Uzumaki Naruto’s POV

  Another sparring session turned out to be… not bad. Kakashi still didn’t really satisfy me as a sparring partner, but it was better than nothing. And the white?haired bastard was slowly getting back into shape, so it was becoming less boring.

  Showing off Hiraishin to my curious teammates, who’d decided that watching me and Kakashi beat on each other was a good idea, also went over pretty well. I get it; it really is interesting. Just like I get why, the next time we met at the bridge before our mission, Sasuke’s face was so dark it looked like he had diarrhea and constipation at the same time.

  He’d known I was holding back back in the Academy when I sparred with him. But once he understood exactly what technique I was capable of using, the Uchiha realized the full depth of his own insignificance. At least, that’s what his face said.

  I didn’t bother telling him he was only like that in comparison to me, and maybe a few especially gifted geniuses. Knowing Sasuke’s character, he’d just take it as pity—which he wouldn’t accept from anyone—and spiral even harder.

  Sakura, on the other hand, in her open—or, as some call it, screechy?and?annoying—manner, asked, “How’d you do that?” and “Can I do that too?”

  Seeing her initiative, I calmly reminded the kunoichi that she had some very strong points in the form of chakra control, but physically she didn’t impress. And in theory, yeah, she could. Just not now, and not even in a couple of years. With an untrained body, she wouldn’t be able to use the technique properly in close combat like I do.

  She nodded with a “smart” look, promised she’d try harder, and lit up with even more determination. I even found it kind of cute. A lot of people found her particular way of asking questions annoying—and to a small extent, so did I. But with Sakura I also appreciated her diligence and how seriously she took training and study, which, in my opinion, outweighed her flaws.

  After Haruno’s little speech, Sasuke—who’d been staring at her with open contempt—just snorted and turned away, as if to show exactly what he thought of her “success.”

  At that, the girl, as if snapping out of it and interpreting the Uchiha’s reaction in her own special way, started making excuses, insisting there was nothing between me and her. That Sasuke should see: look, she was getting stronger under my guidance. And it was all just for him.

  It looked… honestly? Pathetic.

  This kind of performance wasn’t new; I’d seen it more than once. And, as always, Sasuke—who didn’t give a shit—would turn away and just stare off into the distance like an idiot, while Sakura talked basically to herself.

  This time, though, it didn’t drag on like the first couple times. After about three minutes, realizing she was being ignored just like always, Sakura’s shoulders slumped, she shut up, and her expression turned gloomy.

  I watched all of it with mixed feelings, but a calm face. I wanted to snort, but that would’ve been overkill.

  Naive little Konoha idiot… And in the future, one of the most brilliant minds in medicine, or in fuinjutsu, or genjutsu, or something else—Sakura really did have potential, and a lot of it she could actually realize. Over the time I’d spent working with her, I’d picked up another reason to bother training the girl. She could turn into a useful person in my hands, since her own willpower is pretty questionable. Maybe Haruno doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s already in my clutches. Mu?ha?ha?ha?ha! What a villain I am!

  After that, life rolled along at a more relaxed pace.

  Before that mission, by the way, I managed to go out with Hinata and celebrate us getting our rank.

  Afterwards, Kakashi stopped taking such insane missions.

  My team—now including my clone—was still working a fair amount; missions aren’t always easy, even if you cherry?pick them. As for Kakashi himself, he actually kind of tried to fulfill his obligations… but as a teacher he turned out to be, putting it mildly, pretty meh. Not counting me, but taking into account the average level of his other genin, he tried to explain something about genjutsu and completely failed to do it in a sane way.

  The result of those “lessons” was Sasuke saying he’d keep training according to his own program, and that with his “sensei”—he stressed the word like some bloated king talking about the help—he’d just double?check details when needed. Sakura, of course, followed the dream of her entire life, i.e. the Uchiha, and also “stuck to self?study”…

  Mm?hmm. Self?study. Right. Totally, absolutely without my involvement—which she somehow forgot to mention. Still, at least sometimes, when Sasuke’s around, she tries not to bring it up. No need to say what a circus I see in all of this.

  In general, over time I started to feel like my psychological mentoring of Sakura was producing way more dubious results than the physical training. She was seriously stuck on the Uchiha, and she was getting over it painfully slowly.

  Maybe the very fact that the Uchiha was right there was the problem. Maybe she needed a shake?up.

  The first… could be removed. Same with arranging the second. But that, in my opinion, would be a bit too cruel. One way or another, I’d grown attached to this girl; we’ve known each other for quite a while. My wish for her to have a better life already clashed with some of the stuff I’d told her early on. You know, the things that led to the conclusion she’d at best end up as an Uchiha incubator, but never get the love she imagined. And I’m still sure I was right about that. But at least there are some results with her. She’s growing—she is. Which means measures like breaking her personality and other nasty crap aren’t necessary. Let the girl get over it slower, but with less pain. I’m not a monster, whatever some people may think.

  And so, time rushed on. I kept working on my fighting style, studying some techniques. But lately I’d been focusing more and more on that body?enhancement project of mine. Everything was going great until I ran into a dead end. I should probably dig into that in more detail.

  The latest dead end was the most fundamental and the most annoying. I had gone through every scroll and book available, including a good number of forbidden high?rank techniques that helped deepen my understanding of manipulating living matter. I’d spent almost half the fortune I’d earned on puzzles on building the most advanced bioengineering lab in the world. My basement had long since stopped being just a basement; it had turned into a whole underground complex of several sterile rooms stuffed with insanely expensive equipment, ordered through a shell company from all over the world. Hybrids of tech and fuinjutsu: insanely complex scanning seals I’d designed myself, working in tandem with microscopes, centrifuges, and bioreactors, sometimes built to my blueprints, sometimes not.

  Hundreds of different specialists had worked with me personally at one time or another, putting the essence of their experience into the project to make it even better—sometimes hired by me, sometimes on their own initiative. And if you count the people who assembled all that gear for me…

  A whole empire was working for me!

  Well… okay, I’m exaggerating. But the amount of people involved to get to the current result really was huge. Thankfully, organizing all of it wasn’t that hard for Shadow Clones.

  But that still wasn’t enough—my chakra control had reached insane heights. I could perform most jutsu without hand seals—spit fire or other elements just because I felt like it. Use Shadow Clones that didn’t pop out in a cloud of smoke but came straight out of my body—no problem, that was a simple tweak. Use S?rank techniques other shinobi couldn’t even dream of pulling off. The same Hiraishin, which I now used casually on my own, could only be replicated by three people—and even then it was a crippled version, with all sorts of crutches, and only if all three focused on the technique at the same time.

  My control… was anomalous. So high it was scary. Only my affinity really held me back. I could pull off original jutsu with ridiculous mastery, could create insanely complex sealing arrays. But my physical reinforcement still wasn’t that far beyond jonin who were only about twice my age. It’s probably because of that unstable affinity that I wasn’t the strongest shinobi in the world… Yet. For now it’s just something that might happen someday, and I need to live in the present.

  And here, one step away from the culmination of where my abilities had led me, I should probably mention what underlies that control. Thanks to a few experiments, I finally had at least an approximate answer.

  When I started, for good reasons, measuring my own brain activity, I uncovered some very curious information. In the void, my soul—or rather, I, as the conscious part of that soul—could somehow think. Before, that was just a theory, but now, after several months of tests, I’m more than ninety percent sure my brain and soul work in tandem.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Originally I’d assumed the soul had taken over most of the mental workload, while the brain was mostly just a transmitter for what needed to be sent to the body. Commands to move, for example. That fit nicely with the fact that even before I was born I could think. But no: the brain of this body, at least a bit over a year ago when I started this testing, was developing very well, fully.

  Soul and brain working together—two minds as one. I think that’s the key to why my control and overall computational ability grew so much faster and further than other people’s usually do. And that’s not even counting the insane control potential I already had, which I’ve of course been realizing and keep pushing forward at a slow but steady pace. Because there are two intellects, I think my progress in control didn’t slow down as much as it should have. In other words, my progress is faster because my soul woke up.

  The soul is a very interesting direction. Thanks to it, my special vision still works, but it doesn’t let me see through chakra. People’s insides, for example. Luckily, for that I have insanely powerful fuin?analyzers that project a shit?ton of information in different spectra directly into my brain. That’s how, thanks to them, I was able to really figure out the brain—and a lot more. The soul needs to be studied; I’m itching to learn everything about it. Maybe it hides a much higher potential than I think. But for now there’s no material… Along with most of the chakra and the chakra pathway system, after the body dies the soul goes to the Pure Land… Or maybe the soul doesn’t go to the Pure Land, only the chakra network does… I don’t know. The point is, I had to focus on what I could study. Namely, on corpses, which are pretty crappy research material. And my control played no small role in that.

  That same precision control, boosted by an auxiliary fuin?analyzer, let me look deeper than anyone ever had. Not the Hyūga, not, I suspect, even Mangekyō users. I studied every system of the human body, every cell, even dug into the structure of the genome and found tools capable of influencing it.

  A lot of things in the body are interconnected. And thanks to numerous experiments I managed, roughly speaking, to learn about a thousand “words” from a “dictionary” of property sets which, when projected, let me order the body to start this or that change. In the end, it got to the point where I could almost fully program how the body would change, and even, in a sense, the chakra pathway system. I even managed to study and force myself to reproduce—though clumsily and very inefficiently—the segments of the chakra system responsible for chakra?development potential. Basically, make the dendritic vessels of chakra expansion even wider, deeper, farther. Compute, again crudely, some vectors of development for them. Most of my time still didn’t go into that, though. Those parts of the chakra system are still too complex for me, and all these years my mind’s been processing what it can.

  My goal wasn’t just power?up, but a total, all?round improvement of the body. A jump of millions of years in evolution, creating something far more perfect than a human. With this project I’d create the “foundation” for dealing with future threats and for survival itself.

  My options and abilities were so great that guys like Tobirama or Orochimaru could only—yeah, the phrase is overused—cough up blood. And when you look at what I was working with, the end result stops being all that surprising.

  And then, when all the theory was ready, when nearly all the formulas were calculated, I hit a wall again. I was once more missing the most important thing—living material for experiments. Studying corpses had given me everything it could. But dead tissue, while it reacts, doesn’t adapt the same way. Even if you temporarily turn it “alive” using a certain not?very?ethical forbidden technique. Without tests on a living body that can regenerate and respond, all my calculations were just barely?supported theory.

  I trusted my math, but overkill safety wasn’t just desirable, it was necessary. But where was I supposed to get this “living material”? Kidnap Konoha citizens? Out of the question. That would go directly against my rule of not touching people who don’t touch me. And it’s not even rational—having a population is what drives progress and gives me resources.

  The project had stalled because of “stupid” ethics. I remembered Mizuki with annoyance. His crimes—finding kids and helping kidnap them—made him a perfect candidate. But he was who?knows?where now, most likely rotting in some prison, and I hadn’t even bothered to find out which. His partners had also vanished, cleaned up by ANBU. To my joy or misfortune, no one else in Konoha wanted to sell me like a piece of meat to some shady international criminal like Orochimaru. Which meant they hadn’t lost what little pity I could still feel for them.

  It’s not like I was just sitting around waiting. No, I was still pulling a lot of useful data out of corpses. But over time, there were simply fewer and fewer of them.

  So only a few days separated the local criminal element—whom I’d chosen as the best target for a deal with my conscience—from something close to genocide. But it just so happened that things lined up in a way where I didn’t even have to go looking for that “criminal element”:

  “Meet at the bridge in an hour,” Kakashi tossed out lazily, gathering us after another boring but not too difficult mission. “We’ve got a new assignment.”

  Sasuke and Sakura, already used to the D?rank grind, didn’t show much enthusiasm. My clone just nodded.

  An hour later, we were on the bridge. Next to us stood our client: an older, short guy in glasses with a towel on his head, who reeked of sake. He was trying to tell us something, but for me?clone, watching the water flowing under the bridge was more interesting. Only later did I half?listen to what Hatake was droning on about.

  “Team Seven,” Kakashi began formally. “Our first C?rank mission. Escorting bridge builder Tazuna?san to the Land of Waves. Then defending the bridge construction until it’s completed.”

  Sakura and Sasuke perked right up. C?rank! That meant leaving the village, a chance to fight a real enemy instead of weeds and rats.

  Me, at first I just felt a stab of boredom. Escort some old man? A drunk one at that. But then… the word “old man”… “bridge builder”… something clicked deep in my memory.

  “Escort an old man? An old man… An old man?!!”

  And then it hit me.

  Land of Waves… Gato… mercenaries… Demon Zabuza and… his femboy Haku…

  My eyes, which had been lazily watching the river, flared for a moment with a wild researcher’s fire, then went cold, icy.

  When I turned to my team and met the old man’s eyes, he shuddered.

  Here it was, the push to the next step. This wasn’t just a mission, but also… a source of “living material.” Bandits. Nukenin. People who would come to threaten the life of my client, my teammates… and me. On top of that, perfect test subjects: they’re from a small, isolated country, and no one’s going to seriously investigate their disappearance.

  Perfect…

  I gave Kakashi a calm nod, accepting the mission. But inside, a plan was already forming. That dead end in my research… I might be breaking through it soon. Mu?ha?ha?ha?ha!

  Around noon. Original Uzumaki Naruto’s POV

  We were standing at Konoha’s gate. This time, after getting information from the clone that made me wary, I’d come in person.

  Tazuna was loudly going on about how important his bridge was, Sakura and Sasuke were listening with serious faces, and Kakashi was pretending to listen too. I was looking at the road stretching off into the distance, beyond the village. I’m sure a predatory, anticipatory smile flashed across my face—one no one likely noticed. Except maybe Kakashi, if he hadn’t been so into his book.

  “Well then,” I thought, feeling a rush of excitement spread through my veins. “Since such a chance fell into my lap, time to push science forward.”

  Snapping fully back to reality, I turned to Tazuna.

  “Hey, old man.”

  “I’m not an old man!” he blurted out right away.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I went on, my expression showing exactly how little I gave a damn about his correction. “I don’t feel like dragging myself all the way to your shitty country. So turn your back to me and get ready for transport.”

  “Huh?” Tazuna didn’t get it.

  “Naruto,” Kakashi rolled his visible eye in weary resignation. “You can’t talk to a client like that. It reflects badly on the village’s reputation.”

  “Yeah, you brat! For your information, I—”

  The geezer was going to keep ranting, but my tanto at his throat shut him up.

  “Watch your mouth, you worthless piece of trash.”

  My mind dipped for a second into the memories the clone had brought back. He hadn’t listened that closely, focused on his own thoughts. But when this old man had first shown up, he’d immediately started bitching about how in “his” ninja team there was only one real ninja. Why he had to go with, as he called us, “brats,” and why there was even a girl among us. Straight?up ageism and sexism. That alone was enough reason not to feel any respect for him—he was clearly not respecting us. On top of that, he reeked of booze like one of the worst of that already disgusting tribe of drunks, and he was dressed like some totally shameless bum. And even that wasn’t all!

  My meta?knowledge also says that this parody of an educated man, thanks to his shortsightedness and, again, ignorance of some basic things in this world, is leading us straight toward a criminal cartel that definitely has chakra?users in its ranks. That alone is enough reason to bump the mission up to at least B?rank. Meanwhile he ordered it as a C?rank mission. Which means he’s leading a team that isn’t meant for this shit—and even himself—straight into mortal danger.

  “Is everything okay here?” a gate guard came over, eyeing my blade.

  I slid the tanto back into its sheath.

  “Just a dumb client. Don’t mind him.”

  He stared at me for a second, then nodded and walked off.

  I remember this guy. In, I think, seven of our spars I beat the crap out of him. He was a pretty decent partner. I figure he’s got his own opinion of me, and that’s what kept him from saying something like, “Don’t ever let me see that again,” or otherwise escalating it.

  Just in case, Tazuna followed both my instructions, sweating as he turned his back to me.

  Immediately, fuin characters crawled out from my leg, ran along the ground, and climbed up onto the bridge builder.

  “You’re nasty today, Naruto,” Sakura noted, having been watching the Hiraishin mark spread with a strange look.

  “That’s just how I am. You guys get over here too.”

  “You can handle four?” Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

  “I can handle more. Relax, your head’s staying on your shoulders this time.”

  Grimacing and rubbing his neck, Hatake turned his back to me.

  “Why this formation specifically?” Sakura asked, also doing as she was told.

  Sasuke, meanwhile, took his place as well.

  “So you don’t puke on me.”

  “…Huh?” was all the bridge builder managed to ask before we vanished in a white flash.

  An instant later, we were standing at the gate of some town. It was fairly close to the Land of Waves.

  “…” Sasuke swayed, then straightened.

  Sakura reacted the same way, while Kakashi didn’t seem affected by the technique at all.

  The old man, though, immediately greeted our arrival with the sound of a rainbow eruption. The stream blasted straight ahead, so nobody got splashed.

  While we were in town, I sent a Shadow Clone into the Land of Waves to plant a Hiraishin mark. And less than an hour later, we were already there.

  Our first C?rank mission had entered its active phase.

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