The doors slid open with a hush of oiled hinges. Wood smoke and fresh parchment greeted him, an oddly comforting blend that always clung to the Third Hokage. Sarutobi Hiruzen sat behind his broad desk, silhouette defined by a nimbus of late?day light. He was reading a mission report with the slow care of a man who knew haste birthed mistakes. At Iruka’s footfall, the old shinobi glanced up and motioned him forward.
“Iruka?kun,” Hiruzen said, voice warm but alert. “You asked for a few minutes. I trust the academy hasn’t burned down?”
Iruka managed a faint smile as he stepped onto the rug before the desk. “No, Hokage?sama. Though Naruto nearly set the sparring mats on fire again.” He lifted the scroll tucked beneath his arm. “This is about a different student.”
Hiruzen set his paperwork aside. Fingers steepled, he watched Iruka the way one might watch a cloud to see if it meant rain.
“Proceed.”
Iruka unrolled the scroll. Words marched across the page in his neat, utilitarian hand: attendance, grades, health reports, sparring logs. But a single name was circled in red ink: Shiozaki,?Kenta.
“A week ago, during a routine taijutsu rotation, Shiozaki demonstrated a level of control that, frankly, didn’t match anything we’d seen from him before.” Iruka kept his tone measured, professional. “He took Inuzuka Kiba down with a textbook shoulder throw with hardly any effort. It was almost completely contrary to his past performances.”
Hiruzen nodded once, encouraging continuation.
“I assumed it was luck. Children surprise us, after all. But over the week that followed, I noticed smaller changes. His footwork is tighter and his recovery is faster.” Iruka paused. “He also managed to bury a shuriken so deep in a target that it nearly split in half.”
“Natural talent can bloom late,” Hiruzen offered, though curiosity flickered in his dark eyes.
“I considered that.” Iruka set the scroll on the desk and tapped a column boxed in green ink. “I requested our best sensor, Instructor Kayo, to observe him covertly. She sensed nothing abnormal. His chakra flow is described as ‘unusually clean,’ but nothing beyond the norm in terms of size or nature. We found no evidence of external tutoring. He trains in isolated but still public grounds, returns home on time, and maintains his written scores.”
Hiruzen leaned back, exhaling through his pipe. A ribbon of smoke curled toward the ceiling.
“Yet your instincts disagree.”
“Yes.” Iruka met the older man’s gaze. “Shiozaki’s improvement is controlled and intentional, yet he’s hiding it. In every subsequent spar, he’s held back. I can sense that he means no harm. If anything, he seems frightened of attention.”
“Not uncommon in civilians thrust among clan heirs,” Hiruzen mused.
“True,” Iruka admitted, “but most civilians either flounder or strive openly. Shiozaki is… different. He’s improving under a self?imposed ceiling.”
Outside, a breeze rattled wind chimes along the veranda. The faint notes filled the thoughtful pause that followed.
At last, Hiruzen rose, hands clasped behind his back as he paced to the wide window overlooking the village. Shadows stretched across tiled roofs; laundry lines fluttered; merchants’ awnings glowed amber in the dying light.
“What do you believe, Iruka?kun? Is the boy a danger?”
Iruka’s reply came without hesitation. “No, Hokage?sama. I believe he’s protecting himself. From what, I don’t know.”
Hiruzen hummed and turned. “Then we’ll watch quietly. Children grow best without heavy hands on their shoulders.”
He returned to the desk, took a clean strip of parchment, and inked three simple words: Shiozaki?Kenta – Observe. Sealing wax glimmered as he stamped it with the Sarutobi crest.
Iruka bowed. “I’ll keep my reports discreet.”
“I trust you will.” Hiruzen’s smile was thin but genuine. “And Iruka?kun, thank you for seeing the child, and not the anomaly.”
The teacher’s chest warmed at the praise. He bowed once more, scroll retrieved, and strode to the door.
Beyond the threshold, the Hokage Tower’s corridor lay quiet. Iruka let out a slow breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
Kenta POV
Three months of pretending to be average have taught me two things: One, camouflage is exhausting. Keeping your head below the metaphorical grass line means stooping until your spine protests and your pride files a grievance. Two, exhaustion is an excellent cover. Nobody suspects the yawning kid of harbouring secret revolutions.
So here I am at dawn, propped against a frost?nipped training post, writing in a notebook instead of doing push?ups like every sensible future shinobi. I’ve already done the push?ups: two hundred, slow tempo, and chakra dampened to civilian levels. Wouldn’t gain much if you’re using jutsu juice to cheat when exercising.
The real workout is documenting what I didn’t show. For example – Leaf?Stick Test #17: Baseline control: nine leaf?sticks for 11s before drop. Compression loop: nine sticks, 24s. Improvement factor = 2.18×. Paranoia level: mild.
Paranoia deserves its own scale because it’s the closest thing I have to a medical diagnosis. High means I’m one hallucinated ANBU away from sprinting into the Forest of Death to live as a hermit.
Moving on, however, my fighting style will be all about maximum damage and minimum spend. The shinobi world loves flashy overdrafts that I simply can’t replicate. At least, not the way I was. Frugal murder’s gonna be a necessity of things keep going as they are.
With that said, three months of tests, repetition, and theorising has yield interesting results.
For example, while writing in my notebook, I’m also cycling chakra through refined pathways. Efficiency sings under my skin like tuning forks. It’s not multitasking since, quite frankly, that’s a real thing unless you have Queen Administrator in your head. I just got really good at delegating the process to my subconscious. Kind of like how habits are formed.
Like always, I keep track of any sensations that stand out. Right now, my fingers are tingling, my vision sharpens, but my heart rate stays calm. After three rotations, fatigue starts to prickle behind my eyes. Good. I end the session there before idiocy overrides my prudence.
I’m still at the beginning stages of understanding this new aspect of my daily life. To truly master it, I’ll need to collect a lot more data.
During lunch, I’m sitting under a maple tree and civilian kids crowd around while show off flashcards that say Iruka’s Pop Quiz Survival Kit, free of charge. Teaching them mnemonics keeps my helpful cover shiny. It also lets me float questions I’m curious about without sounding nerdy.
“Why do you think nature affinity manifests so young in clan heirs?” I toss out while explaining the hand?seal sequence for Bunshin.
A bespectacled girl shrugs.
“Blood,” she says.
Exactly. Blood means genetics, which means there’s a mechanism. Mechanisms can be reverse?engineered. Or, in the case of enemies, countered.
I grin, pass her a card, and file the theory away.
This is just one of several ways I’ve started trying to even the playing field between clan kids and civilians. Not because I view the former with any ill will. Despite my numerous losses, I’m perfectly aware that these are still children.
No, what I’m trying to achieve is a shift in perspective. To nudge clanless students toward thinking less about competing and more about innovating. After all, quite a few figures of legend come from similarly humble backgrounds.
Cast the net wide enough and who knows? Maybe one of these munchkins could develop methods that would outshine their peers. Me, included.
Then, anything I do wouldn’t seem so out of the ordinary.
That afternoon’s Taijutsu spar saw me squaring off against Kiba again: fate’s little joke. Unlike last time, I aimed to lose believably. Tightening my footwork, I intentionally widen my stance just enough to invite his sweep.
As expected, he takes it and I stumble. Kiba capitalizes on my ‘mistake’ and pins me on the ground. Was it too easy? Absolutely. Then again, this is usually how our bouts went, with the last one being the single (and hopefully, last) exception.
From the crowd’s reaction, my loss was meeting their expectations.
Only Hinata’s pale gaze narrows, you saw that feint, didn’t you? I offer a sheepish shrug as if to say, Yeah, I’m hopeless.
She smiles back, unfazed.
Back at the forgotten practice clearing later that day, I test my chakra?edge on a senbon instead of a shuriken. It’s got a smaller surface, which requires cheaper coating. The result? A penetration depth into the straw target that’s up 37% compared to the shuriken. The chakra expenditure is down 15%, as well.
For my next trial, I applied a whisper of electricity affinity along a wire while launching a senbon storm prototype. It failed immediately. All I got were sparks before the edge got disrupted and the senbon tumbled on the ground.
The problem was easily identified. Energy costs, plain and simple. It turns out, affinities amplify chakra expenditure exponentially. As a result, I’m sticking to making pure chakra edges until my reserves have risen to acceptable levels.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I started testing whether my “maximum damage, minimum spend” thesis survives contact with reality. Not combat reality, but the quieter, nastier realm of numbers, muscle fatigue, and the ever?grinning blond gremlin who insists we’re now training partners.
How? I called it coupon trimming. Why? Cuz I’m a cheapskate in practically every sense of the word.
Shuriken are cheap, but senbon are cheaper. If I want to make any headway in testing my theories, I’ll need smaller cutting surfaces to start with.
To that end, I smuggled a handful of tailor needles from my mother’s sewing box.
Under the moonlight, I dripped a bead of chakra down each shaft, compressing until the energy layer thinned to invisibility. Then I flicked a needle at a water?soaked sponge and pinned it to the fence.
Thunk.
Half the needle disappeared and the sponge split like overripe fruit. Chakra cost per throw: less than half a senbon edge. Damage? Equal if the target has vital organs (most do).
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
The Hyūga breathing routine (thank you, Hinata) isn’t about relaxation at all. Turns out, diaphragmatic pulses can recycle chakra waste. A ten?minute session nets me roughly five percent reserve recovery. Not huge, but free energy is free energy.
I’ve opted to practice it discreetly under the guise of napping during Iruka’s afternoon lecture.
For anyone wondering why she would teach me something that should’ve been kept in the family, the answer is simple. It’s already well-known by Konoha’s ninja community and beyond. Granted, it’s not commonly used, which is why Hinata brought it up.
Apparently, even in her clan, the routine isn’t all that popular since it takes too much effort for negligible returns. When I asked if she could teach me, Hinata seemed surprised. After a moment of gaping at me, she smiled and agreed.
Not really sure what that was about. If I were to guess, no one has really asked for her help in anything. Must have been quite refreshing for the normally shy girl.
After class, at a riverbank close to my training grounds, it’s day two of my unofficial sessions helping a certain blond protagonist train. Naruto insists on naming every drill “Super?Ultra?Mega Something.”
I humour him since I’m stuck now with the gremlin.
At some point during the last three months, I forgot that I was supposed to be keeping my distance from the knucklehead. I was so absorbed with my experiments and drowning in paranoia that he just slipped under my guard.
It took two weeks for me to remember this little tidbit and by then, I was in too deep. Distancing myself from him would be downright suspicious at this point.
Oh, and it would also make me feel like a dick. I could justify not getting closer to Naruto when our relationship was practically nonexistent. Now that it’s gone this far, the best I can do is to maintain cordiality.
That’s what brought me here with the grinning ball of energy.
I show him the breathing trick. He tries it once, complains it’s boring, and asks when we were blowing something up. I explain the coupon concept: get stronger for cheaper.
He stares blankly, then brightens.
“Like finding extra ramen coupons under the bowl lid!”
Exactly, I say. He finally tries again. The ground quakes less than usual. Progress.
We continued until the sun had fully set, at which point, we decided to call it a day.
My night journals now feature a new section: Affinities & Bloodlines – Plausible Mechanisms.
I sketch diagrams that would make my old college physics professor weep: frequency curves annotated with “maybe chakra Higgs field???” Confusing, but I’m getting closer by the day. Understanding how clan cheats work means I could design counters that cost pennies to the dollar that won’t leave me a useless lump of meat right after.
That last part is really why I’m going through all this trouble, in the first place.
I remember enough canon details to know that big, flashy jutsu will be out of my reach for several decades. Even relatively simple ones like the Rasengan would require an absurd amount of chakra. Much more than what I currently have.
If I’m ever going to be useful in a fight within the next ten years, I have to find another way.
Tsunade’s monstrous strength, using brute medical control and an anchored seal, was considered. But it was impossible to learn without an expert coach and bigger reserves. I’d probably end up blowing an arm off or something.
I wrote “DO NOT TOUCH” in the notebook margins with a double underline.
Going out to find the female Sannin wasn’t in the cards, either, for reasons so obvious I won’t even bother mentioning them. With that said, how was it possible that absolutely no one in this misbegotten village was able to learn her techniques before Sakura came along?
Did she never have genin students in the many years she was active? Both her teammates were able to teach kids. Why couldn’t she?
What about the other medics? Were they that incompetent? Lazy? Uninterested?
These disgruntled thoughts followed me into bed and even in my dreams, I couldn’t stop griping.
The next day, I’m once more surrounded by the eager smiles and bright eyes of fellow civilian students. I would have found the situation grating, but helping my classmates study remains my MVP cover. So, I couldn’t just tell them to buzz off.
Instead, I stage a lunchtime tutoring circle, introduce more mnemonic songs.
Kunio, a shopkeeper’s son with arithmetic terror, thanks me with dried squid strips. I trade them to Choji for intel on the best shortcuts in their clan’s public areas, ostensibly to visit their stores. In reality, I’m trying to build a good mental map of possible escape routes.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice is screaming about “sleazy salesmen”, “moral bankruptcy”, and “capitalist scum” but I completely ignore it. I’m offering valuable goods and services here!
And I plan to offer more.
Case in point… My Wire Geometry 2.0.
The latest prototype uses hexagonal weave: three wires twisted into a single filament, chakra pulsed in rotating phases to shift rigidity on command. I’m in my bedroom-cum-workshop, trying not to get tangled or cut by my own creation.
It’s an integral part of the kind of style I’m envisioning based on my preferences and limitations. Unfortunately, the current ninja wires that exist in the market just aren’t suited to my needs. Hence, why I have to make my own.
Early the next morning, I conducted a field test by suspending two sewing needles and had them turn like orbiting moons around me. Compared to using generic ninja wire, the energy cost is down 12% and control is smoother, as well. The downside is the strain on my fingers. I’ll need to design finger?ring reels, maybe scavenged from a broken yo-yo.
Yet another thing on my growing list of things to do.
At the three?week mark of the coupon campaign, my body filed a complaint that came in the form of a persistent tremor in my left calf and chakra exhaustion headaches creeping daily. These issues forced me to take a mandatory rest day.
It’s to be expected, really.
Efficiency is addictive. The more chakra I save, the greedier I get for smaller costs and bigger returns. I could attempt to justify this as being a necessary evil for the sake of my survival, but that would be a lie.
The real reason has to do with agency. For so long, I’ve felt trapped in a Sisyphean cycle ever since I started at the academy. Always working towards a goal that seemed forever out of reach. Being reminded every day of my inadequacies without having the means to retort.
With the discovery of cultivation and everything that it’s allowed me to do over the last few months, I now have answers to my own self-doubts. It doesn’t matter that I couldn’t talk about it in public.
The approval of anyone not my parents means jack shit to me.
But my discovery about chakra that then led to other subsequent findings? That was a lifeline. A real, tangible sign that I can do more than survive this world.
So, yeah. I refuse to feel bad about having something that is flooding my brain with endorphins instead of cortisol, for a change.
After enjoying a day of rest, I decided to cash in my phase?two coupons. Time to invest the dividends into compound techniques. Synergies where two economical tricks fuse into something opponents will mistake for high?tier ninjutsu.
Here’s what I’ve got, so far:
- Breath?Battery × Wire Geometry
The Hyūga diaphragm pulses essentially recharge my reserves. The hex?weave wire then doubles as a conduit. Individually, neither is all that impressive. But what if the pulses drip straight into the wire loop, topping the edge mid?orbit?
After a few false starts, I finally got a stable result. The needles glow a faint blue, generating a chakra signature so low that even I strain to feel it. Doing this allowed me to extend the runtime by 25% for negligible cost.
Unfortunately, it also caused the wire to hum like a chorus of cicadas that’s audible within two metres. It might not be Chidori loud, but it’s not exactly stealthy, either. I made a note to investigate a muffling seal.
- Seal?Etch Lite?
A few introductory fūinjutsu scrolls spoke of containment glyphs the size of a thumbnail. Following some careful research, I eventually managed to find a way to etch seals onto some shurikens. The seals themselves don’t really do anything other than store a minuscule amount of chakra. But that was fine with me.
The only thing I needed them to do was act as a switch that would automatically coat them in my chakra. I’m not exaggerating when I say that anyone with even a decent amount of the energy would find this roundabout approach completely useless. This might explain it isn’t all that popular among shinobi.
Again, they prefer flashy Jutsu, remember?
Chakra-enhanced weaponry have been around for ages, as well, to say nothing of chakra-conductive metal. All I really did was make the process instantaneous and marginally more cost-efficient.
If nothing else, the results speak for themselves: Three targets shorn in half, along with three lines almost a meter deep at the shallowest. The feeling of vindication was almost worth the frantic cover-up that followed.
Almost.
Production is a pain in the neck, though, so I won’t have a stack of these shuriken anytime soon. They are now a scarce resource for me to guard like a dragon guards its hoard of gold.
- Affinity Audit with Chakra Cost and Verdict
- Fire is ×4. Verdict: too costly.
- Wind is roughly ×1.6. Verdict: promising and affordable.
- Lightning is ×2. Verdict: effective but loud, unsuitable for stealth.
- Earth is ×3. Verdict: slow and counter to speed doctrine.
- Water is ×2.5. Verdict: situational at best.
Multiple painstaking tests conducted carefully and under the notice of my parents were needed to gather that data. In the end, wind won. Though it completely defied my expectations.
Getting an element?test paper was surprisingly simple. I just asked my parents to get me some and they did, no questions asked.
I should have found that suspicious, but at the time, my mind was elsewhere.
Specifically, my mind was trying not to explode upon discovering my nature affinity: Fire.
Wut…?
Fire? The element that cost me the most amount of chakra to use?
…How?
Wind would have made sense. Hell, lightning would have made sense!
But, fire? Is this a joke? Did the paper malfunction? Nope, I tried it again and it turned into ash.
So, yeah. The element that costs the most for me to use would effectively be the easiest for me to learn. Even if I find a fire jutsu meant for combat, I wouldn’t be able to use it without absolutely exhausting myself.
…
I’ll have to figure this out later because my brain is turning to mush. After hitting this wall, I turned my attention to less stressful pursuits. Like spending time with noisy, pushy, and unruly little rascals.
My god, what’s happened to me?
To be perfectly truthful, my fellow academy students aren’t actually all that annoying. Once I accepted that I’m dealing with children, they’re easy enough to handle. Just prepare a lot of shiny things to distract them with.
The civilian study circle even rebrands me “Note Sensei.”
Not the most flattering name, but that’s exactly why I like it. “The Professor” might come with a lot of heavy connotations, but who would pay attention to little ‘ol “Note Sensei”?
I also continued my little arrangement with Choji. The chubby boy seems to believe that I’m playing a game with him and I wasn’t about to disabuse him of that notion. This paid off in an unexpected way when I noticed that my weight was down one kilo. It seems my new lifestyle has been burning calories faster than I can replace them.
After talking to Choji about it, he opted to sell me protein bars at a friend rate. Not only does this help me save money, but it also prevents my parents from worrying unnecessarily.
During lunch, I spend time with Hinata on the academy rooftop. We mostly exchange theories covering a wide range of interests. I asked whether tenketsu can voluntarily narrow to filter chakra. The question clearly caught her off guard, but instead of answering right away, she grew pensive.
In the end, I didn’t get a definitive response, not that I was expecting one.
My day ended with the hex wire snapping mid?swing, slicing my knuckle as a result. Cursing to myself, I hurried to treat the wound with a first-aid kit I brought. Luckily, I was in the isolated training ground instead of at home.
Being grounded once more was not on my bingo card today.
Once the cut had been disinfected and covered, I thought about the implications of this development. First of all, a catastrophic failure mid?mission is just unacceptable. Second, I’m going to need a source of a stronger alloy.
I decided to leave the question of where for some other time. Getting home in time for dinner was the priority.
Ahh, the life of a ninja-in-training really is full of excitement.
The next morning hit like a shuriken to the sinuses: grey sky, drizzle, and the knowledge that Instructor?Kayo’s quarterly sensor sweep is scheduled for second period. The memo says “routine chakra wellness assessment.”
Translation: scan the kids for strange signatures and make sure nobody’s incubating a bijū in their appendix.
I arrive early, posture slumped, clutching my stomach as though indigestion is staging a coup. Iruka raises a brow, and I murmur something about questionable squid strips. Sympathy unlocked, he waves me to the back corner near the open window.
Kayo enters and begins her silent sweep. One by one, she “pings” each student. A gentle pulse, a quick nod, then move on. I shifted into my breathing exercise, lowering my chakra’s surface tension.
When my turn comes, her gaze pauses for a half?second longer than others, causing my internal siren to start wailing. I add a small wince, placing a hand to my gut for emphasis. She makes a note on her clipboard while murmuring that it was likely a “mild flux, probable illness” and moves on.
After she was gone, I breathed a sigh of relief but didn’t relax completely.
I wasn’t an idiot. Had I been a regular civilian student with exactly the amount of knowledge that someone from my background would have, that little performance would have worked.
But now I knew for sure.
They already know.
I wasn’t certain how much information they’ve already gathered or for how long I had been under surveillance. Maybe I’ve had eyes on me from the start, and I just didn’t notice.
Aside from the huge blow to my ego, this development also left me confused. Why hadn’t I been taken away yet? What’s the purpose of allowing me so much freedom despite acting so suspicious?
Did I know even less about how this world worked than I initially assumed?
Well, I’m not completely fucked, yet. I’ll have to take steps to make sure that I don’t get to that point. If not for myself, then for those I’ve grown to love in this life.