.
The future was more important than the past, after all.
After finishing his daily quota, Aizen stopped punching the tree and rested his back on it. After a couple of minutes, the boy sighed and stood up.
I can't stay here longer. I need to go home now. It was already getting late, but I couldn't let myself quit the conditioning until I finished what I needed.
Frowning, Aizen also had another line of thought.
I can't keep doing this.
After months of training, my growth has started to decrease again. Even though I needed consistent training to get stronger, it was also not effective to just train for the sake of it. I needed to make sure that I got the most out of my training while training the most. It was the only way that I could be strong in the future.
Anybody could train hard, but to get results, a person had to think more than that. They had to think about how to make the best out of that training.
I've been getting too used to this lifestyle. Training mundanely will get boring, no matter who does it. The occasional spars and shuriken throwing at school have become dull and repetitive, especially since I don't get matched with Sasuke often. It was more likely that Naruto fought him, for whatever reason. He always lost, but he was making tremendous progress too.
Naruto was a person who learned better with a practical method in the first place. And after months of sparring, even he started to see improvements in his taijutsu. It takes at least a couple of seconds for Sasuke to win now, not like the instant wins he had before.
Naruto was still largely inhibited by his brashness and unwillingness to spend time training. The training was, by large, repetitive and slow. And patience was not a strong point for Naruto. In the future, Naruto gets introduced to the more practical and hands-on training of both Kakashi and Jiraiya, and he starts getting the patience he lacks now.
After learning senjutsu, this patience improves even more, and he starts maturing as a person after confronting difficult situations in his life that need thinking and carefulness.
For now, though, Naruto couldn't effectively train and get stronger, and he couldn't spar against others a lot. I could spar with him in our free time, but it would be detrimental to me to hold back so much against him and fight him. I couldn't slow down my training for Naruto when I knew I would have so much trouble keeping up with him in the future.
I needed to focus on myself and my growth. Though that sounds selfish, I knew that Naruto would do fine on his own in the future. I could afford to stick to myself and train without him.
Back to the matter at hand, I needed to think of a new training method. I couldn't just train by myself anymore, and training with Lee was getting too repetitive. I couldn't slow him down either, and I refused to be a burden to him. His training was different than mine. Lee needed a strong body in the future so that he could practice the Eight Gates of Death. Practicing the technique was an impossibility if one didn't have a strong body and a high pain tolerance.
Lee needed all the stamina and toughness he could get, and that was attained from long periods of training and body conditioning. That was why he spent hours training every day and doing handstands in the future to get around with Gai all the time. They were constantly training, and that method was just not appealing to me.
The moment I grew most was the moment I fought with that woman. The woman, whose name I still don't know, and don't care to learn at this point, opened my eyes to flaws and detriments to my path. Fighting with her was practical. It forced me to think outside the box and use all I had to win.
It also sharpened my instincts toward battle, something that is built through countless life-and-death situations.
I couldn't just find someone to battle me with the intention of murder. Murders in Konoha might be as common as flies, but killers who would murder fellow villagers weren't.
There was once a place in the anime that I remember that would suit me, but I didn't know if my strength was sufficient to go there. I guess that was when I realized it would be the perfect place to train since I would be on the precipice of death multiple times. Though, I couldn't just throw myself at Lady Death, unlike a certain purple guy. I needed to make ample preparations before going.
So, after a week when the last day of school ended and the first day of summer vacation began, I went to a weapons shop. I've been saving up a lot of money, and after so many years of frugal spending, I finally had enough money to go all out. Arriving at one of the most famous weapons shops in Konoha, Higurashi's Weapon Shop, I entered with the sound of a bell.
"Welcome to Higurashi's Weapon Shop."
A rough low voice greeted me as I stepped into the store. I looked at the man and saw a chiseled, hairy, middle-aged man staring at me back. He had black hair and thick forearms and was wearing dark grey gloves with black stains. It was as if someone took the stereotypical image of a blacksmith, and personified him.
"Hello. I am just here to look around first"
The man nodded at me and went back to doing whatever he was doing. I looked around the store and was greeted with countless weapons all across the room. Kunia, shuriken, spears, swords, axes, javelins, pikes, tantos, etc... If there was a weapon, it was here.
All of them were gleaming, sharp, and polished enough to reflect the light off of themselves. I started walking around the room, looking for a suitable weapon. I came to buy high-quality shuriken and kunai since I was essentially entrusting my life to their quality. But looking at all the weapons... I decided to buy one as well.
My height at the moment was not suitable for carrying anything more than a tanto, essentially a smaller version of a katana. Thinking more deeply about it, however, a tanto wouldn't suit me too well in the future.
I could tell I would grow to be a tall person, especially since I was the tallest in the class at the moment. In the future, I would only grow taller. Having a tanto would become awkward since I would have long arms but a short sword. I wouldn't be taking as much advantage of my height advantage since I would need to go into closer combat to effectively use the blade.
A katana, on the other hand, would extend and use my reach perfectly. At the moment, though, it was too large for me to use.
Coming to this conclusion, I decided to buy two things. A tanto, for use now, and a wooden katana, which I would use to get used to the length of my sword in the future.
Going to the front of the room, I asked the man for some items.
"May I have 10 shurikens, 2 kunai, 5 paper bombs, a wooden katana, and a tanto please?"
He looked at me and said
"How high quality do you need the weapons to be?"
Even in his shop, there were different quality weapons. I would say that my current shurikens were low quality, and the ones in the store ranged from low to high. The better the quality, the more they cost. A higher quality shuriken had more refined metals rather than normal ones.
"The shuriken can be low-quality, the kunai mid-quality, and the tanto mid-quality as well."
I could invest in higher quality weapons in the future, but for now, this is all my poor allowance would allow me to buy.
The man went to the back and came back with all of my requested weapons in a box.
"100,000 Ryo"
I winced at the price, it was a bit above what I expected. Bargaining, I said
"100,000 Ryo? Isn't that too much sir? Since I'm making a sizable order, how about you take the price of the katana off?"
"Why should I?"
"If you do, I'll be a loyal customer in the future"
"And why do I need you to be a loyal customer kid? I have hundreds of people coming here every day"
"One more wouldn't hurt. Plus the wooden katana doesn't even make that big an impact. But having another loyal customer will net you more in the future"
At that point, the man donned a contemplative look for a while and nodded his head at me.
"All right kid, I'll knock the price down a bit. 90,000 Ryo."
That was a bigger discount than I thought. 10%. I was sure the price of the katana wasn't that much, it was wooden after all.
"Thank you, sir. Your kindness knows no bounds, and your benevolence--"
"Pay up, kid, you won't get a lower price than that"
"Ok"
After paying up and thanking him, I left the shop and headed home. I needed to get a few more items before heading out to my new training grounds. As I got home, I got a backpack and stuffed it with some rations and water, emergency clothes, and antidotes. I put most of the weapons in my pockets after playing around with them for a bit, and I attached the tanto to my side. After finishing up, I left my house and started walking toward the Forest of Death.
The Forest of Death was only really seen in the Chunin exams, where they tested Genin and would see if they were ready to become Chunin. I was nowhere near Chunin level right now, but I was only going to stay on the perimeter and test myself.
The Forest of Death was filled with dangerous animals and plants. All of these animals probably mutated because of the chakra in the world, and they grew alongside ninjas. There are some animals even capable of thought and speech, like the ninja cats displayed in the anime.
I knew where the Forest of Death was since I have seen maps of the village before in the library, and because it was a training ground, it was listed as the 44th Training Ground.
Arriving at the entrance of the forest, I could see it was surrounded by fences and signs. All of those signs were displayed that you should turn back, stop, and go back where you came from. there were even signs saying that these grounds were forbidden. I ignored all of them and jumped over the fences into the forest.
The forest was eerily dark, and quiet. I didn't know how it could be quiet when I knew it was filled with dangerous animals, but all I could hear was the sound of howling winds.
I ventured deeper inside. The deeper into the trees, the darker it seemed. I stopped walking when it got to the point that my sight would be hindered, which was about a kilometer (.6 miles) in.
I sat for a second, and with my back against a tree, I did the Ram seal.
As I started sensing around, a gasp involuntarily came out of me. I could sense tens of chakra signatures all around me. Focusing on them, they were all small bugs, camouflaging with the grass around them. Opening my eyes and looking at that place, I couldn't see a thing. They were too small and hidden for me to see.
Continuing my sensing, I also saw a small snake slithering toward me. I opened my eyes and waited for it to come. I spotted it and took out a kunai. The moment it sprung toward me, I slashed at its head with the kunai and watched as its head got separated in the middle.
I leaped away afterward, unsure whether its blood would be poisonous or not. I would start my body conditioning in this forest a week for now, after I become used to being aware of my surroundings. As I was thinking, a leech fell from the top of the tree I was leaning on, and I only barely managed to dodge it after I heard something falling from above and the rustling of the tree. After it landed on the ground, I went up to it and impaled it with my kunai.
This was going to be a rough experience...
A week later...
I was in the middle of body conditioning, hitting a tree with my legs. I only chose this tree after making sure there was not a single dangerous animal on it, just normal ones. Every couple of minutes though,
A bug the size of my fist flew toward me, and I took out a kunai from inside my sleeve and stabbed it. After making sure it was dead, I proceeded to walk for a bit and dispose of it somewhere else, lest animals start coming toward me with all these corpses.
that would happen. The dangerous animals here were so common that every few minutes I'd have to fight one off, even in the middle of conditioning. This was pretty helpful to my instincts though. My senses were getting sharper, and I was making sure to pay attention to my surroundings at all times.
Returning to my conditioning, it seems that the bug was the last thing I would encounter then. I started trekking back home, making sure I wasn't stepping on any bugs or snakes along the way. Just as I was about to exit, I came across a frightening sight.
A tiger, the size of a small car, was staring right at me. I quickly got my kunai and got ready to fight. The tiger started growling at me, and it stood from its position and started walking toward me.
"Grrrrr"
It had bright yellow eyes, and its fur appeared tough. I knew a difficult fight was ahead of me.
Not waiting for it to make the first move, I got two shurikens from my pocket and launched them at the tiger's eyes. Before they struck though, the tiger shielded its eyes with its paw, and the shurikens only slightly impaled the skin.
That fur was astonishingly tough! These shurikens were not dull and could impale a normal human with no problem. But against the tiger, they barely pierced its skin, let alone dealt an injury of any magnitude.
I got my kunai out and got into position. I wasn't proficient with the tanto yet, even if I practiced it everyday, along with the wooden katana.
The tiger launched itself at me, annoyed by the sudden attack. I dodged to the right, but before I could make a counterattack, the tiger changed direction and started chasing me.
No matter where I went or how I changed direction, the tiger was always hot on my tail, swiping its claws at me.
"GROWL"
Its attacks suddenly got quicker, and it managed to graze my clothes and tear them. It also managed to cut my back slightly, but nothing problematic.
I couldn't let this go on. Making a clone of myself, it started running in the opposite direction from me. The tiger kept following me closely, even though it seemed confused by the clone.
A clone was only a mirage, an illusion. It had no real properties like a smell, and it didn't even make a sound while stepping. It could trick a human for a bit, but an animal, who mainly relied on its senses, wouldn't be fooled.
Taking a piece of grass I found, I transformed it into a kunai and threw it back at the tiger. Seeing the weapon, the tiger stopped in its tracks and shielded its eyes once again with one of its paws.
I quickly backtracked and, with the tanto, slashed the tiger's throat. The tanto made a shallow cut on its throat, and only a tiny amount of blood made it out. I quickly leaped out, just in time since that tiger made a swipe with its other paw at my location.
The tiger opened its eyes and roared at me, and using that I launched a kunai with a paper bomb on it straight into its mouth. The tiger dodged to the left, but before it could fully get away I exploded the paper bomb.
Smoke covered the area, but the tiger quickly made its way out of the smoke and I could see burn marks on its side. Not letting go of this opportunity, I dashed forward and cut at its throat once again with the tanto. This time, the tanto made a big cut since the fur was already slashed, and blood started spurting from the tiger's neck. I knew the battle was over after that, as the tiger was losing too much blood. I had probably cut a vein open.
Before I could relax, however, the tiger slashed me with its claws, and it made a big cut on my chest and stomach. It wasn't deep, but it hurt a lot. I dashed away as the tiger began chasing me in a final struggle. After a couple of minutes, the tiger finally slumped over and died.
Its life force was terrifying. I went up to the tiger and looked at its corpse. It was a dangerous battle. If I had slipped up once, or been a little bit closer, I would have been the one perishing. All of this just steeled me more towards becoming stronger, it was the only path to survival.
Staring at the tiger, I began regretting not knowing how to skin the tiger. The fur was probably worth a lot of money, but I simply didn't know how to go about the matter. We would learn in school eventually, along with foraging and scavenging, but for now, I didn't know a single bit about skinning an animal. One thing I did know, however, was that this place would be swarmed with animals soon, so I started walking away from the area.
After making it to the entrance, I took a short break and applied some cream to my wounds. The cream was supposed to have a good effect on injuries, and I didn't want to be delayed in my training because of the wound on my chest. As for the wound on my back, it wasn't big enough to obstruct me in anything.
After applying the cream, I started making my way back home.
The sun was currently setting, and I was once again enamored with the beautifulness of the village. The trees were lush and full of life, and the village was filled with a tranquil feeling. The setting sun was quite a view here.
When I arrived home, I took a short rest to eat and recover. After doing that, I continued with some training. I took the wooden katana and practiced my swings, followed by the tanto which I practiced as well. I needed to get used to both. The wooden katana was shorter than a regular one, but it was bigger than a tanto. I assumed it was made for kids to train since the average person would find the katana somewhat short.
In the future, I would go back to Higurashi and trade it in for a wooden katana appropriate for my height. After I hit puberty and I started growing, I could buy a real katana since I would be able to use it for years.
Finishing up my training, I started meditating. In this state, I would recover the most. Sleeping was only passively recovering, but by clearing my head and putting my focus on recovering, I would be actively recovering.
After an hour, I got up and stretched while going to the fridge. I ate a quick snack, and after doing some yoga, I headed to bed. Even though I could recover faster while meditating, nothing could replace a good night's sleep.
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